Phones with online safety features for kids

Gabb Phone 4

A phone that looks and feels like an ordinary Android but simply cannot reach the open internet: no browser, no app store, and only Gabb's own messaging, music and maps apps plus a short curated library a parent can enable. Gabb aims it at roughly ages 9 to 14 and sells it with its own cellular service, so you cannot bring it to another carrier. The catch is commitment. The cheapest monthly rates are the one and two year contract rates, and cancelling early costs $100 to $150. It is also a hard ceiling by design: when your child outgrows it, the answer is a different phone, not a looser setting.

Pinwheel Slim 6

A Motorola handset running Pinwheel's own Android-based software, built for parents who want to start strict and loosen up over time. Out of the box there is no web browser and no social media, only approved numbers can call or text, and every message is readable in the Caregiver Portal; when you decide your child is ready you can switch on the Google Play Store and approve apps one at a time. Pinwheel is the only one of these brands that lets you keep your own carrier, and it is unusual in letting a second household share the controls, which matters in a split family. The trade-off is that the parent portal is billed on top of whatever cellular plan you already pay for. Pinwheel also sells the cheaper Genesis 4 at $119 and the 5G Plus 6 at $299 with identical software.

Bark Phone

A Samsung Galaxy A16 with Bark's monitoring built into the operating system rather than bolted on as an app, which is why a child cannot uninstall it or reset their way around it. It is the most adjustable phone here: the $29 starter plan is talk and text with no internet and no apps at all, and higher plans progressively add a web filter, the Play Store with per-app approval, and mobile data. Bark's approach to messages is alerts rather than transcripts, so you are told when something looks concerning instead of reading everything, which some families prefer and others find too hands-off. Bark publishes no outright price for the phone: it is a $10 monthly device payment over 24 months on top of the plan, so it is cheap to start and awkward to compare with phones you buy once.

Troomi Samsung Galaxy A17 5G

Troomi puts its KidSmart software on a current Samsung Galaxy A17 and sells the phone and service together with no contract. Its distinctive piece is the Smart Browser, which works from a list of website domains you approve rather than filtering an otherwise open web, alongside a curated Troomi app store instead of Google Play. Text and image monitoring is included on every plan, and only approved numbers can reach your child. Read the plan tiers carefully before buying: browsing, apps and mobile data only come with the top Discover plan, so the cheaper tiers are effectively talk, text and location.

MMGuardian Phone A17

A Samsung phone with MMGuardian's controls built into the system so that safe mode and factory resets cannot undo them. It is the pick for parents who want to read rather than be alerted: the parent portal shows every text and messages from popular social apps, not only the ones flagged as risky, alongside web filtering, app approval and location history a child cannot switch off. Unlike Gabb, Troomi and Bark it is sold unlocked, so you add the line to the family plan you already have and pay MMGuardian only for the software. It is the most expensive kid-phone here up front, though prepaying a year of service brings the phone down to $259.

Wisephone II

A Samsung handset running a deliberately locked-down build of Android that strips the phone back to calling, texting, camera, maps, music and a handful of vetted apps you can add from a tool drawer. There is no browser and no social media at all, and a web portal lets you or another trusted adult decide which features stay switched on. Techless sells it mainly to adults doing a digital detox, but prices its cheapest data plan as the one for teens, and several families use it as a first phone for exactly that reason. Two honest caveats: it costs $399 plus a $39 activation fee before any service, and there is no parent dashboard for location or message monitoring, so it is a simplicity tool rather than a supervision tool.

Apple iPhone 17e

The cheapest current iPhone, and the sensible answer for a family already living on Apple devices. None of the safety work is in the hardware: it happens in a Child Account and Screen Time, where you can set web content to block adult sites or allow only approved ones, require your approval before any app is downloaded, restrict apps by age rating, and approve new contacts before your child can message them. Find My handles location, and Communication Safety blurs detected nudity in Messages and FaceTime. What you do not get is message monitoring. Apple's privacy model means no one, you included, reads your child's texts, and every restriction is a setting a determined teenager will keep asking you to relax.

Google Pixel 10a

A mainstream Android phone supervised through Family Link, the same free tool that works across most Android devices, so nothing about the phone is kid-specific. A parent can block sites in Chrome, require approval before a new app installs, set daily and per-app time limits with School Time and Downtime schedules, and see the phone on a map. It is sold unlocked, so there is no special plan to buy and no early termination fee to think about, and Google promises seven years of OS and security updates. Family Link does not read texts, and because it is a normal phone underneath, it gives a teenager far more room to negotiate than a purpose-built kids phone does.