Femio: a women-first app that makes the hidden cost of being a w

Femio, tagline "Where Women Count", is a women-first mobile app founded by Monalisa Zwambila. It turns everyday experiences such as 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 platform that makes those hidden costs visible, measurable and actionable. Femio is live on the App Store and Google Play.

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.

We built Femio as a cohesive Flutter app 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. Backend services run on Supabase for member accounts, data storage and the content and listing flows members use in the app.

• FemTracker: a guided multi-step cost calculator with a personalised summary, dynamic offset ring, stat cards and trend context. • Home dashboard: weekly prompts, module cards and bottom navigation for Polls, FemRewards and FemTracker. • FemUp!: curated articles on money and power, gender-based violence, health and career, opened in an in-app web view. • Women-Owned directory: sector grids, business profiles and applications to list a business. • Polls, FemRewards and Champion Change: community voting, a rewards preview framed as payback for women, and an advocacy lane for future movements.

The pink tax, life-stage spending and career trade-offs rarely appear on a bank statement as one line item. We broke FemTracker into guided steps with clear categories, then visualised results so members could trust the numbers enough to act on them.

Femio is a calculator, a directory, a learning library, a poll channel and an advocacy platform in one product. We solved that 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.

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 a progress dashboard • Seven modules in one app: calculator, resources, directory, polls, rewards, advocacy and home hub