Qustodio Parental Control App Ratings and Reviews

Meh

Been using this for a while on my 14yr old son’s PC. Did the trial that ran out and the free version was fine for what we needed it for. Recently he’s been on his phone a lot during class. iPhone’s Screen Time apparently didn’t work so before spending money I swapped the Qustodio protection to his iPhone to block use during school hours starting yesterday, 8:20-2:40. First issue is the time intervals, hour blocks don’t work for most schedules. I had to pick 9-3pm because he’s still commuting at 8am and I want him to have access to his stuff and didn’t want to end it at 2pm because he’s still in class. At the very least there should be 1/2 hr blocks if not 10mins! Another immediate issue when he got to school, when he was in class he needed to take a pic with his phone (Film class) then upload to Google Classroom…except it was blocked on his phone because it’s all or nothing. There’s no way to “always allow” particular apps! Not limits, which are of no use when the phone is on lock down. I asked why he didn’t use his school Chromebook and he said because he took the pic from his phone. Fair enough. I had to take off the block to let him do that then put it back on. Decided to pay for the small package thinking I was limited because I was using the free version and nope. Same thing. There’s really nothing more I need with the paid version that I didn’t already have, like location tracking and app limits. Messaging and call tracking don’t work on iPhone anyway.

Developer Response ,

Hi,

We are sorry you are not having as smooth an experience with Qustodio as we’d like. Could you please contact our Customer Support team to provide them with more details about the issue you are facing with your child's devices? They will be more than happy to help walk you through the solution: qustodio.com/help/contact/

Best regards,
Qustodio Team.

Very helpful

We have used this app for over 2 years. For the most part it has been a very helpful tool when it comes to keeping our kiddos accountable for their screen usage and for blocking unwanted temptations and trolling. We use it along with Screen time on their iphones and as the main monitoring software on their microsoft laptops. I know others have commented that it doesn’t work with Screen time, but we found that if you set allow on each ios app inside of Qustodio, screen time does it’s job on the iphone well. We use it on iphone to keep track of the total time they’ve been on a screen throughout the day. We have 2 major complaints with Qustodio. First, the time zones are not correct. So if you use the restricted times on your devices every thing gets thrown off by an hour. Example, they have PT at 8:00 with MnT at 7:00. We live in Colorado and these times should be switched. Second, their calls and messaging monitoring only works sometimes. You have to us it from a laptop or desktop and you have to leave your computer on all the time. If you shut it down or close your MacBook you lose the connection and have to reset everything in order to start monitoring again. At the moment the program is turning itself on and off by itself on my macbook, so am trying to completely delete it.

Developer Response ,

Hi, 

Thank you for sharing your experience with Qustodio! Your opinion is very important. If you have any questions or need our assistance deleting Qustodio from your MacBook, please contact our Customer Support Team via our website: qustodio.com/help/contact/ 

Regards, 

Qustodio Team.

Switched from family link app...

After using Google's family link app for years for my children, my wife and I'd finally had enough of the limitations from Google and the lack of personal help to fix minor bugs and issues with various features setting boundaries on chromebooks and other devices for our children.

Qustodio caught my attention after reading some reviews from both children and parents and I tried it out and was more than a little surprised. It spans nearly every device and platform out there, and it is intuitive and simple.

Not only that, but it has unlimited numbers of children you can supervise and unlimited devices, whereas family link is severely limited to small families and few devices. The only devices our children have that Qustodio can't supervise yet are apple watches and we sure hope they will add that to their large list available!

We quickly discovered how limited our ability to set device boundaries were for our children's time and devices after using Qustodio... We have far more ability to set boundaries with this app than with family link.

Qustodio is robust, simple, and straightforward. So far, no glitches and the customer service is fairly personal and quick as you have folks ready to assist you. We are more than happy to pay a yearly subscription fee for this excellent and life altering service (as protecting our children is a life altering service in our minds).

Developer Response ,

Hi Beaujared. Thank you for sharing your experience with Qustodio! Your opinion is very important. If you have any questions or need our assistance, please contact our Customer Support Team via our website. Regards, Qustodio Team.

