Is Life360's paid plan worth it, or is free enough?

Why we use Life360 at all

We wanted one thing: to see where our kids are, in real time. Apple’s Find My is built into every iPhone, but in our experience its locations came with delays. Life360 gave us the real-time view we wanted.

That’s the job we needed done, and Life360’s free plan does it. We’ve never paid for it.

What the free plan gives you

• Live location: while you’re viewing someone, Life360 says it updates their location about every two seconds, so you can watch them move. Viewing times out after 5 minutes, and you refresh to keep watching.
• 2 place alerts: for example, a notification when your kid arrives at or leaves school and home.
• 2 days of location history
• Family driving summary
• Tile tracking, if you use Tile trackers

Live updates do depend on your kid’s phone. Life360 says they slow down or stop with a weak signal, battery below 10%, battery saver on, or during a phone call.

What paying adds

Plan	Price	What it adds
Free	$0	Live location, 2 place alerts, 2 days of history
Silver	$9.99/mo or $99.99/yr	7 days of history, unlimited alerts for 5 places, crash detection, SOS alerts
Gold	$16.99/mo or $169.99/yr	30 days of history, unlimited places, emergency dispatch after a crash, 24/7 roadside help, driver reports, ID theft protection
Platinum	$24.99/mo or $249.99/yr	Longer towing, bigger theft and fraud coverage, travel and medical help

Prices are from Life360’s site, checked October 17, 2026. Each plan covers your whole family, and there’s a 7-day free trial.

Look at that list for an 11- to 14-year-old. Crash detection, emergency dispatch, roadside help and driver reports are all about driving. Before your kid has a license, you’re mostly paying for longer history and more place alerts.

When paying does make sense

• You have a teen driver. Gold’s crash detection with emergency dispatch, roadside help and per-driver reports are the strongest reason to pay. That’s when paying starts to make sense.
• You need more than 2 place alerts. If you want notifications for school, home, practice and a grandparent’s house, the free plan runs out quickly. Silver’s 5 places is the cheapest fix.

The free alternative: Find My

On an iPhone, Find My costs nothing. It can stream a live location while you have someone open, and its Notify Me alerts are generous: up to 25, including “isn’t at school during school hours.”

It just didn’t feel real-time enough for us. Apple doesn’t publish how often Find My updates in the background, so your experience may differ. Try both for a week before deciding.

On Android, Google Family Link shows a kid’s location and arrive and leave alerts for free.

Privacy

In 2021, The Markup reported that Life360 was selling precise location data to data brokers. Life360 then said it would stop selling precise location data, except to Arity, Allstate’s data company. Life360’s current privacy policy says it doesn’t share or sell personal information of members it knows are under 18, and doesn’t show ads in child or teen accounts. Adult members’ data can still be used in aggregated, de-identified form. You can opt out in the app’s privacy settings, and it’s worth doing.

A word on teens

Tracking works best when your kid knows about it and why. Research covered in Scientific American found that teens who feel watched often work around tracking by turning their phones off or letting the battery die. Our son Ben knows he’s monitored and is OK with it. That’s part of why it works.

Our verdict

Skip the paid plans while your kids are too young to drive. Life360’s free plan gives you live location, which is what most parents of 11- to 14-year-olds want. Revisit Gold when your teen starts driving.