Review Insights · App Store
BePresent: Screen Time Control
Screen Detox Inc · 45,958 ratings · ★ 4.8
4.8
★★★★★
45,958 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 35 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"free"
18 negative reviews mention this · 51% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Scammed with “1 week free trial” charged for 1 month. I was offered a free trial for 1 week and when I signed up for it, I got charged for the month. There’s no way to even contact their customer support to discuss with them. Heavily disappointed that the app that’s supposed to help me with sc…" - Appleuser12949
2
"trial"
13 negative reviews mention this · 37% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Scammed with “1 week free trial” charged for 1 month. I was offered a free trial for 1 week and when I signed up for it, I got charged for the month. There’s no way to even contact their customer support to discuss with them. Heavily disappointed that the app that’s supposed to help me with sc…" - Appleuser12949
3
"free trial"
11 negative reviews mention this · 31% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Scammed with “1 week free trial” charged for 1 month. I was offered a free trial for 1 week and when I signed up for it, I got charged for the month. There’s no way to even contact their customer support to discuss with them. Heavily disappointed that the app that’s supposed to help me with sc…" - Appleuser12949
4
"subscription"
8 negative reviews mention this · 23% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Bad subscription base. The subscription base is not through the Apple Store making it more difficult to cancel subscription and risk of getting charged after free trial." - Semihitter
5
"charged"
7 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Scammed with “1 week free trial” charged for 1 month. I was offered a free trial for 1 week and when I signed up for it, I got charged for the month. There’s no way to even contact their customer support to discuss with them. Heavily disappointed that the app that’s supposed to help me with sc…" - Appleuser12949
6
"screen"
7 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Scammed with “1 week free trial” charged for 1 month. I was offered a free trial for 1 week and when I signed up for it, I got charged for the month. There’s no way to even contact their customer support to discuss with them. Heavily disappointed that the app that’s supposed to help me with sc…" - Appleuser12949
7
"money"
7 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Beware of free trial!. I try free trials and I am pretty good about ending it before the charge occurs if I don’t like the app or don’t have the money at the moment. This app is a $63 charge and when you’re signing up for it, it says “don’t worry we’ll warn you b…" - Mongarz
8
"week"
6 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Scammed with “1 week free trial” charged for 1 month. I was offered a free trial for 1 week and when I signed up for it, I got charged for the month. There’s no way to even contact their customer support to discuss with them. Heavily disappointed that the app that’s supposed to help me with sc…" - Appleuser12949
9
"phone"
6 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Recent update broke the app. This went from being one of my favorites to the most annoying thing on my phone. Their app allowlist is broken. I’ve had to reset it every day the last couple weeks. It starts randomly blocking allowed apps as “restricted” including essenti…" - Neatguynick
10
"cancel"
6 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Scammed with “1 week free trial” charged for 1 month. I was offered a free trial for 1 week and when I signed up for it, I got charged for the month. There’s no way to even contact their customer support to discuss with them. Heavily disappointed that the app that’s supposed to help me with sc…" - Appleuser12949
11
"month"
5 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Scammed with “1 week free trial” charged for 1 month. I was offered a free trial for 1 week and when I signed up for it, I got charged for the month. There’s no way to even contact their customer support to discuss with them. Heavily disappointed that the app that’s supposed to help me with sc…" - Appleuser12949
12
"access"
5 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "costs $60+. i wish i could access the free trial without giving my card info… doesn’t seem secure or trustworthy to me" - Sushi_person
📋 All 35 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
Scammed with “1 week free trial” charged for 1 month
I was offered a free trial for 1 week and when I signed up for it, I got charged for the month. There’s no way to even contact their customer support to discuss with them. Heavily disappointed that the app that’s supposed to help me with screen time is misleading people with free trials. I cancelled it immediately and I’m still charged $15 here.
