Caitlin Cady transformed her personal meditation journey into a mission to inspire others through her books, Heavily Meditated and The Hope Dealer, and her Heavily Meditated app, which offers accessible mindfulness tools for today’s modern audience. But managing the app’s tech and costs, while competing in a crowded app store market, made growth challenging.

Facing escalating development fees, restrictive app store policies, and difficulties in scaling, Caitlin discovered Movement—a platform that eliminated the guesswork and allowed her to focus on what matters most: creating meaningful content for her community.

In this story, Caitlin shares how Movement transformed her operations, reduced expenses, and elevated the user experience of her app. With its customizable features and seamless content delivery, Movement became the ideal partner for Caitlin’s mission to make mindfulness more accessible than ever.

Can you tell us about yourself and your business?

I’ve written two books, Heavily Meditated and The Hope Dealer. When I wrote Heavily Meditated, my goal was to create a complete toolkit so people could learn to meditate and weave it into their lives—without needing a 10-day retreat or paying $1,000 to be initiated into a tradition. For me, learning to meditate literally changed my life. I had Lyme disease for 10 years, and the last piece of the puzzle for my recovery was resetting my nervous system. After being told I’d have chronic Lyme disease, I was able to fully recover and I credit meditation as the last piece of the puzzle. That set me on a mission to help others unlock the magic of meditation.

When I wrote the first book, my goal was always to provide companion meditations to go alongside it. Often, with personal development or wellness, you read a book that has a theory in it but then you're on your own—you have to find a guided meditation or teacher on your own. And at that time, it was YouTube—there wasn't Insight Timer or Headspace, none of that really existed and I felt it was just too hard to learn how to meditate. So, I wanted to create what I wished existed.

Initially, I planned to offer downloadable audio tracks, but when my book sold to a publisher, I ended up getting a bigger advance than expected so I decided to go ahead and build an app. That was the inception of the Heavily Meditated app in 2020, shortly after the book came out. I record meditations, and do breath work, yoga nidra, and asana practices—all of which are integrated into the app. Initially, the app was all audio content, and about a year and a half ago, I added video to the platform. So that brings me to the present where I made the move to Movement.

What challenges were you facing before using Movement?

Even from the beginning, building an app from scratch or a bespoke app was incredibly challenging because the costs were not fixed—what was estimated was not accurate.

"It ended up costing a lot more, taking a lot longer, and also all of the bureaucracy of the app stores, getting set up on the Google Play Store—it was a lot of infrastructure for me to create as a small business and a one woman band."

There were a lot of financial and legal requirements to be on those stores and a ton of admin required. So even at that point, it felt like a huge undertaking and some of my frustrations during those four years were just the cost of operating in the app stores—the commission they take and paying the developer fees just to be listed on the app store—just to have the privilege of being on the app store! All of those costs add up, not to mention the costs of hosting all of your content on your own–servers, and that kind of thing. That was frustrating.

And also, trying to work within the system of the app stores—learning about ASO (app store optimization) and trying to elbow my way in was eye-opening. I got a government grant from the Australian government that was essentially to encourage Australian businesses who are exporting a good or service overseas outside of Australia and New Zealand, so you got 50% of your marketing spend back.

When I got that grant, I was really excited because I thought “this is going to help me break into the app store, help me be discovered on the app store, help me reach more customers”.

"But in the last year, we invested all of the marketing budget into ASO and ASA (Apple Search Ads), and what we learned from that was that you can't compete with the budgets of companies like Calm or Headspace. They have huge marketing departments, they have people spending tons of time and tons of money bidding for people's attention, and I hadn’t realized just how competitive and complex that was."

It doesn't mean I had no understanding of it, but I didn't know it was kind of like day trading. So again, when you're operating as a small business, not having fixed costs is super challenging. And, spending that amount of money on marketing was something I never would have done without that export grant. But even with the grant, it didn't actually move the dial.

"So, the learning for me was that the people who my offering resonates with, they're not just finding me on a search on the app store, right? They're finding me through podcast interviews, magazine articles, the books, recommendations from a friend—all these more organic sources."

