Self-Control is Solved.
Overlord is a hardcore AI accountability partner that forces you to stick to your good habits. Imagine if ChatGPT was awake 24/7 and knew where you are, what you're browsing on the internet, and what you're spending money on - and could take action to keep you on track: taking your money, blocking your iOS / Android / Mac devices, calling you, texting your friends.
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Everything you need to actually do the thing.
Screen awareness, voice calls, friend escalation, real money, custom goals. The whole accountability stack in one app.
Screen awareness
Overlord watches your screen.
It sees the tab. It knows the goal. It steps in.
Staked
$5.3M
put on the line by users
Messages
300K
nudges, threats, and check-ins
Voice calls
When texting won't cut it, it calls.
App Store
4.9
763 reviews
Backed by
Y Combinator
W23 batch
Real money
Real money on the line.
Skip the goal, lose the cash.
GPS check
It knows your location.
You said you'd be there. It checks.
Phone brick
Long-term memory
It remembers your patterns.
Talk anywhere
Personality
Overlord doesn't have to be mean.
Soft by default. Most people leave it gentle.
Connects to everything that watches you.
Overlord pulls signal from your apps to know when you're slipping in real time. The more it sees, the harder it is to wriggle out.
How does Overlord keep you on track?
When you slip, Overlord doesn't just log it. It picks the intervention that fits the moment, then keeps escalating until you are back on track.
It calls you.
Notifications are easy to swipe away. A ringing phone is not. When you are off-task and texts are not landing, Overlord places a real voice call and reads you the rule you wrote.
It texts your friends.
You add a trusted contact when you set the goal. The moment you slip, Overlord texts them with what happened. Public-shame mode, by your own consent, on cooldown.
It charges you.
Stripe pre-authorises the stake when you commit. The second you break the rule, the hold captures and the money is gone. No streaks, no soft warnings, no second chances you can negotiate with yourself.
It blocks apps and websites.
On Mac, Overlord watches the active tab. If you open a site you swore off during deep work, the tab closes. On iOS, Screen Time gates the app behind an Overlord unlock.
It blocks your phone.
Hard locks. Overlord can put your phone in a brick state for a window you set, only releasable by Overlord. Useful for sleep windows, focus blocks, or "phone off when home" rules.
It checks your location.
GPS is a signal too. If you said you would be at the gym by 9, Overlord pings your location at 9:25 and forfeits the stake if you are still on the couch.
It demands evidence.
Some goals only count with proof. Overlord asks for a photo or a video — the rep count, the run watch, the empty plate. The goal stays open until evidence lands and clears the rule.
It remembers everything.
Long-term memory of your patterns, your weak hours, your wins, and the excuses that show up on repeat. The "I never said that" move stops working.
Create Goals via Chat
Improve Goals via Chat
Custom Instructions
Stores Passwords
Long-Term Memory
Quick Lock-ins
Overlord runs on your Mac and keeps you on task.
A native macOS app that watches your screen, blocks the wrong sites and apps, and nudges you back when you drift.
Tracks Everything
Every ten seconds, Overlord tracks all applications, websites, and website titles that you have open.
Flexible Blocking
Overlord manages your blocks, providing the leniency other blockers lack.
Pomodoro
Send Pomodoro timers to Overlord, ensuring you stay productive during work sessions.
Trigger Words
If detected, Overlord can block sites, call you, charge penalties, and more.
What users are saying.
“If one were to rank Overlord in a tier list of methods for overcoming procrastination, it would be the only one in S tier. Even Atomic Habits would only make A tier. The concept of deliberately leveraging human loss aversion is the most effective artificially applicable method to date.”
“I wasn't convinced at all with the Overlord Mac Monitoring but, oh boy, I was wrong. Yesterday, I worked for 4h with 99% focus. Something that I wasn't able to achieve in months thanks to my ADHD.”
“Finally stopped eating fast food basically every day after like 4 months lol”
“Three weeks clean from buying unnecessary things on (any form of) credit!!”
“Just wanted to say a big thank you to the Overlord team! I passed my theory test for my drivers license today and a huge part of that was thanks to Overlord. Super grateful for the work you guys have been doing, it genuinely made a difference.”
“With notes working so well now, I've started testing Overlord much more as a full accountability partner to spot patterns, make suggestions, lead goal setting discussions and review my week. It feels so much more capable of that than before.”
“Thanks to Overlord, I got back into the habit of scheduling Focusmate all day after being sick for weeks. Still doing it even though I stopped scheduling the goals a few days ago. Shocking that I'm not having to work into the evening anymore due to being more productive during work hours.”
“My best win so far: I've been up before 8am and at my desk on time every day this week. Usually a real struggle for me. Balanced out by impending failure of a nutrition goal but it's focusing my mind at least!”
