Case Study
Independent · Founder & Builder · 2026
EarnIt
A family chore app where kids earn screen time or allowance, and nothing counts until a parent approves.
The problem
Parents want to tie screen time to helping around the house, but tracking it by hand is inconsistent, easy to argue about, and hard to manage across several kids.
Any fix has to hold up against kids gaming it. It also has to stop two siblings from claiming the same chore, and let each child use their own device.
What I did
Parent approval as the core rule
Kids mark a chore done, but minutes or allowance are credited only after a parent approves it behind a PIN. Denied chores quietly return to the list. Streaks, levels, and a short celebration keep kids motivated, with no public feed and no chat.
Designed out sibling conflicts
Shared chores can be claimed by only one child at a time, using a Firestore transaction so two taps at once can't both succeed. Personal chores like making a bed are tracked separately for each child. The whole family syncs in real time through a family code.
Diagnosed the App Store rejection
Version 1.0.2 was rejected after the purchase failed during Apple's review. I traced the cause to a shared RevenueCat project: EarnIt was loading the store products for my other app. I gave EarnIt its own project and keys, and made purchase errors specific instead of one generic failure.
Repriced from the unit economics
A family costs about $0.07 a year to run, so cost wasn't the issue. The issue was the ceiling: a $2.99 one-time buyer can never be worth more, however much the product improves. I'm moving Parent Tools to a $19.99-a-year subscription, with the core app staying free.
The outcome
Built end to end: spec, React Native app, Firestore data model and security rules, scheduled Cloud Functions for daily and weekly resets, and in-app purchases.
EarnIt launched on the App Store in August 2026. The next release moves Parent Tools to the subscription model.