Bark vs mSpy (2024)

Bark's content monitoring, website blocking, and screen time features offer more comprehensive protection. Plus, mSpy requires you to jailbreak your child's phone, while Bark does not.

Bark is just $14/month or $99/year to protect your entire family, and you can try it out with a free 7-day-trial.

You cannot try mSpy — only purchase in full and then request a refund within 14 days if not satisfied. Also, mSpy is $69.99/month for 1 device only.

If your parents ever looked through your pen-and-paper journal growing up or secretly listened to one of your phone calls, you know how spying can breed resentment. And while parents are responsible for their child’s safety —and phones can be extremely dangerous —there’s a happy medium between outright spying and making sure everything’s okay. Spyware programs simply encourage kids to find alternate ways to talk to their friends, which can cause problems in another way.

Bark helps you build trust by allowing your child to learn how to safely use their phone while also giving them a digital safety net that centers you as the go-to person for help.

Bark strikes the perfect balance between monitoring your child’s phone and giving them privacy to learn about growing up with a digital device. You don’t get unfettered access to everything on their phone, but you will get alerts about potential dangers like online predators, sexting, depression, and more. This way, you can see the concerning message, but you won’t have to wade through hundreds of Fortnite memes or texts about baseball practice.

Bark monitors 30+ social media apps, texts, images, emails, and more and sends alerts when kids encounter issues like sexual content, online predators, suicidal ideation, and cyberbullying.

mSpy requires you to jailbreak your child's phone if they have an iPhone, and only sends keyword alerts.