A Walk Or Lose program is decided by your own steps — hit a daily step goal for the length of the program, complete it to the end, and your pledge comes back to you with a return. These are the official rules that apply to every public and private program on the platform.
1. Eligibility
You must be 18 years of age or older to join any program with a paid pledge. Free programs (the Daily Bonus) are open to anyone 13 or older.
Lawfulness and location are your responsibility. Paid programs are void where prohibited. It is your responsibility to confirm that paid participation is lawful where you reside and where you are physically located. By joining a paid program you represent and warrant that (a) you are at least 18; (b) real-money skill-based programs are lawful in your jurisdiction of residence and in your current location; and (c) you are not located in, or a resident of, any place where the Service or paid programs are prohibited. You acknowledge that these laws vary by country and by US state, that you may be in a jurisdiction where paid programs are restricted or prohibited, and that you participate at your own risk and are solely responsible for compliance with your local laws. We may restrict, geofence, verify, or refuse access at our discretion, but we are not obligated to determine the legality of your participation for you. Free programs (such as the Daily Bonus) remain open subject to the general age and conduct rules.
One account per person. Operating multiple accounts to join the same program is prohibited and will result in the loss of all pledges and any pending rewards.
Walk Or Lose is currently available on Android only.
2. Joining a program
Each program has an open enrollment window shown on the program card. The window opens on the program's opening date and closes at the start date — after that, no new walkers may join.
Joining requires:
- A connected step source (see §6)
- Sufficient balance in your in-app wallet to cover the pledge, or a valid payment method
- Agreement to these rules and the Terms of Service
Minimum participants
Every program has a minimum number of walkers required to run. If a program does not reach its minimum by kickoff it is automatically cancelled and all pledges are refunded in full. The minimum is shown on the program card. For Ongoing and Progressive programs the minimum is two walkers; for all other types it is one (a solo creator finishes as the sole participant who completes).
Private programs
You can create a private, invite-only program and share it with a group via invite code. All rules in this document apply equally to private programs. The creator sets the step goal, duration, and pledge amount, but cannot change the rules mid-program, override a non-completion, or access another participant's funds. Private programs are not moderated by Walk Or Lose.
You may withdraw from a free program before it starts and your place will be removed. Paid program pledges are non-refundable once you have joined, except as described in §10.
3. Program formats
Walk Or Lose offers several formats. Make sure you know which one you are joining — the format is shown on the program card.
Consistency (Weekly, Monthly, Custom)
Runs for a fixed period — about 7 days (Weekly), about 30 days (Monthly), or a custom length. Every participant must hit a daily step goal each calendar day. Miss a day and your program ends. Everyone still on track at the end gets their pledge back plus a return. See §7 for non-completion rules and §8 for returns.
Ongoing
A daily-goal program with no fixed end date. It runs indefinitely as walkers drop off — there is no scheduled finish line, so it can run for days or months depending on how many people are taking part. Official Ongoing programs use a Dynamic weekly quota (default 3 Active + 2 Power days). You learn your result each morning (a short ~3-hour technical sync buffer, not a full grace window).
The top ~25% by final rank receive a return on a top-heavy curve (see §4). Rank is by how long you last; ties are broken by cumulative steps. If all remaining walkers stop on the same day, returns are ordered by who lasted longest and the service fee is 30%. Minimum two walkers.
Progressive
A shared step floor that escalates each day — a base goal plus a fixed daily increment (e.g. base 6,000, +1,000/day → 6,000 on day 1, 7,000 on day 2). The wall keeps rising until a date cap or until few participants remain. A walker's program ends as soon as they fall below the rising floor. Like Ongoing, Progressive pays the top ~25% by final rank on a top-heavy curve rather than an equal return for everyone who completes. Minimum two walkers.
Daily Bonus
A single-day free activity that runs every day. To take part, simply walk 5,000 steps during the day (verified via Health Connect) — the app auto-enrolls you once your steps are confirmed. There is no non-completion penalty, no multi-day commitment, and no pledge.
After the day closes worldwide (at the UTC‒12 day boundary), one participant is selected by a deterministic, fair selection over all verified participants and receives a fixed €0.50 in promo credit. That reward is platform-funded — it does not come from anyone's pledge — and is non-withdrawable, usable only toward future pledges. Everyone else receives nothing; there is no fee to refund since taking part is free. Finishing with double the goal gives you no advantage — you are either in the selection or not.
The Daily Bonus is free to take part in (no purchase necessary) and is the only feature in which a participant is selected at random. All paid programs are decided by skill, solely by your own measured step activity; no paid program involves chance.
Goal modes: Fixed vs Dynamic
Every program uses one of two goal modes, shown on the program card:
- Fixed — one daily step goal that applies to everyone and does not change during the program.
- Dynamic — a personalized goal per participant, computed from your own recent Health Connect history and locked at join. Used by Monthly and official Ongoing programs. Each week you must clear a quota of day-types: Active days (your standard target) and Power days (a harder push), with leftover days as no-penalty rest. Default quota is 4 Active + 2 Power (Monthly); your program ends the moment a week's quota becomes mathematically impossible.
4. Pledges & returns
Every participant in a given program makes the same pledge, shown on the program card before you join. Custom programs you create range from €20 to €1,000 (or free). Official programs are priced by Walk Or Lose and can be lower — a Weekly is around €10, a Monthly around €30, Ongoing and Progressive around €40. The Daily Bonus is always free (€0).
