Getting set up
Watchwise is two apps, and they need each other: the parent app on your iPhone is where the jobs, allowance and approvals live, and the kid app on their Apple Watch is where the work actually happens. Install both, pair them once, and you're done.
Which one are you holding?
It doesn't matter which end you start from — you just can't stop at one. A pairing code generated in the parent app has nowhere to go until the watch app is installed, and the watch app can't do anything until a parent creates the family. Pick your starting point:
Start with the parent app →
The usual way in. Create your family, add your kid, then put the app on their watch and pair it.
Already looking at the watch? →
If Watchwise is on the wrist and asking for a code, a grown-up needs the phone app to make one.
1 · The parent app, on your iPhone
This is the half you'll use daily: posting jobs, setting the allowance, approving work, and settling up on payday. It's also where your family account is created, so it goes first.
Coming to the App Store — join the waitlist on the home page and we'll send the link the day it's ready.
2 · The kid app, on their Apple Watch
Watchwise runs on an Apple Watch set up through Apple Family Setup — a watch that belongs to a kid who has no iPhone of their own. Because that watch is managed from your phone, you install the app from your phone too, not from their wrist.
Coming to the App Store alongside the parent app — the two are reviewed as separate listings, so if one arrives first, this page will say so.
Don't have Family Setup going yet? That part is Apple's, not ours: on your iPhone, open the Apple Watch app and choose "Set Up for a Family Member". Budget half an hour — and note that the watch needs its own cellular plan to be useful away from home.
3 · Pair them, once
In the parent app, open your kid's card and tap Pair a watch. You'll get a six-character code. Open Watchwise on their wrist and type it in — that's the whole handshake. Codes work once and expire after fifteen minutes, so generate a fresh one per watch. If you ever replace or hand down a watch, unpair it from the same screen and pair the new one; their money and history stay on the account, not the device.
Both parents can run the family: invite your co-parent from Settings and they get their own login and their own notification choices, with everything else shared.
The first 14 days are free, with no card required. After that Watchwise is $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year (Canadian dollars; the App Store shows your local price) — one subscription for the whole family, however many kids and parents that is.