Recent update broke the app
This went from being one of my favorites to the most annoying thing on my phone. Their app allowlist is broken. I’ve had to reset it every day the last couple weeks. It starts randomly blocking allowed apps as “restricted” including essential functions like the camera. There is no support number or email that I can find either. Very disappointing. I am considering uninstalling and requesting a refund
Another scammy free trial
It’s not $60 a year good. Naturally they offer a free trial for a week and promise to remind you ahead of time so you can cancel. Spoiler alert: they don’t. Also, the trial doesn’t go through the App Store, so if you look there to cancel it you can’t find it. The app is polished and looks like a duolingo knock off, but I spent more time trying to figure out how to unlock blocked apps that I needed for normal function than I would have spent checking the apps themselves.
Beware of free trial!
I try free trials and I am pretty good about ending it before the charge occurs if I don’t like the app or don’t have the money at the moment. This app is a $63 charge and when you’re signing up for it, it says “don’t worry we’ll warn you before the free trial ends” obviously so I put my guard down and say okay let’s try it! lo and behold I didn’t see a notification and just get an email of the charged invoice. I feel tricked but I guess it is partially my fault for not being on top of it. Now I’m down $63 that’s a lot of money that I would’ve never agreed to if they didn’t state “don’t worry we’ll warn you before the trial ends”. Upset!!
Not free, hides cost
Makes you set up everything then tells you that it’s $5 a month.
Bad subscription base
The subscription base is not through the Apple Store making it more difficult to cancel subscription and risk of getting charged after free trial.
EXPENSIVE
I wish there was a free version!!! WAY too expensive!
costs $60+
i wish i could access the free trial without giving my card info… doesn’t seem secure or trustworthy to me
Waste of money
Doesn’t do anything different than other time control apps and they make you pay for a whole year after 1 week trial. I tried to cancel after a few days because I didn’t like it but it was hard to figure out how to cancel it so I reached out to customer service and they took like 3 days to reply so I had to pay for the year 🫠
The app keeps blocking even after you get rid of it
I tried the free trial several weeks ago and decided it wasn’t for me. Despite canceling my subscription, deleting all app blocking rules, turning off its ability to access my screen time, and deleting the app, it continues to block an app on my phone every night. Their customer service is useless and it took three or four emails for them to even understand my problem. Now they just send me oversimplified solutions like “you must have downtime turned on” and general help desk articles that don’t resolve the issue. I don’t know how to get this app to stop blocking other apps on my phone and I am at my wits end!
Requires you to provide credit card before you even try
The app concept is great and genuinely useful for reducing screen time, which is why I decided to try it after seeing the ad. However, the onboarding experience is misleading like others mentioned.
It advertises $4.99/month, but when you proceed to start the free trial, you’re required to enter credit card details and are then prompted to authorize a $59.99 annual charge instead. There’s no clear or transparent explanation of this shift in pricing.
Requiring payment details before even trying the app, combined with inconsistent pricing information, makes it feel untrustworthy. Many users will likely drop off before getting to experience the app at all.
A clearer pricing structure and a true no-commitment trial would make a big difference.
It advertises $4.99/month, but when you proceed to start the free trial, you’re required to enter credit card details and are then prompted to authorize a $59.99 annual charge instead. There’s no clear or transparent explanation of this shift in pricing.
Requiring payment details before even trying the app, combined with inconsistent pricing information, makes it feel untrustworthy. Many users will likely drop off before getting to experience the app at all.
A clearer pricing structure and a true no-commitment trial would make a big difference.
Use a free alternative
$5 a month? No thanks I can just put my phone down 😂😂 guess this one is for the real doomscrollers only, imma use my phone less just knowing I’m not wasting money on this app hahahahah
Scammy
Says 4.99 a month then takes you to some random website and asks for $60. Super scam like behavior. If your app was actually worthwhile, you would 1) have the subscription within the app making it easy to cancel, and 2) have a month to month option. The reason apps like this do neither is because users cancel after a week or a month because the app is junk, so the scammers try to grab as much money as possible up front.
Not free. Phone killer
Subscription based model, no free option. Immediately slowed my phone down to a crawl. Uses power and memory like its strategy for detoxing you is to make your phone unusable.
