Kids App Qustodio Reviews

by Lucid_dream1

Don't get KidsAppQustodio parents. For the sake of your relationship with your child. I understand that you want to keep them safe but all your doing is creating trust issues. From experience during the time I've had KidsAppQustodio, I have grown away from my family even more than ever. I feel like they don't trust me anymore. I can't open up to them because they would use, "its for your own good." or something along those lines. If you don't expose your child to the real world they won't survive. They won't know what to look for in a bad person or know how to protect themselves. If your child is having trouble understanding the real world or how life works then don't get them a phone. If you want your child to trust you then let them have their privacy. I know you will say, "but they are kids. They don't nee privacy" or, "they are not adults yet and don't have rights." or you might even say," well I pay for their phone bill so they don't have to." Those things I just listed are excuses. You only download apps like this one so you won't have to feel guilty if they get in trouble. Some problems ar fixable without your help. Sometimes they will need help and that is okay. I hope you consider this message and try to understand where your child is coming from. One more reason children like tech so much is because they grew up with it. It is second nature for them. So please give your kid(s) a second chance to prove they don't need apps like this one.

by DizzyD_PT

This is honestly one of the worst protection apps out there. I understand the need for my parents to control what I do, but KidsAppQustodio isn't it. It constantly messes with my WiFi connection, and turns it off occasionally. I have had issues where it downright just drains my battery dry (2 year old phone with no issues). Even when the 'sleep mode/downtime' is activated, I'm still able to listen to music, message family members, and sometimes even watch TV. KidsAppQustodio is also annoying when it denies access to calling family/friends. I know that my parents wouldn't care if I were to call them/friends, but it just does not work sometimes. As well, it also messes with my Paypal and eBay constantly, making it unable to be usable at certain times. It is also very common to have a video sent to me by my parents, or I search for a review for airsoft/video games, and it will constantly say that it is restricted. KidsAppQustodio is a total cash grab. I feel bad that my parents have to even pay money for this piece of technological trash. I could go on, but I'm trying to keep this to a minimum. Please fix your app.

-John

by Joycojobe

I wish I could give KidsAppQustodio zero stars. Just one click on my son’s Kindle Fire on an inappropriate ad, and he had access to hundreds of porn sites. Qustodio blocked four of these sites and sent me an email. After seeing the email, I quickly checked his Kindle (that was supposedly locked down tightly with Qustodio) and found a long list of horrendous pornography sites that he had accessed. Why did it only block four, but allow all of the others? I contacted Qustodio for a refund, as I was appalled and sickened that this happened to my young son and KidsAppQustodio had failed to do its job (that I had paid $99 for). Conveniently for them, they don’t have a customer service phone number. I filled out a form online, explaining what had happened and asking for a refund. Two weeks go by and no response. I then found a customer service email and was able to get a response. They told me that they couldn’t issue a refund since I upgraded my app through Apple. I contacted Apple to see if they could issue a refund, and they stated they couldn’t per their terms of service. Insert eye roll. I circled back to Qustodio, and they still claim that since Apple controls their payments, they are unable to issue a refund. I offered them a solution of issuing a written check to me. No response. Unacceptable. Don’t use this company. They failed to do the one job they were supposed to do - keep the garbage of pornography out of my home. And now they can’t even make it right.

by Reallifeteachermom

I poured through reviews and recommendations as well as looked at the website of several monitoring apps before going with Qustodio, but in the end wasted my money. It worked ok on my son’s iPhone 11 for about a month, even though I couldn’t monitor all I wanted things I wanted. One day I got a message saying KidsAppQustodio had been tampered with and disabled. I was so upset that my son had figured out how to do this. He assured me he didn’t tamper with it. I didn’t believe him until I was holding his phone in my hand when I got the message that it had been tampered with. When KidsAppQustodio was working it wouldn’t give me an accurate location of my son, and I never did get the updates promised. I finally just removed KidsAppQustodio from his phone after about 2 months of trying to use it. I realize that Apple makes using apps such as this more difficult, but at the time I was researching I didn’t see anything about how difficult KidsAppQustodio is to use on an Apple product. I have already canceled the next billing cycle but was stuck paying for an app that never worked.

