What is PhonePact?

PhonePact is a mobile app that helps you reduce your own screen time. You choose a daily amount of phone time — your pact point — and trusted circles can receive duration-only shared check-ins at that point and later 30-minute crossings through 23h 30m of measured use. It never blocks an app, never locks your phone, and never tells a circle which apps or sites you were using.

It is made by PhonePact LLC, an independent company founded in 2026 by Hank Yang. It is not a parental-control app, and there is no version of it that lets one person monitor another.

Everything below is the same information in more detail. If you'd rather read the argument than the spec, that lives in our ethos.

1. You set a pact point for each phone. A number of hours and minutes in what that phone counts — the point at which you'd like to notice you've been on it. On iPhone, you choose an Apple Screen Time scope. On Android, you choose the whole phone or individual launchable apps in PhonePact’s private on-device picker. It is a threshold, not a limit: nothing happens to your phone when you cross it. Lowering it is yours alone. Raising it needs a stated duration and, once you have any real circle mate, approval from eligible people you select. The first yes settles the request. The first Talk first response claims a one-to-one pact discussion and pauses everyone else until that responder decides or the request closes. Hiding every mate does not create a bypass. If you genuinely have no circle mates, you can raise it alone.

2. Time counts upward, and a private notice reaches you first. PhonePact counts that phone’s configured usage and only ever states time already spent, never time remaining. On iPhone, selecting everything in Apple’s picker approximates the whole-device total; a smaller selection counts only that scope. On Android, Usage Access counts the whole phone or the apps you selected. Your own Home screen can show a private “Where it went” shortlist of up to ten selected apps used for at least a minute today. Android also offers a private home-screen widget and, on supported Android 16+ phones, a small live status display for aggregate time and pact progress. iPhone versions where Live Activity is available offer the same optional aggregate progress; whole-minute totals and routing tokens pass through PhonePact’s backend to keep that private card current, while app identities stay on the phone. Ten usage-minutes before your pact point, your phone schedules a private notice that nobody else sees. Android offers 10-, 15-, 20-, 30-, 45-, and 60-minute notice rhythms and asks for Alarms & reminders access before applying 10 or 15; iPhone offers 20, 30, 45, and 60 minutes. Notices can also be turned off.

3. Your circle gets plain duration-only sentences attributed to the phone that measured them. At that phone's pact point, PhonePact can share something like "Hank's iPhone A1B2 reached 2 hours of screen time today." Subject to synchronization and stale/replay suppression, the same kind of check-in can repeat at every later thirty-minute crossing through 23h 30m. At the smallest 30-minute pact point, that is as many as 47 potential shared check-ins in a day. The private Moment/Talk First prompt is limited to the pact point and six later crossings; that prompt cap does not cap shared check-ins. There is no final state, no streak and no score. Each circle has a plain-text room for encouragement. Ordinary rows expire after 24 hours; any current member can visibly keep a member-written message for everyone for up to 30 days. Current members who share a circle can also talk one-to-one: ordinary private messages fade after 24 hours, while a visibly kept message lasts 30 days.

It will not block, lock, or restrict any app. There is no limit to hit, no wall to argue with, and no override code — because there is nothing to override. This is deliberate: a lock you control is a door you locked while keeping the key in your own pocket.

It will not show your circle what you used the phone for. The duration is the only usage information in a shared check-in. It is attributed to you and may include a short phone label when needed to distinguish phones, plus a short note you deliberately add, but never apps, sites, messages, or location. Your private “Where it went” summary is visible only on that phone. On iPhone, Apple selection details stay on the phone; on Android, package-level Usage Access details stay on the phone and are not sent.

It will not let one person monitor another. Everyone in a circle is a peer running the app on their own device, and everyone receives the same narrow kind of duration-threshold check-in rather than an activity ledger. There is no dashboard, no admin, no parent side.

It will not rank, score, or streak you. No leaderboards, no comparisons, no penalty for a bad day. The research on social comparison is the reason.

PhonePact does not sell your data or show advertising. Supporter purchases fund the work instead. Service providers process the limited information described in our Privacy Policy to operate and secure the app.

Platform: PhonePact is available on iPhone and Android. There is no web app.

Price: The core experience is currently available without a Supporter purchase. Optional monthly and one-time Supporter purchases unlock private Insights where available.

Deeper Insights: Monthly and one-time Supporter purchases unlock daily, weekly, monthly, time-of-day, app-level, trend, comparison, research-context, and pact-journal views where available. Availability can vary by installed version, platform, account, and staged store rollout. Measurements and available history differ between iPhone and Android. Detailed data stays on the phone, is not sent to RevenueCat, and is never shown to a circle. See Supporter Insights and privacy.

Age: PhonePact is intended for people 13 and older. On a family-managed device, Apple may require a parent or guardian to authorize Screen Time access.

Status: PhonePact is available on the App Store for iPhone and available on Google Play for Android.

Made by: PhonePact LLC, an independent company. Support is support@getphonepact.com. If you found this page while looking for a similarly named app, this comparison sorts out which is which.