10 Best Apple Watch Faces Apps of 2024

Customizing your Apple Watch face is easy and fun, and the built-in Watch app has a curated selection to pick from. Third-party Apple Watch background apps also exist, giving you even more options! Discover the best cheap and free Apple Watch faces and transform your watch face based on your favorite style, holiday, or mood.

Best Apple Watch Face Apps

While it is technically not possible to add third-party Apple Watch faces, you can personalize your Apple Watch with complications and wallpapers to build the ideal watch face. In this article, we'll be going over the best Apple Watch face apps. Keep in mind, these apps do not allow you to add new watch faces to your Apple Watch. Rather, they offer personalized wallpapers, custom complications, and Apple Watch icons, which you can use with the watch faces in the Watch app to make them more unique. If you like cool, customizable, and animated wallpapers, learn how to set a Live Wallpaper to your iPhone's Home and Lock screens.

1. Watch Faces by Facer (Free with Add-On Options)

Some of the coolest Apple Watch faces come from this app, which is why it has a 4.7 rating based on over 50,000 reviews. In order to make the most of it, you have to pay the premium of either $4.99 per month or $39.99 per year with a one-week free trial. However, there are completely free Apple Watch faces that you can use. Don’t get overwhelmed scrolling down the main page; tap Top Charts and browse Free Faces or search for a specific theme.

There is a wide selection of Apple Watch face wallpapers, including some that incorporate useful complications. For example, there is a Christmas one that can accommodate up to six complications. You'll find absolutely any type of watch face here. Rolex Apple Watch face? Check. Nike Apple Watch faces? Yes. Just do it: download this app!

My personal favorites are the SMART FLAPS and VSA ZOOM. Oh, and if you are looking for a unique retro Apple Watch face, check out Tetris 1989. I also love that this app will walk you through adding their watch faces and troubleshooting common issues.

2. Watch Faces by WatchMaker ($6.99 Lifetime Fee)

This app truly has some of the best watch faces for Apple Watch that I've ever seen! This app cleverly uses custom complications and wallpapers with your existing watch faces to give your Apple Watch a unique appearance. While I love the complex-looking options, I am also into their more simple but 3D-looking faces, like the one with the time traveling around the spinning globe. I do assume that the faces with more information and anything that moves will cost more battery life, but it can be worth it.

Watch Faces by WatchMaker even has templates for you to create and publish your own watch faces to share with others in the app. If your collection is popular, you can reach out to the developers to sell your watch faces on the app. While many cool Apple Watch faces are included in the membership fee, certain collections can be bought. This app truly has some of the best Apple Watch faces if you are willing to sift through the seemingly unlimited options. For more Apple Watch tips and tricks, be sure to sign up for our Tip of the Day newsletter! Keep reading to discover the best apps for Apple Watch for customizing your watch face.

3. StepDog - Watch Face Dog (Free with Add-On Options)

Apple Watch face meets Tamagotchi in this great app that lets you have a dog companion while you reach your step goal. The free version allows you to have a random dog companion as a complication on the Infographic Modular watch face on Series 4 or later. When you reach your step goal, your virtual pet will take a nap!

If you want to pick a specific breed of dog or change to a cat, you can pay a one-time fee of $1.99. If you want to add toys and weather, you need to subscribe and pay $0.99 per month or a little more for some extra features. You can try it free for one month and unsubscribe anytime if you don’t like it. Although there are limited ways to customize, this is a fun watch face for animal lovers.

4. Watchsmith (Free with Add-On Options)

Many users want to know how to change Apple Watch from analog to digital. While that can be done using the good old-fashioned Watch app, Watchsmith can do that and then some. While it doesn’t offer cute Apple Watch faces to download, it lets you customize complications for official faces available in the Watch app to the point of having them change throughout the day. By using Watchsmith to add custom complications, you can create some really cool Apple Watch faces.

Let's take the example of time again. With Watchsmith, you can pick between analog, digital, minute dial, decimal time, decimal dial, 24hr dial, and even two hourglass options. You can also pick from a wide selection of colors and pick a time when you wish for it to replace the complication. For example, you can have the time change to a minute dial during your daily swimming session. It takes a while to figure out and configure all the opinions, but the result is worth every minute!

Plus, Watchsmith offers unique complications such as tide height, step goal, golden hour, and so many others that aren't typically available on Apple Watch. Most options are entirely free to use, but there's a $1.99 monthly or $19.99 annual fee to have full access to all available complications and to use multiple complications of the same style simultaneously. There is a free one-week trial if you want to test them out before committing.

