Wellspent for Babbel Reviews

by Mileydev

Wellspent has a great idea behind; A real problem to fix but instead it creates more problems and stress. That are days that Wellspent simply doesn’t work, no notifications and reminders coming out of it. Nothing. Even more frequently though you will have Wellspent harassing you. It tells you “it has been 5min you’re in Wellspent” and give you 2 buttons “snooze or close Wellspent ”. If you press the snooze because maybe you’re busy and in the middle of something it will keep popping up as soon as you snooze it. It doesn’t stop popping up. I tested it. Over 5 minutes. Opened a thousand times.

Funny enough none of these “malfunctions” happened during the trial week. First day after paying for this piece of junk it started. You’ll get 1 functioning day followed by 2-3 malfunctioning days. That is what you are paying for. Instead you can hear someone who already paid to be harassed: don’t do this to yourself. STAY AWAY FROM Wellspent.

by Testaberger

It asks you to “allow screen time” so Wellspent can read your data. OK, no problem. Then it asks you to “allow with passcode.” OK, no problem. And then it says Wellspent can’t work without access to screen time data and … now we have a problem. Because it just sends you through the loop I just described over and over again. I tried setting a passcode in Settings Screen Time - nope, that didn’t do the trick. So frustrating. Looks like there are other apps that do the same thing so I’m looking elsewhere. You should too.

by Nicknameistaken1359

Since I’ve been using Wellspent for the past week or so, my Instagram account (the only app I use this for) has become restricted on and off. It’s currently restricted again, now for hours - and it’s not bc I’ve gone over my time limit I set for myself. I even hit the override button and it’s still restricted. I haven’t made any posts on instagram and have barely “liked” or commented anything. I did follow some people, but ofc it’s instagram, you follow and unfollow people. I haven’t done anything out of the ordinary nor anything against community guidelines. I’ve never had my account restricted before this past week when I started using Wellspent. I just read about other people saying they used third party instagram apps for other things like “follow” and “unfollow” counters. It seems there is a problem with instagram and some third party apps like this one. Really hope I can get my account back. Would not have used Wellspent had I known this. Too bad, bc it’s a great idea to help keep track of your time and keep yourself accountable.

by RaeRae8705

Experienced a lot of bugs both with free and paid version. It didn’t accurately track my social media usage and I had only linked it to 3 apps; eventually I linked it only to Facebook. It would say I’d spent zero minutes of my time budget when I’d already been on social for a couple hours. Many days it didn’t send me notifications/nudges at all. (I did appreciate/enjoy the mindfulness nudges when they actually worked). I wasn’t able to get answers from tech support either. Hoping I can get a refund.

by 👌👌!!

I installed and it won’t even get past the “allow access to screen time” start window. I hit “allow access” and then it tells me I’m sorry you can’t use this without access to screen time. Tried uninstalling and reinstalling, turning phone off and back on, changing screen time settings. Too bad.

by Kandiipeaches

As all apps nowadays, there’s a free version and a paid, subscription version. I knew i wouldn’t get much with the free version, but it literally only lets you track your time on one app. That really doesn’t help me whatsoever. And, as much as i like the idea behind Wellspent, I’m not gonna pay for something that is supposed to just tell me to stay off my phone.

by Sarawileyxo

I found a different app and Wellspent can’t be removed from my iPhone, it only has the option to remove it from my homescreen. I also can’t clear data in Wellspent and when I hover on it in the search screen it only allows me to share it! Wellspent does not make me feel like my information is secure at all. I want it removed please.

by Fmhtchtct

So I learned about Wellspent on Instagram so I downloaded it to help with my daily screen time and I was wondering why I wasn’t giving me notifications and I had them on and I looked in Wellspent and he was tracking my time for one app And I was trying to turn on more apps, but it won’t let me because I need to pay for it to track more than just one app would not recommend you do not want to spend money.