I also really came to understand that it's the human connection. It's the story or the way that I'm offering the tools that connects to people. And obviously it's not for everyone, but for the people that it resonates with, human touch is everything. So, a generic search for meditation or whatever the search term is, didn't actually yield me with the people that I'm seeking to serve.

What prompted you to reconsider the app stores, and did you explore other platforms during the transition?

I didn't have any intention of necessarily leaving the app store—I thought it was like a marriage that I was stuck in. But my developer who I'd worked with to build the app came to me maybe 6 months ago and said “your app is going to be obsolete soon and needs to be rebuilt.” That was a huge shock for me. I don't ever remember having conversations that there was a lifespan or an expiry date on this app because I'd obviously invested tens of thousands of dollars to build it, and I was shocked and taken aback by that. And then, the cost that was quoted to me was $150,000 USD to rebuild it, which is about six times as much as I probably spent to build the app initially—about $25,000–30,000 AUD. That was so far out of the realm of possibility for me that it felt like a blessing because I thought “that's just not an option so I have to find something else.”

"That was obviously the straw that broke the camel's back. But, there were a lot of frustrations. For example, I couldn't easily test things in the app. I couldn't easily test simple changes like language changes or pricing changes, or I couldn't create offers for people. I couldn't easily add coupon codes. Anytime I wanted to make any sort of minute change, there was a huge expense associated with it. And also, the app store makes it very difficult for you to do discounts or incentivize people."

In my experience, even in the beginning when I launched the app and wanted to offer the app for free to influencers, trying to do that was a mission with the app store. That was really frustrating because you couldn’t measure or track anything easily or incentivize different groups of people.

For instance, offering a coupon code at events and being able to track its use simply wasn’t possible. There were so many restrictions like that that felt difficult but ultimately, it was just that there was no flexibility in any change that I wanted to make—I had to fund and roll the dice on whether it was going to work, or not make any difference in the revenue that the app was generating.

The app also broke all the time. Things would break and you don't know how long it's going to take for the developer to fix it. So, there were months where I'd have thousands of dollars in billing to fix something. I didn't have thousands of dollars more revenue that month, so it was really difficult to not have fixed costs as a small business. By that time, I was totally over the whole setup and was ready for something new so I started researching different platforms. It was really exciting because when I originally built the app, none of this existed really—apps weren't as big of a thing. There weren't as many wellness and fitness apps so it was really exciting to see that there were white-label products available. 

The two that I compared closely were Movement and Disciple. I met with them but their costs were absolutely bananas so they got wiped off the board. Realistically, there's just no way I'm spending that amount of money to host the app. And also I think their design is clunky and not intuitive at all—it feels dated and not user-friendly to me, having used the app. Every app that I looked at was not beautiful or elegant.

"For me, Movement was attractive because it offered 80% of the features that I was looking for. I thought there was enough flexibility with the design and the layout that I could create a user experience that felt intuitive and also really similar in a lot of ways to the layout of the old app, and also that it was an Australian company."

I also really liked that it seemed it was still a smallish team, but really organized and really responsive. And, I loved the idea that there were features being rolled out, but if something broke, it would not be my responsibility to fix it.

"Ultimately, my intention is that I want to focus more of my time on being a creator and being a service, and less of my time on dealing with admin and tech issues, and more of the operational work. With Movement, that’s what it's going to allow me to do—free me up to actually do the thing that I love and the thing that people that I'm seeking to serve come to me for."

What did you and your designer think of building on the platform?

For me, it was exciting because I’m not a tech person at all, but I’ve had a blog and a website for a really long time, so I’m used to tinkering with things. I also have a background in fine arts and am a very visual person. So it's so much more joyful looking at the back end of Movement versus Parse, which was basically just a spreadsheet serving as the back end of my old app—and it brought me absolutely no joy. It actually made me sad.

With Movement, I can change the text. I'm careful not to change too much because I have a brand style guide that I stick to, but there's little things that I can test and change, and I love that it's not coded. And I think my designer found it relatively easy to translate the vision into the Movement platform.

"Overall, I'm really pleased with the way that the user interface looks and it feels quite similar to our original vision."

Have you noticed any successes or tangible benefits so far from transitioning to Movement?

