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Parent Coaching Subscription: Spending Habits
After exhaustive research, the team found that the information on the spending habits of US parents on parenting/kids apps, including their choice of apps and the average amount they spend, is publicly unavailable. However, the research team has provided some helpful insights surrounding the penetration and adoption of parenting apps among parents, the parenting app needs and preferences of parents, and the factors they consider before choosing or installing kid apps on their kids' devices.
Helpful Findings
Penetration and Adoption of Parenting Apps among Parents
- A survey on parenting apps published in 2016 summarized that many parents are not interested in family/parenting apps. Specifically, 6% had more than one parenting mobile app and 8% had only one parenting app, but 86% didn't have any. Additionally, of the respondents who had kids, only 7% had multiple parenting apps and 11% had one.
- According to Pew Research, 7% of parents say that parenting is much easier today than in the last 20 years because of tech advancements, with more access to information, advice, and help. However, another source reveals that "almost half of Millennial parents in 2018 relied on mobile parenting apps for parenting and child-related information."
- According to Researchers at the University of Calgary, Canada, "apps are now the go-to tool for technologically-savvy parents for accessing information, tracking their babies’ development, editing and sharing photos, and much more." However, parents are finding the process of identifying a reliable parenting app challenging because of the abundance of low-quality apps.
Parents' Parenting App Needs and Preferences
- The researchers at the University of Calgary, Canada, assert that there's increased usage of parenting apps due to shifts in parenting trends, such as the inability of healthcare systems to support parents and the changing parenting roles, as women increasingly participate in higher education and paid work. Hence, they actively seek apps to adjust to their new roles, including apps that help them meet their social support needs.
- Their analysis further demonstrated that "commercial apps seemed to be more popular among parents, as BabyCenter, a commercially developed app, had the highest number of downloads (10 million)."
- According to a survey, "though there weren’t any stand-out apps that were overwhelmingly popular among the respondents, Parenting, Toys R Us, Family One, and Family Tree were some of the mentioned parenting apps."
- Similarweb provides a ranking of the top parenting paid apps in the US (since parents apparently prefer commercial ones) based on usage, which consists of a combined algorithm of the number of installations/downloads, active users, and leaderboard in the last 28 days. The top five are Feed Baby Pro — Baby Tracker, DairyBar, HiDaddy — Dads Pregnancy Guide, A Father's Blessing, and Who's Your Daddy? First Time Dad's Pregnancy Guide.
Factors Parents Consider Before Installing Kids Apps
- Before parents install an app on their kids' devices, five factors they consider are who the app connects their kids with, how the app makes money, what their kids learn from the app/what the app teaches their kids, and if their kids' information or privacy is protected.
- Another research study shows that when parents choose apps for their kids, "they want apps with a clear design; tailorable, controllable, educational content; challenges and rewards; and technological innovation."
Research Strategy
For this research, we found that data availability surrounding the spending habits of parents in the US on parenting/kids apps, such as Lovevery and the Peanut app is scarce. To ensure due diligence, the research team consulted multiple credible articles, studies, and survey reports on the subject but immediately found that data is unavailable. We only found a survey report published by AYTM in 2016 on parenting apps. However, while the report provided useful insights surrounding parents and parenting apps, it provided no specific insight into the spending behavior of parents on these apps.
We also specifically researched the choice of parents surrounding these apps and the average amount they spend or spent. Again, we found nothing useful. While we specifically sought survey reports and the opinions of parents on their parenting app choices, we mostly found information on the various award-winning parenting apps, parenting app recommendations, and top parenting app lists. We also tried to estimate the amount parents spend on these apps using the market size of parenting apps in the US but this data is limited and mostly behind paywalls.
Lastly, we expanded the scope of the research to include sources beyond the US and the general spending behavior of parents on mobile apps in general but the approach only led us to more helpful insights that doesn't address the subject. With this, we concluded that the information on the subject is publicly unavailable.