The argument is over.
ScreenWage turns "can I play?" into "here's what I earned." Kids earn game time through chores and real-world activity. You approve every minute. The negotiation leaves the room, because the ledger already answered.
No accounts. No ads. No subscription. Your family's data never leaves your family's phones.
Free tier is the complete system, forever. No trial clock.
Three steps. One honest ledger.
Real minutes become XP
Off-screen activities earn at 2 real minutes → 1 XP. Chores earn faster: 1 minute → 1.5 XP. Kids start a timer, do the thing, and stop it — or log it by hand.
A parent signs every line
Every earn goes through PIN-protected parent mode. Nothing lands in the bank until you say it happened. Spending stays locked until the daily hygiene, health, and safety checklist is cleared — by you, not by the app.
XP buys game time
1 XP = 1 minute of play. Kids spend from a bank they built themselves. When the timer runs out, the answer to "five more minutes?" is the same one the ledger gives: earn more.
Built to grow character, not just track chores.
The honesty clause.
Tell the truth about a broken rule before it's discovered, and any penalty is cut in half — automatically, every time. The system pays for honesty because honesty is the skill we're actually teaching.
One grace day, every week.
Streaks come with a built-in automatic grace day. Brittle streaks punish kids with ADHD and executive-functioning differences hardest — one bad Tuesday shouldn't erase three good weeks. That's a special-education design decision, not a loophole.
No leaderboard. Ever.
Siblings aren't competitors. There is no ranking screen in any tier of ScreenWage, and there never will be. Each kid runs their own race against their own habits.
Generosity pays interest.
A kid can gift XP to a sibling — and the app mints a 25% parent match on top as a bonus. Family goals accrue from earning, never by taxing kids' banks. Giving should cost less than it gives.
Every other app in this aisle is a subscription.
Chore, allowance, and screen-time apps run $4–$13 a month. Some bundle debit cards or device filtering — different tools for different jobs — but the meter runs every month either way. ScreenWage is priced like the household tool it is: once.
| App | Price | 1 year | 2 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joon | $12.99/mo · $89.99/yr | $89.99 | $179.98 |
| Qustodio (Complete) | $99.95/yr | $99.95 | $199.90 |
| Greenlight (Core) | $5.99/mo | $71.88 | $143.76 |
| Chirp | $6.99/mo · $49.99/yr | $49.99 | $99.98 |
| BusyKid | $4/mo, billed $48/yr | $48.00 | $96.00 |
| ScreenWage Founder's Key | $19 once | $19 | $19 |
Annual-plan pricing where offered (the cheapest way to buy each app). Published prices as of July 2026; check each provider for current rates. These apps differ in scope — some include debit cards or device-level filtering that ScreenWage deliberately doesn't do. The comparison is what a family pays over time to run an earn-and-reward system at home. And the ScreenWage free tier is $0 on every line.
We can't sell your family's data. We never receive it.
- No accounts. Nobody signs up for anything. There is no email field, no password, no profile on a server somewhere. Your family's ledger lives on your family's phones.
- The relay can't read your data. When a parent phone and kid phones sync, the data travels end-to-end encrypted through a relay that stores only ciphertext. We couldn't look at your family's information if we wanted to — the math won't let us.
- Works completely offline. A full offline code system runs the whole earn-approve-spend loop with no connection at all. Camping trip, dead zone, no Wi-Fi — the ledger doesn't care.
- Location stamps are optional, single-moment, and never exported. If you turn them on, outdoor activities get a one-time GPS stamp at start and stop — never continuous tracking — and those stamps are excluded from every backup and export.
- Your data belongs to you, free. JSON export, a printable family report, and full restore are all in the free tier — deliberately. Leaving should never cost money, and your records should never be hostage to a plan.
- Locked out? PIN recovery works from a recovery phrase you hold. For everything else that could go wrong, we wrote it down honestly: What happens if…
Free is the product. The Key makes it yours.
Free
$0
forever · no trial clock · no card- The complete earning system with a fixed, field-tested ruleset
- Parent mode, approvals, daily basics gate
- Honesty clause, grace day, sibling gifting with parent match
- Multi-device sync and full offline codes
- JSON export, printable family report, restore
Founder's Key
$19
one-time · yours for good · not a subscription- Everything in Free, plus full customization:
- Set your own earning rates and multipliers
- Edit the activity and chore menus
- Adjust seasons, caps, and the parent-match percentage
- Tune the system to your family instead of ours
FAQ
Does ScreenWage lock or control my kid's phone?
No — and that's a decision, not a gap. ScreenWage tracks and banks time on the honor system, with a parent approving every earn and clearing every gate. The authority in your house is you, not an app. Enforcement software teaches kids to beat the software; a ledger the whole family trusts teaches them to keep their word. If you need device-level lockdown, ScreenWage isn't that tool — and it pairs fine alongside one if you use it.
What happens if I lose my phone?
The free tier includes full JSON export and restore, and PIN recovery works from a recovery phrase you keep. We wrote a whole page walking through every failure case — including the uncomfortable ones — in plain language: What happens if…
Is my kid's data collected?
No. There are no accounts and no analytics, so there's nothing on our side holding anyone's data. When your family's phones sync, the information travels end-to-end encrypted through a relay that only ever sees scrambled ciphertext it cannot decode. The readable copy of your family's ledger exists in exactly one place: on your family's own devices.
Do I need to install anything from an app store?
No. ScreenWage is an installable web app (PWA). Open it in your phone's browser, choose "Add to Home Screen," and it installs and runs like a native app — including offline. No store account, no store tracking, no waiting on updates.
What exactly do the earning rates look like?
In the free tier's fixed ruleset: non-tech activities earn at 2 real minutes → 1 XP, chores earn at 1 minute → 1.5 XP, and 1 XP always buys 1 minute of game time. Spending stays closed until a parent confirms the daily hygiene, health, and safety checklist. The Founder's Key lets you change the rates, menus, and caps to fit your house.
Is the free version a trial?
No. Free is the complete, working system with a fixed ruleset — the same one the developer's own family runs. It never expires, never nags, and never holds your data hostage. The $19 Founder's Key adds customization; it doesn't unlock the app.
Who made this?
A practicing K–12 special-education case manager in the Chicago suburbs, who built it for his own two sons and then made it available to everyone. ScreenWage is a product of Clear Educational Advocacy and Consulting.