by Sammy H K

I’m going to be completley honest.. I feel like I’m always watched and that I really have no privacy, I do understand my dad for trying to keep me safe but in reality it has made my connection with him way worse, the only thing I want to do is spend time with him but every time he texts me it’s because I’m spending too much time on my phone, to tell me that he is turning my wifi off or to ask me about a web page that I had opened. I just feel like my relationship with him is non existant anymore and that its always about arguing and telling him I hate him and the way he has become but I really do love him I just want to cry less and harm myself less because I feel like I have no privacy whatsoever. I hate it but I understand him but I feel like I’m responsible enough to be able to make my own choices and be able to use my phone and talk to my friends past 7:00 but it really makes me sad because I want to talk to him about it and he will never hear me he thinks he is doing me a favor but it feels like he hates me even more each time. So if you are planning to put qustodio on your kids phone, instead of trying to do that let them know you love them. I promise your kid is good but just tell them to spend less time on the phone and not always thing that they are doing it wrong, what if it’s you.

by Hater Of Qustodio

Hi. My mom installed KidsAppQustodio a couple months ago and I’m writing this so other parents can see this before they pay money for a useless app. First of all, your going to ruin your relationship with ur child/children because you are causing trust issues between you two. Your kid will not want to talk to you about anything and they will see you as a bad guy. Most of us kids and teens dont search or look at anything that’s inappropriate or bad for us, so doing this just makes us think you don’t trust us and that your trying to control us. Second of all, KidsAppQustodio has caused me many phone problems. My battery is getting drained really quickly, the internet is so much slower, and it blocks websites that are not even bad! I literally wanted to buy some clothes on Urban Outfitters and I could only tap on the tops because if I looked at the bottoms (shorts, pants, skirts) it would block them because it was “inappropriate”. I know that you would not like to be the person in their life that they never trust or want to open up to. Try to talk to your kids instead and if they don’t want to talk to you, try to think why. I don’t want to open up to mom because she installed KidsAppQustodio and invaded my privacy. So, parents, I know that not all teens think the same, but I know I speak for most of them when I say to not buy KidsAppQustodio.

by Soldier #12

as a kid i understood why my parents had restricted my phone before, because i was too young to really handle everything myself, but i’m not a little kid anymore. i never complained about KidsAppQustodio as a kid but of course now I HATE IT. NO TEEN wants these kind of apps on their phones! parents should build trust with their teens rather than restrict their technology. They worry that others may harm us, but they can’t seem to realize that we as teens that were raised around technology, know EXACTLY what to avoid and how to well handle the situations that they worry too much about! In fact, if parents would actually take the time to get to know their kids, and treat them like close friends as well as family, then we would be telling you everything like we would to one of our close friends! You don’t need any restricting app to “protect” your kids! in fact, the more you hide them from the real world, THE WORST THEY WILL BE WHEN THEY GROW UP! Parents are getting these kind of apps out of fear rather than love and it’s obvious. You’re causing your teen to lose their trust in you and you’re destroying your relationship! Instead, try focusing on giving your teen trust, freedom, patience, and privacy. What kind of a role model are you if you’re basically teaching your kids to fear what you don’t know? Let them know that you love them by trusting them, not restricting the things they love! DO NOT GET ANY RESTRICTING APP FOR YOUR TEEN!! LET THEM BE!! PERIOD!!

