Femio
Amy-Leigh Braaf
August 2026Mobile Apps
Femio
A Women-First Platform That Makes the Hidden Cost of Being a Woman Visible
Written by
Minette Gericke
Subject
Mobile Apps
Published on
August 2026
Background
Femio, tagline “Where Women Count,” is a women-first mobile app founded by Monalisa Zwambila. It turns everyday experiences (periods, menopause, career trade-offs, and the pink tax) into data South African women can track, share, and use to demand better value. App Developer Studio partnered with Monalisa to design and build a movement platform that makes those hidden costs visible, measurable, and actionable. Femio is live on the App Store and Google Play .
Problem Statement
Women carry costs that rarely show up as a single receipt: higher prices on essentials, life-stage health spending, and career sacrifices that never get counted. Support, learning, and women-owned businesses sit in separate places, so the full picture stays fragmented. Femio’s founder wanted one app where women could see their sacrifices acknowledged, connect with peers, back women-led enterprise, and build collective power through numbers.
Solution
We built Femio as a cohesive mobile platform centred on FemTracker, the first tool to calculate the real monthly cost of being a woman. A personalised home dashboard links members to FemUp! learning resources, community polls, a women-owned business directory, and preview experiences for FemRewards and Champion Change. Onboarding communicates the mission before registration, and profile settings keep each member’s identity and preferences at the centre of the experience.
See it in action
From Daily Hub to Directory and Advocacy
The home dashboard greets each member, surfaces FemTracker cost context, and links to FemRewards and FemUp! from one scrollable hub. Bottom navigation keeps Polls, FemRewards, and FemTracker one tap away.
Women-Owned lets members browse sector grids and apply to list a business. Champion Change introduces the advocacy lane where members will start movements and bring other women with them.
Under the hood
Key Features
01
FemTracker: Cost Calculator and Progress Dashboard
Femio's signature tool calculates the real monthly cost of being a woman. A guided multi-step flow captures life stage, work context, and spending categories, then surfaces a personalised summary with a dynamic offset ring, stat cards, and trend context members can monitor over time.
02
Home Dashboard
The home screen greets each member, surfaces a weekly prompt card, and highlights FemTracker when a cost assessment is due. A scrolling module grid links to Champion Change, FemUp!, FemTracker, Women-Owned, FemRewards, and Polls, with bottom navigation keeping the highest-traffic tools one tap away.
03
FemUp!: Resources and Learning
Curated articles grouped by themes such as money and power, gender-based violence, health, and career. Each category shows article counts and rich artwork. Tapping through opens content in an in-app web view so members stay inside Femio while they learn.
04
Women-Owned Business Directory
A vibrant hub spotlights businesses led by women. Members browse sector grids, filter by focus area, view business profiles with imagery and contact details, and discover ways to back her business. Business owners can apply to be listed directly from the app.
05
Polls: Community Voice and Insights
The live poll hub presents the current question with radio-style voting and real-time result previews. An archive lets members revisit past polls and see how collective answers shift over time, giving the community a direct line into product and movement decisions.
06
FemRewards: Payback for Women
FemRewards previews a rewards programme framed as payback for women: discounts, cashback, and partner benefits designed to close the income gap and reduce the cost of being a woman. The experience sets clear expectations while stronger membership unlocks better partner deals for everyone.
07
Champion Change: Advocacy and Movements
Champion Change introduces Femio's advocacy lane, where members will start movements and bring other women with them. The coming-soon experience explains that change begins with individual action scaled to thousands, and previews future tools for collective campaigning.
Under the hood
Technology & Methodology
Femio is a Flutter app, live on iOS and Android, with a modular feature layout so calculator, directory, resources, polls, and advocacy can grow without rebuilding the core experience. Backend services run on Supabase: member accounts, data storage, and the content and listing flows members use in the app. Production monitoring, analytics, and push notifications sit behind the product so the team can ship updates safely after launch.
Flutter
Supabase
iOS
Android
What we had to solve
Challenges and Solutions
Quantifying costs people never see
The pink tax, life-stage spending, and career trade-offs are real, but they rarely appear on a bank statement as one line item. We solved it by breaking FemTracker into guided steps with clear categories, then visualising results so members could trust the numbers enough to act on them.
One app, many movement tools
Femio is a calculator, a directory, a learning library, a poll channel, and an advocacy platform in one product. We solved it with a consistent home hub, shared navigation, and module cards that treat each feature as part of the same movement rather than a separate app bolted on.
What happened
Outcome
Femio is live on the App Store and Google Play. South African women now have a single place to quantify what being a woman costs, learn from curated resources, vote in community polls, and discover women-owned businesses. The app turns abstract inequality into numbers members can monitor, share, and use to push for better value over time.
Live
on the App Store and Google Play for iOS and Android
FemTracker
personalised cost calculator with progress dashboard
7 modules
calculator, resources, directory, polls, rewards, advocacy, and home hub in one app
Future Directions
With the core app live, FemRewards will roll out partner discounts, cashback, and financial benefits as membership grows. Champion Change will add tools for starting petitions, backing campaigns, and rallying support at scale. The directory and FemTracker categories will expand as more women-owned businesses join and members share what costs still go uncounted.
Conclusion
Femio shows what a mission-driven mobile app looks like when product design starts from lived experience, not a feature checklist. Monalisa Zwambila wanted women to count. We built the platform that helps them do it, and it is available to download on the App Store and Google Play . Explore our AI-Accelerated App Development service to see how we apply the same approach for other founders and organisations.
Building a mission-driven app?
Turn Your Movement Into a Product Women Can Use Every Day
Femio shows what happens when a clear social mission meets structured mobile product design. If you need an app that turns lived experience into data, community, and action, talk to us.
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