If you are a parent please listen to me..

I am a 15 year old girl and I do consider my parents to be strict but I do love them. I get that you want to protect your kid and have control over them but I promise this is not the way. Ever since I downloaded the app I always fight with my parents and try to make them understand that I am responsible enough to leave my phone and can handle myself, I just feel preassured all the time because I always have to have an excuse to why I cant answer my friends and why my wifi doesn’t work but I’m so tired of it, I have lost my mind and I love my dad so much but I hate it that I have no privacy anymore and I have told him I hate him and have had the worst arguments over this. All I asked him was to trust me or try and make it work for a week without the app so he could see that I wouldn’t spend that much time on the phone. I have cried so much ever since that app got into the way of our relationship and yes, I do understand but instead of taking your child’s privacy away try talking to them and making sure that they understand that they shouldn’t spend too much time on the phone and making sure they know you love them but I promise this is not the way all it will do is cause fights and since my dad doesn’t want to hear me maybe some parent will and might understand their child for once.

Developer Response ,

Hello Sammy. We know it’s frustrating having your internet use monitored, but your parents have chosen Qustodio because they want the best for you. We ask families to work together & decide on healthy limits, so why not try having a chat with your parents? Maybe you can find a solution you’re all happy with ☺ Good luck!
Qustodio Team

Not worth it

I don’t feel like this has been worth the large sum of money I spent. I liked it as a free tool for one teen but having paid as much as I did you would think it would be more reliable and have more convenience. You can’t specify different time limits for different apps. It was useless for the first 5 months while my kids were in school on their devices because It was all or nothing. I’m regularly having to give my kids extra time because Qustodio says they used all their time but they swear they haven’t used any. I look at their activity to show them and Qustodio shows no activity for the day, as does Screentime, so then I have to just give them more time in all fairness. How does it say they used up all their time but on nothing?! I find it inconvenient when I’d like to encourage them to spend time on educational apps by allowing separate time on that. I find it a huge hassle that if there’s a random odd day where I want to allow them online after our usual rule I have to change the rule completely then set it again instead a simple button to extend their time.

It shows me what their search activity is and blocks certain websites I wouldn’t want them on which is good but is that worth 100 something dollars? Not really.

Developer Response ,

Hi there. We are very sorry to hear about these issues you experience with Qustodio. We would like to take a closer look if you could please contact our Customer Support team via our website? Regards, the Qustodio Team.

App doesn’t work as described and they don’t care

I have purchased the package for 5 devices plus support. 1. In order for you to speak with someone (even with the support package) you need to schedule a call via the website. 2. The app was showing screen time usage for 3 of the 4 iPads even when not in use (showing an average of 23:40 per day). 3. When setting restricted times, all it does is shut of the connection to the internet. So the child can still use the iPads even after hours as long as it’s a non-internet game. 4. Most surprising. When restricted time was on, the wifi only iPads were still able to send and receive messages via the native iOS messenger app and via Facebook’s messenger kids app. So your child can stay up all night texting. The solution offers was to reinstall the app (which I did multiple times, even once following reps instructions on the phone). It did not help. Tier 2 had no interest in trying to resolve the problems but rather hinted that I should ask for a refund.

Update for the developers: the email address I used for the program is not the same as my iCloud account.
I have paid for the upper level support so I spoke with that person. I have emails and screenshots to support what I’ve stated above.

Developer Response ,

Hello, thank you for your feedback. We are really sorry to read that you didn't have a good experience with our app and support. Checking your username we weren’t able to locate your case in our system. Could you please contact us again? We want to have a second look and be sure to resolve these inconveniences. Thank you for your cooperation. Best regards, Qustodio Team.

