Choosing a parental control app usually comes down to one question: do you want tight, hands-on control of your child's phone, or a broader safety net for the whole family? OurPact and Aura sit on opposite ends of that decision. One is a focused screen-time and location tool. The other bundles parental controls into a full identity and online-safety suite. Both promise to help you keep your kids safe, but they solve different problems.
We spent time with each app across iPhone and Android devices, working through setup, daily blocking, content filtering, and location checks. We paid for the plans ourselves so we could see what each tier actually includes rather than what the marketing pages imply. This guide breaks down where each one earns its price and where it frustrates.
By the end you will know which app fits a single kid with a hand-me-down phone, and which one makes sense for a family that also wants credit monitoring and a VPN in the same subscription.
OurPact vs Aura at a Glance
OurPact is a dedicated parental control app built around three things: screen time scheduling, app blocking, and live family location. It has been around long enough to feel purpose-built for managing a child's device, and its GPS tracking is the feature that keeps it in the conversation. You can start free, then move up to Premium or Premium+ when you need more, as we cover in our full OurPact review.
Aura is different. It began as an identity and online-safety company, and parental controls are one part of a much larger bundle. Sign up for the right plan and you get content filtering and screen time alongside credit monitoring, dark web scanning, antivirus, and a VPN. The parental side is capable, but location tracking is the notable gap.
Here is the short version of who each app is for.
OurPact is best for parents who want tight control of one or two kids' phones plus GPS location. Aura is best for families who want parental controls bundled into a broader identity-theft and device-security package for everyone in the home.
Side-by-Side Comparison Table
The table below sums up how the two apps line up on the features families ask about most. We have kept ratings and prices as we found them during testing.
| Product | Free plan | Best for | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Yes (1 device, 1 schedule) | Screen time + GPS location | $6.99/mo | Check price → |
 |
No (14-day trial) | All-in-one family safety | $10/mo | Check price |
A quick note on those figures. OurPact's public review scores run low, with a Trustpilot average of 2.2 out of 5 across a small pool of 12 reviews, so treat that number as a caution rather than a verdict. Our own scores above reflect how each app performed on our test devices, where OurPact's core scheduling and location worked well despite its rough reputation.
Pricing and Plans Compared
Price is where these two apps stop looking comparable. OurPact charges for a parental control app. Aura charges for a security suite that happens to include parental controls.
OurPact pricing (free plan, Premium, Premium+)
OurPact is the rare app in this category with a real free plan. It covers one child device, one automated schedule, and a handful of manual blocks each month. In our testing the free tier let us block apps and set a single screen-time schedule, but web history, call history, and broader usage insight were all missing. It is a starting point, not a long-term solution.
Paid plans open things up. Premium runs $6.99 per month billed monthly, or $69.99 per year, which works out to $5.83 per month. Premium+ costs $9.99 per month, or $99.99 per year. Premium+ is the tier that adds View, OurPact's activity-monitoring layer with screenshots and AI content flagging. Paid plans support up to 20 child devices, and there is a 14-day free trial if you want to test the paid features first.
OurPact auto-renews annually, and in our experience refund requests are frequently denied. Set a calendar reminder before your renewal date if you are not sure you will keep the app.
Aura pricing (Family plan through full identity suite)
Aura prices around the whole household. The Kids plan starts at $10 per month billed annually, and the Family plan runs $32 per month billed annually. Individual and Couple tiers exist too, at $12 and $22 per month respectively, but parental controls are included only on the Family and Kids plans, so those are the ones that matter here.
What lifts the price is everything wrapped around the parental controls. The Family plan includes up to $5M in identity-theft insurance per adult, three-bureau credit monitoring, dark web monitoring, a VPN, antivirus, a password manager, and data-broker removal. Aura offers a 14-day free trial and a 60-day money-back guarantee on annual plans, which is a longer safety window than OurPact gives you.
One pricing caveat: Aura's parental-only cost varies by tier and promotion, and some review sites cite figures near $8.33 per month for a parents-focused plan. Confirm the current price at signup before you commit.
Screen Time, Schedules and App Blocking
Both apps do the core job of limiting when and how long a child can use their device. OurPact is built around this. You set daily time limits, create block schedules for school and bedtime, and hit an instant lock button when you need the phone down right now. Its app blocker also sends new-app alerts, so you know when your child installs something.
In our testing OurPact's scheduling worked reliably day to day. The frustrating part was consistency: child app settings occasionally reverted to "Always Allow" on their own, and after one iOS update a set of blocks quietly failed to apply. When that happens you have to re-check the app rather than trust it, which undercuts the point.
Aura handles screen time through limits, scheduling, and a Pause the Internet button, plus Bedtime and Focus Time modes and a Digital Wellbeing Score that summarizes usage. On Android it enforces these rules fully. On iPhone it cannot, because iOS blocks third-party apps from enforcing their own screen-time limits, so Aura leans on Apple's built-in Screen Time alongside it.
