Allowance app for kids: chores, virtual coins and family rules

An allowance app for kids should make one thing easier: tying allowance to something your child actually does, without you keeping score on the fridge door. Kroni is built for exactly that. Kids get chores, earn virtual coins when you approve the work, and spend those coins on rewards your family has agreed on. No real money moves through the app, and no bank account is ever connected.

What an allowance app actually fixes

Most families start allowance with good intentions and a paper chart in the kitchen. Then life happens. Some chores get done, others are forgotten, and three weeks in nobody remembers whether Saturday's five dollars was ever paid. The kid feels cheated, you feel like a nag, and the whole system quietly dies.

An app removes three specific points of friction:

• Memory. Chores live in the app with a due date and a repeat schedule. Nobody has to remember who was supposed to empty the dishwasher.
• Proof. Your child marks a chore done, you approve it or send it back. No more arguing about "but I did do it".
• Visibility. Balance, history and savings goals are visible to both kids and adults. Your child can see for themselves how far they are from the goal.

The point is not surveillance. It is making the agreement visible to both sides. Kids under 12 rarely manage a verbal agreement over time. An agreement they can see, they manage just fine.

How the virtual coins work

Kroni uses coins instead of dollars. Your family decides what a coin is worth. Some families use 1 coin = 1 dollar and hand over cash when the child wants to withdraw. Others keep coins purely redeemable for rewards from the family's own list: a movie night, picking Friday dinner, an extra half hour of screen time, or a bigger item the child is saving for.

A typical week looks like this:

1. You add chores with a value. Tidy bedroom: 10 coins. Empty the dishwasher: 5 coins. Vacuum the living room: 15 coins.
2. Your child sees the chores on their own screen, does them and taps "done".
3. You get a notification, take a look and approve. The coins land in the child's balance.
4. Your child spends coins on rewards from the family list, or saves toward a goal.

Coins make it safe to experiment. If an amount turns out to be too generous, you adjust next week and nobody has lost real money. It is also far easier for a seven-year-old to understand "you need 20 more coins" than an abstract number in a bank account. There is more on why this works in teaching kids about money without real money.

Works from age 5 to 15

What motivates a five-year-old and a fourteen-year-old is not the same thing. The app covers the whole range, but you use it differently at each stage.

Ages 5–7. A few chores, the same ones every day, with pictures. Putting clothes in the laundry basket, setting the table, tidying toys. Around 2–5 coins per chore. Rewards should come fast, ideally within the week. A small weekly bonus worth 2–3 dollars, or the equivalent in coins, is plenty. See allowance for a 7-year-old for ideas.

Ages 8–11. Now your child can handle a fixed weekly amount plus extra chores. Many families land somewhere around 5–10 dollars a week at this stage, often split into a base amount that is not tied to chores and a bonus part that is. Savings goals of two to four weeks work well. See allowance for a 10-year-old.

Ages 12–15. Teenagers need fewer, bigger jobs: washing the car, cooking dinner for the whole family, watching younger siblings. Around 50–150 coins per job. At this age it is more about responsibility and agreements than motivation. A monthly amount and a clear money agreement beats daily check-ins, as described in allowance for a 13-year-old.

Parents set the rules and approve

All the rules sit with the adults. You are the one who

• creates the chores and sets their value
• decides which rewards exist and what they cost
• approves or rejects every single chore
• sees the full history for each child

Your child cannot give themselves coins, change a value or invent rewards. That sounds strict, but it is exactly what makes the system credible to kids. They know an approved chore always pays what it was supposed to.

Several adults can join the same family. Both parents can approve, and grandparents who babysit can add chores for that week. For families with two homes this is often the biggest win: the same rules and the same balance, no matter which house the child is in.

Free plan or Family plan

The app is free to download and use. The free plan covers a small number of kids and chores, which is enough for many families who want to try the system for a few weeks.

The Family plan removes the limits on kids and chores. It suits families with three or more children, blended families with kids across two houses, and anyone who wants lots of recurring chores without counting. You can start free and upgrade once you see your family actually using it.

Safety: no real money, no bank link

This is what parents ask about most, so it is worth being clear:

• The app does not handle real money. Coins are only symbols for an agreement between you and your child.
• No bank account, debit card or payment service is connected. There is nothing to drain.
• Your child does not need their own email address or phone number. The child profile lives inside the family account.
• Kroni is made in Norway and follows European privacy rules.

If you want your child to receive real money, you do that outside the app: cash, a transfer to their savings account, or a card you already have. The app keeps the score, you keep the money. That is a deliberate boundary. Bank-linked kids' debit cards are a separate category with their own benefits, but they tend to suit ages 13 and up. For younger kids, a system without real money is both safer and easier to understand.

Get started in ten minutes

You do not need to plan everything before you begin. Here is how to do it tonight:

1. Download and create your family (2 min). Add one child at a time.
2. Pick three chores (3 min). Not ten. Three chores your child can already do, valued so they add up to 20–50 coins a week.
3. Create two rewards (2 min). One small enough to reach in a week, one bigger that takes three to four weeks.
4. Show your child the app (3 min). Let them tap "done" on the first chore themselves, and approve it while you are sitting together. That first coin on the balance is half the motivation.

After two weeks, review together: Are the values right? Are there chores that never get done? Adjust, do not restart. A simple system that gets used beats a perfect system that sits in a drawer.

Common questions from parents

Should allowance be tied to chores at all? Many families choose a split model: a base amount the child gets regardless, plus a bonus part for extra effort. The app supports both. There is more on what works in allowance and rewards for kids.

What if siblings argue about who gets more? Set equal values on equal chores, and give older kids access to bigger jobs. The history shows who did what, which ends a lot of arguments. See fair allowance for siblings.

Can I deduct coins? Yes, but use it sparingly. A system that is mostly about punishment loses its effect fast. It is better to leave a chore undone and unpaid than to take coins off the balance.

Does it work if my child has no phone? Yes. Your child can use a tablet or your phone in child mode. From around age 9 or 10, many kids have their own device and log in there.

What happens when my child outgrows it? Around 14 or 15, many kids move on to a real account and card. By then they have already learned to work toward a goal, wait for a reward and see where the money goes. That was the point all along.