- Starting price
- Free, then $6.99/mo or $44.99/yr
- Free tier
- Yes
- Platforms
- iOS - Android - Chrome extension
- Developer
- Clearspace Technologies, Inc.
- Launched
- 2021
- Updated
- Jul 26, 2026
The verdict
ClearSpace is the best-executed friction app on the market and it is not an accountability tool. Buy it if you are an adult who wants to open Instagram less and will respond to a five-second delay and a two-minute timer. Skip it if you need something a determined user cannot walk past, switch off, or delete in seconds - it is none of those three, by design.
Try ClearSpace ↗Opens getclearspace.com
ClearSpace sits oddly on a list of Christian accountability apps. It is a Y Combinator-backed screen-time product from Clearspace Technologies, Inc., founded by Oliver Hill and Royce Branning, and nothing in its marketing is framed in religious terms. It appears here because the problem it treats - a phone that eats hours you meant to spend elsewhere - is the problem many people bring to Covenant Eyes, and because it advertises accountability partners. Whether that means what it means at Covenant Eyes is the central question here, and the answer is no.
The mechanism is well built. You pick the apps you want to use less. When you tap one, ClearSpace intercepts the launch and makes you do something first: a timed breathing exercise the vendor calls a centering exercise, a note to your future self, push-ups counted through the front camera, or a walk measured by Apple Health. The launch page states the exchange rate plainly - every push-up earns a minute of scrolling. Then you declare a session length and, in the product page's words, ClearSpace will pull you out at the end.
That is friction, and friction is not protection. The App Store description states the intent without embarrassment: on tapping a selected app you decide whether to proceed after a deep breath or opt out. Proceeding is always on the menu - no password, no partner approval, no cooling-off period, no lockout. That is exactly right for the user ClearSpace is built for and exactly wrong for the user who has already lost this argument several hundred times.
It is popular and deservedly so on its own terms: 4.7 from 8,723 US App Store ratings, English-only, iOS 16.0 minimum, last shipped as 2.7.2 in January 2026. Marketplace put the price at $49.99 a year in November 2025 and quoted a user summarising the category better than any reviewer could - paying monthly for a phone, then yearly not to use it.
✓ The good
- The gate is the most inventive in the category - a breath, a self-written note, camera-counted push-ups, or an Apple Health walk, so friction can be cognitive or physical
- Session limits are enforced, not suggested - you name a length on entry and the app ends the session at expiry, which the vendor's comparison page says one sec does not do
- Push-ups bank time - the launch page states every push-up earns a minute of scrolling you can spend now or save
- Notification-based accountability is real - a partner is alerted if you break your budget or delete ClearSpace, so uninstalling is visible to someone
- The rating is a large sample - 4.7 across 8,723 votes is not a launch-week number, and the app has shipped since July 2021
- Coverage extends past the phone - a Chrome extension adds site blocking, time limits, the same pause prompt, and a reader mode that strips social feeds
- Free to install and test - $0 on both stores, so the mechanism can be tried before any money changes hands
✗ Watch out
- The vendor concedes it only works on apps chosen by the user - nothing is covered by default, so anything you forget to add stays open
- There is no lock of any kind - no admin password, no partner approval, no delay on changes, and deletion takes seconds
- It filters no content whatsoever - ClearSpace never inspects what you view, so anyone arriving from Covenant Eyes is trading monitoring for a timer
- The vendor's own blog lists frequent interruptions as a drawback that might be irritating - the mechanism is annoyance, and annoyance has a half-life
- The pricing page does not exist - the navigation advertises Pricing and the URL returns a 404, so free limits are unpublished
- Android is the second-class build - Play shows 4.3 from 844 reviews and an October 2025 update against Apple's 4.7 from 8,723 and a January 2026 release
Best for
- Adults with genuine intent and a doomscrolling habit
- Students and knowledge workers protecting deep-work blocks
- Anyone who found hard blockers too brittle to keep
- People who want session limits rather than total bans
Avoid if
- Recovery from compulsive pornography use
- Parents needing enforcement a child cannot undo
- Anyone requiring content filtering or activity reports
- Households on Safari, Firefox, or non-Chrome browsers
What ClearSpace is
ClearSpace is a screen-time reduction app for iOS and Android with a companion Chrome extension. You nominate the apps that cost you time; ClearSpace intercepts every launch of those apps and interposes a gate - a timed breathing exercise, a note you wrote to yourself, push-ups detected by the front camera, or activity read from Apple Health. Once through, you set a session length, and the app ends the session when the clock runs out.
