Other
Own-Your-Spots Fishing Log
Anglers: a private fishing log with exact spots, your own lakes and species-specific bite forecasts, sold per season instead of an $80-a-year social subscription.
In plain English
- What category is this?
- A software niche that does not fit the usual catalog buckets cleanly. Here the focus is consumer subscription.
- The idea, briefly
Build a privacy-first fishing log that pins the exact catch coordinate (or lets you create and name a missing lake), forecasts only the species you actually fish, and searches the map by species, sold as a low flat season pass instead of an always-on social subscription.
More ▾- What buyers expect
People comparing tools like Fishbrain, onX Fish, ANGLR expect the basics to work without surprise fees or missing pieces. The loud complaints are: You cannot drop an exact catch location or create a water body that is missing from the app; it forces you onto the nearest preset 'spot'; and biteTime forecasts only a fixed list of preloaded species, ignore the species you actually target, and cannot be corrected even when they show fish that are not in your lake.
More ▾
- Sources
- 13
- Checked
- 10
- Competitors
- 4
- Gaps
- 6
- Page checked
- 10 · 77%
- Snippet only
- 3 · 23%
- Documented
- 9 · 75%
- Interpreted
- 3 · 25%
- playbook5
- pricing4
- revenue2
- complaint1
- market1
Competitors
4- onX FishFree
- ANGLR$2.5/mo
- onWater Fish$4.16/mo
Parsed from public pricing blurbs (entry paid tier when available). Max in set: $4.16/mo.
| Competitor | From | Free tier | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fishbrain | See notes | — | apps.apple.com✓ |
| onX Fish | Free | Yes | onxmaps.com✓ |
| ANGLR | $2.5/mo | Yes | anglr.com✓ |
| onWater Fish | $4.16/mo | Yes | onwaterapp.com✓ |
What customers complain about
6| Gap | Src |
|---|---|
You cannot drop an exact catch location or create a water body that is missing from the app; it forces you onto the nearest preset 'spot'. | |
BiteTime forecasts only a fixed list of preloaded species, ignore the species you actually target, and cannot be corrected even when they show fish that are not in your lake. | |
There is no way to search the map by species - only by spot. | |
Catch data that used to be free was moved behind the Pro paywall, pricing out casual and young anglers. | |
The social feed exposes your spots, and some users want private logging instead. | |
Competing list prices are already at or below a cheap season pass: onX Fish is $34.99/yr, ANGLR is $29.99/yr, and onWater has a free plan. The prices are documented; |
Documented Interpreted
How competitors find customers
4| Tactic | Src |
|---|---|
| OnX: give the new fishing app away free for six months to the existing paid subscriber base of a sibling app (onX Hunt), | onxmaps.com✓ |
| OnX: recruit member organizations with a free three-month, no-credit-card trial plus 20% off the first annual membership (Michigan Farm Bureau members) - snippet-only, | michfb.com· |
| Catchr: launch a minimal gamified fish-ID app and let global leaderboards and App Store chart position drive organic installs. | create-x.gatech.edu✓ |
| Fishbrain: run a 'Pro-Staff' ambassador program in which named professional anglers are made brand ambassadors and produce interview and catch content that markets the app. | fishbrain.com✓ |
Your angle & pricing wedge
| Piece | Claim | Src |
|---|---|---|
| Angle | A privacy-first fishing log that pins the exact catch coordinate (or lets you create and name a missing lake), forecasts only the species you actually fish, | |
| Wedge | Mechanism: sell a cheap flat season pass and give the core private log away free, instead of an all-or-nothing ~$80/yr social subscription. | apps.apple.com✓ |
How others got traction
3| Move | Why | Src |
|---|---|---|
| OnX launched its fishing app by giving it away free for six months to the existing paid subscriber… | Company-attributed: onX frames the giveaway as 'a thank you for being an onX subscriber'. | onxmaps.com✓ |
| Catchr launched with a deliberately minimal, gamified fish-identification app (identify fish, | Founder-attributed on the opened CREATE-X page. | create-x.gatech.edu✓ |
| Fishbrain built a vertical photo-sharing social network first and only later moved the accumulated… | Founder-attributed (Johan Attby): growth was slow while the network had no users or data, then reversed as the data compounded. | forbes.com· |
Market heat
Fishbrain's live App Store listing reports a company-stated community of more than 20 million anglers (it separately states 'social community with over 15 million members'), 75K ratings at 4.7, an Editors' Choice award, and in-app purchases from $12.99 to $79.99.
More ▾OnX launched onX Fish Midwest on April 15, 2025 after a 12-month build and the prior-year acquisition of TroutRoutes, at $34.99/yr.
OnX hands onX Fish and TroutRoutes free for six months to its paid onX Hunt subscriber base, with credit-card activation and automatic renewal into the membership.
More ▾A student-built indie fishing app (Catchr) climbed to No. 13 on the U.S. App Store sports chart, hit No. 1 in France and Croatia, passed nearly 200,000 downloads in 170+ countries, and was acquired.
More ▾
Revenue signals
4| Signal | Src |
|---|---|
Fishbrain: third-party app-intelligence estimates put it near $2M/month revenue and ~200k downloads worldwide; the only cited source is Sensor Tower, | app.sensortower.com· |
Fishbrain reports a community of 20M+ anglers (company-stated on its App Store listing). | apps.apple.com✓ |
Category list pricing documented: Fishbrain $12.99/mo or $79.99/yr, onX Fish $34.99/yr, ANGLR $29.99/yr, onWater $49.99/yr with a free tier; | apps.apple.com✓ |
Indie proof point: one student-built fishing app (Catchr) reached ~200,000 downloads across 170+ countries and was acquired (documented); | create-x.gatech.edu✓ |
Should you build this?
The job for a newcomer is a private log that pins your exact catch coordinate, lets you add lakes the big apps are missing, and forecasts the species you actually fish - the three things users repeatedly complain the market leader gets wrong. The risks are serious: Fishbrain's edge is a 20M-angler catch-data network plus licensed Navico and Navionics depth charts, onX can hand a competing app to its hunting subscribers for free, and the price floor is already $29.99-$34.99 with a free alternative, so a cheap season pass only matters if the exact-spot and per-species forecasting are genuinely better. This is not guaranteed to work. Validation step before building: recruit 25 anglers who currently pay for Fishbrain Pro, onX Fish or ANGLR; record each one's plan and price, walk them through a paper version of the exact-coordinate logging and custom-lake flow using their last five catches, and ask them to pre-pay $20 for one season.
More ▾
All sources
13| Source | Kind | Status | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| pricing | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| complaint | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| pricing | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| pricing | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| pricing | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| playbook | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| playbook | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| playbook | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| playbook | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| revenue | snippet only | 2026-10-05 | |
| market | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| revenue | snippet only | 2026-10-05 | |
| playbook | snippet only | 2026-10-05 |