On any iPhone, plan to use Apple's built-in Screen Time as the enforcement layer no matter which app you buy. Both OurPact and Aura work best on iOS when Apple's own controls back them up.
Content Filtering and Activity Monitoring
Content filtering is where Aura shows its strength. It ships with 25+ blocking categories and manual site blocking, and in our testing it blocked roughly 90% of the inappropriate sites we threw at it. The web activity dashboard is clear and easy to read. The limit is messaging: Aura cannot read private messages inside apps, so in-app DMs stay unmonitored.
OurPact keeps filtering simpler. It offers a web filter and adult-content blocking that cover the basics well enough for younger kids. The deeper monitoring lives in Premium+, whose View feature captures instant and automated screenshots, stores them in an encrypted gallery, and uses AI to flag potentially harmful content. That is more invasive than Aura's approach, and whether you want it depends on how much oversight you are comfortable with.
If your priority is monitoring what a child actually sees and does, OurPact's Premium+ goes further into screenshots and AI flagging. If you want strong site filtering with a cleaner privacy line, Aura's category-based blocking is the more comfortable fit.
Location Tracking and Family Location
This is the single clearest difference between the two apps, and for many families it decides everything.
OurPact includes live family location with location history and location alerts. Premium keeps 14 days of history; Premium+ extends that to 30 days. In practice this means you can open the dashboard, see where a child's device is, and check where it has been. For parents who bought a parental control app partly to know their kid got to school, this is the headline feature.
Aura does not offer location tracking in its parental controls at all. There is no GPS, no family map, no location history. If knowing your child's whereabouts is part of why you are shopping, Aura simply does not do it, and no plan tier changes that.
Location is the deciding line: OurPact gives you live GPS and history, and Aura gives you none.
— From our hands-on testing
So if location matters, this comparison is effectively over. OurPact wins by default because Aura is not competing on that ground.
Platform Support: iPhone, iPad and Android
Both apps run on iPhone, iPad, and Android, but the experience is not equal across platforms.
OurPact is Apple-approved for device management and applies restrictions on both iOS and Android, including removal prevention so a child cannot simply delete the app. Setup, though, is fiddly. It often needs a computer, and in our testing some installs ended in "installation failed" notices that took several tries to clear.
Aura installs faster. Setup completed in roughly 20 minutes for us, with an intuitive flow, and Aura covers unlimited devices and children on its parental plans, so you avoid per-device charges. The trade-offs show up on the devices themselves. On iPhone it cannot enforce its own screen-time limits, as noted above. On Android some apps resume after a force-stop, restrictions can reset after a reboot, and a safe-mode reboot can bypass Aura entirely. Its parental controls are also mobile-only, with no desktop or Chromebook coverage.
Identity Theft and Online-Safety Extras (Aura's bundle)
Everything above treats these as parental control apps. Aura is really more than that, and its extras are the reason to choose it over a cheaper, focused tool.
On the right plan Aura adds identity-theft protection with up to $5M in coverage per adult on Family, three-bureau credit monitoring, dark web monitoring, a VPN across 100+ locations, antivirus, a password manager, spam call and text protection, and data-broker removal. For gaming households, Safe Gaming by Kidas monitors 200+ games for cyberbullying and predator alerts through in-game voice and text.
OurPact offers none of this. It is a parental control app and nothing more. That is not a criticism so much as a scope statement: you are comparing a single tool against a bundle.
If you were already thinking about paying separately for identity monitoring or a VPN, Aura's Family plan can replace several subscriptions at once. That reframes the higher price as a bundle cost rather than a parental-control cost.
OurPact Pros and Cons
Pros
- Live GPS location with 14 to 30 days of history
- Genuine free plan to start, no trial clock
- Strong screen time scheduling and instant lock
- Premium+ adds deep screenshot and AI monitoring
Cons
- App settings can revert or blocks can fail after iOS updates
- Setup is fiddly and often needs a computer
- Auto-renews yearly with refunds often denied
- Support can be slow with repeated canned replies
Aura Pros and Cons
Pros
- Parental controls bundled with identity theft, antivirus, and VPN
- Strong content filtering, about 90% block rate in testing
- Fast, intuitive setup in around 20 minutes
- Unlimited devices and children, no per-device fees
Cons
- No location or GPS tracking at all
- Cannot enforce its own screen time on iPhone
- Android restrictions can reset or be bypassed
- Mobile-only, with no desktop or Chromebook support
When to Choose OurPact vs When to Choose Aura
Choose OurPact if location is on your must-have list, if you want to start free before paying, or if you mainly need tight screen time and app control on a child's phone. At $6.99 per month it is the cheaper, more focused tool, and its GPS features have no equivalent in Aura.
Choose Aura if you want parental controls as part of a wider safety plan, if identity theft protection and a VPN are things you would buy anyway, or if you have several kids and want to avoid per-device charges. It costs more, but the price buys a whole household's online safety, not just phone rules.
For most single-kid families focused on the phone, OurPact is the practical pick. For families who want everything in one subscription and can live without GPS, Aura is the stronger all-in-one.
