ScreenWorth vs Opal: A Free Screen Time App That Doesn’t Lock You Out

What Opal does well

Opal is a well-made, well-loved app. It has about 90,000 ratings at 4.7 stars on the US App Store, and its design gets consistent praise. You can set several scheduled sessions with different app groups, block apps and websites, and track your focus with a daily score. Habi’s 2026 review says that once Deep Focus is on, “you genuinely cannot bypass it without restarting your phone and waiting for the session to end.”

For people who need a wall rather than a nudge, during exams or a deadline week, Opal’s strictness is the feature.

Where people get stuck with hard blockers

All-or-nothing blocking has a known failure mode. The first time you genuinely need the blocked app, whether it’s a DM from your landlord or a work post on LinkedIn, the blocker becomes the obstacle. Many people respond by ending the session, loosening the rules or deleting the app. Habit Doom’s comparison notes that on Opal’s free plan “you can end a session whenever you want,” which it calls “its weakness.”

Price is the other common sticking point. On the US App Store, Opal lists $19.99/month and $99.99/year, plus weekly plans. Habi’s review lists the drawbacks plainly: “The free tier is extremely limited,” and “The free version constantly nudges you toward the premium subscription.”

How ScreenWorth is different

ScreenWorth never locks you out. When today’s allowance for an app runs out, the app locks and you get two choices:

• Walk away for free. Always one tap.
• Unlock 15 more minutes at a price you picked during setup. Light starts at $0.49 and tops out at $1.49. Standard, the default, goes $0.49, $0.99, $1.49, $1.99, then $2.99. Strong starts at $0.99. The ladder resets at midnight.

Because you can always get in, you don’t need to delete the app on the day you really need Instagram. Because getting in costs a little real money, you stop doing it without thinking. ScreenWorth never charges automatically: every unlock is an optional purchase you confirm with Face ID or Touch ID.

Price: what you’d actually pay

Free to download. Free to walk away. You only pay if you decide extra time is worth it. ScreenWorth’s Free plan includes one plan (Reset, Doomscroll, Focus, Sleep or Custom), limits and schedules, the unlock screen, receipts, your weekly receipt and 7-day challenges with friends. Plus is $4.99/month or $39.99/year and adds running plans together, finer rules, full history and your own challenges.

Plus never includes free unlocks. If you walk away every time, ScreenWorth costs $0. If you unlock a lot, you’ll spend money. That’s the point, and your weekly receipt shows exactly what you spent and whether you thought it was worth it.

Motivation: scores vs receipts

Opal motivates with a daily focus score, analytics and leaderboards. ScreenWorth motivates with a receipt that leads with how many times you walked away, then what you voluntarily spent. After each unlock it asks “Worth it?” If you tap “Not really,” it adds that to your weekly pattern instead of refunding you. There’s no score to lose and no “you failed” message. Research on self-compassion suggests that treating a slip kindly makes people more motivated to improve (Breines & Chen, 2012).

The honest trade-offs

• Opal is more mature, with years of updates and a very large user base. ScreenWorth is new.
• Opal can block websites and run many scheduled sessions. ScreenWorth focuses on apps and five plans.
• If you need an unbreakable wall for a few hours, Opal’s strict modes do that and ScreenWorth deliberately doesn’t.
• On ScreenWorth, overriding your limit costs real money. Some people will prefer a subscription with no per-unlock cost.