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Which app is right for your child? The quick summary
- Start free: Google Family Link. Official, no paid tier, enough for an under-13. Its ten blind spots are printed below, straight from Google.
- Filter the web from 13 up: Qustodio. Free covers one device; Basic is $59.95 a year for five devices.
- Watch the conversations: Bark. Premium is $99 a year. It flags the signal, not the receipts.
- Skip for now: Aura. TechRadar's overall pick; its own help article excludes some Android phones sold outside the US.
- Every price here was read on 14 November 2026.
Saturday, 7:40 in the morning, and my phone is already warm. My neighbour's boy is ten, it is his phone this year. I asked him at breakfast what he watched the night before. "Cartoons," he said. The downtime report on it said otherwise: 11 p.m., two football highlight accounts, one Minecraft that refused to end.
I know this house. One phone per child, a Tecno or an Infinix bought at Computer Village, and a bundle that dies around the 20th. The WhatsApp groups ask the same question: what is this phone showing my child, and how do I see it without becoming the villain.
The answer is supervision, not blocking. Supervision writes a schedule on the phone's account. Blocking builds a wall. Google hands the first one over free.
The affiliate disclosure page prints it plainly: no affiliate programme is live today, so no link in this post earns a fee.
Monitoring or blocking: pick the job first
Kids work this out faster than their parents do. Blocking is what the phone refuses to open. Monitoring is what you want to know. Most fights in this house start because both sides thought they bought the second and got the first.
Supervision can be stopped at any time if your child is over 13 (or the applicable age in your country), but children under 18 will need a parent's approval to do so.
That is Google's supervision page in one breath. The easy line is "kids go free at 13". The whole rule is 13 or your country's applicable age, and a parent still taps approve until 18.
A child under the age of 18 will need a parent's approval to stop supervision.
Both halves print on the same page.
Google also prints what Family Link cannot do on a child's existing account. Here is that list, Google's own, verbatim:
| Family Link cannot… |
|---|
| Remotely check your child's screen |
| Find your child's past searches |
| Check your child's Chrome browsing history |
| Check your child's YouTube watch history |
| Check or reset your child's account password |
| Read your child's emails or messages |
| Listen to your child's calls |
| Choose a new screen lock password on your child's device |
| Block your child from stopping supervision after they turn 18 |
| Link your child's account to Google Home |
Two items in that list change how you use the thing. Family Link will never read your child's emails, messages or calls. And it cannot block your child from stopping supervision after they turn 18.
It watches schedules and apps, never conversations. The same page lists today's requirements: Android 5+ and iOS 13+ for best results, Android 7.0+ on the child's device to stop supervision from it.
The parent must be 18 or the age in their country. The child must agree. You both live in the same country. Under 13, supervision is not optional for the account.
Remove the child from the family group and Google disables the account, and it may be deleted. At 13 or your country's age, the door opens, but your approval is still required until 18.
So buy for the job. Under 13, the free app is the default and it is good. Want filters? Qustodio. Want a heads-up about a stranger in the chat? Bark.
The three picks, free first
Free and safe first, paid last, and no paid row ever sits above the free one.
Google Family Link, the free first move
Who it is for: you, if the child is under 13 and the phone is shared, hand-me-down or hard-won.
What it does: Play install approvals, app blocking, daily limits, a device lock for study and sleep. Location, SafeSearch, purchase approvals and supervised YouTube. The Play listing prints 100M+ downloads.
What it costs: nothing. There is no paid Family Link.
Where it loses: the ten blind spots above, plus the bigger one. It is a schedule with an eye on apps, not a nanny.
It will not ping you about the 2 a.m. voice note from a stranger. For that, keep reading.
Install path: follow the link above, install the parent app on your phone, then let the child approve supervision on theirs.
Qustodio, the 13-plus pick
Who it is for: you, once the child is past the age gate and you want web filtering, app limits and location in one place.
What it does: web filtering, daily time limits, games and apps blocking, location monitoring, a pause-internet button and 30-day activity reports.
The free plan protects a single device. The Play listing prints 10M+ downloads.
What it costs: the vendor's premium page, read today, serves $59.95 a year for Basic (5 devices; renewal $72.94) and $104.95 for Complete (unlimited). Your card will see your region's price.
Where it loses: it is one more account and one more password to keep alive. One more app that dies quietly if your child uninstalls it and you never notice.
A clever child finds the gap in the schedule before you find the settings menu.
Bark, the pick for conversations
Who it is for: you, if your real fear is not the screen time but who is in the chat.
What it does: scans texts, email and 30+ apps and social platforms for signs of cyberbullying, self-harm and online predators, then alerts you. It tells you when to look; it does not hand you the transcript.
The Play listing prints 1M+ downloads.
What it costs: Bark's pricing page sets Jr at $5 + tax a month or $49 + tax a year, 18% saved. Premium is $14 + tax a month or $99 + tax a year, 41% saved. Premium includes everything in Jr, unlimited kids and devices.
Where it loses: it needs the child's accounts linked to work at all, and it reports in signals, not receipts. It is an early warning, not a case file.
Aura, the one the US desks crown
TechRadar's security desk names Aura its best parental control app overall. That crown is earned on US turf, with US phones and US jurisdictions. The fine print is the story, and Aura prints it itself.
Aura's parents page, read today, prices Aura at $8.33 a month billed annually or $9.99 monthly. The plan covers unlimited kids and devices, on iOS 16+ and Android 12+, with a 14-day trial.
Aura's help article says it plainly: "Some Android devices sold outside the U.S., such as Xiaomi and Huawei, are not supported."
Its footnotes add that a 2022 ath Power Consulting study "was compensated by Aura".
Outside the US, Aura is not a buy today. It is a US identity product with a parenting arm, priced in dollars and hedged by region.
