Every card is earned. Here is exactly what that means.

IronPack is a gym tracker with a collectible card game on top. This page is the founding rule of that game, written down in public so you can hold us to it.

The rule

Cards, packs and pack points can never be bought. Not now, not ever. The only way anything enters your collection is training: finished workouts, personal records, streaks, quests and milestones. Money is allowed to buy exactly three things: depth (advanced analytics), convenience (unlimited routines), and, later, cosmetics (alternate finishes for cards you already earned). Money never buys progress, power, cards or leaderboard position.

Why we built it this way

The collection has to mean something

A binder you could swipe a credit card for certifies nothing. A binder that only training fills is a training record wearing a trading-card costume. When a mate sees a completed set, there is exactly one explanation: the work got done. That is the entire value of the collection, and selling any part of it would destroy all of it.

Motivation science says paying poisons earning

Reward systems work when the reward certifies effort. The moment a shortcut exists, earned rewards stop feeling earned, for everyone, including the people who never buy. We would rather have a smaller game that keeps working than a bigger one that quietly stops meaning anything.

Randomised purchases are a legal and ethical swamp

Selling randomised packs for cash is a loot box: odds-disclosure rules, gambling-adjacent regulation and app-store scrutiny follow it everywhere. IronPack never sells anything randomised. If we ever sell a cosmetic, you pick exactly what you buy.

The economy, with real numbers

We publish the numbers because trust is a feature. As of IronPack 1.1:

• A finished workout pays 20 forge points; beating a record pays 10. A standard 5-card pack costs 100, themed packs 130.
• Training 30+ minutes banks a bonus 1-card pack. Levelling up banks a 5-card pack. Weekly cadence tiers, quests, a 30-day login road and streak milestones pay more points.
• Foil parallels drop at disclosed rates: holo 5%, gold 2.2%, prismatic 0.8%.
• Nothing is guaranteed at any rarity. Every slot is an honest roll at the disclosed odds, with no pity timers and no ramping odds, exactly like ripping real foil. About 1 pack in 11 is all commons.
• Duplicates melt into dust by rarity (5 / 10 / 15 / 20, with foil dupes worth 2×, 3× or 5×). Past halfway on any collection, the Forge lets you craft a specific missing card outright at deliberately steep prices: 500 to 5,000 points by rarity. Completion is always reachable, never cheap.
• Achievement emblems (first pull-up, the 100th workout, five plates off the floor) are not in any pack. They can only be done.

Imported history is honoured for records and charts but pays no points, packs or XP. Your story comes with you; the game starts when you train.

Where money is allowed to touch IronPack

IronPack Pro is a subscription (US$3.99 a month or US$29.99 a year with a 14-day free trial) that unlocks per-exercise and muscle-group trend charts, unlimited custom routines and deeper training analytics. The free app keeps the entire game and social loop forever: logging, packs, cards, the Forge, friends, leaderboards and leagues. If you never pay, your collection and your competitive standing are exactly as legitimate as anyone's.

Related reading: what a workout actually earns, where your training data lives.

Last reviewed July 2026 against IronPack 1.1. This page is updated whenever the economy changes, and the rule at the top never does.