by Raykay723

Wellspent worked great the first week or two, my screen time decreased considerably, then I noticed I was not getting notifications consistently. The type of notifications also changed and they became much easier to simply click and bypass (used to be you had to press and hold- which I found much more effective in making me pause and choose to log off). I wrote customer service and was told there was nothing they could do. Then I stopped getting regular notifications. They only popped every 30 minutes even though I set it to 5 minutes. The ap stopped logging how much time I spent on social media. Then it stopped working for days or weeks at a time. Now Wellspent is down completely while they work through “technical difficulties.” Yikes. Customer service has been unhelpful and will not process a refund.
Do not waste your money on Wellspent!

by StaciFelker

I love the idea of this. It worked well when I first tried it, so I paid for it. Some days it works, other days it does nothing. Sometimes I can’t dismiss the notification to finish what I’m doing in another app. Wouldn’t recommend.

by MJ$$1

I got charged for a a whole year when I only agreed and signed up for for a free trial.

I immediately reported it to them and the chat literally stated. They are not available until tomorrow on their virtual chart.

Not even a decent minimal bot to get process started.

So I then reported them to Apple and PayPal and they handled it.

But one of the co founders Christina, chats back and initial apologizes and while the payment was pending for a few days it eventually posted.
She then officially apologized and offered a free year then had to ignorant audacity to chat back, the $29.99 price that posted was $32 and change. Like she is completely oblivious to tax. So ridiculous and beyond disappointing to see how stupid these people can truly be.

This is customers and money you are dealing with. Handle your app and business correctly and ethically you dummies.

So shameful. And no, I do not want your free year. The time spent stressed then accused by you was the WORSE SPENT.

by Hlywdguy

I purchased Wellspent to try it because I wanted to limit my Facebook and instagram time. That is all. I set it up to do that but instead, and no matter what I tried, it interrupted EVERY app I was trying to use and was really annoying. Trying to watch a YouTube video or read a news article or listening to music. I’m very frustrated and disappointed.

by T-Brown13

Only tracks one app for free, then it wants you to pay after spending the time to setup Wellspent . Scam.

by Craycro24

Screen pops up every two seconds even if I click dismiss. And it uses shaming and guilt tripping which I think is messed up.

by Confused8675309

Maybe I’m using it wrong, but it does nothing. If I get on social media, then go to Wellspent it tells me how long I was on it. However, it doesn’t nudge me or send reminders or do anything, and I’m pretty sure it’s time calculation isn’t even right so…

by Leslie4738294857

Wellspent does not work. It keeps saying I need to allow screen time. I press allow, I go through my settings and manually allow, just keep getting page that says I need to allow screen time

by Hsshiqw

I love the idea of Wellspent but it’s currently so buggy. I would not buy until at least fall of 2023 when all the promised fixes hopefully start to arrive.

I’ve reached out to the developers repeatedly and am essentially told to reboot Wellspent and that a fix will be coming. No fix yet

by Djdnskcnwb

Great concept but as others have stated, it will let you scroll for long periods of time, and then all of a sudden it catches up with you and give you non-stop notifications. I wanted to use this but the glitches are too annoying, will delete Wellspent now.

by WealthyRose

I was really excited to try Wellspent but after filling out several questions and trying to set a goal, the page doesn’t fit on my iPhone SE’s screen and I can’t okay it to actually set the goal.

by Clxxdy-days

It’s basically just a more aesthetic version of the normal time limit screen. It’s makes it easier to keep scrolling honestly because you don’t even have to put in a password, you can just click one button and keep going. I thought I was going to not allow you to stay on whatever app you are on (that’s what the ads show) but it’s just the same. Plus I asked it to roast me bc that’s what works best for me normally but the roasts didn’t even make sense and stopped after 2 days. I wouldn’t recommend this personally unless you want to pay for premium.

by Haam9

I cannot figure out how to give access to Wellspent . It prompts me to allow, I click continue and then it says “allow with passcode” and I click that then I just get a page that says you cannot use Wellspent without allowing access to screen time. And the link given to show how to allow the access for Wellspent does not actually show you how to allow Wellspent access to your screen time.

