Frequently asked questions

Yes. Ukelønn is 100% free to use. No in-app purchases, no premium tier, no subscriptions, and no ads inside the app. Every feature — chores, payouts, families, streaks, push notifications, magic-link sign-in — is available to every user at no cost.

How do we keep the lights on? Ukelønn is built and operated by CreatorsJourney AS, a Norwegian company that also runs other digital projects. We have no venture investors behind us and no pressure to squeeze the user base with subscription funnels or microtransactions. That means we can make the calls we think are right for families, not the ones that maximise short-term revenue.

We are looking at future partnerships with Norwegian banks that could add extra features (for example direct Vipps integration or savings accounts for children). Any such partnership will be an optional add-on — never something that degrades or paywalls the core app. The principle is simple: the day-to-day use of Ukelønn — creating chores, approving completed work, and tracking allowance — will always be free.

If you have questions about our funding model or want to hear more about the roadmap, email us at post@ukelonn.no.

This is one of the most important things to understand about Ukelønn: the app does not move money directly. Ukelønn is a bookkeeping tool, not a payment provider.

Here is how it works in practice:

1. The child completes a chore and marks it as done. 2. You, the parent, approve the chore. The amount is added to the child's balance inside the app. 3. When it is time to pay out — weekly, monthly, or whenever your child has saved up for something special — you tap Pay out in the app. The balance is cleared (or reduced by the amount you chose). 4. You make the actual transfer outside the app. That can be via Vipps (Norway's mobile payment app), a regular bank transfer, cash into a piggy bank, or whatever you have agreed on as a family.

Why do we do it this way? Moving money between accounts requires a licence from the Norwegian financial supervisory authority (Finanstilsynet), strict anti-money-laundering routines, KYC checks, and heavy ongoing regulatory work. That makes sense for payment companies — but it would turn Ukelønn into an entirely different product with much higher running costs that would ultimately have to be paid by users.

By sticking to accounting and reporting, we can keep the app free while parents keep full control over where the money actually sits. You decide whether the payout goes to a savings account, a Vipps balance, or a physical piggy bank.

Not yet — but the setup already works well alongside Vipps (Norway's dominant mobile payment app), and direct integration is on our roadmap.

Here is how most families handle it today: once the balance in Ukelønn has grown to the amount you have agreed on — whether that is a fixed sum every Friday or a specific savings target — you Vipps the money straight to your child. You use Ukelønn as the source of truth for how much to transfer, and Vipps as the payment channel. Quick, familiar, and easy.

For your child to receive Vipps payments, they need an account tied to a bank:

- Vipps under 15 is available from around age 10 through your child's own bank, with parental supervision. The bank usually requires a code generator or mobile BankID, and access can be limited by parents. - Full Vipps is available from age 15, when your child can have their own BankID and full control of their own account.

Children who are too young for their own Vipps account can still receive payouts from Ukelønn — via a bank transfer to a savings account you have opened in their name, or simply as cash in a piggy bank.

Direct Vipps integration is something we are seriously looking at. The challenge is that it requires a formal agreement with Vipps MobilePay and regulatory work that is currently outside our scale. If and when we build it, it will be an optional add-on that complements — not replaces — today's manual flow. Feel free to send a request to post@ukelonn.no if this matters for your family.

We recommend Ukelønn for children between 6 and 15 years old. That is the age range where kids are mature enough to understand the link between chores, responsibility, and reward — but where parents still have the natural role of financial coach.

Under 6, the app gets a bit abstract. Young children do not yet have the number sense to watch a balance grow over time, and motivation works best through immediate, physical recognition. Stickers on the fridge tend to beat an app.

Between 6 and 10, Ukelønn is at its most useful. Kids this age love fixed routines, streaks, and visual confirmation that they have done something good. At the same time they are picking up number handling, saving, and planning.

From 10 to 15, Ukelønn works well as a ledger alongside your child's first bank card or Vipps under 15. Many parents use the app to track what has been earned and transfer money via Vipps based on the balance shown in Ukelønn.

After 15, most children are ready for their own bank account, full Vipps, and financial independence. At that point an allowance app is usually redundant.

