Dew is made by Abhishek Agarwal, an independent developer. It's a small, independent app, not a venture-backed company with pressure to monetise user data — which is part of why its privacy model is built into the architecture rather than into a policy that could change.

Dew was built for someone who wanted two simple things: a calm place to track her cycle, and the certainty that the data would stay hers — never sold, studied, or handed to anyone. Most period apps couldn't promise the second, so the answer was to build one that can't break that promise because it never holds the data.

How does Dew make money if it doesn't sell data?

From people, not from advertisers. Dew is free during its first version; later there will be a small one-time price for core tracking and an optional Pro tier — honest pricing with no ads, no data sales, and no dark patterns. Selling your data is the one revenue source it rules out by design.

What's the line Dew won't cross?

Collecting, storing, or monetising your cycle data. There's no account, no analytics on your entries, and no server that holds your logs. Even the AI reflections run on-device. The whole app is built so it's structurally impossible for the maker to see who you are or what you log.

Why I built Dew

A short note from the maker. Why a calm, private period tracker — and the line I won't cross even if it costs me users.

I'm Abhishek. I make Dew. This is a short note about why.

Before this, I spent years at Cityflo — a transit company in Bombay where my job was building the app commuters opened every morning. I learned the discipline of being someone's calm first-thing-in-the-morning ritual, where one bad notification can ruin a Monday. The lesson was: most apps shout. The best ones whisper.

Dew is the whisper version of a period tracker.

Why a period tracker

Honestly: because the category felt wrong. Period apps in 2024 had become some of the loudest, ad-funded, data-hungry consumer software in the App Store. Cycle data — which is intimate by definition — was being treated like ad inventory. The FTC had settled a case with Flo. TechCrunch had raised questions about Stardust. Mozilla had labeled most of the top apps "privacy not included."

And separately, post-Dobbs, people were quietly switching to Apple Health Cycle Tracking or Euki because they wanted their cycle data to be unreachable to prosecutors. The need for a calm, private tracker that didn't make people choose between a real diary and structural privacy was clear.

I wanted to build the small, quiet, gentle one. So I did.

The line I won't cross

Dew will never have a server that stores your cycle data. Not for sync, not for backup, not for analytics, not for AI features, not for partner sharing, not for anything. Sync happens through your own iCloud Private Database — end-to-end encrypted with your keys, invisible to me. The architecture is the protection, not the promise.

This is the line I won't cross even if it means lower retention numbers, smaller userbase, or worse press. The whole point of Dew is that the privacy claim is structural — if I could break it, it wouldn't be a real claim.

What Dew isn't

Dew is not a medical device. It doesn't diagnose. It doesn't claim to prevent pregnancy. It doesn't tell you when you're fertile with clinical certainty. There are apps that do those things (Natural Cycles is the FDA-cleared one) — and that is a different product with different responsibilities.

Dew is a calm, private cycle diary. It helps you notice the patterns in your own body. The clinical questions — should I see a doctor, am I in a normal range, is this PMDD or PMS — those still belong with a doctor, and I'd never want a tracker to replace that conversation.

How Dew makes money

Honestly. Dew is free during v1. The plan from v1.1 onward is a small one-time purchase plus an optional monthly Pro tier for advanced features (multi-profile, partner sharing, richer insights). No ads. No data monetization. No "sponsored content" inside the app.

The unit economics work because Dew is a small studio with low overhead — no team to feed, no investors to grow for. If 10,000 people end up paying $10 once and 1% pay for Pro, that's enough to keep building. It doesn't need to be a unicorn. It just needs to be sustainable.

The personal version

I have people in my life who use period trackers daily. When I told them what was actually happening to their cycle data in most of the apps they were using, the reactions were a mix of "I had no idea" and "I assumed, but didn't want to think about it." Neither of those reactions is OK in 2026.

Dew exists because that conversation should have a different ending. "Yes, you're tracking. No, no one else can see it. Yes, it stays yours."

What to expect from here

Small, frequent updates. A v1.1 with partner sharing through Apple's secure share sheet (still encrypted, still no server). A v1.2 with smarter on-device reflections using Apple's local LLM (so even the AI features never leave your phone). And a continuing journal — short, honest writing about why the app is built this way and where it's going.

If you want to follow along: there's no newsletter. I won't ask for your email. Dew is calm here too — open the App Store page when you want to see what's new, and if you have thoughts, email me at [email protected]. I read everything.

— Abhishek

For the long-form on why this matters, see why a private period tracker actually matters in 2026. For the comparison version, see Flo, Clue, Stardust, Dew: a privacy comparison.