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Gottman Card Decks: what is in the app, and what the printed decks cost
Gottman Card Decks is a free app from The Gottman Institute, and its two official pages disagree about its size. The App Store description promises 22 decks; the Institute’s own app page still says 14. Below: the listing line by line, the price of every printed deck, and what a deck of questions leaves undone.
Our sheet, not theirs: 48 questions and two cards left blank for your own.
In short
Nobody publishes the names of all the decks: not the store, not the Institute. Five are named in writing, and everything beyond them is somebody’s blog post.
The printed decks are a separate purchase, $13 to $32 a box. Neither app nor cards hold what you agreed on afterwards: the app’s only memory is a star for favorites. The printable below is ours, 48 questions and two blank cards.
What the Gottman Card Decks app is, and what it costs
Three names sit on one product: Apple lists the seller as AFFECTIVE SOFTWARE INC and the copyright as © 2026 Gottman Inc., and Google Play names the developer as The Gottman Institute, Inc. One app, free on both stores.
The size of it is where the official pages part company. The Institute’s app page says “Download to explore 14 card decks with more than 1,000 flashcards”, and the store description says “Explore 22 card decks with more than 1,000 flashcards”.
The release notes show where the extra decks came from. Version 1.1.8 added a Sex and Date Questions deck in July 2020, and version 2.0.1 added six parenting decks in March 2023, both recorded in the version history. Take 22 as the live number and 14 as a line nobody went back to edit.
The listing at a glance
| What | What the listing says |
|---|---|
| Price | Free on the App Store; on Google Play an Install button and no price at all |
| Decks and cards | 22 decks in the App Store description, 14 on gottman.com; more than 1,000 flashcards on both |
| iPhone | Requires iOS 18.0 or later |
| Age rating | 18+ on the App Store, Mature 17+ on Google Play |
| Stars | 4.8 on both: from 1.7K ratings on the App Store, from 2.45K on Google Play, as each storefront prints it |
| Installs | 500K+, a figure only Google Play publishes |
| Size and category | 61.3 MB, Lifestyle, in the App Store Information panel |
| Last update | version 3.0.1 on June 15, 2026 (App Store); July 22, 2026 (Google Play) |
Which Gottman card decks the app actually names
No official page lists all of them. Below is every deck that either the Institute or the store listing names in writing, and nothing else.
- Love Maps and Open-Ended Questions. The Institute’s blog calls these “the first two card decks within that app”, and says they are there to build knowledge of a partner’s inner world.
- Opportunity. Named in the store description as the deck to “Choose Love Maps to get to know your partner better, Opportunity for great date-night ideas”.
- Salsa. The same description invites you to “explore the Salsa decks to add some spice to your intimate life”. The printed Salsa box splits its cards into Mild, Medium and Hot, in the shop’s own words.
- Sex and Date Questions. Added in version 1.1.8 on July 15, 2020, per the version history.
- Six Bringing Baby Home decks for parents. Version 2.0.1, March 29, 2023: “We’ve added six new decks for parents with Bringing Baby Home content!”
Both stores put an age gate on the app: 18+ at Apple, Mature 17+ at Google. Apple’s listing gives the reason in its own words, as Frequent Mature or Suggestive Themes and Sexual Content or Nudity.
Longer deck lists circulate on counseling blogs and disagree with each other and with the store. Treat any list that is not on gottman.com as hearsay.
The printed Gottman card deck sets, and what each one costs
The decks behind the app are the ones handed out at the Art and Science of Love workshop, and the shop still sells them as boxes of 3.5 by 2.5 inch cards. Gottman’s card deck prices run from $13.00 to $32.00, and no box is required to use the free app.
| Set | Price | What the shop says is in it |
|---|---|---|
| Love Map & Open-Ended Card Decks | $16.00 | Two decks. The first step of the Sound Relationship House, in the shop’s phrasing: getting to know each other’s world |
| Rituals of Connection & Opportunity | $16.00 | The printed pair to the app’s Opportunity deck: small daily moments and the rituals built from them |
| Expressing Needs, Great Listening & Expressing Empathy | $16.00 | Three decks in one box, for saying what you need and hearing what your partner needs |
| Salsa Card Deck | $16.00 | Color-coded in three sections, Mild, Medium and Hot, from the same weekend workshop |
| 52 Questions Before Marriage or Moving In | $13.00 | Questions on Romance, Social Life, Work and Money, made for couples who have not lived together yet |
| 52 Questions After 50 | $13.00 | The same format, written for partners later in life |
| 52 Questions Before Baby | $13.00 | The shop’s line for it: “Good family planning should require answering these questions!” |
| Couples and Addiction Recovery | $32.00 | Four decks in one box, written for clinicians as well as partners |
One set has a blog post behind it, worth reading before you spend. The Institute writes: “For new couples, The Gottman Institute created a card deck called 52 Questions Before Marriage or Moving In”. That post prints several of its questions in full.
