Upchin vs BePresent

The one that makes it a competition

BePresent starts from an idea that none of the other apps on this site has: cutting your screen time becomes something you do with and against other people. Weekly leaderboards, blocks you launch as a group, an accountability partner, a monetary stake you lose if you overshoot, and real rewards at the end — their listing names Headspace, ClassPass and BetterHelp. Sixty-eight thousand people have rated it 4.8: for many of them that lever works, and that is a good reason to choose BePresent.

Upchin goes the other way. The effort rests on nobody but you, and least of all on being watched: mechanisms get in the way instead — a delay before an app opens, a block that starts when you begin walking, schedules set in advance. None of them depends on how you feel at the time. No account, no leaderboard, nobody facing you.

The table below compares the two on Upchin's features. One word on how to read it: BePresent publishes little — no help centre, release notes that all say the same thing — not because BePresent lacks features, but because almost nothing is written down. Several rows therefore rest on its App Store listing, the only published source. When nothing is published, a cell cannot be ticked, and that does not mean the feature is missing. The "everything except" lock is the clearest case: it is described only by an outside reviewer, and the cross it carries rests on an absence of proof, not on proof of absence. We do not score a row on a third party's description of its app; only the app itself would settle it.

What BePresent has that Upchin does not

The social lever, and it really is in a class of its own. Nothing in Upchin works like that, and none of it is planned: a score to chase is one more thing on the screen. If that is what gets you off the phone, other apps here have a leaderboard or a partner; none is built around one.

BEAST MODE is a real lock, with no override, chosen before the block starts.

It runs on more iPhones. BePresent asks for iOS 16, Upchin for iOS 26. If your phone does not go that far, the rest of the comparison does not even arise.

And it may well be free to start: their landing page says basic blocking and tracking are free forever. No other page of theirs confirms it, and it is better flagged than dropped. On a subscription, Upchin is free and fully featured for 7 days; then it is paid, and you can cancel at any time.

What Upchin does that BePresent does not announce

The block arrives when you need it, not when you remember it. Open an app you set aside: you get a short grace period, then the door closes for the length you chose and reopens on its own — that is Delay Lock. Start walking, with GPS confirming it, and the apps close by themselves — that is Motion lock.

A goal, a reminder, a reward at the end of the week: each of them asks something of you at the exact moment you have least to give. These two ask for nothing. You set them once, calmly, and they fire on what you do — an app opened, a step taken — whether you feel like it that evening or not, and without anyone else having to be there. BePresent works with goals, reminders and time windows; nothing published describes a trigger of this kind.

The block screen carries your words. Up to ten messages you write yourself, rotating from one block to the next. In BePresent's screenshots that screen shows a fixed line, built from the app's name.

The rest fits in one line: a standing web lock that holds outside any rule, a short unlock for the apps you cannot do without, twenty-one languages against two, an Apple Watch app, and nothing to create — no account, no email.

The price

There is no single price we can print for BePresent, and that is not a figure of speech. Their App Store page lists ten products at once. The plan called Annual appears at $59.99 and at $24.99. One monthly is $3.99, another $14.99. The trial attached to the yearly plan runs from three to thirty days depending on the listing you are served. And their European listing asks €69.99 where the American one asks $59.99.

What that means for you is simple: the price you see is not necessarily the one somebody else sees. Upchin has one published price per currency, the same for everyone.

Privacy, and the account

Their App Store description says, under a heading about privacy: "none of your personal data ever leaves your device". The technical half is accurate — Apple's framework keeps the detail of which apps you open out of their reach, and that is as true for them as it is for us.

On the same page, their privacy label declares a device identifier used to track you across other companies' apps, along with contact information and usage data linked to your identity, with third-party advertising among the stated purposes. A declared purpose says what those identifiers may be used for; it is not proof that the app shows ads. Their challenge page is more precise than their description: they hold the points derived from your screen time — a leaderboard showing other people's hours cannot work any other way. As for their privacy policy, it is boilerplate dated September 2022, served inside an embedded frame.

BePresent therefore needs an account. Upchin asks for none: nothing to create, nothing to recover, nothing that can leak.

The short version

BePresent if being measured against friends, answering to someone and working towards a reward is what gets you off the phone. And if your iPhone does not go up to iOS 26, that decides it for you.

Upchin if you would rather it held without anyone watching: blocks that fire on their own depending on the situation — walking, usage, the hour — your own words on the screen that stops you, a web lock that does not switch off between rules, and nothing to create.

Both of them block for real. Neither replaces the other.