Does WebWatcher offer a free version?

No, there is no free version of WebWatcher available. You also don’t get a free trial or money-back guarantee, so there really is no way to try the app risk-free. If you insist on a free app, there are some decent free parental control apps out there, but most of them are limited — they lack essential parental control features and often only allow you to monitor 1 device. This is why I prefer premium parental control apps like Qustodio , which offers a free trial and costs just $4.58 / month.

The app itself is legal, but whether it’s OK to use it largely depends on your location and local laws. I advise you to carefully review the laws and regulations in your area. In the majority of countries, using the app for monitoring minors is permitted.

Does WebWatcher provide web and app filters or screen time controls?

WebWatcher doesn’t provide screen time controls and web filters. However, it does come with some sort of app filter — it allows you to block programs on Mac and Windows devices. I also like that it lets you schedule your child’s allowed program usage on these devices .

Can I use WebWatcher on multiple devices?

Yes, but you’ll need to get multiple subscriptions. All of its subscriptions only monitor 1 device, and you need to pick what type of device you want to monitor. However, WebWatcher does offer volume discounts if you get 3 subscriptions or more.

WebWatcher Review 2025: Is It Any Good?

Name: WebWatcher Review 2025: Is It Any Good?
Item: WebWatcher
Rating: 1.5
Author: Kristel van Hoof

WebWatcher Review: Quick Expert Summary

WebWatcher is more of a monitoring app than a parental control app. It comes with many features for keeping tabs on everything your kids do on your phone, including:

Social media monitoring (on mobile). See incoming notifications or messages from several social media platforms, including Instagram, Viber WhatsApp, Snapchat, and Tinder.
Instant messages (on desktop). View sent and received messages from all major messaging programs and web-based chat.
Call & SMS tracker. Monitor your child’s call history and text messages.
Camera roll access. View photos taken and saved to the camera roll.
GPS location. Track and follow all locations your child visited.
Browser history. Logs all sites your kids have visited and searched for.
App usage. View a list of all apps installed on your child’s device
Program blocking. Block any app on your child’s Windows PC, Mac, or Chromebook.
Email. See every email sent and received on all major email programs, including Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
Screenshots. Monitor all cell phone activity with automatic screenshots.
Keystrokes. View every keystroke typed, including the ones that your child deletes.
Alert words. Takes screenshots whenever your kid types an alert word into a website. Also, WebWatcher highlights all alert words across all recorded data types.

However, there are several things I don’t like about WebWatcher. First of all, not all of its features work as advertised or at all, and the software wasn’t always able to recognize all data from my child’s phone. Customer support couldn’t help, and they also didn’t give me a refund when I asked for it.

In addition, the app is missing essential parental control features, such as daily time limits, scheduling, and web and app filters, all of which you can find with top parental control apps like Qustodio and Norton Family. I was also disappointed that its social media monitoring only shows incoming messages and works with a small number of social media apps. Lastly, the setup process is not user-friendly at all — you have to constantly back up your child’s device to get any new data to the parental dashboard, which is a very lengthy process.

WebWatcher has paid monthly and yearly plans for Android, iOS, MacOS, Windows, or Chromebook. You can only monitor 1 device per subscription, and there’s no money-back guarantee or a free trial.

🏅 Overall Rank	Ranked 26th out of 27 parental controls
🖥️ Web & App Filtering	❌
⏲️ Time Limits	❌
📍 Location Tracking	✅
💸 Starting Price	$3.33 / month
📀 Supported Operating Systems	Android, iOS, MacOS, Windows, Chromebook
📱 Number of Devices	1
🎁 Free Plan	❌
💰 Money-Back Guarantee	❌

Try WebWatcher

WebWatcher Full Review — Doesn’t Work as Advertised & Lacks Vital Features

I tested WebWatcher for several weeks to see how it performs in comparison to other top parental control apps. Based on my experience, I wouldn’t recommend purchasing a WebWatcher subscription.

WebWatcher offers impressive monitoring features, but they don’t always work. It claims to monitor social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Snapchat, give you access to your kid’s SMS and call history, check all keystrokes, set alert keywords, and track your child’s location. Unfortunately, during my tests, the software didn’t work as advertised.