What a deck of questions cannot do
The app remembers exactly one thing about your evening. Both official descriptions list the same feature in the same words: “tap the star to favorite a card, easily tab back and forth between All and Favorites”. A favorite is a card you liked, not an answer you gave.
So a good conversation ends where it started. One of you suggests a weekly check-in on Sunday after dinner, the other agrees, and by Wednesday it lives in two memories that already differ.
Four rules keep a deck alive past the first week, whichever deck you use.
- Two or three cards, then stop. A deck of 48 at three cards a week lasts four months. A deck of 48 in one evening lasts one evening.
- Both of you answer the same card. Taking turns to ask is an interview, and it puts one of you on the spot all night.
- Ask one follow-up before you move on. The second answer is usually the real one, and it never arrives if the next card comes out first.
- When an answer turns into a plan, take it off the card. Write who does what and by when, somewhere you will both see it on Wednesday.
And one thing that is not obvious
Google Play’s data safety panel for the app says it may collect Location, App activity, and App info and performance, that data is encrypted in transit, and that data can’t be deleted. Apple’s privacy panel adds that an email address may be linked to you for the developer’s advertising or marketing. Answering an intimate question on paper has no such panel.
A printable alternative we made: 48 conversation cards
The sheet below is ours and not the Institute’s, and none of its questions is taken from their decks. It is a free PDF with 48 question cards, a page of rules, and two blank cards for questions of your own.
The cards come in four themes of twelve:
- Who We Are: where each of you comes from and what matters to you.
- How We Care: the ways you look after each other.
- Home and Days: how you share the work and rhythm of daily life.
- Where We’re Going: the future you are building together.
The rules page keeps it short: pick one theme, draw a card, answer first and then swap, listen to understand rather than to reply, and stop while it still feels good. One card reads, “When I say ‘I’ll do it soon,’ how many days do you hear?” That one tends to run long.
The date jar and the 30-day challenge
The Gottman date jar
No jar is sold on its own, and the nearest thing in the shop is not an object. The Gottman Couples Workbook: Journaling and Jars costs $20.00 and is marked Digital Format. What you get is listed as a digital workbook, three themed journals with prompts, “three date and activity jars” and two bonus tools; the jar itself is yours to find.
The free version is on their own blog, and the whole instruction is two sentences: “Put these ideas on little scraps of paper or write them on popsicle sticks. Then place your date night ideas into a jar and save them for your next date night together.” The app’s Opportunity deck covers the same ground without the jar.
The Gottman 30 day challenge
This one is an email course rather than a mode in the app. 30 Days to a Better Relationship costs $30.00, and the shop describes tools and exercises “delivered once a day for 30 days by email” that “take five minutes or less to complete”.
A second product at the same price, the 30 Day Relationship Journal, sends a daily email with three prompts for 30 days. Both are paid, and neither adds a thing to the free card decks app.
Questions people ask
Is the Gottman app free?
Yes. Apple lists the price as Free, and Google Play shows an Install button with no price, both checked on September 17, 2026. Only the printed decks cost money.
How many card decks are in the app?
The store description says 22 decks with more than 1,000 flashcards, and the Institute’s own page still says 14. Neither address publishes the names of all of them, so the honest answer is 22 card decks by the store and no public list.
Does the Gottman card deck app work on iPhone?
Yes, if the phone runs iOS 18.0 or later, the Compatibility line on the App Store listing. There is an Android build too.
Is there another Gottman app besides this one?
A search for a Gottman Institute app leads back to this listing: their app page presents Card Decks and no other app. Their other couples products, from the Relationship Adviser to the workbooks and the 30-day courses, are sold on gottman.com and run in a browser or in your inbox.
What is the Gottman date jar?
A jar of date ideas you draw from. The Institute sells no such jar: the $20.00 Journaling and Jars set is a digital download that includes “three date and activity jars” to fill yourself. Their blog gives the same exercise away for nothing.
What does the Gottman 7-7-7 rule recommend for couples?
That rule is not the Institute’s: it is a social media formula, a date every seven days, a night away every seven weeks and a trip every seven months. The Institute’s own post calls it “a fine start” and then names what its research measured. In a six-year study of newlyweds, couples who stayed together answered each other’s small bids for connection 86 percent of the time; among those who divorced it was 33 percent.
Are the printed decks worth buying if the app is free?
Buy a box when an object on the table is what gets you both to sit down, and skip it when one of you will read the cards off a screen anyway. The app holds more decks than any single box, and the boxes hold nothing the app withholds.
The part a card cannot hold
When an answer turns into a plan, Alpacto keeps it as a pact between the two of you: the job, what counts as done, by when, what it is worth in coins. You mark it done, the other confirms, and the pact carries the reminder.