Around that sit budgets, streaks, usage reporting, scheduled focus windows the product page calls calm windows and deep focus modes, and habit notifications. It is filed under Productivity and Health and Fitness, rated 4+, English only, iOS 16.0 or later. It is not a content filter, not a DNS or VPN blocker, and not a supervision tool.
The exercise-to-unlock gate, and what it is honestly for
Most friction apps offer one delay: breathe, or type a sentence, and wait. ClearSpace is the one that will make you do push-ups in front of the camera, and the detail that makes it work is the banking. The launch page puts it directly - every push-up you do earns a minute of scrolling, which you can use now or save for later. That turns the gate from a tax into a currency, and it is the most original idea in the category.
It is also a self-imposed price rather than a barrier. Marketplace quoted the communications scholar Zoetanya Sujon on the irony of the genre - streaks, stats, dashboards, and social features are the same engagement machinery that made the apps addictive, redeployed to measure your abstinence. ClearSpace is more elegant about this than its rivals, and its success still depends on you wanting what you wanted at install. On the day you do not, it asks for ten push-ups and lets you in.
The gate: what happens when you tap the app
The product page calls it taking a moment before entering an app. ClearSpace interrupts the launch of anything on your list and shows its own screen first, holding the centering exercise - a timed breath, a note you wrote, camera-counted push-ups, or a walk logged to Apple Health. Notes are the underrated option, the closest this product comes to a conscience.
The critical fact is what the gate cannot do. It cannot refuse. The App Store description frames the moment as a decision - proceed after a deep breath, or opt out - and both branches belong to the user. No partner is asked, no password required, no cooling-off period applied: if you want in, you get in. On 8,723 ratings averaging 4.7 that pause clearly works for many people, and it works for nobody who needs stopping rather than slowing.
Session limits and what happens at expiry
This is where ClearSpace separates from the pack, and the vendor says so itself: its comparison page states that ClearSpace lets you set specific session lengths for each app and automatically ends the session when the time is up, while one sec triggers the pause and leaves you to it. The product page puts the promise in the first person - tell us how long you want to be there and we will pull you out at the end.
At expiry the session ends and you are returned to the gate. Nothing stops you starting another; you pay the toll again and declare a new length. Budgets and streaks sit above this, and breaking a budget is one of two events that notify a partner. The ceiling is soft: it caps how long you stay in before being asked again, not how long you spend in a day.
The accountability partner: a notification, not a report
For readers coming from Covenant Eyes, Ever Accountable, or Accountable2You, this is the paragraph that matters. The Y Combinator launch page describes adding accountability partners who get notified if you break your budget or delete ClearSpace. Two triggers, both real pushes to another human being rather than decorative badges, and the deletion alert is the only cost attached to uninstalling.
What it is not is content accountability. ClearSpace produces no screenshot log, no URL history, no flagged-image report, no summary of what you looked at, because it never looks at what you looked at. If you are reading an accountability review because of compulsive pornography use, this will tell your ally you went over on Instagram and nothing about the browser session at two in the morning.
Pricing
Free
Free
The app is $0 on both stores and works without payment. What free permits is not published anywhere on getclearspace.com - the site links to a Pricing page that returns a 404, and the vendor's only public statement is a blog line conceding that ClearSpace offers a premium version.
Premium (Monthly)
$6.99/month
Listed on the App Store panel as ClearSpace Premium (Monthly). At $6.99 x 12 = $83.88 a year it is the most expensive way to hold the same feature set, $38.89 above the annual SKU. Nothing on the vendor site itemises what sits behind it.
Premium (Annual)
$44.99/year
Listed as ClearSpace Premium (Annual) on Apple's panel, or $3.75 a month. Marketplace reported $49.99 a year in November 2025, and Apple's panel separately lists unlabelled Clearspace Premium items at $49.99 and $59.99. Reported as printed, not reconciled.
Premium Family
$79.99
Apple's panel lists Clearspace Premium Family at $79.99 with no billing period attached, and no page on getclearspace.com says what it covers, how many members it admits, or whether an organiser sees anyone else's usage. No lifetime purchase appears in Apple's list, and no church or team price is published.