by Lunnaala

I am a 14 year old, turning 15 in a couple of months, my mom installed KidsAppQustodio saying that “she’s worried, I want to keep you safe.” I do appreciate the thought, but KidsAppQustodio made me feel like I’m always watched, restricted fanfiction websites(which I live of btw) I once got really mad at her and lashed out saying how she doesn’t trust me and doesn’t care about how it makes me so frustrated to the point I cry. I tried talking to her pleading, begging for her to remove it while crying my eyes out. Only for her to say that she won’t remove it, and called me ungrateful and very hurtful names, also saying how she’ll completely remove my wifi access. KidsAppQustodio completely ruined my relationship with my mother. Whenever I see her I flinch, and don’t ever want to open up. I hate to say it but in my eyes, she’s the bad guy. Our fights become more often, sometimes to the point I cry myself to sleep while my mom yells at me to shut up. Anyways, I don’t know for how much longer it’ll go on like this, but I know for sure that we’ll never go back to the way we were. And for parents considering installing KidsAppQustodio, please please don’t. Instead you can have a phone checks, install location into your phone and just TALK not everything your child does is on the phone. Prevent the wound before it happens!!

by 675Jenny3

This used to be a great app, we have used the premium version for 6-7 YEARS! But, it no longer tracks anything reliably, reports only a tiny fraction of the activity, cannot track location 90% of the time, the time limits are worthless because it will report two minutes of use for an hour but then also count the whole hour toward the child’s time limit...all features that used to work really well. From looking at recent reviews I’m not alone. When I contacted the developers for help they gave me the uninstall/reinstall advice and blamed the location issues on what google location was reporting from the phone. That was baloney because I was able to pull up a correct location on the kid’s google family app at the same time that Qustodio was reporting a 12 hr old location (and saying it was “just updated”). Sorry to say after so many years we’re done, I wish it still worked because I used to recommend it constantly. They also make it really difficult to cancel the automatic $60 annual charge, which they claim is done by Apple but Apple has no record of a subscription or charge so more runaround.

by _abbyyy

KidsAppQustodio is a horrendous concept of “safety.” i’m a 15 year old girl with a 17 year old sister, and we’ve had this on our phones since summer 2018. i’m not sure who came up with the idea of creating and releasing an app like this, but whoever it was needs a death penalty. my parents are way overprotective, and it’s not out of “love.” we can’t do ANYTHING after 9PM, which is by far WAY before we even think about settling down for bed, and KidsAppQustodio has caused our social media’s to crash. KidsAppQustodio glitches constantly & doesn't send reports to my moms phone through KidsAppQustodio anymore, and it’s causing a lot of chaos within our relationship because she thinks we’re messing around with the restrictions even though we have no access to KidsAppQustodio through our side. we could only do it on her or our dad’s phone but we don’t know their passcodes. we both have iphone XR’s and KidsAppQustodio has slowed our phones down and our battery life has gone down drastically. if you’re the parent of a teen reading this review, please please PLEASE don’t put this on your teen’s phone(s). it gives us hell & causes an unhealthy relationship between us and our parent(s). we deserve some sort of element of trust, but this makes us feel like we have no trust in you. overly strict & overprotective parents = rebellious teens. and please remember that.

by Captain_mortal

Why would you want to limit a teen so much on their phone. It drives us insane. Why can’t you guys just let us be. Most of us know about technology more than you guys do and can easily avoid danger. Imagine having your activity tracked and only 2-3 hours a day allowed on your phone. It’s a nightmare, every teen who has this goes insane seeing how every normal teenager has a perfectly normal life with a fully working phone. Why can’t you guys just give us some trust. You also need understand that it’s currently quarantine and every teen is spending most of their time online and it drives us insane that we have a limit on that. 2-3 hours is just not enough time! Time flies bye and the average teen gets 7 hours of screen time. I hate KidsAppQustodio soooooooo much. Why can’t you parents just let us be. Having this feels like a prison. I’m scared to open my phone because I know I’m being tracked and my time left is going down. Just please parents, let your kids be, they don’t need all these restrictions, they need trust. Talk to them, have a conversation, get to know them more. If you keep restricting them they will rebel, teens just can’t handle that amount of stress. Don’t get KidsAppQustodio, it’ll ruin your teens life