All cash pledges are held securely for the duration of the program. Walk Or Lose charges a flat 15% service fee, deducted before returns are credited. There is no fee on the pledge itself and no subscription required to take part. Sponsored (platform-seeded) programs take no service fee.
Returns are calculated from settled cash pledges only. Non-withdrawable promo credit is excluded, as are card charges that have not yet settled at the time of calculation.
Your return = your pledge back, plus an equal return, after the 15% service fee.
Every participant who completes the program receives the same return, calculated after the program closes and its final figures are settled. If you do not complete the program, your pledge is not returned to you. If nobody completes, no returns are issued. If the calculated return would fall below the original pledge, all participants are refunded in full and Walk Or Lose keeps nothing.
Participants paid = round(participants × 0.25), minimum 1, maximum 10. Qualifiers first get their own pledge back, then receive an additional return on a top-heavy curve (each paid place gets about 70% of the place above it). The 15% service fee is taken only from the return above your pledge, never from the pledge itself. Rank is decided by how long you last (last to stop ranks highest); ties are broken by cumulative steps. If nobody completes an Ongoing program, the service fee is 30%.
5. The daily goal
Most programs use a single Fixed daily step goal that does not change during the program. Dynamic programs instead assign personalized weekly quotas calibrated to your own step history at join (see §3). Either way, your target for each day is shown in the app.
A "day" runs from 00:00 to 23:59:59 in your local device time zone. Your time zone is read from your device at each sync — if you travel, your local day adjusts accordingly.
To complete a day your step count must meet or exceed the goal. There is no rounding, no partial credit, and no grace for being one step short.
6. Step tracking
Steps are read from Android Health Connect (or Google Fit where Health Connect is unavailable). Manual step entries are not accepted. The app never reads raw accelerometer data.
Accepted sources include the phone's built-in step counter, Samsung Health, Google Fit, and other apps that write verified step data to Health Connect. Step counts are deduplicated at the Health Connect level — if your phone and a connected wearable both record the same walk, it is counted once, not twice. GPS-run estimators do not count and are denylisted: Strava, MapMyRun, Nike Run Club, and Adidas Running.
Sync responsibility
You are responsible for keeping the app synced. The app attempts an automatic background sync every hour while you have an active program. For this to work, you must allow background activity and notifications for Walk Or Lose in your device settings.
Battery optimisation modes, restricted background data, or revoked notification permissions will prevent automatic syncing. If you have restricted the app, open it manually before end of day — this triggers an immediate sync.
If a sync fails, open the app as soon as possible. Steps must be recorded on your device and synced to Walk Or Lose before end of day to count for that day.
Sync grace window
For daily-goal programs, a day's steps count until the end of that calendar day plus a 24-hour sync grace window, evaluated in your local time zone. If your device could not sync before midnight but steps were recorded on your device for that calendar day, they have until the close of that window to post. This window exists for connectivity issues only — steps that were not walked do not qualify. Ongoing is the exception: it allows only a short (~3-hour) technical sync buffer, not a full grace window, so you learn your result each morning.
7. Non-completion
Your program ends when your confirmed step count for a calendar day falls short of the goal. This is evaluated after that day's 24-hour sync grace window closes, in your local time zone.
Non-completion is final. There is no re-entry, make-up day, or grace token.
Once your program has ended, your status is marked on the leaderboard. You retain access to the program view and comments for the rest of the program as an observer.
8. Returns
After the final day of a program, there is a 24-hour window for all participants' final steps to sync. Returns are calculated and credited to wallets once this window closes — typically within 48 hours of the program's last midnight.
From your wallet you can:
- Withdraw to PayPal — withdrawals are sent to your PayPal email
- Use the balance as a pledge for a future program
The minimum withdrawal is €5, with a €100 daily cap per user (rolling 24 hours) and one pending request at a time. Withdrawals go through an approval queue; there is no withdrawal fee. Bank transfer is coming soon.
Wallets are denominated in euro (€).
9. Integrity & fair participation
The following are prohibited and result in immediate disqualification with loss of your pledge and any returns:
- Mechanical step generation (phone shakers, paint mixers, etc.)
- Software manipulation of step data (apps that inject steps into Health Connect)
- Letting another person carry your phone or device for step credit
- Operating more than one account
- Any modification of step data after it has been recorded by the operating system
Walk Or Lose uses device integrity checks (Google Play Integrity API) and step pattern analysis to detect anomalies. There is a hard cap of 90,000 steps per day; any day over the cap flags the participant, and a flagged participant's return is held for manual review before being returned. Returns are also held for review if a counted day comes from a suspicious source or an unverified device. Accounts flagged in error can contact support@walkorlose.com.
10. Refunds & exceptions
Paid pledges are non-refundable after kickoff, with two exceptions:
- Under-subscribed cancellation. If a program does not meet its minimum participant count by kickoff, it is cancelled and all pledges are refunded in full.
- Completion protection. If the return for each participant who completes would be less than their original pledge, all participants receive a full refund and Walk Or Lose keeps no service fee.
For any other concern — a sync that failed to post, a step count that looks wrong — contact support@walkorlose.com within 72 hours of the issue. We review cases individually and may request exported step data from your device.
11. Rule changes
We may revise these rules between programs. Material changes will be announced in the app at least 14 days before taking effect and will apply only to programs that begin after the change date. The rules in force at a program's kickoff govern that program through its end.
Questions? Email support@walkorlose.com.