“Thanks to Overlord I completed 4 history essays I have been procrastinating for over a month in just 6 hours.”
“Smashed my lean mass target today, Overlord really helped keep me on track through weight, nutrition and exercise goals. I totally wouldn't have put in the same effort otherwise.”
“Today my mum said how much she appreciated me calling her more often lately. It's my 'call family members' goals which have done the trick!”
A use case for every kind of rule.
- Set the rule. Tell Overlord: "I am quitting nicotine entirely. Test me daily at random."
- Connect your bank. Plaid connection scans purchases for tobacco vendors, smoke shops, vape stores.
- Daily test. Overlord pings you at a random hour. Spit on a cotinine strip, photograph it. AI reads the result.
- GPS guardrails. If you spend more than 90 seconds inside the geofence of a tobacco retailer, stake forfeits.
You buy a $9 cotinine strip kit. When Overlord asks, you spit, wait 5 min, place the strip flat on a white surface with the timestamp visible, snap once. AI grades T-line darkness against the C-line.
- Buy a $25 breathalyzer. BACtrack S80 or similar. Overlord knows the model and reads the digital display.
- Nightly check at 9pm. Record a 10-second video: turn on the breathalyzer, blow into it, hold the screen to the camera.
- No-bar geofence. Any GPS ping inside a bar, club, or liquor store after 6pm fires a check-in.
- Bank scan. A charge from a liquor retailer auto-forfeits unless you submit context within 1 hour.
Power on the breathalyzer, wait for the ready icon, blow steadily for 5 seconds, then point the lit display at the camera for 3 seconds. AI extracts the BAC number from the LCD and logs it.
- Ban list of apps. DraftKings, FanDuel, PokerStars, etc. Screen Time locks them at the iOS level.
- Geofence casinos. Any entry into a casino zone alerts Overlord and starts a check-in countdown.
- Bank scan. Charges to betting platforms, lottery, or chip vendors instantly forfeit the stake.
- Friend escalation. On a real breach, Overlord texts your nominated accountability contact.
For casino "walkthrough" excuses, Overlord requires a live photo of where you actually are inside the geofence, with GPS metadata intact. AI flags photos that look staged or from camera roll.
- Buy a THC strip pack. 50ng/mL strips, ~$1 each. Overlord knows what a clean test looks like.
- Weekly test. Random day, random hour, 15-min window to submit photo of the strip.
- GPS dispensary watch. Entering any licensed dispensary geofence triggers a check-in.
- Purchase scan. Charges to dispensaries auto-forfeit.
Strips are cheap and unambiguous. You urinate in a clean cup, dip the strip for 15 seconds, lay it flat for 5 minutes, then photograph it with the timestamp visible. Two lines = clean.
- Pick a target time. 6:00am. Window closes at 6:20am.
- Pick how to prove it. GPS or a photo outside works best.
- Alarm goes off. Overlord can set native iOS and Android alarms.
- Pick what happens when you finish. It can charge you money, block your apps, or text your friends.
When the alarm fires, the only dismiss option opens the Overlord camera. You walk outside, frame the proof zone, shoot. GPS, EXIF timestamp, and an on-device freshness check all have to pass.
- Pick the window. e.g. 10pm to 7am. Everything goes dark in that window.
- Lock the phone. Overlord blocks every app on iOS and Android at the OS level.
- Lock the Mac too. The Mac agent blocks apps and websites for the same window.
- Pick the unlock. Wait it out, or pay to break the lock early.
No evidence needed from you. Overlord enforces the block directly on every device you've connected, then unlocks them when the window ends.
- Grant Screen Time. Overlord blocks Instagram on your phone by default.
- Earn a session. Send a photo of your meal or a video doing sit ups to unlock a window.
- Session expires. Each earn unlocks ~10 minutes. After that Instagram re-locks until the next proof.
- Weekly review. Overlord sends a recap: total sessions earned, total minutes, worst day.
You submit a fresh photo or short video. AI checks it's real (no library, no screenshot, frames look genuine). On pass, Overlord unblocks Instagram for the session. On fail, no unlock.
- Reset to a random password. Change the account password to a 32-char random string Overlord generates in front of you.
- Overlord stores it. Encrypted in the Overlord vault. You never see it again until the unlock condition is met.
- Pick the unlock. Time-based ("June 1st"), goal-based ("after 60 days clean"), or pay-to-unlock ($30 buyout).
- On unlock. Overlord reveals the password once, prompts you to change it, then forgets it.
You go to the account, change the password to one Overlord generates live on screen. The plaintext never lives on your device. To get it back, you either wait, hit the goal, or pay the buyout.
- Pick the gym. Drop a pin on your actual gym building, not the parking lot.
- Set the schedule. Mon / Tue / Thu / Fri, any time of day. Cutoff at 10pm.