Parents always own the accounts, approve completed work, and decide which chores are available. You can tune the app to be simple for the youngest kids or more advanced for teenagers.

Setting up your family in Ukelønn takes a few minutes. Here are the steps:

1. Download the app from the App Store (iOS) or Google Play (Android). 2. Sign up as a parent with email and password. You confirm your email via a magic link we send you. 3. Create a family from the home screen. Give it a name — for example "The Hansen family". You automatically become the family admin. 4. Invite children from the family settings. You can send the invitation three ways: - Email — we send your child a link they can open on their own phone. - SMS — share the link directly from the invitation screen. - QR code — let your child scan the code on your screen with their own phone. This is the easiest option when you are sitting together. 5. Your child signs in with their own account. For younger kids we use magic-link sign-in so they never have to remember a password. 6. Add the other parent (optional). Both parents can have full admin access and approve chores from their own phone.

Ukelønn also supports shared custody: a child can belong to the family at mum's house and the family at dad's house at the same time, with a separate chore list in each. Each parent sends their own invitation from their own family.

If you are unsure how to get started or need help along the way, email post@ukelonn.no — we respond quickly.

Today, a single user can be a member of one family at a time in Ukelønn. This is a deliberate simplification that makes the app faster and easier to understand for most families — but we know it does not fit every situation.

Where does this become a challenge?

- Shared custody where a child lives half the time with each parent, and both homes want their own chore list and finances. - Grandparents who want to reward their own chores when grandkids visit — a dedicated grandma-and-grandpa chore without mixing into the main family. - Foster families and extended families where several adults are actively involved in raising the same child.

Today's workaround for shared custody is that each parent creates their own family, and the child signs in with separate accounts — often with Mum and Dad in the family name. It works, but balances and history do not connect across the two homes.

We are seriously looking at building multi-family support, where one user can belong to several families at once with separate balances, chores, and permissions in each. The technical challenges are not the hard part — the user interface is, because we want to get it right before we ship it so it does not feel cluttered.

What can you do? Email post@ukelonn.no and tell us how your family is set up and how multi-family support should work for you. We prioritise features based on how many real user requests we get, so your voice counts directly.

Ukelønn supports several chore types so you can mirror how your family actually works, rather than forcing you into a rigid template.

One-off chores are the classics: "Clean the garage", "Wash the car", "Help carry in the groceries". Created once, done once, paid once.

Weekly chores repeat on fixed days or over the course of the week. Typical examples: "Take out the bins every Monday", "Vacuum the living room every Saturday", "Tidy your room before Sunday evening". The chore becomes available again automatically when the new week starts.

Monthly chores work for bigger tasks like cleaning the bathroom or dusting high shelves.

X-times chores are flexible volume chores: "Walk the dog 5 times this week" or "Help with the dishes 3 times before Sunday". Your child checks each one off as they go, and the chore is complete when the count is reached.

Shared chores can be done by anyone in the family. Whoever does the job gets the money. This works well for siblings who compete over the same tasks.

Individual chores are assigned to a specific child. Useful when you want the older one to take the bins out while the younger one sets the table.

Across all chore types the same principle applies: your child marks a chore as done, you approve it (or ask for a small adjustment), and the amount is added to the balance. That way children learn that a job completed is not quite the same as a job approved — a useful lesson for adult life too.

A streak is the number of consecutive days or weeks your child has completed at least one chore. The longer the streak, the bigger the visual reward in the app — and the more proud your child tends to be.

The idea is grounded in simple habit psychology. Research suggests it takes around 21 days before a new behaviour starts to feel like a fixed habit, and about 60–90 days before it is firmly anchored. By making the streak visible in the app — with numbers, symbols, and small milestones — we help your child stick with it long enough for the daily effort to become automatic.

How it works in practice:

- Every day your child completes at least one chore, the streak goes up by one. - If they skip a day, the streak resets. (We are discussing freeze days for illness and holidays — let us know if you think that is a good idea.) - At 7, 14, and 30 days, your child gets a dedicated badge and a celebratory notification. - In the family overview, siblings can see each other's streaks, which often turns into a healthy, playful competition.

