When I started looking for a chore app for my own kids, I found that most of them looked pretty similar.
You make a list. Your kids do the chores. You approve them. They earn points or rewards.
The differences are harder to see.
What happens to your child’s information? Does the kid’s app talk to other companies? Can they type whatever they want? Is real money involved? What happens to the photos? And what happens if you decide you don’t want the app anymore?
Those are the questions I started asking when I was building Achievabee. They’re also the questions I’d ask if I were choosing an app for my own kids today.
And because I make Achievabee, I think it’s only fair to tell you where it isn’t the best choice too.
Does the app your child uses send data to anyone?
This wasn’t something I thought much about before I started building a kids’ app. Now it’s probably the first thing I’d ask.
A children’s app can have analytics, advertising, crash reporting, push notifications, and other services quietly running behind the scenes. None of that is necessarily obvious when you’re looking at screenshots.
Achievabee
No.
The kid app doesn’t use any of those four services. We also check this as part of the build. A script looks through the packages the app depends on, 492 at the last count, and checks them against a list of known trackers. If one shows up, the app doesn’t build.
I wanted this to be something the software enforced, not something I simply promised.
Can your child type whatever they want?
This sounds harmless until you think about what happens next.
If a child can write something, somebody eventually has to read it. That means moderation, someone responsible for reviewing it, and a plan for what happens when a child sends something that needs attention.
So I decided not to create that problem.
Achievabee
No.
There is one text field in the entire kid app, and it’s only for the six-digit code used to pair the device. Anything that isn’t a number gets rejected.
PINs are entered on a keypad. If a child wants to give us feedback, they pick one of three faces.
It’s a small choice, but it’s intentional.
Does your child need an email address or their own account?
I didn’t love the idea of creating an email address and another password just so my kids could use a chore app.
For a nine-year-old, an account means another password to forget, another login to manage, and another place their name and information lives.
Achievabee
No.
A child uses a PIN on a device you’ve paired for them. They don’t have an email address or a separate account to manage.
Is real money involved?
There are chore apps that are also financial products. Your child earns real money and can spend it with a card.
That’s a perfectly reasonable product, but it’s solving a different problem.
I wanted Achievabee to be about responsibility and habits, not money.
Achievabee
No.
The points are pretend. There is no card, no bank account, and nothing your child can buy from us.
You decide what the points mean in your own family. Maybe 100 points means an extra hour of screen time. Maybe it means choosing what’s for dinner. That’s up to you.
What happens to photos of your child?
If you’re using photos to show that a chore was done, this is worth asking.
How long are those photos kept? What happens to them after you approve the chore? Are they still sitting somewhere months later?
Achievabee
The photo is there for you to look at.
Once you approve the chore, Achievabee forgets where the photo is stored and a cleanup process removes it.
If the chore is never approved, the photo is automatically removed after 14 days.
I don’t want a collection of old photos of other people’s kids sitting around any longer than they need to.
How does it ask for your permission?
This was one of those things I didn’t appreciate until I started building the app.
Tapping a button inside an app tells you that someone tapped a button. It doesn’t prove that they’re the parent.
Achievabee
When you add a child, we show you what information would be kept and send you an email.
The link in that email is what gives permission.
If you never click it, the information you entered is automatically deleted after 14 days.
Can you get everything out? Can you actually delete it?
I think every app should make this easy.
You shouldn’t have to email support and wait for someone to get around to exporting your data or deleting your account.
Achievabee
Yes.
You can download your entire household as one file, including your children’s information.
And you can delete your account from inside the app.
When you delete it, the things that don’t need to be retained are actually deleted. That includes the photos.
What does the free version actually give you?
This one is easy to overlook.
“Free” can mean quite a few different things, especially when you’re trying to set something up for a family.
Achievabee
The free version supports one child and two adults, with unlimited chores and rewards.
If you have more than one child, you’ll need the paid version.
And honestly, some other apps are more generous here. If you have several kids and your priority is finding something completely free, Achievabee may not be the right choice.
Does it work on the devices your family already has?
This is probably the least exciting question, but it’s worth answering before you spend an evening setting everything up.
Achievabee
The parent side works in a browser as well as through a native app. The children’s side runs in a browser on any device you pair.
It’s not in the App Store or Google Play yet.
That’s intentional for now. Achievabee is still small, and I’m keeping it invite-only while I work through the early stages with a handful of families.
When Achievabee probably isn’t the right choice
I’d rather tell you this than pretend Achievabee is for everyone.
You want your child to manage real money. That’s not what Achievabee does, and it isn’t where I want to take it. If you want a debit card, real balances, and financial tools for your child, there are better products for that.
You have several children and want to keep everything free. Our free version is limited to one child. There are other apps that may make more sense for a larger family on a $0 budget.
You want something that’s been around for years. Achievabee is new and invite-only. There isn’t a huge library of reviews or years of history behind it yet. If you’d rather use something that thousands of families have already been using for a long time, I completely understand.
Your kids need to write things. Maybe your kids want to leave notes, send messages, or suggest their own rewards in their own words. Achievabee deliberately doesn’t work that way. If that’s important to your family, another app will probably be a better fit.
If you’re still deciding
I built Achievabee for my own family because I wanted something simple that helped my kids take a little more ownership around the house.
Along the way, I became much more interested in the parts of a kids’ app you can’t see in a screenshot.
What does it collect? Where does it go? Who else can see it? How long does it stick around? And can you actually walk away when you’re done?
Those are the questions I’d want answered before putting an app on my kids’ devices.
So I’ve tried to answer them here as plainly as I can, including the answers that might send you somewhere else.