Deceptive "Free trial"
When the free trial ended I was prompted to keep or delete the app. Its pretty expensive so I decided to delete it. I still got charged $59.99! Super irritated!
Cost money
Y’all say you’re trying to help people, but then you just charge them you are greedy
Misleading
Disliked the app and the subscription process is predatory, like everything they pretend to be against
Need someone to respond!!
I have tried to reach someone about my account multiple ways with no response, so I’m leaving a 1-star review in hopes I might actually get someone to respond to me. There is no simple way to access my account and make changes to the subscription. I’ve emailed. I’ve requested a link (no link ever showed up). I’m not sure what else to do. If someone could PLEASE contact me, that would be great.
UPDATE 04-20-2026: I have reached out to the email provided a number of times with no response. So to recap, not only was I charged for a service I didn’t want, I STILL DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO MY ACCOUNT TO CANCEL. I suggest you respond immediately or I will continue to publicly update this review so users know what a scam this is.
UPDATE 04-20-2026: I have reached out to the email provided a number of times with no response. So to recap, not only was I charged for a service I didn’t want, I STILL DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO MY ACCOUNT TO CANCEL. I suggest you respond immediately or I will continue to publicly update this review so users know what a scam this is.
Trial not honored
I signed up for a week long trial. They charged me for a week’s subscription instead. When I emailed them asking for a refund, they refused, saying I never signed up for a free trial. DO NOT TRUST THIS APP!
DONT DOWNLOAD
Impossible to find where your subscription is, it says it’s through a payment app that I’ve never signed up for they are taking my money
Took my money after I canceled
These guys suck I canceled the trial and they still took my money
Billed me with notification
I signed up for the free trial. They promise to notify you before the end of the trial period. They sent no notification and then billed my for a full year of service I do not want.
Not free
I need this app but I’m on a sort of low budget and I can’t afford 30 a year
Be present
You can’t delete without a screen time password and if you don’t know it it’s taking up space and is useless
Don’t use it
I download the app, hoping that is gonna work perfectly and only limit my Instagram access, but even though I specifically did that it’s blocked all my apps and it was a disaster to remove the app and then bring it back to normal. I strongly suggest not to use this app.
Make it free!
I’m downloaded this app thinking oh I actually think that I can use this app to benefit myself when next thing I know I’m getting forced to pay to use it
Not free
Says that you get one week free but then you have to put in your payment information before you get that one week free and it’s $60 annually.
Unsubscribing is hard
Note that subscribing is easy and automatic, unsubscribing is way harder
Eogh
This app wants me to reviwew before ik what im doing i refuse i know my rights as a consumer
The Most POWER HUNGRY App Ever
Don’t get me wrong. This app is great on paper. I love the concept. It works and I benefit from it. But I cannot overstate how slow this app is when I open it. It has crashed my phone on multiple occasions. The app is often unresponsive or unbelievably slow to respond. It has frozen my phone on numerous occasions. I never write reviews but I believe in this app’s vision so much, I felt compelled to say something about it. Please optimize your app! It’s unbearable how unusable it is.
Update 4/30/26: their support has reached out to me and is working to resolve this issue
Update 4/30/26: their support has reached out to me and is working to resolve this issue
Cancel doesn’t work
Email support does not respond, and they still charged me even though I cancelled…
Lags like crazy
How much did yall vibe code this? There is not a single time I opened this app and it’s not lagging. I have force quit the app at least 5 times to get where I need to be. iPhone 15
Disappointed
the app gave me a free 7 day trial and i didn’t wanna pay. trying to fix screen time shouldn’t be at a cost.
Worse than inbuilt screen-time app
There is very little that differs with this app vs screen-time tracker in settings. This app provides less information that the in-built screen time tracker. Social features is the only notable distinguishing feature.
Too glitchy
Helps with my screen time but is glitchy. Kind of bummed I paid for it. When I turn off the downtime, it takes a while before I can access some apps. Seems to slow my phone down overall
Sentiment summary
97%
Positive (4-5★)
1%
Neutral (3★)
2%
Negative (1-2★)