> Beeminder is obviously amazing, but it really "loses its sting" when you can't set a penalty higher than $25 (give or take -- I don't know what the current limit is).

Beeminder's model is a bit different, in that the payment amount keeps going up if you keep falling off track. The current upper amount you can pay is $7290 (as in once you hit $7290, it will keep charging you that amount).

Even better, you can pay Beeminder money to jump to the big penalties right away. Very clever upsell since anyone who needs to lose thousands to be motivated won’t miss a fraction of that. :)

Exactly! I have used beeminder and stickk. But there were a few things that bugged me about them.

1) Theres no option to have a referee that isn't friends or family

2) Its automated, and no human actually checks up to see if you are staying on track.

3) You can't really set huge stakes

> Theres no option to have a referee that isn't friends or family

Has stickk changed? When it was new you could set anyone to be your referee.

> Its automated, and no human actually checks up to see if you are staying on track.

With stickk, isn't the human referee the one who checks up on your progress?