Aura Parental Controls Review 2025: Is It Worth Using?

Aura Parental Controls is a great foundation for protecting your kids and keeping your family safe online, but it lacks advanced features such as location tracking and communication monitoring. Through testing the product, we found that you have full control over when your children can access their phone or specific apps, with the ability to turn off all access at any time. 

But Aura Parental Controls doesn't monitor texts, emails, or social media. You also can't block content within apps, and alerts for cyberbullying and harassment are limited to the Safe Gaming mode.

Overall, Aura is a good option for parents who want to easily set screen time limits and block access to inappropriate content. But if you want more monitoring and tracking, you may want to check out other options on the best parental control apps list.

At a glance

Price	$8.25-$32.00/mo
Number of kids supported	Unlimited
Content filtering	Yes
Conversation monitoring	No
Screen time management	Yes
Location tracking	No
Activity reports	Yes
Supported devices	Android, iPhone, iPad
Learn more	Get Aura Parental Controls

We last tested Aura Parental Controls on February 18, 2025.

Our experience

We tested Aura Parental Controls by installing the app on our iPhone 13 and monitoring its usage from Chrome on our laptop.

Set up was easy and only required a quick login on the device, then adding a child by inputting their name and birthday. The birthday is important because the child must be under 18 for these restrictions to be applied to their device.

We also needed to grant a few permissions before the app could function properly. The main ones were accessing the iOS Screen Time function and allowing the app to work as a virtual private network (VPN). This means all information transmitted to the internet goes through Aura first, which is how they track and limit app usage.

Once we had set up the app on our phone, we checked out our parent-view dashboard to see what features we had. The dashboard provides an overview of each child's device usage, the most recent activity, and whether they attempted to visit any blocked apps.

Screen time management

From here, we were also able to immediately deny access to all apps on the phone just by clicking the "Pause" button. All filters, limitations, and tracking are done at the child level, so you can customize them for each of your children's needs.

We found the ability to block apps worked well. You can choose to filter content by blocking apps, restricting websites, and forcing safe search. We found that most of the main apps were included in the list, but we are unsure what would happen if there was an app we wanted to block that wasn't on the list.

Blocking works by limiting internet access to the specified app or website. Your child can still open the app and use features that don't require an internet connection, but they won't be able to send messages or load new content.

We were happy with the features that helped set screen time limits. You can set a bedtime for each child and apply it only for certain days, if you want to give them a bit more freedom on the weekends.

You can also define time limits per app, allowing you to block access to fun apps while keeping important ones, such as those used for communication, fully functional.

Safe Gaming

We also tried the Safe Gaming feature, which is only available on Windows computers with Aura Antivirus installed. This feature, called ProtectMe by Kidas, monitors communication on common games and gaming communication apps, such as Discord.

We installed it and got some of our friends to "harass" on Discord, but received no alerts. It appears that reports are only released every Tuesday, and there's no way to check on progress before then. We'll hold off judgment until we get our report, but we'd like a more real-time approach to cyberbullying protection.

App removal

Although this is exclusive to Android, we were disappointed that we could easily delete the app from our phone, and our dashboard didn't notify us that it had been disconnected. If you have an older child or teen who's prone to breaking rules, this will make it a nightmare to keep the app on their device. 

Overall, we had a positive experience with screen time management and content filtering features. The app is unobtrusive for both the parent and the child, plus it covers all the basics well.

Who is Aura best for?

• Recommended for parents whose main objective is to track and limit screen time 

Aura may not do everything a dedicated parental control app could do, but what it does do is done well. If you want an easy-to-use program that helps you limit and monitor screen time for each of your kids, this is exactly what you need.

We would not recommend Aura for parents who want full monitoring features, including location tracking and communication sleuthing. This also wouldn't be ideal for older children who are likely to delete the app from their own phone, since there's nothing you can do to stop that on Android.

Aura Parental Controls prices and subscriptions

Aura Parental Control app costs $8.25-$32.00/mo depending on which plan you select. The standard plan costs $8.25/mo (billed annually) and covers an unlimited number of children and an antivirus program for you.

If you want the full host of Aura identity theft features, you can go for the Family plan. This will cost you $32.00/mo (billed annually) but also include up to $5 million in identity theft insurance, credit monitoring, and more.

Features	Aura Parental Controls	Aura Ultimate Family
Price	$8.25/mo (billed annually)	$32.00/mo (billed annually)
Who's covered	1 adult, unlimited kids	5 adults, unlimited kids
Content filtering
Screen time management
Cyberbullying and online predator alerts	Yes — only while gaming on Windows device	Yes — only while gaming on Windows device
Online account monitoring
Child SSN monitoring
Child 3-bureau credit freeze
Identity theft insurance
Financial fraud protection
Learn more	View plan	View plan

Aura is slightly more expensive than its competitors if you’re using it exclusively for parental controls. Its starting monthly price is $8.25/mo (billed annually). Both Bark and Qustodio are a few dollars cheaper, with Bark starting at $5.00/mo and Qustodio starting at $4.58/mo (billed annually).