The app installs free on both stores. Everything past that is an in-app purchase, and the vendor publishes no pricing page - the navigation carries a Pricing link and getclearspace.com/pricing returns a 404, so Apple prints the only itemised prices.
Apple's panel lists ClearSpace Premium (Monthly) at $6.99, ClearSpace Premium (Annual) at $44.99, Clearspace Premium Family at $79.99, and further unlabelled Clearspace Premium entries at $44.99, $49.99, and $59.99. Marketplace, in November 2025, gave the price as $49.99 per year. Both are printed as found - the $44.99 annual SKU and the $49.99 reported annual price are not averaged, and the $59.99 item carries no billing period.
The arithmetic is worth doing. $6.99 x 12 = $83.88 against the $44.99 annual plan, a difference of $38.89, or 46 percent. Annual works out to $3.75 a month, so monthly is a trial fee rather than a plan.
There is no lifetime option in Apple's list - a real difference from one sec, which advertises pay once, use on all your devices across iOS, Android, and desktop browser extensions, and publishes a team price as low as 83 cents per user per month billed annually. ClearSpace publishes no team, group, or church price at all, and the $79.99 Family tier has no published member count and no published billing period.
One access route worth knowing: ClearSpace has partnered with school programmes to give students free access, so if you are buying for a teenager, ask the school.
Where ClearSpace falls behind
Nothing is protected by default. The vendor states the limit itself - it only works on apps chosen by the user. No category list, no directory of known-distracting services, no automatic coverage of an app you install next Tuesday. The product's reach is as good as your memory on setup day, and degrades every time you add something to the phone.
It can be removed in seconds. No admin password, no supervision profile, no MDM lock, no partner-held setting, no delay before changes take effect. Delete the app and every gate disappears at once, the single consequence being a partner notification that fires after the fact. Tech Lockdown builds its entire product around making this move hard; ClearSpace does not attempt it and does not claim to.
The web story is Chrome and only Chrome. The extension is capable - site blocking, time limits, the same pause prompt, a reader mode that strips social feeds - but Safari, Firefox, Edge, Brave, iOS Safari, and another app's built-in browser all get nothing, and there is no native macOS or Windows app.
It is not a filter, and the distinction is not pedantic. ClearSpace inspects no content at any point: it cannot block a pornographic site it was never told about, detect an explicit image, or report a search term. Anyone arriving from Covenant Eyes is not buying a cheaper version of that product but a different one.
The privacy disclosures sit awkwardly against the marketing. Apple's App Privacy panel lists Third-Party Advertising using contact info and usage data, Analytics linked to a phone number and device identifiers, Product Personalization that includes your Contacts, and App Functionality that includes health and fitness data. Google Play's Data safety section says the app collects location, personal info, and three other data types, and shares location, personal info, and two others with third parties. Set that beside the vendor's own comparison page praising one sec for not selling or analysing user data - ClearSpace raised the standard and does not meet it.
ClearSpace vs. one sec vs. Covenant Eyes vs. Tech Lockdown
ClearSpace and one sec are the same species, and the vendor published its own scorecard. ClearSpace claims the enforced session limit one sec lacks, and concedes two points in return: one sec works on apps and websites where ClearSpace only works on apps chosen by the user, and one sec, in ClearSpace's words, does not sell or analyse user data. One sec also sells a pay-once cross-device licence and a team price from 83 cents per user per month; ClearSpace has neither. If your problem is a forty-minute session, ClearSpace wins; if it is a browser, one sec covers more.
Covenant Eyes is not a competitor but a different answer to a different question. It monitors what you look at and reports it to a person who agreed to receive it; the deterrent is a human being reading a log. ClearSpace tracks only which app you opened and for how long. Only one of those designs survives contact with a user who has decided, at eleven at night, to look at something.
Tech Lockdown takes the third position: it exists to make removal difficult, layering DNS filtering, configuration profiles, and locked settings so the version of you that wants to disable the tool cannot. That is protection. ClearSpace is friction, openly so - its own parenting blog proposes a playful contest instead of playing big brother and locking everything down. Defensible for a motivated adult, wrong for a compulsion or a child.
