How Pledro works: entry, verification, reward

Pledro is a fitness app where you put an entry behind a goal and your wearable decides whether you hit it. There is one loop, it runs the same way every time, and this guide is the whole of it.

What is a Pledro challenge?

A challenge is a target, a window and an entry fee, all fixed before anybody enters. Someone creates it — you, a friend, or Pledro — by choosing four things:

• The type. What is being measured: distance, a time trial, a streak, a weekly count, steps, sleep, heart-rate minutes and so on.
• The rules. The number you have to hit. Run 10km. Four sessions this week. 70,000 steps.
• The window. When it opens and when it closes. Every challenge starts at least 24 hours after it is created.
• The entry. What it costs to enter, in Grind Coins today.

Nothing about those four changes after the first person enters. That is deliberate: you are agreeing to a fixed target on fixed terms, and a target that could move afterwards would not be one.

How do I enter?

You pick a challenge and pay the entry fee, and the entry joins the reward fund. Challenges live in the hub, sorted into rooms — Pledro official, Big funds, Quick ones, This weekend, Grind Coins only, Starting soon, Filling up and For charity — so you can browse rather than scroll. You can also create your own and keep it private, inviting only the people you want in it.

Entries close the moment a challenge's window opens. That is why every room holds only what you can still enter: once a challenge starts it leaves the rooms for a space of its own, beside the ones whose results are already in. You can read a challenge that has started. You cannot join it.

Every account starts on Grind Coins, which are free and cannot be bought. Real-money entries are coming — 18+, UK, pending authorisation — and are not available today.

How does my activity get counted?

You connect a wearable once, then you just train. Completed activities are read server-side and matched to your open challenges automatically. There is no "start a workout in Pledro" step and never has been.

An activity counts toward a challenge when three things are true at once:

1. It is the right kind of activity for that challenge.
2. It happened inside the challenge window.
3. It began after you entered, on a wearable you had connected before you entered.

That third rule is the one that does the work. It means nothing you trained before entering can ever be claimed afterwards, which is what stops a challenge from being a formality for anybody who happened to have a good week already.

Nothing counts until your wearable says so. Not your memory, not a photograph, not your word.

What does "verified" actually mean?

It means the metrics came from the device, not from you. Distance, duration, heart rate and the rest are read from your wearable; there is no path anywhere in the app for typing in a result, and hand-entered workouts are rejected outright.

Until an activity passes verification it does not exist as far as the challenge is concerned. It does not appear in the standings, it does not move you toward the target, and it certainly does not make you a completer. If the data looks implausible — a flat heart rate, a pace nobody holds, signals that contradict each other — it is flagged and held for a person to look at, and never rewarded automatically.

There is more detail in how wearable verification works, including what each rule is actually for.

How is the reward worked out?

When the window closes, the entries of everyone who did not complete stay in the reward fund, and that is where the reward comes from. It is split evenly among everybody who completed. First and last are paid exactly the same.

Everyone who completes also gets their own entry back in full. There is no deduction on a returned entry, ever.

Pledro's share comes out of the entries that stayed, capped at 10% of the whole fund, and it comes out first — so at or under one in ten missing the target there is no reward at all, and the people who completed simply take their entry back. That cap is the subject of its own guide, including the two cases where Pledro earns nothing.

A worked example

Twenty-five people enter a £20 challenge. Ten complete it.

Reward fund	£500
Entries that stayed	£300
Pledro's share (capped at 10%)	£50
Reward shared between completers	£250
Each completer takes	£45 — their £20 entry back, plus £25

The fifteen who did not complete are not charged anything further. Their entry is the whole of it.

18+ for real-money entries · UK · Your limits, your rules · real-money entries are coming, pending authorisation

When do results land?

Up to about an hour after the window closes. That hour is the sync grace period — wearables do not all report the moment you stop — followed by verification of every result, then the reward being distributed.

Every finished challenge produces a receipt carrying a challenge ID. If something looks wrong, open the receipt and use Get help: the record travels with it and a person picks it up.

Can I leave a challenge after entering?

While you are the only one in it, yes — withdraw whenever you like, no reason needed, and your entry comes back in full whether or not it has started.

The moment somebody else enters, everybody in it is committed, including you. Leaving then means your entry stays in the reward fund, and completing the target is the only route back to it. That is the weight of the thing, it is stated on screen before you commit, and it is stated again if you try to leave.

What do I need to start?

An iPhone, a wearable, and an account. Apple Watch, Garmin, Whoop, Oura, Fitbit, Polar and more all count. Sign-up is 16 and over. Grind Coins are free, so your first challenges cost nothing, and free-entry challenges exist too — you can go through the entire loop without spending anything.

Which wearables can back which challenge types is the subject of a separate guide, because the honest answer differs by device.