WebWatcher has other drawbacks, too. It lacks basic parental control features, such as time limits, scheduling, and web and app filters, and its social media monitoring on mobile devices only allows you to see incoming message notifications. In addition, WebWatcher lets you monitor 1 device per subscription and doesn’t offer a money-back guarantee or a free trial. I also found it difficult to set up, and it took more than 2 hours before the data from my child’s device was transferred to the Webwatcher parental dashboard.

Overall, I don’t recommend WebWatcher for monitoring your kid’s device. If being able to monitor your child’s device without jailbreaking, rooting, or accessing your child’s Apple ID sounds too good to be true, it’s because it definitely is — the software didn’t record all data, backing up my child’s phone took hours, and sometimes the app stopped working completely. If you’re looking for a great parental control app that includes essential features like time limits and allows you to monitor your child’s social media, I recommend checking out Bark.

WebWatcher Plans & Pricing — Expensive & Limited to 1 Device

WebWatcher offers a 1-month, a 3-month, and a 1-year plan for iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and Chromebook. All plans let you monitor only 1 device, the type of which you choose when you purchase the plan.

There are volume discounts available on orders of 3 or more licenses, which you’ll need if you want more than 1 device. After you purchase multiple licenses, WebWatcher lets you view all recorded data in the same online account, which is convenient.

I found WebWatcher’s pricing is on the expensive side, especially considering that it limits you to 1 device and forces you to choose the type of device when you purchase the subscription. This means that if your child were to swap their Android for an iOS, you’ll need a new subscription. Top competitors like Qustodio, Norton Family, and Bark are cheaper and allow you to monitor more devices at once.

Unfortunately, there’s no free trial and money-back guarantee. Although WebWatcher claims it has a “Risk Free” program, you’ll only get a refund if WebWatcher can’t do everything it promises on its site, and if its customer support team is unable to resolve your issue within 3 days of you notifying them. On top of that, you only have 72 hours to make sure everything is working properly — once that window closes, you’ll no longer be able to request a refund. And if you confirm functionally from the interface before that, which you need to do to see any data in the app, you won’t be able to ask for a refund anymore.

This is disappointing since most parental control apps come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

	iOS	Android	Windows	macOS	Chromebook
Price	$10.83 / month	$10.83 / month	$10.83 / month	$10.83 / month	$3.33 / month
Devices	1	1	1	1	1
Social media Monitoring	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌
SMS/Text Monitoring	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌
Camera Roll Access	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌
Location Tracking	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌
Browser History	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
App Usage	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌
Program Blocking	❌	❌	✅	✅	❌
Instant Messages	❌	❌	✅	✅	❌
Email Monitoring	❌	❌	✅	✅	❌
Continuous Screenshots	❌	✅	✅	✅	✅
Keylogger (upon request)	❌	❌	✅	❌	❌
Alert Words	❌	❌	✅	✅	✅
Risk Alerts	❌	❌	❌	✅	❌
Enotify (upon request)	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅

WebWatcher Features — A Range of Monitoring Tools, but They Don’t All Work

WebWatcher is more of a monitoring app than a typical parental control app. Unlike other top apps such as Qustodio and Bark, WebWatcher lacks the ability to restrict activities on your child’s phone, such as accessing certain websites or using specific apps, and it doesn’t have any time limits or schedule features.

But it claims to offer features that allow you to see the messages and notifications your kid receives on social media apps, call logs, SMS, and emails. According to WebWatcher, you can also see their browser history, access their camera roll, monitor cell phone activity with automatic screenshots, and track their location. Unfortunately, not all features worked during my tests.

Social Media Monitoring — Works Well, but It Requires a Workaround

WebWatcher allows you to monitor several social media platforms. On Android, these platforms include Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Kik, WhatsApp, Tinder, Snapchat, and Viber. On iPhone, WebWatcher monitors Tinder, WhatsApp, Kik, and Viber. Although it doesn’t monitor many apps, I like that it works with the most popular ones.

However, it doesn’t let you see everything your kid is doing on these apps like Mobicip. Instead, it allows you to see incoming messages — so not what your child has sent. I was happy to see that it works as advertised for WhatsApp, Messenger, and Viber. But, for Snapchat and Tinder, WebWatcher only shows you the notification that your kid receives on the phone when someone sends them a message, which basically means you’ll only see the name of the sender and not much else.