The ability to see people's subscription information—their names, what's happening in their account—I couldn't do any of that with the app store. If someone accidentally pays for a subscription in Movement when they already had one, I can just easily refund it, or I could see if their subscription hadn't gone through. Little things like that are so much easier for me now. I don’t have to rely on a third party and try to figure it out, and that’s amazing.

"I love having a dashboard where I can just see everything in one place. It's nice and it's combined so many different pieces of software. "

I think in terms of being able to message members in the app, being able to have that community chat where people can connect— that's really exciting because I would like to get rid of the Facebook group as I just hate Facebook.

Are you noticing any savings by running your business on Movement?

There were no fixed costs with a developer—that could be anywhere from zero dollars to $300. There were other months where it was $1,000, and all of that's in US dollars, keep in mind. So there were months where you'd have the unexpected bill of $2,500, even just wanting to add something simple—and that's if things go right.

If there's a hiccup and the library also needs to be updated because Apple’s made some change, then that could be another 30 hours of work. It was like this really gnarly game of dominoes where you tip one thing over, and then it unravels all of these unexpected issues.

And then there was the hosting server—Amazon AWS was around $50 a month, and WordPress, where I hosted the images and the audio files, was $40 a month. There were lots of little bits and pieces.

"I think it's definitely going to be streamlined, and overall, just eliminating the development costs is huge because you never knew what that was going to be."

And as I've said, that's so hard as a small business because I can't just easily go and double my revenue. It was either something's broken, or I want to add a simple feature, and it didn’t necessarily translate into increased revenue.

What are your future plans for the app and business?

Yesterday, I went to Coffs Harbor to speak at the New South Wales Librarians Association conference, and it turned into such a meaningful experience. I led a simple breath practice, followed by an interactive experience.

The response was incredible. People came up afterward to share how much they loved it, and having this experience with 300 librarians made me realize how much these resources are needed. Libraries often serve as community hubs, providing a safe space for people dealing with mental health issues, transient lifestyles, or simply seeking refuge in a climate controlled environment.

What excites me about the future is being able to offer custom products or memberships—like custom discount codes for librarians or workplace wellness clients. For example, some businesses buy subscriptions for their employees or have me lead weekly guided meditations over Zoom, and now I can give them something tangible to take away.

In a similar vein, being able to set up exclusive content in the app for my workplace wellness clients is really exciting. For example, I have a client with offices in Australia, the Philippines, Germany, and England. They do a live guided meditation every Tuesday morning Aussie time, but, of course, the Europeans can’t make it. Now, with Movement, I can use deep links to send them a direct link to that specific practice—something I couldn’t do with my old app. Being able to direct people to exactly what they need—and only make it accessible to that client and their team—is super exciting.

"Being able to create more personalized content for different cohorts is really exciting because, ultimately, my goal is to make things as easy as possible for people and provide them with content that’s most suited to their needs or most helpful to them."

What’s the greatest impact Movement has had on you?

I would say that I have fixed costs now, so I can actually grow my business in a meaningful way. In the past, it was hard to scale or make any new offerings because it always came with so much complexity and uncertainty in terms of costs.

That aspect is really exciting—especially for creators who are often solo operators.

"Plus, the interface gives me so much more joy, just being able to log in and see things laid out in such a visual and beautiful way. I understand where everything is and am able to make adjustments, like changing the content so easily."

Caitlin’s transition to Movement showcases the transformative power of fixed costs and streamlined solutions for creators. By eliminating unpredictable app development expenses and navigating away from the complexities of app store policies, Caitlin achieved the financial stability and creative freedom she needed to scale her community confidently—without the worry of rising costs. Movement’s fixed-cost model means she no longer pays for feature updates or adjustments, allowing her to grow her app and business without constraints.

Importantly, Movement enables Caitlin to focus on what matters most: creating meaningful content and supporting her community. With an intuitive platform managing the technical aspects, she can fully dedicate her time and energy to expanding the impact and scope of her mindfulness programs. For Caitlin, Movement has been more than just a platform—it’s been the key to simplifying her operations and amplifying her mission.

Check out the Heavily Meditated app or find Caitlin on Instagram.

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