What the app actually does.
Collar & Key organizes a negotiated adult relationship: the contract behind it, the expectations that follow from it, and an honest record of how it's going. A dynamic is the one thing the app requires. Beyond that, take the parts that fit the two of you and leave the rest.
Dynamics
A dynamic is the container for everything else. One partner creates it, the other joins and takes their role, and from that point contracts, tasks, scenes and shared journals all belong to the dynamic rather than to either account. Both of you see the same thing.
Life interrupts. One tap pauses the whole dynamic, and what's expected is suspended instead of failed, so stepping away for a week doesn't leave a record that reads like a week of failures.
You can belong to several dynamics with different partners, and your role, name and photo can differ in each. They stay completely separate: nothing in one is visible from another.
Contracts & amendments
A contract is a set of clauses: rules, tasks, rewards, limits, whatever you've negotiated. While it's a draft, either of you can change it freely and see what the other has proposed.
Not sure what to put in it? Start with our free BDSM contract template.
A contract takes effect only when both partners sign. After that its terms are locked: they cannot be edited in place, by either of you.
To alter a signed contract you raise an amendment. The other person sees exactly what's proposed and has to accept it before it becomes binding. Nothing changes quietly.
The Dominant's commitments belong in the contract too. They're written down alongside everything else and marked as kept, so the agreement isn't one person's list of obligations.
Today, tasks & the moments between
The home screen is a view of the day: what's due now, what's waiting on you, what's waiting on your partner, and a quick daily question about headspace so each of you knows where the other is. It's the screen you actually open, so it stays short.
You set how much each task demands. Some are only a reminder. Others need to be marked done, or reviewed and signed off before they count. Run most of your dynamic lightly and save the strict handling for the few things that warrant it.
That choice matters to us. An app that turns every small thing into something to report stops being a record of your dynamic and starts being the thing you answer to, and we would rather ask too little than too much.
One-off, daily, certain days of the week, or a flexible weekly target you meet on whichever days suit. Rigid schedules break on the first busy week, and a schedule nobody can keep stops being an agreement and starts being a backlog. Reminders follow your own time zone, so traveling doesn't turn into a missed task.
Submitted work goes to the Dominant to accept or not, with a photo or short clip where the two of you want one. No task is ever marked failed by the app on someone's behalf, and an unfair call can be corrected afterwards, with the correction recorded alongside the original.
Not everything fits a schedule. The submissive can ask permission and get a clear answer. The Dominant can give a command in the moment. And a broken rule can be owned up to, rather than left for the other person to find.
Rules, rituals, rewards & corrections
Some expectations don't have a due date: how you greet each other, how you ask for something, what's expected in company. Those live as rules and protocols, written down once so nobody has to remember the wording.
The Dominant can log praise as well as corrections. Recognition being as recordable as correction is deliberate. A log that only holds failures is a distorted picture of a relationship.
If you turn points on, consistency earns them and rewards cost them. If you don't, none of it appears. Rewards and punishments are defined by you, agreed in advance, and drawn from what you've already negotiated.
Scenes & aftercare
A scene is a reusable plan: an ordered set of steps, an intensity, the gear involved and an aftercare plan. Run it as often as you like, and each session keeps its own notes and debrief.
Staring at an empty scene plan is its own kind of block, so the app can draft one for you, shaped by what the two of you have already told it and bounded by the limits you've set. What comes back is a draft to edit, not a script to follow.
Either partner can propose a session for the other to confirm, and by default a scene waits until you've both been through a short check before it begins.
Calling the safeword ends the session and moves directly into the aftercare plan you wrote while you were calm and negotiating. It is recorded as a stop, not a failure, and there is no blame framing anywhere in the app around it.
A day after a scene, and again a few days later, each of you gets a private check-in. If you ask for care, your partner hears that you asked, and nothing more.
Chastity & denial
Keyholding stays switched off until both of you turn it on, and a hard limit from either of you keeps it off.
The keyholder sets the terms of a lock. The wearer reads them and starts it, or doesn't. Either way it's a decision, not a surprise.
A clear timer, breaks for hygiene, check-in photos when the keyholder asks for one, and time that tasks can earn off. For more tension, keep the end hidden or let a spin of the wheel decide.
Emergency release is always there for the wearer, even offline, and it is never behind a subscription. Calling the safeword pauses the lock along with everything else.
Guided programs
Short programs for where you are right now: your first steps, a month of protocol or service, aftercare habits, structure at a distance, or rebuilding after a rough patch. New ones are added over time.
Each week brings a handful of rules, tasks, conversations or scenes. They arrive as a proposed amendment, so nothing joins your contract until you've both signed, and anything that doesn't suit you can be taken out first.
When a program ends, each of you decides what stays. The rest goes, and the app suggests where to go next.
Check-ins
Weekly, fortnightly or monthly, at a time that suits you both. Each of you answers the same questions on your own, then you see the answers side by side, starting with the places you differ.
Start with the core questions, or choose a deck for what's on your mind: aftercare, service, protocol, play, desires, or how the power exchange itself is going. Add questions of your own.
What you decide gets an owner and a date, and comes back at the next check-in to be marked done or let go. It's the difference between talking about it and actually changing something.
Prefer to start on paper? Try our free D/s check-in questions and worksheet.
Journals, interests & limits
Keep a shared journal the two of you both read, and topics of your own for the things you'd rather think through privately. Entries carry a mood, photos and short videos.
A structured list where each partner rates their interest in an activity, including the things that are a firm no. Put both lists side by side and you can see where you overlap, where you're curious, and where one of you has drawn a line.
It makes limits explicit instead of assumed, and that comparison is usually the most useful conversation the app starts.
A read on your own history: consistency over time, what's working and what keeps slipping. It's there to inform a conversation, not to score anyone, and nobody outside the dynamic ever sees it.
Pictures and clips from journals, tasks and lock check-ins are gathered in one place you can look through, instead of scattered across months of history. Keep what's worth keeping and clear out the rest.
Community & discover
The community is entirely optional. A public profile for your dynamic, under a handle, needs both of you to agree to it, and either of you can take it down. What you write stays private unless you choose to share it.
Publish a ritual, a contract clause or a scene plan for others to adapt, and follow dynamics whose approach you like. What you import arrives as a copy you can edit, and it doesn't stay linked to theirs.
Discover is a member-curated collection of books, podcasts and educational resources about consensual power exchange, with moderation applied before anything goes live.
There is no matching, no browsing for partners, and no explicit content. The community exists so people already in a dynamic can learn from each other.
Platforms & pricing
Collar & Key is being built for iOS, Android and the web, with your information kept in step across every device you sign in on.
We would rather charge nothing for this. We can't. Storage, processing and the servers that keep a dynamic in sync across your devices cost money every month, and V&B Software is a small studio with nobody funding it but the people who use the app.
What we could do was make the free version worth having rather than a trial in disguise. A dynamic, a signed contract and its tasks, scenes, keyholding, check-ins, a first guided program, journaling, limits and the community are all there without paying.
CK Premium adds the rest: more than one dynamic and contract, unlimited tasks and the advanced schedules, every guided program and check-in deck, hidden time and games for keyholding, video proof, journal topics of your own, up to 15 generated scenes a month, your full history in analytics, and 2 GB of storage, billed monthly or yearly. One subscription covers both partners, so you are never both paying for the same thing. Subscriptions start with a free trial, billing is handled by the App Store or Google Play, and you can cancel there at any time.
The app is strictly for people aged 18 or over. See our safety approach for how that's handled.