I really want to try Wellspent but I am unable to link screen time access

by Cmhoward12

The free version of Wellspent has a lag in tracking my screen time. I’ve noticed, though I set it to interrupt me every 5m, at the beginning of the day it will let me scroll 20m or more without sending an interruption. When I’m past the limit and want 5 more mins, I press the 5 more mins button and another interruption comes up 15s later.

This is definitely not selling me on upgrading to the paid version.

by EmmaVCM

I so want to love Wellspent. I love the idea and the concept, and I think with some work it can help a lot of people, but it’s so glitchy, it doesn’t even serve its purpose. The time counter doesn’t reset day to day and the time budgets don’t often work. The first budget I set didn’t work at all; it completely failed to record any time I spent on the apps I’d chosen. I built new budgets and some of them work, but some of them don’t. I’m really disappointed. I was ready to actually pay the subscription after my trial ended but I’m about to cancel my trial early. I’ve never actually written a review for an app before but I felt it was necessary for this one; the developers need to know that their app needs a lot of work

by BFBoston

I’ve been using this app for a few weeks. At first, it seemed good. But soon I noticed chosen apps would be completely restricted, even though there is time remaining in my chosen daily budget.

When I went to FAQ section within Wellspent with this question, this app replied it’s a known issue. Incredulously, they suggest changing the phone’s date in phone setting to reset budget in this app—which creates a nightmare scenario of all phone apps & features.

I’m now deinstalling, as this app’s bug is getting in the way of my actually being productive on my phone.

by VFields

I love the idea of Wellspent, and I love it when it is working. But most of the time, I just doesn’t work.

I got the paid version for a full year thinking that would be well worth it to finally have assistance in kicking my social media addiction, but I’m a few months in and I’m lucky if Wellspent works for a full day at a time.

It either crashes in the background and stops working completely (this is the most frequent issue), or glitches and totally locks me out of everything with no option to bypass and I have to go turn it off and back on again through phone settings.

I hope they can work out the bugs - I did reach out by message in Wellspent support and was told they were working on the glitches. That was a month or so ago though and so far no improvement.

by Adwoa2d

Wellspent will randomly lock me out of my apps, even if I have hardly spent any time on it. It gives no option to unlock either, the only thing you can do is to completely limit Wellspent ’s access. It also will randomly stop working, stop recording time or not give reminders. Not sure what is going on, but it should be criminal to not refund people with subscriptions given how defective Wellspent is. It is a very great concept though, and for the one day that it worked properly, i did appreciate it

by Sleepyjess91

$7.99 a month or $30 bucks a year….
Ummm no…..
Saw an ad for this while on a doom scroll on Instagram and thought what a wonderful idea. Started setting it up and at the end of the set up it asks for what I think is an astronomical subscription price. I would of rather paid for Wellspent and then had subscription pro version for more features.

To use the free version you only can choose one app… how stupid is that.
1 star for the stellar idea
1 more star for the great marketing
-3 for execution, pricing and lack of customer feedback implementation.

by Fstfingers

It started off so well, and I noticed my screen time really decreased. Then it would randomly lock up my apps and I’d have to go in and remove this app from accessing screen time. Well, guess I did that too many times because now it doesn’t notify me every 15 minutes and even after spending over an hour on social media, it says I’ve been on just a few minutes. I really thought I’d discovered *the* thing!

ETA: every few days I need to go into settings and disallow this app from accessing Screen
Time and then allow it again and it will start working. Seems inconsistent, but is good when it works.

by Strphanie.d

I’m not sure what’s going on—I just got a notification saying they are “working on it” but Wellspent hasn’t worked reliably in months. It was helpful at first but not anymore. I regret paying for the year subscription tbh so I turned off the renewal.

