Block in-app buys on impulse. Open them on purpose.
Open a guarded app and you hit a shield. Tap Enter and in-app purchases pause everywhere. To buy, you open a short buying window: free inside the monthly limits you set for that app, a small coin toll once you are past them. The toll is coins, never dollars. Every purchase shows its cost in your own hourly rate: suddenly a $39.99 pack has a price tag in your time.
A pause between the urge and the wallet.
Open a guarded app and you hit this first: Close, or Enter. Entering is free. It just pauses in-app purchases everywhere, so nothing happens by reflex. To actually buy, you come back and open a window for that app.
Every purchase is a line on the statement.
Open Spend Toll to a statement, not a store. $39.99 isn’t $39.99. At your own rate it is 1.3 hours of your life. You draw a monthly line. The statement shows the day you crossed it. You decide if it’s worth it.
Pick the apps that tempt you. Set each one a limit.
Every guarded app carries its own monthly limits: a few free buying windows, plus an optional spending line. Inside them, opening a buying window is free. Past either one, that app costs coins. One window covers one app, and when it ends, buying re-locks everywhere. Every row keeps its own history: what you spent there, and the times you opened it and bought nothing. Resisting is free. Impulse has friction.
The buying window doesn’t hide.
It counts down right on your Lock Screen and Dynamic Island: IAP open, time ticking. When it ends, purchases re-lock. Tap Resume normal IAP to go back, without opening Spend Toll.
Earn them by reporting. Spend them to buy.
Start with 10 coins. You only spend them once an app is past its monthly limits: 5 coins for that app, or 4 if you plan the spend first. Report what you spent within 24h and earn +1 back (nothing after that, so report promptly). Coins stop stacking once you have a few windows' buffer. You never hoard, and never run dry.
Name the number before you spend it.
Every window asks what you plan to spend before it opens: tap a chip or type it, and the number prices itself in your hours on the spot. Past an app’s limits, planning also shaves a coin off the toll. Afterwards you report what you actually spent, so the plan sits next to the truth. No leaderboards, no streaks, no counterfactual “you saved $X by not buying”: real spending only.
What does your in-app spending actually cost?
That’s 2.5 workdays a year on in-app purchases, valued at your own time. Spend Toll shows you this math every time you reach for a purchase. No data leaves your phone. This calculator runs entirely in your browser.
Friction is the product.
Most spending blockers fail because you can turn them off in a tap. Spend Toll bets on something you actually feel: every purchase priced in the hours you worked for it.
Friction, not punishment.
Built with off-ramps. Close the shield any time. Entering is free, and so is buying inside the limits you set. Resisting costs nothing. Report to earn coins back. And a monthly reflection tops you up, so you’re never permanently stuck.
What we do and don’t see.
No accounts. No analytics. No engagement loops. iCloud syncs only your coins + wage across your own devices, and it never includes what you bought. The only other network activity is Apple’s own StoreKit, when you buy Pro or a coin pack. We can’t see your data. By design.
- The apps you choose to guard
- What you reported spending
- Your stats, receipts and reflections
- The monthly line you drew
- An account or your email
- Ads or analytics SDKs
- Your payment method
- What you buy in those apps
- Any data leaving your phone
Stuff we didn’t show off.
Ready to feel the cost?
Free to download. No account. No tracking.
Download on the App Store