- Stay 30+ minutes. GPS must stay inside the gym geofence for 30 consecutive minutes to count.
- Optional: heart rate. Connect Apple Health. If average HR during the window is below 95, Overlord flags a "fake session".
GPS does the heavy lifting. Optional Apple Watch integration adds a heart-rate floor so sitting in the sauna for 30 minutes does not count as a workout.
- Lock the apps. iOS Screen Time hides DoorDash, UberEats, Grubhub, Caviar, Postmates.
- Connect bank. Plaid watches for charges to those merchants.
- Optional: skip Plaid. Don't want to connect your bank? Submit a screen recording every Sunday showing no activity on those apps all week.
- Stake = 2x order. Order $32 of sushi? Overlord captures $64 on top of it. Pain has to outweigh the burrito.
No evidence needed for the user. The Plaid feed surfaces the charge within hours and Overlord captures the stake automatically.
- Submit evidence. A timelapse of you working, or a Mac focus session - Overlord is the tracker.
- Block distractions. During study hours, Mac Overlord auto-closes Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, IG.
- Daily proof. By 10pm, the day's evidence has to add up to 4 hours. Less than that = forfeit.
Overlord watches a Mac focus session directly, or AI parses your timelapse to confirm real work was happening. If you cross the threshold, the day clears. If not, you can still claw it back before midnight.
- Name the contact. Their name in your phone, Instagram handle, or whichever app you'd message them in.
- Nightly screenshot. Each evening, open the thread and submit a screenshot. Date visible, no outbound texts since the last check.
- Miss it = forfeit. No screenshot submitted, or a screenshot showing a new outbound message, and the stake forfeits.
AI reads the screenshot: confirms it's the right thread, the date is today, and there are no outbound messages from you since the previous check-in. Screenshots from the photo library or with edited timestamps get flagged.
- Pick an app. Calm, Headspace, Waking Up, or "any guided session" - Apple Health Mindful Minutes tracks them all.
- Daily check. As soon as the session finishes, Overlord gets pinged and approves the goal.
Apple Health Mindful Minutes is the cleanest signal. If you use an unsupported app, snap the session-complete screen and Overlord OCRs the duration.
- GPS trip. Drop a pin on your home. The moment GPS confirms you've arrived, the timer starts.
- Send a wet-hair selfie. Within 30 minutes. AI confirms the hair is actually wet and the photo is fresh.
- Miss it = phone bricked. No selfie in 30 minutes and Overlord locks your phone until the next day.
GPS handles the trigger. The selfie has to be live (not from the photo library), the hair has to look wet on AI inspection, and it has to land inside the 30-minute window.
Frequently Asked Questions
Overlord is a hardcore AI accountability partner that forces you to stick to your good habits. Imagine if ChatGPT was awake 24/7 and knew where you are, what you're browsing on the internet, and what you're spending money on - and could take action to keep you on track: taking your money, blocking your iOS / Android / Mac devices, calling you, texting your friends.
Overlord is designed to be as strict as you want it to be. Typical users let the Overlord know when they're prone to cheating (ie, early in the morning, before the gym, etc), so Overlord will be stricter around those times.
Overlord is designed to be like a human. If you want it to be super strict, just let it know. If you want it to be lenient, that's great too!
Overlord is on iOS, Android, and Mac. The Mac app is currently the iPad app, but we are working on a native Mac app. The Mac integration is a separate app, and is a native Mac app.
You can customise the personality, and rules for each action. Overlord also learns as you message it.
Overlord is designed to be like a human. Ie, in these instances, it will try to balance strictness with fairness.
Goals are assessed every night at midnight in your local timezone. At this point, Overlord determines whether you've successfully completed or failed the goal based on the criteria and integrations you've set up.
Our iOS integration works with Apple's Screen Time. By default, apps you want to control can be blocked. Overlord then acts as the gatekeeper, granting temporary unblocks or exceptions based on your predefined rules, completed tasks, or specific requests you make through the Overlord chat.
First, download the Overlord app on your iOS or Android device. Inside the app's settings or integrations section, you'll find an option for the Mac utility. You can input your email there, and we'll send you a direct download link for the Mac application.
No, all activity data it collects for monitoring purposes is stored only locally on your Mac. It only communicates with the Overlord app to report on goal completion or trigger actions based on your rules, not to upload raw activity logs to the cloud.
Absolutely! We want you to succeed. My (Josh) personal phone number is available within the app. Please feel free to call or FaceTime me directly if you'd like guidance, ideas, or assistance in setting up your goals to be as effective as possible.
For probably half the population, self-control is probably their #1 issue. This previously wasn't a solvable issue (some things helped, like screen blockers, and personal trainers), but in the age of AI, I believe that self-control - at least on a minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour basis - is now in the realm of a solvable engineering problem.