If you’re including it as part of an identity theft protection plan, however, it’s comparable to competitors. Other identity theft protection services offer parental control apps, such as Norton Family, which can be bundled with Norton 360 for similar monthly costs. 

Aura Parental Controls features

If you’re looking for a way to monitor the amount of time your child spends online and to restrict what they can view, Aura definitely has you covered. There aren’t many standard parental control features, like email monitoring or geo-fencing, but Aura can help you teach your child about healthy internet usage.

It also allows you to filter the internet with age-appropriate restrictions so your kid isn’t accidentally stumbling into something you don’t want them to see.

Content monitoring

Aura’s content monitoring is kind of basic. In our testing, we found that the only real content filtering options were centered around age.

When you enter your child’s birthday into the service, it applies an age-appropriate template that filters out content that doesn’t meet that age. You can adjust it a little within the app. 

Since Aura doesn’t monitor within apps, this is restricted to online content and what’s searched on the web.

Social media and phone apps

Aura doesn’t offer robust app management. It offers dedicated services for YouTube monitoring, but primarily tracks the time your child spends on other apps. You do have the ability to block certain apps, but it varies greatly and can’t be condensed into a single list.

Text messages

Aura states that it doesn’t monitor text messages. There isn’t much elaboration on that end, and we’re unsure if it’s due to the technology or Aura's decision not to include the feature.

Email

Aura also doesn’t offer email monitoring. On mobile devices, there’s no way to set it up to track emails coming in or going out or see the content included in those emails.

We understand that this could be due to the nature of the mobile devices on which it’s installed, but we wish there were some way to include this technology with Aura, as competitors do offer it.

Web browsers

This is really where the bulk of Aura’s content filtering services shine. Aura curates an idea of what is age-appropriate for your child based on your child’s birthday and its own filtering system.

When we tested it out, we tried the most adult sites we could find, and it blocked us without hesitation. According to the safe search parental control settings, these are focused on sexually explicit content. 

We tried to visit onlyfans.com, which could be considered sexually explicit, but that's not the only use of the site. Aura proceeded to block us from loading the page without explanation. 

We were able to access the majority of the general, everyday web, although we didn’t attempt to access anything unusual.

Screen time management

Screen time management is the most comprehensive feature you’re going to get with Aura. It allows you to set time limits, track how much time your child is spending online, and even award bonus time as a reward for completing chores or other activities. Aura even allows you to set app and category time limits.

We set a 15-minute screen time limit to test out the feature. In our parent dashboard, we were notified that the screen time limit was reached. 

From our child's device (the test phone), we also received push notifications that we reached our screen time limit.  

The screen time management feature allows you to have a little more control over how your kids access applications. Given the lack of app monitoring, this is a workaround. As long as you know what apps your child has on their mobile device, you can set individual limits to help you moderate app usage.

Location tracking and geo-fencing

Unfortunately, Aura does not include tracking or geo-fencing features. The majority of what Aura offers includes monitoring online activity, filtering content, setting time limits, and protecting against child identity theft.

Activity reports

Activity reports are available on the main dashboard. You can see the activity for each child by clicking on their profile. 

You’ll have an overview in front of you, and then a comprehensive report for each category, which you can expand. You’ll be able to discuss responsible internet usage and app time limits with your kids by viewing their current activity.

Aura Parental Controls customer support

Support type	Aura Parental Controls
Email or live chat
Phone
Online guides or forums

Aura’s customer support options are fine. If you require assistance with identity theft, there’s a phone number and remediation specialists available.

If you need support, the chat is available 24/7 with the automated assistant. If you need to speak with a live support specialist, you’ll first need to use the live chat options and then call the support team. Live specialist chat support is available from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST.

Top alternatives

Aura has great identity theft protection, but if the parental controls aren’t robust enough for you or don’t include the features you need, then it’s time to try one of these other products. The best parental controls should have features that fit your unique situation. 

If Aura isn’t for you, one of these may work instead.

Aura Parental Controls FAQs

Bottom line: Are Aura Parental Controls good?

Aura Parental Controls may leave something to be desired in terms of location tracking and monitoring, but the quality of content monitoring is very good. It's a good choice for Aura users who want to track and limit their children's screen time while still maintaining their online privacy.

We do think it’s a little expensive for the amount of features offered, but remember that it can be coupled with identity theft protection for your entire family. The biggest downside is that the app can be deleted from Android without your dashboard noticing, so you can only really use it with younger or very mature kids.

If you’re wondering how Aura stacks up against other top parental control apps on the market, check out our in-depth comparisons:

• Aura vs. Bark
• Aura vs. Norton Family
• Aura vs. Net Nanny
• Aura vs. mSpy
• Aura vs. Qustodio