by Keenanwill

While I appreciate the premise behind KidsAppQustodio and the helpdesk somewhat trying to address the issues, it’s just way too glitchy. Resolutions are never reached. That said, I haven’t found a better app, so I continue to pay for premium service. I simply have to spend an exorbitant amount of time monitoring KidsAppQustodio , watching it and waiting for it to fail. It’s one thing after another. Things that worked yesterday don’t work today. I update restrictions and they simply won’t sync to my child’s phone. I’m not saying there’s a delay, I’m saying a complete failure to EVER sync. You can imagine the frustration and tension this causes between me and my kids! The most recent issue is the VPN can just be toggled off on my child’s device. Sometimes it automatically toggles back on like it’s supposed to, but other times it won’t. We just went an entire week with the VPN being toggled off without us knowing. This is just ONE example of the constant, and I do mean CONSTANT failures. I’ve stopped reaching out to the helpdesk, because they just simply never have real answers.

by Pgeazy

We’ve had Qustodio Premium for about two months now on our son’s devices. At first, we thought it’d be a great choice for our filtering needs. Unfortunately there are so many bugs within KidsAppQustodio itself and its VPN that it has basically rendered itself useless for us. When scrolling through the activity log for the day, it refreshes once you’ve reached the bottom of the list and appears to load new content, but it’s the same content as shown at the top of the list (as per the timestamps.) KidsAppQustodio ’s VPN connection also messes with location settings for other apps that require a specific geographical/regional location in order to use them (e.g. Disney+) so he is unable to use them! Qustodio has also caused iCloud issues with our HomeKit smart devices and has prevented him from controlling things as simple as the lights in his bedroom. Altogether, it’s a great idea but needs major renovations and improvements in order for it to be user friendly and its app usage data to be accurate. The premium subscription is in no way inexpensive so I can’t help but feel we were somewhat cheated out of our money. Please do your research ahead of time.

by Clydetiberius1

I was excited to sign up for this service as it seemed to offer everything I was looking for in a monitoring device. Sadly it does not work as effectively as advertised. I read another review here citing very similar issues to the ones that I had and so I feel like I’m not alone in my frustration. However, what is most upsetting to me is that after just reading one of those reviews here, I see that Qustodio responded to it asking the customer to reach out and reference his review so that they could set up a service call. While I was pleased to see a company try to make the situation right, it is frustrating because when I emailed customer service months ago to deal with the problems I was having and asked if we could have a call in light of how long the back and forth over email took, the rep said that Qustodio does not offer phone support. I guess they do offer phone support to people who review their product negatively in online forums but not when they request help privately. I understand technology can be glitchy and I’m patient and understanding of all of that when a company puts a premium on customer service. Sadly that’s not been my experience here.

by Migennes

Sometimes KidsAppQustodio is great and sometimes not. I subscribed through the AppStore and when it came time to renew, it renewed automatically but Qustodio didn’t get the memo and they put my account back to the free level. They did take care of it when I reached out but they need to improve their system so that doesn’t happen. I’ve also had issues with some apps not working at all. I actually removed it from all our iOS devices and only use it on our computers now. It often says a site is blocked, that shouldn’t be, and then allows it when we reload the page. Not a huge deal (is rather it block too much than too little) but still a hassle. It does a pretty good job at blocking inappropriate context, and a great job at enforcing downtime (locks their computers right on time). But I feel like I’m constantly dealing with small irritations. Will be shopping around for another service before this renews again.

by Kaempen

We've been using Qustodio Premium for 2 years and have also experienced trouble with VPN slowing down game rate and making some things unusable, but over time we've figured out work arounds. Basically no one can offer 100% filtering and fast VPN for all apps and all devices -- simply just doesn't exist -- but this is pretty close and does what it's designed to do. There is no way i could monitor screen time for my teen every day, by myself, and this tool gives me the option to extend or reduce overall screen time plus individua time on each app, which has been useful now that school is 100% online. Developers should keep working on this tho ... it's very close but still troublesome. A couple of the sites my kid's school uses for new distance learning were blocked for porn. I got the notice and "allowed" them so no problem now, but there is some troubleshooting required to get this to work 100%. Also, my kid uses to be able to see how much time he had left, but for some reason that stopped.

by A Reviewer Here

I’m a parent. I installed this after a failed attempt at using TrendMicro piece of junk and overpriced solution. I gave my pre-teen a MacBook to do homework and research for his personal fun projects. He also likes to keep up with news. But the rest of the Internet is no place for a child. So Qustodio came to be very useful. I use the web filtering and time restrictions.