Streaks are not tied to the monetary amount — they are a pure motivation mechanism. A child with a 30-day streak who only does small chores does not get more money than the streak would normally pay out. But the experience of keeping the chain unbroken is often a stronger driver than the amount itself.

For more tips on how to use streaks and other routines to teach children healthy money habits, read our blog post 5 habits that teach kids about money.

Privacy is not a bolted-on afterthought for us — it is the starting point. Ukelønn is built according to Norwegian and European rules (GDPR), and we only collect what is needed for the app to work.

What do we store? Name, email, family membership, the chores you create, balances, and payout history. For children we usually store only a first name and family connection — no more contact information than necessary. We do not store national identity numbers, bank account details, or payment card information, because the app does not handle money directly.

Where is the data stored? All data lives in Microsoft Azure in Europe (data centre in Amsterdam). We never send personal data out of the EU/EEA. Traffic is encrypted in transit (HTTPS) and at rest (at-rest encryption).

Is the data shared with anyone? No — we have no third-party advertisers, no ad networks, no marketing platforms. The only external services we use are:

- Apple Push (APNs) and Google Firebase (FCM) to deliver push notifications to your phones. - Sentry for error reporting (without personally identifiable details). - Azure as the hosting platform.

Who owns the data? You do. Parents are the data controller for their children's data in their family. You can export all your data at any time (GDPR portability) or delete your account (right to be forgotten). See the separate FAQ on how to delete an account.

Read the full privacy policy at /personvern. If you have specific questions, email post@ukelonn.no.

Yes. Ukelønn is built from the ground up as an app children can use without parents having to worry about who they meet or what gets shared. We have actively chosen not to build features that could create risk.

No chat. There is no messaging feature between users, neither inside a family nor across families. Your child cannot be contacted by strangers through Ukelønn.

No public profile. Your child's name, age, and activity are only visible to other members of the same family. There is no "discover other users", no friend list, and no way to be found by strangers.

No photo or video sharing. The app never asks for access to the camera roll or contacts. When your child confirms a chore, it is a simple tap — not an upload of documentation that could go astray.

No third-party advertising. Children are not exposed to ads, sales tricks, or manipulative freemium patterns designed to push them to buy something.

Full parental control. As a parent you see everything that happens in your child's account: which chores have been created, which have been completed, what has been paid out, and when your child last signed in. You can adjust chores, change amounts, or pause the account at any time.

PEGI 3 / suitable for all ages — the app is classified as suitable for all age groups in both the App Store and Google Play, with no content warnings.

If you spot something that looks odd or that you think could be improved, email post@ukelonn.no. Child safety is an area we take extremely seriously.

You can delete your account in Ukelønn at any time — that is your right under GDPR, and we have made the process as simple and clear as possible.

How to delete your account from the app:

1. Open Ukelønn and go to Settings. 2. Select My account. 3. Tap Delete account at the bottom of the page. 4. Confirm the choice in a second dialog, so we know it was not a mistake.

What happens after you confirm? We use a 30-day soft delete. For 30 days after confirmation the account is closed, but can be reopened if you change your mind. We built in this undo window on purpose, because deleting family data is irreversible. After 30 days, all data is permanently removed from our databases. Backup copies are rolled out shortly after.

What gets deleted? Your user, email address, password, chore history, balances, push tokens, and all ties to the family. If you are the family admin, we first ask whether you want to transfer the role to another parent, so the family and your child's history can be kept if you wish.

Export before deletion: if you want a copy of all your data before deleting, you can request a GDPR export. Email post@ukelonn.no with the name on the account, and we will send you a file with everything we have stored about you. This is free and usually takes 1–3 business days.

If you have questions about deletion or privacy in general, get in touch — we answer everything.

Ukelønn sends a small and useful set of push notifications — not a flood. Here is everything the app can send:

To the child:

- Daily reminder about open chores. Sent around 16:00 local time, so it arrives after school but before dinner. Only if there are actually chores waiting. - Chore approved when a parent has approved completed work and the money has been added to the balance. - Streak milestones at 7, 14, and 30 days of consecutive activity. - Payout confirmation when a parent pays out the balance.