It’s just confusing… some days it won’t notify at all (despite Wellspent being open for sure and no other blocking apps conflicting with it) and other days it is relentless and annoying and I want to delete Wellspent .

I’ll keep trying it in an attempt to not feel like I’ve wasted my money completely but I don’t have much hope. 🫤

by Flips4jesus

This was a great app, until it flashed the f word across my phone. I have kids who frequently sit with me. I was shocked! It would have been 5 stars otherwise.

by Lukkieseven

Super helpful…when it works. Which is virtually never these days. Paid for PRO, maybe had a week or two where it worked great, now nothing for weeks. Restarted and all that. iOS 17 and all of that. I can see in Wellspent there are troubleshoot FAQs even about iOS 17 but Wellspent doesn’t even work enough to load them and instead throws an error 😩 what a mess. How do I get a refund??? Or at bare minimum a working app!

by Spock2468

You can only track activity on one app, and I tend to just bounce around

I realize there’s subscriptions etc and these developers need to make money but honestly there’s other apps and even the built in stuff for Apple

I think this could be super helpful but it’s just so not worth it to me to have to pay money to not use my phone especially with the glitch unless of the Home Screen and settings for me. Wishing this company the best

by ZoltanKodály

The first few days were good. Now a screen pops up every few seconds to interrupt me, even though I click on “remind me in five minutes.” Since installing it, I can sometimes not open the apps that have a budget—the icon disappears from my screen and doesn’t pop up when I search (note, I have not gone over budget when this happens). I hope these issues can be fixed, because I’ll have to uninstall soon if this keeps happening, and I really WANT Wellspent to work!

by Polskasister

When Wellspent is working as it should, it’s awesome. However, at least half the time it just stops sending the notifications. Other times, it just randomly locks all your apps even though I haven’t even come close to my limit. It’s frustrating enough that I will cancel when my free trial ends. It’s really unfortunate, because the concept is wonderful. It just needs to work the majority of the time if they want to charge a subscription fee.

by Dhgddfggdfg

Stops giving notifications randomly. Like one day it’ll work and then it just. Won’t. And then it’ll randomly decide to start giving notifications again. Set the notification reminder to three minutes just to see if maybe I didn’t have my screen open long enough. Nothing. Tried turning on and off screen time allowances for Wellspent , fiddling with the notification settings. Nothing. It works decently for me when it works otherwise. Also Wellspent freezes and crashes frequently.

by AntoinePa

The core idea behind Wellspent is commendable, however, its execution falls short. Wellspent fails to track the minutes of usage. Additionally, the inability to modify or remove the initially set goal is quite limiting. Furthermore, the requirement to purchase a subscription to access the feature of adding a second goal feels premature, especially when the basic functionalities are yet to prove reliable.

by OrigJennyline

I chose to pay for Wellspent over another because when it’s working, it’s great. Unfortunately, I have these problems daily that I never had in the free trial:
- the nudges stopped working for one of my budget categories all together, and that was one of the best tools for my habits
- if a nudge works, I click extend when I have plenty of time left and it locks me out of Wellspent , so I have to go into my screen time settings to turn it on and off to gain access again

I am getting annoyed with the errors I need to fix - I shouldn’t be doing “fixes” every day to get Wellspent to work. It is a GREAT APP when it works, but it looks like from other reviews that others have the same issues and have for months, so they don’t seem to be making any progress on fixing them.

Complete waste of money if they don’t have the resources to handle the development.

by Leopuca

Wellspent has a good outline, but is buggy and lacks two basic customizations: 1) I don’t see a way to add a website to a budget’s list. 2) I couldn’t find a way to add a custom suggestion for what to do instead.

One specific bug I noticed today:
- Open the profile menu
- Close it by swiping down
- Now I can’t open the profile menu again, until I restart Wellspent .