The good news is there’s a workaround. You can monitor social media accounts on Android, MacOS, Windows, and Chromebook with WebWatcher’s Continuous Screenshots feature, which captures images of your child’s device’s screen when they visit any social media URL.

Call & SMS Monitoring — View Your Child’s Phone History

WebWatcher shows you information about your child’s calls and texts on their Android or iOS device.

It lets you see the call history on your child’s phone. This includes call duration, time of call, the phone numbers, and whether the call was incoming or outgoing. Unfortunately, unlike Qustodio, it doesn’t allow you to block certain phone numbers.

It also monitors all SMS and MMS messages on your child’s iPhone or Android device, which is useful if you’re worried about your child’s communication with potentially dangerous individuals. It displays all media files, timestamps, and contact info, as well as deleted messages.

Camera Roll Access — See Your Child’s Photos

WebWatcher Features — A Range of Monitoring Tools, but They Don’t All Work

WebWatcher allows you to see all photos on your child’s iPhone and Android. This includes all self-shot photos, any media downloaded from the internet, and screenshots taken on their device. In the app, WebWatcher even showed me the date and timestamps of all the images, which was pretty impressive.

Still, if you prefer a less invasive approach, I recommend Bark. The app monitors all photos and videos on your child’s device but only notifies you if it detects concerning content.

GPS Location Tracking — OK on Android, Useless on iOS

WebWatcher Features — A Range of Monitoring Tools, but They Don’t All Work

WebWatcher’s GPS location tracking feature claims to your child’s exact location on mobile. On Android, you get real-time updates about your kid’s location, which is great, but on iOS, WebWatcher updates your kid’s current location once your device and your child’s device are connected to the same Wi-Fi network. This isn’t really useful if you want to know where your child is at all times.

Unfortunately, during my tests on iOS, the GPS Location Tracker didn’t work at all. When I clicked on the Click here to check the current location button, it asked me to sign in with my child’s Apple ID. After I did that, I got a notification saying “Please ensure the monitored device is powered on and Find My iPhone is toggled on for this device and try again”. However, my child’s phone was already on and so was the Find My iPhone feature.

You do get access to location history on both Android and iOS. But that’s pretty standard — most top parental control apps like FamiSafe let you see where your child has been in the past weeks. Unlike other apps like Mobicip, WebWatcher doesn’t allow you to set any geofences, a useful feature that sends you alerts when your child enters or leaves a certain area.

Overall, the GPS location tracking is decent on Android, but it’s not really useful on iOS. I also don’t like that it’s missing a geofencing feature.

Browser History — Monitor Your Child’s Internet Use (But You Can’t Filter Sites)

WebWatcher Features — A Range of Monitoring Tools, but They Don’t All Work

WebWatcher monitors the browser history on your child’s device. It shows you the URLs your child has visited via Chrome and Safari, the title of the pages, the category of the website, and when your child has visited each website. What I really like is that this feature works in incognito mode, too, so there’s no way for your child to get around the app.

It lets you see the keywords your child has searched for in search engines, too. I really like this feature as it allows me to understand what my kids are looking for on the internet. WebWatcher monitors for keywords on Google, Yahoo, and Bing on desktop, which is impressive.

Unfortunately, WebWatcher doesn’t offer web filtering, which means there’s no way to block access to specific websites. Other parental control apps such as Qustodio and Norton Family allow you to manually block specific websites and block sites by predefined categories and even set alerts for when your child visits certain websites.

Program Blocking — App Filter for Desktop

WebWatcher’s program blocking is like an app filter for Windows and MacOS — it allows you to block any program installed on these devices. You can block the programs permanently or on a schedule. Unfortunately, unlike Qustodio, WebWatcher doesn’t offer any app filters for iPhone and Android and doesn’t let you set time limits for specific apps.

Instant Messages — View Your Child’s Sent & Received DMs

This feature allows you to view all sent and received messages from all major messaging programs and web-based chats, including WhatsApp Web, on Windows and MacOS devices. I was impressed that WebWatcher offers this feature, as most monitoring apps only work on mobile devices. I still prefer Bark, as it’s also able to monitor more apps on desktop.

