Parental controls, filtering and monitoring
What the free built-in tools already do, when a paid one is worth it, and where monitoring costs more than it buys.
Two things worth knowing before you choose.
Filtering and monitoring are different. Filtering tries to stop material reaching your child and produces no record of what they said to anyone. Monitoring reports their activity back to you. Most parents who describe a monitoring worry actually want filtering, which carries almost none of the same cost.
The free options are listed first on purpose. Google Family Link and Apple Screen Time cost nothing and cover most of what the subscriptions advertise. Rule them out before paying. And the honest answer about monitoring changes sharply with a child’s age. The full argument is in should you monitor your teen’s phone.
Already narrowed it down to these four? Bark vs Qustodio vs Family Link vs Canopy, compared side by side.
Google Family Link
FreeGoogle's own controls, at no cost
Screen time limits, app approval, content filtering across Chrome, Play, YouTube and Search, plus location. Free, and enough for most families on Android.
Apple Screen Time
FreeAlready on the iPhone you bought them
Downtime, per-app limits and content restrictions through Family Sharing. Built in, so there is nothing to install and nothing to pay.
Canopy
From $8.33/moContent filtering with sexting detection
Filters explicit content in real time and alerts on sexting, across phones, tablets and computers.
Bark
From $14/moAI alerts on messages and social
Scans texts, apps and social accounts and alerts you to potential problems rather than showing you everything.
Qustodio
Free / PremiumFiltering and limits across every device
Web filtering, per-app time limits, app blocking and location, with a free tier to try it on one device.
Try the built-in controls first
Apple’s Screen Time and Google’s Family Link are free, already on the device, and cover most of what the paid tools sell: app limits, downtime schedules, content restrictions and purchase approval. For a younger child on a single platform they are frequently the whole answer, and the honest advice is to rule them out before paying for anything.
What the paid tools add is cross-platform coverage, real-time content filtering, and alerting. Those matter most for a household with mixed devices, or where a specific concern has already come up.
Filtering and monitoring are different decisions
They get sold together and they are not the same thing. Filtering blocks material before a child reaches it, and for a younger child it is uncontroversial. Monitoring reports back on what a child did, and it carries a cost the product pages do not mention: the mechanism that keeps a teenager safe is their willingness to tell you when something goes wrong, and covert monitoring is the thing most likely to end it.
Most parents worried about what a child might see actually want filtering. The argument in full, including where the age line sits, is in should you monitor your teen’s phone.
What none of these fix
No subscription substitutes for the ongoing conversation, and a tool bought instead of having it tends to be discovered and resented. A control a child does not know about is a secret you are keeping from them, which is the same thing you are asking them not to do with you.