When Ashley Millwood’s phone kept buzzing, she knew there was a problem.
Her two teenage daughters were spending the afternoon with a group of friends, including one whose mother was supposed to have been the driver. Soon after the trip began, the Greenlight banking app on Millwood’s phone started sending alerts: The car was repeatedly going between 20 and 30 miles over the speed limit. When she finally called, she discovered the driver was not a parent, but a friend of the group who had only his learner’s permit and should not have been driving without an adult.
When Ashley Millwood’s phone kept buzzing, she knew there was a problem.
Her two teenage daughters were spending the afternoon with a group of friends, including one whose mother was supposed to have been the driver. Soon after the trip began, the Greenlight banking app on Millwood’s phone started sending alerts: The car was repeatedly going between 20 and 30 miles over the speed limit. When she finally called, she discovered the driver was not a parent, but a friend of the group who had only his learner’s permit and should not have been driving without an adult.
“I love the driving feature so much,” Millwood said as she recalled the incident, which ended safely.
Millwood, like many parents, is tapping into an array of new debit card features aimed at families and kids. These apps often have a core set of features around allowances and chores but vary in specific functions to appeal to different consumers. Along with Greenlight, they include Acorns Early (which has an investment arm), Jassby (a digital wallet), Modak (a chore menu), Kachinga (which blocks purchases at age-restricted stores), Till (an analytics tool) and FamZoo (a prepaid debit card).
In Millwood’s case, she started using the Greenlight app and debit card when her daughters were preteens to encourage them to do chores for their weekly allowance. “It was easier than doing a chart,” she says.
Once they marked their chores as completed, Millwood could transfer the allowance to their accounts as well as monitor their spending.
Most of these apps have a chore-related payment feature like Greenlight, and at least one, Modak, allows parents to set a list of unassigned tasks — offering a first-come, first-serve menu for any child who wants to earn some extra money.
According to Greenlight’s 2024 annual report, kids and teens managed a total of over $2 billion through the app that year, with an average weekly allowance of $13.42 and an average monthly spend of $126 once gifts and outside earnings were counted. Top spending went to Amazon, about $71 million, and DoorDash, which totaled $45 million, while $259 million went into savings accounts.
The proliferation of these kid-friendly apps and debit cards shows how strong demand has become. Greenlight has grown by over 4 million users since 2020, according to a company spokesperson. Another major player, Acorns, announced via press release earlier this year they had surpassed a user base of 1 million kids in the U.S. and 3.3 million kids globally through their suite of products. (It declined to offer specific numbers for this article.)
While many of these apps have free entry-level options, they make their money from additional paid tiers for extra features. These typically start around $5 per month, with pricier subscriptions offering incentives such as cash back or interest-earning accounts.
Now that Millwood’s daughters are teenagers, she uses the app mostly for its safe-driving monitor, which tracks activities such as speeding, sudden braking, hard turns and phone usage. During a ride, it can send real-time alerts to parents; afterward, it can provide a score for the driver. She also used Greenlight’s insurance coverage when her daughter cracked the screen on her phone and needed it replaced.
Kurt and Rachel Young have been using the Acorns Early app for their two older children, Mila, 12, and Liam, 8, for the past few years to help educate them about responsible money management. Initially, they watched its educational videos, including kid-friendly lessons on money. Now that the kids are older, they use their debit card and app, which shows them how much money they have in their accounts. Mila also uses it to get paid for her babysitting services; during a two-week summer camp she ran in their backyard, for example, she used the gift link feature to receive some payments.
On their end, both parents can get an alert for every transaction and, if desired, set a spending limit ahead of time. They usually see small-dollar notifications if their kids buy snacks after school, but there are some exceptions: One afternoon, Kurt got an alert for $25 from the local pizzeria and immediately wondered what had gone wrong. It turned out Liam had decided to treat his friends to slices.
“He was flying high because it was his birthday recently,” explained Kurt.
The financial lesson will soon hit home, says Rachel, when Liam takes the next step to make a purchase without parental sign-off. “He’ll go to look at Amazon, and he’ll see that he wanted to treat his friends and now [the money] isn’t there. He’ll have to earn it back in other ways.”
That has already happened in one spending category: When Liam’s parents added his Acorn debit card to his video game platform instead of their own, he scaled back his purchases. And more broadly, the Youngs say, the app has reduced their kids’ extraneous spending.
As with all apps, parents need to reconcile concerns around privacy and data collection, said Josh Golin, CEO of the nonprofit Fairplay.
“They’re sending us 20-page privacy policies and we’re not going to read all of that,” he said, referring to the disclosure statements most of these companies provide. “What we need is privacy laws that limit the collection [of data and] require them to destroy the data after they’re done.”
“There’s too much investment in [these apps] to not think there’s other plans for monetization,” he added.
The granularity of the data collected, such as real-time information on when a user is most likely to make a habitual purchase, means these companies can be even more strategic with marketing efforts, said Jim Mohs, a finance professor at the University of New Haven.
“It’s micromanaging their day,” he said, adding that there are additional vulnerabilities from hacking and phishing scams.
“A lot of kids who use these apps are not that sophisticated [about] the damage that can be done on the internet,” he said.
Acorns told The Washington Post: “Your family’s information stays private and under your control. We protect it with industry-standard encryption, strict security protocols, and a clear promise: we never sell your personal data.” Greenlight’s spokesperson said the company doesn’t comment on these matters.
Parents can take some basic precautions on their own to safeguard privacy. If their child uses an iPhone, they can go to Settings, then Privacy and Security, and then App Privacy Report, which tells how often apps collect location, phone contacts or other information. All smartphones can be set to “ask app not to track,” and users can decline to share their location with any of these apps if asked.
While mindful of these potential risks, both families say these apps have spurred family discussions and offered lessons about money — and granted their kids moments of financial empowerment. During one trip to a clothing store, Rachel recalls, Mila used her own earnings to purchase some items she had been eyeing. As she left the store, she told her mother: “Spending your own money feels so much better than when somebody buys it for you.”
Geoffrey A. Fowler contributed to this report.
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