Stop Accidental In-App Purchases in Coloring Apps

“Free” coloring apps have caused real damage to real families’ credit card bills. In 2014, the FTC settled with Apple, Google and Amazon for a combined $121.5 million after parents were billed for in-app purchases their kids made without consent — including one documented case of a child spending over $2,500 in a single free game. The core problem hasn’t gone away: once a parent enters a password to approve one purchase, the device can often authorize further purchases for the next 15–30 minutes without asking again, and a kid tapping around doesn’t know the difference between a free coloring page and a $4.99 “sticker pack.”

The good news: this is fully preventable, it’s free, and it takes about 10 minutes to set up once on an iPhone or iPad.

Step 1: Turn On Screen Time Restrictions

Go to Settings → Screen Time on the device your kid uses. If it’s your child’s own device set up under Family Sharing, select their name first. Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions and turn it on.

Step 2: Require a Password for Every Purchase

Inside Content & Privacy Restrictions, tap iTunes & App Store Purchases, then set In-app Purchases to Don’t Allow. This is the single most important toggle — it blocks in-app purchases at the operating system level, regardless of which app is open or what it’s trying to sell.

While you’re in this menu, you can also set Require Password to Immediately instead of the default window, closing the 15–30 minute gap that catches most parents off guard.

Step 3: Set Up Ask to Buy (For Family Sharing Devices)

If your child has their own Apple ID under Family Sharing, go to Settings → [your name] → Family → [child’s name] → Ask to Buy and turn it on. Every purchase or download then sends a request to the organizing adult’s device for approval before anything is charged.

Step 4: Restrict App Downloads Too, Not Just Purchases

The same Content & Privacy Restrictions menu lets you require a password for free downloads as well, which matters for coloring apps specifically — a lot of “free” apps in this category prompt kids to download a second or third app mid-session, and not every one of those is going to be ad-free or age-appropriate.

A Note on “Free” Coloring Apps

None of this is specific to any one app being untrustworthy — it’s a device-level setting because in-app purchase mechanics are largely the same across the App Store, whether an app is genuinely ad-free or not. Restricting purchases at the Screen Time level protects you regardless of which coloring app your kid opens next, including ones outside our own testing rotation. For apps we have tested hands-on and rate on ads, offline behavior and safety specifically, see our best coloring apps for kids roundup.

Sources: Use Screen Time to manage your child’s iPhone or iPad (Apple Support), Block apps, app downloads, websites, and purchases on iPad (Apple Support), FTC: Apple in-app purchases settlement, FTC: Amazon in-app purchases case