The bottom line
ClearSpace is a very good friction app: the most inventive gate in the category, an enforced session limit that is a real advance over one sec, and 4.7 from 8,723 votes saying the mechanism lands for ordinary people who wanted to scroll less. It is also, on the vendor's own account, an app-only tool that covers nothing you did not add, filters no content, and can be deleted in seconds. At $44.99 a year, buy it to reduce a habit. If you are trying to stop something, buy a filter and an ally instead, and run ClearSpace alongside them if you can afford both.
Alternatives to ClearSpace
one secThe other serious friction app. ClearSpace's own comparison page concedes it covers websites as well as apps and sells a pay-once licence; what it does not do is end your session for you.
Covenant EyesContent accountability rather than time accountability - screenshot monitoring reported to a human ally. The right tool if the problem is what you look at.
Tech LockdownBuilt around what ClearSpace deliberately omits: making the tool hard to remove, via DNS filtering, configuration profiles, and locked settings. More setup, far more resistance.
Ever AccountableScreen monitoring with reports to a chosen partner, aimed at pornography recovery. Narrower than ClearSpace and stronger exactly where ClearSpace is weakest.
Accountable2YouActivity reporting across family devices with real-time alerts to a partner. A better fit for households, with no session-limit mechanic.Frequently asked questions
How much does ClearSpace cost, and is there a lifetime option?
Free to install. Apple's panel lists ClearSpace Premium (Monthly) at $6.99, ClearSpace Premium (Annual) at $44.99, and Clearspace Premium Family at $79.99, plus unlabelled Premium entries at $49.99 and $59.99. Marketplace reported $49.99 per year in November 2025; both annual figures are given as published, not reconciled. No lifetime purchase appears anywhere.
What does the free version actually include?
The vendor does not say. There is no free-versus-premium breakdown on getclearspace.com, and getclearspace.com/pricing returns a 404. The only vendor statement is a blog line conceding that ClearSpace offers a premium version, which might be a downside for those looking for a free tool.
Can I skip the pause and open the app anyway?
Yes. The gate delays access, it never denies it. The App Store description frames the moment as a decision - proceed after a deep breath, or opt out - and proceeding is always available. No password, no partner approval, no extra waiting period.
What happens when a session limit runs out?
The product page says you tell ClearSpace how long you want to be there and it will pull you out at the end; the comparison page confirms it automatically ends the session when the time is up. You are returned to the gate, and nothing prevents an immediate second session, so the limit caps continuous use, not daily use.
Is the accountability partner feature real accountability?
Real but narrow. The Y Combinator launch page describes accountability partners who get notified if you break your budget or delete ClearSpace - those are the two triggers. They receive no screenshots, no browsing history, and no report of what you viewed. It is time accountability, not content accountability.
Can someone just delete ClearSpace to get around it?
Yes, in seconds. There is no admin password, no supervision profile, no MDM enrolment, no partner-held lock. Deleting the app removes every gate immediately, and the one consequence is a partner notification that arrives after the deletion rather than preventing it. If removal needs to be hard, Tech Lockdown is built for that and ClearSpace is not.
What can ClearSpace not block?
Anything you did not add - the vendor states it only works on apps chosen by the user. On the web it covers Chrome and nothing else, so Safari, Firefox, Edge, Brave, iOS Safari, and in-app browsers are untouched, and there is no native Mac or Windows app. It performs no content filtering.
Sources & further reading
More Accountability & Filtering Apps
RelayA therapist-designed group programme rather than a filter or a monitor - private same-gender accountability groups, interactive video lessons and live Zoom calls, with nothing anywhere in it that blocks a website.one secone sec does not block anything and does not report to anyone. It makes you breathe for a few seconds first, and its own peer-reviewed study found 36 percent of people put the phone down at that point - a real effect that is still not protection.
The Freedom FightNot a filter and not a monitor, but a staged discipleship curriculum that treats compulsive porn use as a formation problem rather than a network problem - and asks for seven months to prove it.
LeadMeNotA cross-platform blocker whose distinguishing idea is that switching it off needs somebody else to say yes - priced sensibly, well reviewed by a small number of people, and documented far too thinly.
LivingRoom for FamiliesA parental monitoring app that gates internet access behind continuous screen recording, then has an AI look at what appears - the most invasive approach in this category, and the most complete. Whether that is right for your household is the entire decision.
Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 for FamiliesTwo numbers in a router and every device on the network stops resolving malware and adult-content domains, free, with no account and no device limit. The catch is everything DNS cannot see - and Cloudflare's own developer documentation is where you find it.