5. Clockology (Free with Add-On Options)

Clockology lets you easily download beautiful faces with functional complications and even build them from scratch. Of course, they also offer faces that are seasonal (like those cute Halloween, or Christmas Apple Watch faces) or relevant to pop-culture, like the Beetlejuice watch face. The app also works on other Apple devices and can even help you design an interactive desktop on Apple Vision Pro. Many fabulous faces that you can download from the app are completely free, but they do have exclusive watch face designs that you need to pay $2.99 per month or $24.99 per year.

Clockology offers truly unique designs that you can't find anywhere else. Users love to create and share designs via Reddit and Facebook that others can download. Despite offering complex-looking watch faces, it is really easy to save, customize, and use these on your Apple Watch. If you are looking for a Casio Apple Watch face, Clockology should be your go-to app. If you have the patience and artistic skills, this may just be the best watch face app for Apple Watch, especially if you want to create Apple Watch Ultra faces that are as extreme as the rugged watch itself.

6. Watch Face Albums (Free with Add-On Options)

If you are looking for the best wallpapers for Apple Watch, Watch Face Albums may be the app for you. Although some watch faces have functional complications, this app focuses on artistic pictures that you can download and then set as Apple Watch images using the Photos or Kaleidoscope watch faces. There are limited amounts of free backgrounds, with new free options available every 16 hours. 

To get access to all images, you can pay $1.99 per month or $7.99 per year. However, once you download the image, you can use it without paying for the app. So if you aren't interested in having access to new images, you can pay for one month, download all the backgrounds you want, for example, all the ​​luxury Apple Watch faces, and then cancel your subscription.

7. Buddywatch - Watch Faces (Free with Add-On Options)

Buddywatch is another excellent app for finding cute Apple Watch face wallpapers. It offers many free options in various colors and designs; some come pre-set with functional complications. Unlike other apps that can be complicated to use or force you to download photos and then set them as watch faces, Buddywatch makes it easy to change Apple Watch faces with just a click.

I like Buddywatch because the app's free version is sufficient to enjoy many new faces, and it is easy to use. A subscription for $4.99 a month (or $9.99 per year) is available to those who want to engage further with the app and unlock features such as app icons and VIP profile frames. Check out their selection of digital Apple Watch faces and browse movie themes such as Squid Game, fun holiday options (hello Christmas watch faces), and even pride backgrounds! This is definitely a great place to discover new Apple Watch faces.

8. Watch Facely: watch faces ($14.99 Lifetime Fee)

Watchfacely has a decent selection of free watch faces that you can download without a subscription, although you are limited to how many you can download. However, for $9.99 per year or a $14.99 lifetime fee, you can get access to over 4,000 watch faces! The full selection includes Hermes Apple Watch faces, Nike, Coco Chanel, and many more.

You can browse popular cool Apple Watch faces easily and add them quickly. Most Watchfacely options are wallpaper-style, but they also offer faces with complications. There is an impressive selection of brightly colored styles that aren't available in other apps. However, these images can also be downloaded online and set as Apple Watch faces for free using the Photos watch face, so you don't need to download an app or subscribe to a service to find your own.

9. Watch Faces Gallery & Widgets ($9.99/Year)

This app doesn't have the best selection, but it has a few unparalleled benefits. First of all, the developers are easy to contact directly via email, and they will help you figure the app out if you have any questions, although it is pretty intuitive and worked perfectly on all the watch models I've tried it on. Secondly, most of these apps only work on newer watches, but this one has special collections for even the original Apple Watch and other older models. This app works by using custom Live Photos and specially designed complications to help you create distinct Apple Watch faces.

Watch Faces Gallery & Widgets offers holiday-themed faces and fun dynamic and live watch faces. You can pay $9.99/year to get access to all the watch faces. If you don't see anything you like, you can send them suggestions, and they will work on bringing them to life, which can't be said for most other apps.

10. Watch App (Free & Pre-installed)

Are Apple Watch faces free? Yes! If you don't want to pay a subscription, the native Watch app has a great selection created by Apple that you can browse in the Apple Watch Face Gallery. New options are often released with software updates; the newest are Flux and Reflections, released with watchOS 11 with more on the way with watchOS 12. These free watch faces for Apple Watch faces will also experience fewer glitches and will work seamlessly with your watch, unlike third-party app options.

Some watch faces are only available on newer models because they take advantage of newer hardware. For example, Portraits is available for most newer models and lets you set portrait mode images as backgrounds. The best Portraits photos for Apple Watch faces contain friends, family, or pets, but they can also be inanimate objects. Another reason the Watch app made the cut is that once you add a third-party watch face to your Apple Watch, you will need to use the Watch app to customize it or delete it.

Now you know how to get new custom Apple Watch faces, and even how to customize your faces free of charge! I have also covered how to switch between faces on the Apple Watch. The hard part is to pick your favorite faces out of essentially unlimited choices. Do keep in mind that some watch faces may drain your battery faster than others, especially when they have many complications. Read this next to discover the best Apple Watch complications to further customize your watch!