Email Monitoring — See All Sent & Received Emails

WebWatcher monitors emails on your child’s macOS and Windows devices. You can see every email sent and received on all major email programs, including Webmail and Outlook. I like that it doesn’t only show the body text, but also the attachments, subject, recipients, dates, and timestamps. Unfortunately, unlike Qustodio, WebWatcher doesn’t offer the possibility to block any email contacts.

Continuous Screenshots — Handy Way to Review Your Kid’s Online Activities

This feature makes video-style playbacks of screenshots for programs and websites on your child’s device, which is a great way of closely keeping track of what they’re doing online. It lets you manually select what apps and websites you want to have screenshots of. For example, if you choose to follow Snapchat, you’ll be able to see their every move on the app, including the messages and pictures they’ve sent and received. In the settings, you can set a time for the intervals between the screenshots. This feature is available for Android, MacOS, Windows, and Chromebook.

However, I was a bit disappointed that WebWatcher only allows 1,000 screenshots per subscription — you’ll have to pay extra if you want WebWatcher to keep making more screenshots. Other parental controls such as mSpy and Eyezy take unlimited screenshots.

Alert Words — Track Keywords (But It’s Not That Intuitive)

WebWatcher Features — A Range of Monitoring Tools, but They Don’t All Work

I was surprised to see that WebWatcher lets you create alert words that you want to keep track of. WebWatcher not only sends you screenshots when it detects an alert word, but it also highlights all alert words on all recorded data on your child’s device on iOS, Windows, MacOS, and Chromebook. Unlike Mobicip, WebWatcher’s alert word feature doesn’t work on Android.

If you already have a list, you can just upload it via the Batch Upload Alert Words option. The file must be a .csv file and each word must be separated with a comma, but I still think it’s very convenient, especially if you’re moving from another parental control app.

I found it a bit annoying that WebWatcher comes pre-configured with a large list of alert words. Because of that, I had to manually scroll through this huge list to find any words that I didn’t want to be included and delete them manually.

Additional Features — Some Extra Monitoring Tools

Keylogger. Allows you to see all messages, searches, and more that your child typed but deleted. But I was a bit disappointed when I found out that you have to pay extra to use it — WebWatcher’s site says it’s “available upon request”, and its email reps confirmed this means it’s an add-on and is not included in the plans. Other top parental apps such as mSpy include a keylogger without having to request it.
App Usage. Lets you view a list of all apps your child uses on their device. This feature works for Android and iPhone.
Risk Alerts. Alarms you when it notices potentially risky behavior in texts, photos, web & more. Only works on MacOS.
Enotify Add-on. With this add-on, you can receive all recorded data hourly, daily, or weekly via an email sent to your inbox.

WebWatcher Installation & Setup — Kid’s App Is Time-Consuming

WebWatcher works with your kid’s iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, and Chromebook devices. Its parental app works on iOS, Android, and all major web browsers like Chrome, Safari, and Firefox.

Apps for Kids	Apps for Parents
iOS & Android	Any major web browser, iOS, and Android

Setting up the WebWatcher parental app takes only about 5 minutes. On desktops, all I had to do was open the WebWatcher site in a web browser and log in with my credentials. On Android or iOS, you have to download the app from the app store, use your credentials to log in, select “parent”, and start using the app.

Setting up WebWatcher on the child’s device took me almost a whole day. Downloading and installing the app is a rather lengthy process, and I found it quite difficult to get WebWatcher installed on my child’s iPhone due to all the steps I had to take.

However, WebWatcher offers to set up everything remotely. All you have to do is contact their customer support team through the live chat feature (which you have access to after you purchase a subscription).

WebWatcher Parental App Installation & Setup

WebWatcher Kids Device Installation & Setup

Installing WebWatcher for your child’s iOS device is a complicated and lengthy process.

You first have to add an iOS device to your account. From a macOS or Windows device, log into your WebWatcher account. Click in the upper menu on Available Licenses and select the Install iPhone/iPad icon. From here, select the live chat button to let a chat agent install WebWatcher remotely. However, if you prefer to install it manually, you’ve to follow the steps below.