I also leveraged the parental controls in the Mac to reduce app usage. KidsAppQustodio controls in Qustodio were giving me mixed results. But the most powerful way is to use them both. Let’s say block the AppStore in the Mac, that still allows from one extra minute in the OS, then block KidsAppQustodio in Qustodio as well, that works beautifully!! No extra minute. I also get very detailed reports of the child’s activity both online as well as in apps. My son and I have very good communication and he did not know technology without restrictions, so we have very little drama.

Talk to your child and technology controls will work.

I also have a “bug hunting reward program” going on with him. If he finds ways to break/hack the controls and tell me before getting caught, he is rewarded. I might have to step up the controls after that, but we discuss this openly. I also have lifted controls or time restrictions when he proves to behave responsibly. Control your children’s internet activity, but love them first.

by #Thoughtyoushouldknow

I’ve had this program for almost 2 years now and ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT! It’s been such a miracle worker. Once it’s set up on your devices you can set up and shut down any program you want in seconds. My daughter does online High School out of Phoenix. At first her being on her laptop was a HUGE a problem. She wanted to be on anything but school. I set Qustodio up on her laptop, downloaded KidsAppQustodio to my iPhone and no more anything that could waste her time or distract her. She used to be able to get on anything on the Internet. Pictures etc. on her computer or laptop. (She’s used both.) Things I’ve never even dreamed of to do instead of her work!! This girl is creative. With KidsAppQustodio I can shut down anything she has been on in her history or currently doing right then. It keeps track of page, window, etc. they go on. That only scratches the surface of what this AMAZING program can do. I just can’t say enough GOOD about it. If you want to keep your kids safe you need this program for their protection and your piece of mind. I say it’s right up there with Apple’s "Family Sharing Screen time Protection" 💖

by End Me Or Not Idk

I am very angry right now, not because KidsAppQustodio because I spent 10 minutes typing a review and my sister spammed me and I lost it all. To put it short I agree with why my parents did this. You may think I am weird but just listen. Most kids said it’s a invasion of privacy, lol. If it is then why should your parents trust u lol. So you don’t want your parents to see something makes it worse you just said you don’t want them to see what u are doing like your doing something bad lol. Some said it ruins family’s. It can. But my parents blocked some of there stuff too. With there internet providers. And they have time limits too. So parents please set a example it makes kids feel like u can’t trust them find the middle ground man. It is your parents divide, room, house, food, air, atmosphere…. Lol jk but it is there stuff they let you use it man. I used to hate KidsAppQustodio . I used to hack it when I was 8. Then I saw things u can’t unsee. Sooooo…… it’s for the best but it can make life worse so maybe don’t ask your parents to take it off compromise 😀and discuss it with them as Qustodio asked please it’s for the best. “Sorry But u did say it’s a invasion of privacy I am a teen I know what that means”😎😎😎😎😎😎

by MomFarAway

So far, so good. It has been 2 weeks since we started using KidsAppQustodio. My 16 yr old son agreed to it at first, as he was getting mostly Cs and a D in school and was caught vaping in school. He is in a Fine Arts Bording School and attends a public school for academics. I started out with too much restriction, limiting him to one hr of screen time per day. He rebelled by promptly disabling KidsAppQustodio . The message got through, though and he began self monitoring and got caught up with school work. We put KidsAppQustodio back on his phone and he has agreed to monitoring with no restrictions for one week and discussing his usage. After 1 more week, we will set new restrictions, probably a limit of 3 hours per day with incentives to earn extra time and penalties for not having schoolwork done or getting to school late. KidsAppQustodio summaries are easy to understand and give a quick easy and detailed description of use.