Kids spend hours on their phones—chatting, scrolling, exploring. As a parent, that can raise questions. Who are they talking to? What content are they viewing? Are they safe online?
Spy and monitoring apps can help answer those questions. These tools give parents a closer look at phone activity, helping them protect their children from online risks such as cyberbullying, scams, and inappropriate content.
Not every app is built the same. Some focus on tracking messages or location, while others help manage screen time and block harmful sites.
In this post, I list the best spy apps for Android and iPhone that parents can use responsibly. You’ll learn what each app offers, how they differ, and how to choose the right one for your family’s needs.
What to Look for in a Parent-Friendly Spy or Monitoring App
Before picking an app, it helps to know what truly matters. The right choice depends on what you want to keep an eye on — safety, online behavior, or time spent on the phone.
Here’s what matters most:
Best Parental Control Apps (Spy Apps)
These are the best spy apps that you may need.
1. Spy Human
SpyHuman is one of the best spy apps for your smartphone. It is mainly designed for parents who want to track the mobile phone activities of their child. The app is available exclusively for Android, and it monitors every activity on the device including calls, messages, internet browsing, and many others.
SpyHuman is easy to install and configure. Install it on the targetted device and log in to your admin panel to manage settings and monitor. You can access call logs, call recordings, messages, contact books, locations, files, etc, on the device and even remotely record the surrounding voice to hear what others speak about.
Social media spying is another major feature of the app. It allows you to read a user’s conversations on Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and others. SpyHuman will collect those logs from the device’s messenger and upload them to your account.
SpyHuman is a great parental control tool that can track internet browsing history, images, installed applications, and SIM changes on the targetted device. Thus, it gives you full control over the child’s smartphone usage and keeps them safe from outside threats.
Pricing: 7-day free trial, Premium plan starts at $17.99/mo/device
2. mSpy
mSpy is one of the popular spy apps for Android and iPhone. It will monitor calls, SMS, social media messaging apps, emails, and web history on the device where it is installed.
Install mSpy on your child’s mobile and start monitoring his or her activities. Check incoming, and outgoing calls, duration, and timestamps, and block unwanted numbers to avoid threats. It will collect messages sent and received by your target user on leading messaging apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, Skype, iMessage, Snapchat, Viber etc, and upload them to your online account.
Track the GPS location of your child’s phone and receive alerts whenever your kid enters or leaves the safe zone you set, such as ‘home’, ‘school’, and so on. mSpy comes with more features, including an application monitor, file manager, internet browsing history check, email checker, and contact book manager.
Pricing: Starts at $11.67/mo
3. FlexiSPY
FlexiSPY is another spy app for iPhone and Android. Install it on the phone of your loved ones, and monitor and control it to protect them from the unknown threats.
The app will record both iPhone calls and VoIP calls with options to listen to live calls. You can also use it to spy on SMS, emails, messaging apps, images, videos, and SIM changes.
FlexiSPY is a unique monitoring app that tracks device locations, checks internet browsing history, and remotely turns on the microphone to listen to the voice. Take a photo or video on your targeted iPhone by sitting in front of your computer browser or on mobile. It is also possible with the FlexiSPY.
Get alerts for calls made or received from certain numbers, hot keywords in messages and emails, and when the user leaves the location boundaries you set. It offers more than 150 features to efficiently monitor the device and user activities.
Pricing: Starts at $49.95/mo
4. Spyzie
Spyzie is an efficient smartphone tracker to spy on your kids or employees. It is compatible with the latest versions of Android and iOS operating systems.
You will get detailed reports about phone calls, messages, browsing history, app activity, emails, messaging apps, media, and other files on your target phone. Access those details from any device by signing into your account or using the Spyzie app.
Spyzie is also useful for setting a schedule to restrict mobile phone usage of your kids and block certain apps to keep them safe. It will help you to retrieve deleted messages, calls, and media files on the target phone and check them in detail.
GPS tracking, Geo-based alerts, SIM tracker, and Upcoming calendar events tracker are other notable features of the app.
Pricing: $9.99/mo
5. Spy Phone App
Spy Phone App is one of the simplest spy apps for smartphones. You can use it to safeguard your kids against outside threats and monitor their phone activities in real time.
It is a powerful tool for smartphone monitoring that contains several modules like phone tracker, call recording, SMS tracker, Instant messaging monitor, location tracker, contact book manager, block applications, manage applications, web block, number blocker and so on.
You can control the device using remote commands and erase entire things if needed.
6. SPYERA
SPYERA is a brilliant monitoring software for iOS, Android, Windows and Mac devices. It lets you track and control your kids to make them safe and employees to protect your business or keep an eye on them.
This app will monitor and record phone calls, collect messages, track GPS location, spy on media files, monitor SMS and emails, open the camera remotely to take pictures and record videos, track and record VOIP calls, and do many other things to give you all entire details about the target user.
SPYERA has a user-friendly interface where you can access all tracking reports, view media files, and listen to the live calls, surrounding voice, etc.
Pricing: $79/mo for smartphones, $59/mo for tablets, $49/mo for computers, and $419/1 year for all-in-one package.
7. WebWatcher
Our list of best spy apps for smartphones won’t be complete without mentioning WebWatcher. Like SPYERA, it can be used to monitor any kind of device like Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac.
Install it on your child’s phone and track their calls, messages, internet usage, instant messaging, apps, photos, GPS, and deleted texts from your online account. The features will vary with the device type you choose.
PC monitoring software delivers insights on emails, websites, programs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and instant messages. You can also set alerts for risky behaviour, certain keywords set by you, like ‘alcohol’ in texts, emails, and instant messages.
WebWatcher is an exceptional parental control app that can block any program from using either permanently or on a time-based schedule. It can also send continuous screenshots for websites and programs set by you to know how your child uses those tools.
Pricing: Starts at $39.95/mo for each platform
Installation & Setup Tips for Parents
Installing a monitoring app is simple but should be done with care. These apps need brief access to your child’s phone to activate permissions and sync data. Take a moment to read the setup guide before starting.
Once installed, test the app by sending a few texts or using social media to check that updates appear in the dashboard. Keep an eye on update notifications from the app, as operating system updates can sometimes affect its functionality.
Privacy settings are another key step—grant only the permissions needed for the app to function. After setup, use the data wisely. Look for signs of trouble or alerts, not every conversation or post.
The goal is to guide and protect, not control. When used responsibly, these apps can create a safer digital environment and open meaningful discussions between parents and children.
Final Thoughts
These are parental control apps, designed to track your kids’ internet browsing and social media activities. However, many people use them to find out if their spouse is cheating and to see what someone’s boyfriend or girlfriend is doing on their phone, etc. If you are one of them, I hope this list has helped you find the best spy apps.
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