If you are in the US with a supported phone, it may suit you. It is not this site's pick.
What they cost today
| Plan | Price |
|---|---|
| Google Family Link | Free, always |
| Qustodio Free | 1 device |
| Qustodio Basic, yearly | $59.95 ($5.00 a month; renews at $72.94), 5 devices |
| Qustodio Complete, yearly | $104.95 ($8.75 a month), unlimited devices |
| Bark Jr, monthly / yearly | $5 + tax / $49 + tax |
| Bark Premium, monthly / yearly | $14 + tax / $99 + tax (41% saved) |
| Aura Parents | $8.33 a month billed annually, or $9.99 monthly |
Qustodio's page serves each region its own price, so your checkout may differ from the dollar figures above. The free tier covering one device at zero is verified on the same page.
Bark's help page also prints the Bark Phone at $240 upfront from Amazon or Walmart. That is $240 upfront, or $10 a month for 24 months at 0% interest financed by Bark. The Starter Plan is $29 a month plus tax: unlimited talk and text, location tracking, no internet, plus Bark Premium for the family.
Hardware stays out of scope here. Net Nanny and Norton Family keep appearing on the US desks, and neither prints a price I can verify for every buyer today.
No verifiable price in your currency, no pick. That rule holds for everyone.
Will it survive a clever child, and should you bother
PCMag no longer assigns ratings to third-party parental control products. Their stated reasons: invasive software can be counterproductive. A curious child can often circumvent many restrictions.
And most third-party apps they tested collect and store troubling amounts of data. Read that slowly. It does not say Family Link or Qustodio are useless. It says the third-party category hoards more data than you should sleep on.
The honest frame is training wheels, not a vault. You are buying the weekly check-in, the agreed schedule and an alarm when something is genuinely wrong. You are not buying a quiet house.
What works, in order: the schedule agreed out loud before install, a fixed weekly check-in, and one consequence you both know. The app documents the agreement.
If that sounds like parenting with software on top, you just described the category. If your data finishes at 2 p.m., the phone is not supervised, it is just offline.
Nigeria: doing this on a Tecno
My test phone is my phone. HiOS is Android underneath, so the Play Store listings above are the listings you see. Family Link installs on a Tecno or Infinix the same way it installs anywhere else.
Google runs an English-for-Nigeria Family Link page at families.google.com/intl/en_ng/familylink/, live today. The free tool is officially here, and nobody had to mirror it from anywhere.
The bundle is the real budget. If data dies around the 20th, download everything on home Wi-Fi and let the report sync in the evening. Supervision that needs mobile data weekly is supervision you designed to fail.
One phone per child is the norm here, and it is usually hand-me-down tech. Supervision follows the Google account, not the hardware. That answers the old question about kids running USSD to factory-reset the phone and wipe the control app.
A factory reset wipes the apps. It does not wipe supervision off a child under 13, because Google's own page says that account must stay supervised.
Pull it from the family group and the account is disabled. The clever shortcut still loses.
The pages ranking for this in Nigeria right now are APK-mirror sites and one shell hosted on a university domain. None of them sells you safety. If an install route is not the Play Store, it is not an install route.
None of this is about spying. It is about whose voice note rides in the group chat at 2 a.m., and what the algorithm keeps teaching the small head.
You are not a sergeant; you are the adult in the room with a report card.
Which one is yours
- First phone, child under 13: Family Link only. Free, one Saturday afternoon, one calm house.
- Teen past 13, want web filtering and location: Qustodio Basic, about $59.95 a year.
- Strangers scare you more than screens: Bark Premium, about $99 a year.
- Sibling shares the phone: Family Link on the child's own profile; the free route still holds.
- Qustodio or Bark: Qustodio for schedules and filters; Bark for conversation alerts. Pick per what keeps you up, not per brand.
- Net Nanny or Norton Family: no price I can verify anywhere. Leave them on the shelf.
Questions readers ask
Is Family Link enough for free?
For most under-13 households, yes. Schedule, app approvals, limits and location come free. Its ten blind spots (no messages, no email, no calls) are printed above. If those matter, add Qustodio or Bark.
Can a 13-year-old just stop supervision?
No. Google's page says 13 (or your country's applicable age) opens the question, not the approval. Stopping supervision before 18 still needs your tap, and you both get notified when supervision stops.
Will these apps work on a Tecno or Infinix?
Yes. HiOS is Android, so the Play Store installs run the same. To stop supervision, the child's device needs Android 7.0 or higher, which every handset sold here in years meets. Check Aura carefully; it excludes phones outside the US.
Monitoring or blocking: which one do I want?
Monitoring tells you what happened; blocking decides what opens. Start with monitoring and one agreed schedule. Move to blocking only for content you cannot yet trust them near.
Can a second browser or VPN beat Qustodio?
Sometimes. PCMag's testers say a curious child can often circumvent many restrictions, and the second browser is the common gap. That is why the weekly check-in beats any filter.
Do I need a second phone?
No. Supervision rides the Google account, not the hardware. One hand-me-down Tecno per child works. A second phone is luxury, not a requirement.
Which is cheapest that still does the job?
Family Link, at free. It is a schedule, not a supervisor. If you need conversations watched, Bark Jr at about $49 a year is the cheapest paid route.
What to do first
Open Settings on the child's phone. On Android 8.1 or later, tap Digital Wellbeing & parental controls. On other versions, tap Google, All services, then Kids & family, then Parental controls.
Choose the account, set the schedule, and agree it out loud before you tap approve. Watch one week of the report together, Sunday evening, screens flat on the table.
That meeting is the actual parental control; the app brings the slides. My Android problems hub collects the fixes, read the same way on the same phone, for when the Tecno starts acting up after setup.
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