Good in theory, poor in execution

With the caveat that we’ve only had this a few days, I’ve seen some significant gaps in Qustodio’s functioning.
First, the idea that this can be an “invisible” installation on a computer is patently false. Yes, it won’t show up on the desktop, but it shows up in a simple search or scrolling the “uninstall apps” list. My kid found it within 30 seconds of the first time he got on his computer and immediately uninstalled it.
Secondly, the parents app has limited functionality compared to what you get by logging in on the desktop. For example, you can’t adjust the off times from the app, if your kid needs to stay on late to finish homework, for example.
Third, and this is my pet peeve with most of these type of apps: there’s no “kill switch.” I want a big button that lets me immediately lock out access to the monitored device, without having to go through menus, adjust time limits or off times, or whatever. Just immediately (and temporarily) lock it out and eventually re-enable it without having to change settings back. Is that so hard?
Given that a year of this costs $50, I’ll give it some more time to see if it gets better, but otherwise I’m looking elsewhere...

Developer Response ,

Hello Kev, We’re sorry to see that you're not satisfied with our service. Could you please contact us via our website referring to this review. We would like to know more about your feedback and suggestions so we can work on improving our app. Regards, the Qustodio Team.

Please don’t get this

Parents please hear me out: As someone who has been through several depression episodes THIS APP MAKES NOTHING BETTER AND INFACT MAKES EVERYTHING 10X WORSE THAN IT ALREADY IS. My parents already check my phone at night and I don’t mind that. What I hate is this app. It monitors everything I do and say on my phone, and will in fact not make your child better but just sneak things around because they have overprotective parents. What happened to trusting people? I understand if your child has depression or something like that but I promise monitoring them just makes them feel like they aren’t even trustable anymore and they never will be. I am just a teen and have never had kids so if I had a kid struggling I would hear them out about what there struggling with instead of hopping to conclusions and blame the phone and treat them like toddlers because they have a problem completely out of their control. To the parents who just want to keep their kids safe please avoid this app and just go through their device because I promise that you don’t need to know every single message or exactly the amount of time they have been on a app. Let the child have the privacy that they deserve. Thanks for reading

Developer Response ,

Hello Emma. We know it’s frustrating having your internet use monitored, but your parents have chosen Qustodio because they want the best for you. We ask families to work together & decide on healthy limits, so why not try having a chat with your parents? Maybe you can find a solution you’re all happy with ☺ Good luck!
Qustodio Team

This app is completely broken on iOS 17

We’ve been using this app for three years now, and we’ve seen a steady decrease is control of my son’s iOS device. It finally broke with the upgrade to iOS 17. We used to be able to give him a time limit on Instagram that he could use in that app. Now, no matter what we set the limit to, Qustodio won’t allow him to refresh his feed. The only way to allow Instagram access is to remove Qustodio for a period of time.

Games and apps are unevenly blocked, as well. Some games aren’t even reported in the activity feed. The only thing that actually works on this app is the time limits…but they don’t work correctly. Even without any time, my son can surf old content on his social media apps. And this time isn’t shown in the parent app. This is a ridiculous waste of money. Nothing works. And before the developer chimes in, yes, we have reinstalled several times. And rebooted several times. This app is still broken.

Bottom line, if you or your child has upgraded to iOS 17, stay away from this app. It doesn’t work.

Totally Unreliable and waste of money

Would give zero stars if I could. I have given this app multiple tries. On every single try my observation was that it works for a few days leading to a false sense of security and suddenly nothing gets tracked any more (or) even when it tracks, it just gives you browser names and nothing else ( thus is with no changes to the computer or to the mobile used for tracking ). Restricted times, apps and websites are not honored. Support has one answer for everything ( reinstall ). You will never be connected to a live agent ever. And reinstall doesn’t solve anything. Every reinstall also needs to be done with turning off security apps thus jeopardizing the computer even more. License fee is non refundable so you are stuck for the whole year even as the child is not protected. This app thrives on sheer number of new kids that embark on internet each year. They don’t add value to any existing users. After nearly two years trying this on and off, I feel a responsibility to leave my experience here as a heads up to other parents considering this.

Developer Response ,

Hello there. We’re very sorry to see that you're not satisfied with our app and that our support team was not able to help you. If you decide to give Qustodio another try, you can simply contact us again at support@qustodio.com and we'll be happy to try and help you troubleshoot these issues. Regards, the Qustodio Team