App blockers without a subscription: every option, and when free is enough

“Without a subscription” covers three different deals: free, free because it is built in, and pay once. Every fact about another product was read on its maker's own site or store listing, linked at the end, and competitor prices are as of 2 September 2026. We make one of these products; its row is held to the same standard.

Every option at a glance

Built-in free toolsScreen Time, Digital Wellbeing, Focus mode. You hold the passcode, so you can always undo them.

Software blockersSchedules and stricter modes, free or on a subscription. The unlock still depends on software you control.

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Physical keys and lockboxesA key you walk to and hold the phone against, or a box that holds the whole phone until a timer ends.

Free and built in: the place to start

Both phone platforms ship a blocker, and neither costs anything or asks you to trust a third-party app with your usage. Apple's Screen Time sets App Limits and a Downtime schedule — Time Allowances and Screen Time Schedule on iOS 27 — behind a Screen Time passcode. Android's Digital Wellbeing sets daily app timers and a Focus mode that pauses chosen apps, on demand or on a schedule.

Their shared weakness is custody, not strength. Apple says Screen Time limits can be ignored once reached unless blocking is on, and the passcode can be reset with the Apple Account used to set it up. Digital Wellbeing's timers can be deleted, and Focus mode has a Take a break button. If someone else holds the passcode, or Android's app limits PIN where your phone has one, both get much stronger for nothing.

Free apps: Foqos and ScreenZen

Foqos (iPhone)

Foqos is a free, MIT-licensed, open-source iPhone blocker built on Apple's Screen Time APIs. Sessions start and stop with an NFC tag, a printed QR code, a timer or by hand, and the idea is to hide the tag or code somewhere inconvenient. It works with ordinary NFC tags such as NTAG213, needs no account, and its only in-app purchase is an optional tip. It needs iOS 17.6 or later; there is no Android version, and its site points Android users to two independent apps.

For an iPhone owner who does not want to buy anything, it is the strongest free answer here. The trade-off is its flexibility: several strategies involve no physical credential at all, and a QR code can be photographed before you hide it.

ScreenZen (iPhone and Android)

ScreenZen is donation-supported with no subscription; in its own words, “ScreenZen is completely free.” It works by friction rather than a lock: a delay before a distracting app opens, which can grow each time, prompts such as “Is this important?”, daily limits, and optional strict blocks by time range or number of opens, with a lock on its own settings. It is on the App Store and Google Play, and its site lists Mac and Windows too.

Of the two free apps here, it is the one that also runs on Android, which makes it worth a try if Digital Wellbeing's timers are too easy to delete. It is also, by design, something you can outwait. Whether that is enough depends on whether waiting is what beats you.

Pay once: hardware keys

The next step keeps the software free and puts the unlock on a physical object you buy once. Nothing renews, and the way back to your apps is not one you can take from where you are sitting.

Brick

Brick is a battery-free device you tap your phone against to start a session, and need again to end one. The app is free, and its App Store listing says “No subscriptions and no monthly fees.” The device was $59 as of 2 September 2026. It works on iOS 17 and Android 12 or later, ships worldwide, and has a track record Spark does not yet have. Its escape hatch is five Emergency Unbricks, which unblock all apps without the device and can be replenished through a support form within 48 hours.

The Spark key

Spark is ours, so read this with that in mind. The app is free with no subscription, but it is not a free option: it refuses to lock anything until a Spark key is paired, and pairing needs an account and an internet connection, once. The key is a one-time purchase in rupees, quoted ex-GST and shipped free within India. The Spark Bluetooth key runs on a CR2032 coin cell and works with any phone Spark supports; the cheaper Spark NFC key has no battery but needs a phone with an NFC reader, so check yours first.

Locking is one tap, or a schedule, and never needs the key. Unlocking means walking to the key and holding your phone against it for about fifteen seconds, or tapping the NFC one. There are five emergency unlocks, for life, hidden if you turn on Strict mode. On iPhone, deleting the app ends a session; on Android, Strict mode adds friction to uninstalling it, which Safe Mode still gets past. Neither key is cryptographic, and Spark is not in the app stores yet: it has not shipped.

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Locking

One tap in the app, or a schedule. Instant, offline, and the key does not need to be in the room. Nothing should ever stand between you and locking.

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Unlocking

Hold your phone against the key — about 15 seconds for the Bluetooth Spark, a tap for the NFC one. Leave it in another room and the cheapest route back to the feed is standing up.

If the problem is a computer

Cold Turkey is the pay-once option on a laptop: a lifetime licence for Windows and macOS, with a free tier that blocks websites. Its maker states that Linux, ChromeOS, Android and iOS are not supported, so it does nothing about a phone.

The subscription tools, and their buy-once exits

Three well-known blockers are subscriptions at heart, and it is fair to say why: software is never finished, which is the argument Unpluq's own FAQ makes for charging. Two of the three sell a way out of the recurring bill.

• Opal has a free tier limited to one rule, and Pro by subscription or as a single lifetime payment. Its pricing page lists Hard Mode as a Pro feature.
• Freedom has a free tier for blocking sessions across your devices, and Premium, which adds scheduling and Locked Mode, by subscription or as a one-time Forever licence.
• Unpluq has a free tier that blocks two apps on one schedule, but its Tag only works with Premium, so the hardware stops being useful if the subscription lapses.

If you already like one of these, a lifetime licence is a legitimate way to stop paying monthly. It just asks for more up front than a year does.

When free is enough

More often than a page selling a key would like to admit. Free is enough if any of these is true:

• You have not yet used Screen Time with a passcode and Block at Downtime, or Digital Wellbeing's Focus mode on a schedule. Give either a fortnight before buying anything.
• Someone you trust will hold the passcode for you, and on iPhone the recovery account too.
• You have an iPhone and are happy to buy a cheap NFC tag or print a QR code. Foqos does the hide-the-key trick for nothing.
• A pause is genuinely enough to stop you. Plenty of people only need a moment to change their mind, and ScreenZen gives them one.

Free stops being enough when you watch yourself undo it in the moment: tapping past the limit, deleting the timer, taking the break, outwaiting the pause. Every one of those is a cost you can pay without standing up. That is the specific case a bought key is for: not a stricter setting, but an unlock that needs you to go somewhere. Just remember that “no subscription” is not the same as free (Brick and Spark cost the hardware), nor as no account (Spark needs one to pair its key; Foqos needs none).