Extra screen time costs money they earned
You set the daily limit — the only way past it is buying fifteen minutes at a time, with money they earned doing chores.
Join the free betaiPhone and iPad · iOS 16+ · free for founding families
The timer runs out and the negotiation starts. You cave, or you're the villain. With Earnlings the limit holds: fifteen more minutes costs a quarter of the money they earned — and before it goes through, they see what that quarter costs their savings goal. Most nights they put it down and keep the quarter.
Their day, on their phone
You post two kinds of work. Responsibilities are unpaid, part of being in the family. Quests pay real money. Both can repeat on a schedule, so you set them once.
Your kid opens the app and sees exactly what today asks of them. The app makes the ask, so you stop being the reminder.
A wallet they actually earned
Every approved quest lands in their wallet with a receipt. They can cash out, put it toward a savings goal they picked themselves, or give some away.
Money never moves through Earnlings. You pay your kid the way you already do, cash or Venmo or however. The app just keeps the record straight.
Showing up becomes the game
Trophies, levels, streaks, and sproutlings, an earned currency they spend on power-ups and on privileges you define. A reliability calendar marks every day honestly.
Miss a day? It is not just lost. They make it right with a kind act or a short lesson on values every family shares, like honesty and keeping your word. A slip becomes practice instead of shame.
One place for the stuff you share
Private family chat, polls for the things you actually argue about, a shared calendar, and a weekly family goal everyone works toward together.
On your side: one home screen with everything waiting on you, and a written recap each week of how each kid is really doing.
Screen time, tied to real life
Built on Apple's own Family Controls, so the limits actually hold.
Set app limits and scheduled downtime for bedtime and school. When the limit runs out, your kid can buy extra minutes with money they earned, entirely on your terms: you set the price, the block size, and the daily cap — and bedtime can never be bought out. Screen time stops being a negotiation and becomes something with a real cost.
Enforcement runs on your kid's own device, set up as a child account in Apple Family Sharing. Their usage data never leaves their phone, and never comes to us.
What they don't notice they're learning
It looks like screen-time rules and an allowance ledger. Underneath, your kid is practicing the things school never grades: showing up daily, saving for something they picked, making a slip right instead of hiding it, and finding out what their time is actually worth. Reward follows effort — not the other way around.
Fits your actual family
One phone or five
Kids with their own device get their own login. Kids without one get a parent-managed profile on yours, switchable in a tap.
Six-year-olds and sixteen-year-olds
Set each kid's reading and writing level so the app asks for what they can actually give.
Planning and reflecting
A daily plan they build themselves, short guided journal reflections, and a place to log kind things they did for someone else.
Optional, off by default
A giving option, and a practice invest section with play money and a made-up market. Switch them on when your kid is ready.
A kids app should have to earn your trust
- No ads, ever.
- No tracking, and no analytics SDKs following your kid around.
- Your family's data is never sold.
- Earnlings never touches your money. Dollar amounts are records of what you owe your kid.
- Delete your account, or any child's account and all their data, any time in Settings.
Founding families
Free during the beta. Free for you, forever.
Everything is unlocked right now, there is nothing to buy, and your family's data carries over to launch. At launch Earnlings becomes a paid app with a free trial, but founding families in this beta keep it free for life.
Your feedback goes straight to the person building it and shapes what ships.
Before you install, one honest note: the screen-time half needs your kid to have their own iPhone and to sit next to you for about fifteen minutes — Apple requires the kid to grant the permission and pick the apps from their own device. The chores-and-allowance half works on day one, even on a single shared phone.
Opens in TestFlight, Apple's official beta app · about 10 minutes to set up
Support
Questions, bugs, or help with your account: email earnlings@gmail.com and you will hear back within a day. Parents can delete their account, or any child's account and its data, in the app under Settings.