I hope Wellspent continues to improve, but as it is now, I’m not sure it’s worth subscribing for.

by Just Some Girl66

I allow myself an hour per day to peruse social media. Wellspent will pop up every 10 minutes when I’m using it. Sometimes it’s nice to have the reminder but gosh dang it sometimes I just want my 1 hour of social media to be uninterrupted!! Let me know once I’ve hit the limit then start pestering me!

by Chips1313

Always crashing. Paid for the subscription but and it worked for like two weeks. Now I can’t even open Wellspent

by CrayNayATL

I really love Wellspent and what it’s supposed to do. But, I’m having a lot of problems and glitches. I got a new phone and thought it would just transfer everything over, it didn’t. There’s no way to login and I almost signed up for the subscription twice. I started a second free trial, then promptly cancelled when I realized I had already paid. I need to be able to restore my purchase because I really need to use Wellspent. HELP!

by Tonya860

Initially, Wellspent did not work at all which was frustrating. After an update, Wellspent works as advertised. The prompts are helpful for cutting down screen time and have started to change the way I think about spending time on certain apps. The variety of prompts are very helpful.

by Beatboi8888

I feel very disciplined after using Wellspent.

by Ayodeji Komolafe

From the launch screen you are blown away by the UI, Wellspent is very user friendly and easy to use and I was able to set up a budget within seconds..I really recommend Wellspent if you are trying ti cut off time spent on app especially social media apps

by Ellainy

According to my screen time summary, my phone use has gone down about 15% per week since I installed this app. Really easy to set up and use. I don’t currently have the premium subscription as I just need gentle reminders to gtf off of Reddit. The mindfulness themed reminders are the only ones I’ve tried but I find them incredibly helpful and gentle in encouraging me to make better use of my time rather than attempting some sort of guilt trip (the contrarian in me does not respond to those positively). I have no immediate feedback for improvement nor major issues to complain about. Wellspent is amazing and I recommend it for anyone interested in decreasing their screen time.

by Brendansmommy:)

It keeps my time on Social Media in check so im not mindlessly watching Reels when I have better things to do. I highly recommend for parents, friends, siblings, cousins, coworkers, or anyone in any kind of relationship with any other living creature.

by Aacegikmoqsuwy

Works better than “one sec” at keeping me off instagram. Bc sometimes I want to scroll! And then it’ll remind me after a little bit that I shouldn’t spend too much time on it. One sec only tells me when I try to open instagram. So this works much better

by Stormgirl4

The prompts are way more helpful than the default Apple ones, I’ve already had so much more success in reclaiming my free time since downloading!!

by YogaBuz

I was just lucky to come across Wellspent and have been giving it a try to reduce my phone usage…. It is too easy for me to fall into mindless scrolling. I find the personalized and varied reminders very helpful to make me more aware of the moment.

by Jondace

My whole family, including teens and younger kids, were very open to using Wellspent , and we all had fun choosing what type of reminder we wanted, from educational (me 😄) to roasting. 😁 So far, it’s helping me at least take breaks from scrolling, and to hopefully reduce my overall time on my phone! 🙃

by LauraHennings

Wellspent has helped me stay PRODUCTIVE & remain more PRESENT in my life. Especially as a business owner and someone who is constantly on social media for work, this keeps me focused rather than do mindless scrolling.

I couldn’t recommend Wellspent more!!! It’s amazing!!!

by Megamuphen

Just a few days use and Wellspent has already helped me so much. Customer service is great, I got a personal helpful response when I messaged about some glitching.

by JGriz111

Never written an app review in my life. Had to get on here to say this is the exact combination of stopping the scroll with a full screen and emotional/intellectual appeals/reminders I needed! I only wish I could set it to lock the screen for 10 seconds for a few deep breaths. My screen time is down from an EMBARRASSING percentage of my day to 30 mins a day in just 4 days of using it. BLESS you.

by __Manson

It helps me budget my time doom scrolling so I can focus and be more productive. Love it!

by Lei 💗

Love it so much

by Kimandreins

I highly recommend it