Ready Time
You know what you need to do. Ready Time tells you when.
Routinery is a genuinely good routine timer. Build a routine as a sequence of steps, press start, and it walks you through them one at a time — voice announcements included, so you can keep your hands in the dishwater. For executing a fixed routine, it's polished and well loved.
Here's the catch: it runs forward. You pick the start time, and the routine projects ahead to when you'll finish. Start at 7:19 instead of 7:00 and it will guide you, calmly and step by step, to being nineteen minutes late. The app never knew about your deadline — only your start time. And the start was always the hard part.
Ready Time runs the same idea in the other direction. Tell it when you need to be done — out the door, at the gate, dinner on the table — and it computes when each step must start, then alerts you at every one. The routine stops being a stopwatch you launch and becomes a schedule that ends on time.
| Ready Time | Routinery | |
|---|---|---|
| The core idea | Works backward from when you need to be done | Runs a routine forward from a start time you set |
| Tells you when to start | Yes — computed from the deadline | Reminds you at the start time you chose |
| “Ready by 8:15” | Enter 8:15; it finds every start time | Do the math yourself, then schedule the routine |
| During the routine | A separate alert and countdown per step | Voice guidance through each step — genuinely nice |
| Pricing model | Free; one-time purchase for extras. No subscription | Limited free tier; subscription for the full app |
| Account & data | No account. Plans stay on your device, with optional iCloud sync through your own Apple ID | Sign in with Apple, Google, or email |
| Platforms | iPhone & iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Android |
Routinery also does streaks, stats, and a big template library — it's a habit app at heart. Ready Time skips the gamification. It's been in the App Store since 2018 doing one job: the backward math between your deadline and right now.
Stay if the voice guidance is the point — being talked through each step is Routinery's best trick and Ready Time doesn't do it. Same if you're there for habit-building: streaks and stats are real motivators when the routine itself is the goal.
Switch if your routines keep finishing late because they started late. That's not a discipline problem. It's a math problem, and it's the one Ready Time does for you.
Comparing visual timers instead? See Ready Time vs. Time Timer, or browse all comparisons.
Ready Time
You know what you need to do. Ready Time tells you when.
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