Best Parental Control Apps for iPhone (Free & Paid Included)

For today’s generation, having a phone is as essential to them as food and air! Giving your child a phone is always a double-edged sword. While on one hand, the phone will help you stay connected to them – something that is essential in the kind of world we live in. On the other hand, it also becomes an easy way for your child to watch or read new things.

As a parent, you know that the internet can be one of the best places for your child to gain new knowledge and perspectives. This, of course, is essential to their well-rounded development. However, it can also be a place where your child may watch or read content that is inappropriate for their age, or even downright dangerous. No one wants their child to watch sexually explicit content or even violent videos that will leave your child traumatized.

This is where Parental Control apps come in. iPhones are possibly the most secure and easy to use phones for your child to use. Regulating what your child has access to, is equally easy. Finding the best parental control app is all about balancing the features you need, with the amount of money you are willing to dish out for a monthly subscription. Of course, if you are only looking for basic features, many of these apps are also free!

Let’s jump right into the see the top and best parental control apps for iPhones.

1. Bark (BEST OVERALL)

At the top of our list of recommended apps is Bark.

Bark was founded by someone who is a parent of two girls himself, and that’s how you know that you will always get brilliant features and services from this app. By their own admission, Bark has detected more than 267,000 severe self-harm situations, as well as more than 2 million severe bullying situations. They currently protect more than 5 million children.

One of the best features of Bark is that it is a good balance of giving your child the privacy they deserve, while simultaneously detecting and notifying you about potential online bullying, profanity, violence etc.

On the advanced plan, you can monitor activity over more than 30 apps, as well as over text messages, emails etc. At the time of writing this blog post, the Bark Premium plan costs 14 USD per month or 99 USD annually.

Bark’s standard plan, called Bark Jr is perfect if you have younger children and you only need to manage their screen time and filter out which websites are okay for them to browse. With the Bark Jr plan, as a parent, you can also enable location check-ins, giving you a sense of security and peace of mind. Bark Jr currently costs 5 USD per month or 49 USD annually.

2. KasperskySafe Kids (BEST BUDGET)

One of the best budget parental control apps for iPhones is the KasperskySafe Kids app. This app only costs 14 USD annually for new customers at the moment. This subscription gives you the ability to monitor what sites your child has access to. You can filter out sites that you do not want them to visit, as well as customize a list of websites that they can access with your permission. You can also monitor your child’s YouTube searches with this app, and prevent them from accessing any inappropriate videos.

The KasperskySafe Kids app is also one of the best parental control apps for iPhones because it allows you to track your kids’ location. The app allows you to set a geographical area in which you want your kids to stay. If your child steps outside this predetermined area, the app sends you an immediate notification.

However, this app is better suited to younger children since it does not really monitor social media, unlike Bark or other apps on this list.

3. NetNanny (BEST REAL-TIME ALERTS)

As the name suggests, NetNanny is a parental control app for iPhones that offers a very effective content filtering service that prevents your child from accessing inappropriate content.

With their Family Feed feature, as a parent, you get instant reports on what your child has been searching for online, and also what apps they have downloaded or used recently.

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One of the best features of the NetNanny app is its real-time alerts on whether your child has viewed or attempted to view any sensitive content, including violence, gore, adult content or even drugs and weapons-related content.

Their Family Protection Pass plan includes 5 devices and the app can be installed on iPhones as well as on a PC or MacBook. This plan is currently on offer at a reduced price of 54.99 USD annually.

4. MobiStealth

Monitoring chats and messages on platforms like WeChat, iMessage and WhatsApp becomes easy with MobiStealth. Like most other parental control apps for iPhone, this app also offers access to your child’s current location, allowing you to see where they are in real-time. MobiStealth will also allow you to see your child’s call details, and what they have been browsing on the internet.

Installing this app is easy, as you only need the iTunes credentials of your child’s device.

Their Premium Plus plan for iPhones costs 49.99 USD for 3 months, or from 16.66 USD per month. They also claim to offer 15 days money-back guarantee. If you are not satisfied with the service, they will issue you a full refund, provided you contact them within 15 days of subscribing to the app.

5. FamilyTime

Claiming to be the world’s most powerful parental app, FamilyTime offers a variety of features that will wow any parent.

Some of their best features include their BedTime and their Homework Time controls. Both these features allow you to block your child from accessing apps on their phone during specific hours so that your child is able to focus on their homework or getting a good night’s sleep.

The app also offers Geo-Fencing, a feature that allows you to get alerts if your child enters or exits any predetermined locations. This is especially useful for parents that live in cities or places with higher crime rates.

This app also features a unique feature called PickMeUp. This allows your child to simply tap on a button on the app on their device, after which you will get an immediate alert to when and where you need to pick them up from. Handy? Totally!

The app offers a 3-day free trial, after which you sign up for the plan of your choice. Plans range from 27 USD to 69 USD annually.

That’s my top 5 best parental control apps for iPhone. I hope you found what you are looking for through this post and that this post helped you make a decision on which app suits you the best.