Free stud finder app for iPhone — no ads, no subscription.

Yes. Stud Finder is free to download and free to use on the App Store with no in-app purchases and no subscription. Many apps listed as "free" on the App Store gate the core scanning feature behind a paywall — check the "Offers In-App Purchases" line in the App Store listing before you trust the claim.

Because the work was already done. The magnetometer is already in your iPhone, the math to read it is straightforward, and we wanted a version of the app we'd use ourselves — no ads, no subscriptions, no data harvesting. The App Store is full of ad-heavy stud finders; we think a simple utility should just be a utility.

No ads. No feature limits. No scan count limits. Nothing is paywalled.

There isn't one, but there are honest limitations: it only runs on iPhone, it only works on standard drywall-over-wood walls, and it's one measurement — for heavy mounts you should still confirm with a hardware stud finder. Everything else is free.

A free stud finder app that actually reads the magnetometer works just as well as a paid one — the underlying sensor is the same. What separates good from bad free apps is whether the app really uses the magnetometer, whether it runs offline, and whether the detection is gated behind a subscription.