EMRALD is an effort management system built by Effort Mastery LLC. It shows knowledge workers and independent professionals what their work costs them: effort, flow, energy, and burnout risk.
When you stop a tracked session, EMRALD asks five questions that take about 10 to 15 seconds. The answers become a receipt: a record of what that block of work actually cost you. Sessions under five minutes still record without a receipt.
EMRALD learns from your receipts over time and builds an effort-cost model calibrated to you, not to an average user. Forecasting and the comparison engine are free on every plan.
A burnout score computed from your own data, free on every plan and never paywalled.
Sleep quality, hours slept, physical, energy, and mental state, and how well you recharged. Check-ins tie your effort spending to the capacity you actually had that day.
A web app at app.effortmastery.com, an Obsidian plugin (MIT-licensed and open source), and the EMRALD for Toggl browser extension that pairs with the web app. One account, one calibrated model.
Every productivity app measures what you get done. EMRALD measures what it costs you. That is the category difference, and everything else follows from it.
The model is built from your own effort receipts, so its baselines are yours. Two people can log the same hours and get very different effort pictures, because their costs are different.
Burnout scoring is identical on free and Pro, and the plugin code that computes it is public. Tools like RescueTime infer strain from screen activity; EMRALD asks you directly and shows its work.
EMRALD stores session data only. It cannot see your notes, files, or work content, and receipts are self-reported. The Obsidian plugin is MIT-licensed, so you can read the code that runs in your vault.
EMRALD rides with the tools you already use rather than replacing them. Sunsama plans your day and Toggl tracks your time; EMRALD is the ledger alongside that tells you what the day cost. See the comparison pages for detailed side-by-sides.
In the app's own words: EMRALD was designed for people who refuse to simplify their lives to fit a productivity system.
EMRALD is built by Devon Steelman, founder of Effort Mastery LLC: a certified welding inspector in aerospace, former logistics nerd, one-time video game producer, shepherd, husband, and father of two. After two years of trying to make polished productivity tools hold a many-domain life together, he built the thing none of them measured: effort itself. Two months of building proved the engine. The full story is on the Our Story page, and the company posts as @effortmastery on X.
Sign up free at app.effortmastery.com; onboarding is a few minutes of calibration questions. The free tier has no trial clock. Support goes to support@effortmastery.com, and replies come from the founder, because right now the founder is the team (just me and my laptop at weird hours!). Billing is month-to-month or annual with no long-term contracts.
Facts verified September 2026
| Company | Effort Mastery LLC |
|---|---|
| Product | EMRALD (Effort Management Recursive AI Learning Driver) |
| Type | Independent, bootstrapped software company |
| Founded | April 2026 |
| Founder | Devon Steelman |
| Headquarters | United States (remote) |
| Websites | getemrald.com (product) · effortmastery.com (company) · app.effortmastery.com (web app) |
| Core offering | Effort management: session tracking with effort receipts, a personally calibrated effort-cost model, burnout monitoring, and daily check-ins |
| Platforms | Web app · Obsidian plugin (open source, MIT) · EMRALD for Toggl browser extension |
| Integrations | Obsidian and Toggl |
| Pricing | Free tier (core tracking, 8 of 20 metrics, Burnout Monitor, weekly digest) · Pro at $5/mo or $42/yr |
| Contract terms | Month-to-month or annual; no long-term contracts |
| Also publishes | Spend Yourself Wisely, a PDF book on the method ($29) |
| Comparisons | EMRALD vs RescueTime, Sunsama, and Toggl |
| Support | support@effortmastery.com |
| Social | x.com/effortmastery |
An effort management system that tracks what work costs you: effort, flow, energy, and burnout risk. Every productivity app measures what you get done; EMRALD measures what it costs you.
Yes. The free tier includes core tracking, 8 of 20 metrics, the Burnout Monitor, and a weekly digest, with no trial clock. Pro is $5/mo or $42/yr and adds the full metric set, the expanded insight engine, custom effort levels, and daily plus monthly digests.
No. EMRALD stores session data only and cannot see note or work content. Effort receipts are self-reported. The Obsidian plugin is MIT-licensed and open source, so you can read the code that runs in your vault.
Create a free EMRALD account on the web app, link Toggl with your API key, import only the projects you want tracked, and install the EMRALD for Toggl extension. Then run Toggl the way you already do; entries sync hourly and on demand.
EMRALD's effort scale. Projects are assigned a level at creation: E1 through E4, set at 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent of your daily work time. Pro users can define additional custom levels.