To parents:

- New chore awaiting approval when a child has marked a task as done. - Weekly summary every Sunday — what was done, which chores remain, how much was earned. - Confirmation of family changes (new member, changed role).

Everything is opt-out. Both you and your child can turn off notifications by category in settings. Parents can also see an overview of which notifications the child has received in the last few days, so there are no surprises.

Quiet hours 22:00–09:00. Between 22:00 and 09:00 Oslo time we never send notifications — not even reminders. This is fixed and cannot be overridden. We believe an allowance app should never disturb bedtime.

Technical: notifications are delivered via Apple Push Notification Service (APNs) on iOS and Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) on Android. If notifications are not arriving, check that you have allowed notifications for Ukelønn in your phone's settings.

No stress — you never have to lose access to your Ukelønn account. Here is what to do:

1. Open the app and tap Sign in. 2. Select Forgot password below the sign-in form. 3. Type in the email address you registered with. 4. We send a magic link to your email. Click the link and you are signed straight in without a password. 5. Once signed in, you can set a new password in settings if you like — or keep using magic-link sign-in from now on. It is up to you.

Magic links are time-limited and can only be used once, so they are both secure and simple. If the email does not show up in your inbox, check your spam folder, or request a new link after 2 minutes.

For children using magic-link sign-in: they need help from a parent the first time, because the link is sent to the email address the parent provided at invitation. After the first sign-in the phone keeps the child's session locally, so they can open the app without signing in again for a long time.

Common issues and fixes:

- "The link has expired" — magic links last 30 minutes. Request a new one. - "I'm not getting any email" — check that the email address is spelled correctly, and look in the spam folder. - "I don't remember which email I used" — email post@ukelonn.no with the name of your family, and we will help you identify the account.

All support requests about sign-in are prioritised and answered as fast as possible, usually the same day.

Yes. Ukelønn is built with the intention that the engine — chores, families, balances, approval flow, push notifications — can be offered as a white-label solution for Norwegian banks and financial players who want to strengthen their offering to families with children.

We are already in conversations with several players, and we are strong believers in non-exclusive partnerships. That means several banks can offer a Ukelønn-powered family finance feature under their own brand, on their own terms, integrated with their own savings and payment products. That way families with children in Norway get better tools no matter which bank they choose — and no one is locked in.

What can we offer?

- Full API access to the chore, family, and accounting engine. - Custom UI inside your app, with your visual identity, typography, and voice. - Norwegian operations and support, with servers in Azure Europe and GDPR compliance built in. - Flexible integration — from a lightweight embedded solution to deep ties with banking services, savings accounts, and parent-controlled transfers. - Pilot partnerships with a real user base (12,000+ active users), so you can test the product against real data and feedback.

What do users get? The same core features that exist in Ukelønn today, plus your bank's own services: a real account, automatic transfers, interest-bearing savings, and possibly card products for older children.

To start a conversation, email post@ukelonn.no. Read more about the possibilities at /partnere.

We appreciate feedback enormously. Ukelønn is built by a small Norwegian developer team, and every single bug report and suggestion from parents and children makes the app better for everyone. Here is how to reach us:

Email is the fastest route: post@ukelonn.no. Keep it short — what happened, which phone you use (iPhone or Android), and whether the bug can be reproduced. Screenshots are gold.

The Report button in the app is found under Settings → Help → Report. This has the advantage that we automatically receive technical information like app version, operating system, and recent actions — which helps us find the bug fast without you having to provide anything technical yourself.

Response times:

- Within 2 business days for all inquiries. - Same day for bugs affecting children's data, finances, or sign-in. These jump to the front of the queue. - Immediately for anything related to security or privacy — in that case, email post@ukelonn.no and mark the message URGENT.

Have a suggestion for a new feature? Send a description of what you want and why. We collect all suggestions and prioritise by how many people are asking for the same thing, and how well it fits the direction of the app. Larger, strategic suggestions are discussed openly in our upcoming user-facing roadmap — watch the newsletter and in-app news for information on when it launches.

Thank you for taking the time to let us know. It means a lot.