Editors' Note: PCMag is no longer rating third-party parental control apps. In recent years, our testing has found that these apps can be unreliable at protecting your children online, and they can even be counterproductive if they alienate your kids by making them feel spied on. Instead, we encourage you to try free native OS parental monitoring and screen time-limiting apps from Apple, Google, and Microsoft. They aren't consistently effective either, but you don't have to pay for them. Our roundup of the best free parental control apps has our current recommendations.
Any parental control app you choose should work on every device your child uses. Luckily, Mobicip has parental control apps for a wide variety of platforms at lower prices than the competition. We like that the app allows you to create customized screen time schedules and track your child's location using geofencing tools. Even though Mobicip's social media monitoring is limited to just three platforms, the app remains an affordable choice for keeping an eye on your child while they're online.
How Much Does Mobicip Cost?
Mobicip offers parental controls at three price points: Lite, Standard, and Premium. Lite is $2.99 per month and covers up to five devices. Lite features include activity report generation, app blocking, remote device locking, screen time limits, app uninstall protection, and website blocking for browsers. The Standard subscription includes the same features but rises to $4.99 per month because it adds coverage for up to 10 devices. The Premium plan is $7.99 per month and adds app timers, parenting tips, social media monitoring, and support for up to 20 devices to the robust feature list.
When compared with some of the other parental control apps we've observed, Mobicip is an affordable parental solution. The Lite version is $35.88 annually, which is less than Norton Family ($49.99/year), Qustodio (starts at $54.95/year), or Bark app ($168/year). FamilyTime costs less at $29, but you're limited to monitoring a single device. Boomerang is $19.99/year, but it only monitors Android devices.
Mobicip's Platform Availability and Support Options
Mobicip offers dedicated Android, ChromeOS, iOS, Kindle Fire, macOS, and Windows apps. That's a wide range of operating systems that should cover most families' devices.
When you or your child have a problem with Mobicip's functionality, who can help you? Few app companies offer 24-hour live, human support options, with most adopting generative-AI powered chatbots for this purpose in recent years. Mobicip's chatbot, Astra, worked well for us. We like that the quick, concise answers saved us a scroll through pages of support documents. If you need to speak to a human, you can schedule a call with a Mobicip support agent via a Calendly widget on the website. Help via email is also available.
Mobicip's Data Collection and Privacy Policy
As you can see from the privacy reports on Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store, Mobicip does collect rather a lot of data about your child's behavior, including their web searches, their location, and their social media interactions (not surprisingly, given the app's purpose). That said, Mobicip clearly states in its privacy policy that it does not sell or share your or your child's data with third-party companies, which is good.
If you decide to delete the app, make sure to send a message to the support team to request an account deletion, too. The privacy policy doesn't state explicitly that it deletes all of your or your child's data, but only that it deletes the account. The Mobicip terms of service state that Mobicip is not liable for any data-related damages your device incurs after you install it, so keep that in mind, too. With the rise of AI-assisted tools, we've started parsing privacy policies to determine if companies use your data to train their AI models. Mobicip does not mention AI training in its privacy policy or terms of service documents.
Mobicip's Best Features
Mobicip has a Parent Dashboard that summarizes your child's online activities. There, you can see your child's browsing history and find out what websites Mobicip blocked during their last online session.
Web Filtering
According to Mobicip's website, the company uses a combination of artificial intelligence and machine learning to scan websites in real time and decide whether the content is appropriate for young viewers. Mobicip also filters YouTube videos and ensures the platform's Restricted Mode is always on. Parents can also manually block specific websites by entering the addresses in the app or block many websites at once by choosing from 20 content categories, including adult websites and online gambling platforms.
Screen Time Scheduling
Want a phone-free dinner? Try Mobicip's FamilyTime feature. The Pause All Devices setting locks all of your child's devices simultaneously.
The Screen Time Scheduler allows you to create custom schedules that fit your child's needs. If you want to ensure productivity during school and homework hours, you can block specific apps and websites during those time periods. Adults can modify their child's schedules from the parent dashboard. If you want to experiment with giving your child more freedom online, you can set a daily free time limit in the app. This setting gives them a set number of hours throughout the day to spend on fun stuff like games and social media apps.
Family Locator
Mobicip has geofencing capabilities, which is a plus for parents who want to keep an eye on their kids wherever they may roam. Mobicip's Family Locator allows you to draw virtual boundaries around places your child frequents, such as a friend's house, church, or school. After setting the boundaries, you'll get alerts whenever your child arrives or departs from one of those locations. Keep in mind that Apple and Google also allow you to track your child's location using the built-in device settings.
Social Media Monitoring
Mobicip monitors your child's activity and interactions on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. In contrast, Bark can monitor chats, direct messages, emails, or posts on a wider variety of platforms, including Gmail, Kik, Reddit, Twitter, and WhatsApp. Bark cannot monitor Discord, Snapchat, or TikTok on iOS devices.
With Mobicip, you can set up social media monitoring alerts for certain words, ideally to prevent your child from experiencing cyberbullying or predatory behavior. Over the years, experts have told us that talking to your kids about how to be a decent human online and setting a good example with your own positive online interactions are the keys to parenting online.
We know that opening up the lines of communication between kids and parents is much easier said than done, but it may be worth it to try chatting with your kids about how they talk to other people online and who they're talking to. It's also a good idea to get their consent before allowing a parental control app to monitor their private conversations.
Verdict: Mobicip Achieves Cross-Platform Monitoring
Mobicip offers affordable parental control apps for just about every device your child owns. The app can help you curb your child's screen time, and it blocks adult websites and other content deemed inappropriate for kids across a wide range of categories. The customization settings for each Mobicip feature can fit any parenting style. Using the geofencing settings, you can even keep an eye on your child's physical location from afar. Mobicip doesn't allow as much insight into social media activity as some of its competition, but it's an inexpensive yet comprehensive solution for monitoring your child online.