“Charged for a year immediately after signing up for the free trial!!! — My son child found the app and wanted to try it out. So I downloaded it and saw the option for a free trial and selected it. After agreeing to the trial terms I was…”
Independent automated assessment · 3 signal sources · 52 reviews scanned · analyzed 2026-10-05.
4.6 ★18,219 ratings
—Downloads
4+Age rating
302 MBApp size
Free · In-app purchasesIn-app purchases
About this app
Give your child the tools to thrive in school, at home, and beyond and make screen time productive with fun, educational and non addictive games and stories.
With 2500+ interactive activities, award-winning stories, and science-backed games, Smart Tales® is the go-to learning app for kids aged 2 to 11. Whether you’re a parent, teacher, or caregiver, it’s built to support every learner—including neurodivergent children—with a focus on inclusivity and engagement.
“Smart Tales has been a game-changer. My child now asks to practice multiplication tables!” “I love that I can track progress and feel confident it’s not just screen time—it’s real learning.” “As a busy single mom, it’s the only app I trust when I need 20 focused minutes.”
What Smart Tales® Helps Your Child Achieve:…
Preview
Real screenshots from the store listing.
Independent evidence report
The evidence behind this assessment
This is where the page changes from an app-store listing into an evidence report: findings, important reviews, pricing and a dated history.
Which version this describes
When we ran this analysis, and what the store lists now.
This analysis describes version 5.2.5 of the app, analyzed 2026-10-05 . The app may have changed since.
The store currently lists version 5.2.5, updated 2026-07-22.
What we measured
Each line is a measurement published as a measurement, never a verdict.
Each line is a measurement, published as a measurement. Where we have not looked, the line says so rather than reading as a zero.
Developer replies to reviews
Replies to fewer than 1 review in 20
Price in the store description
States no price and billing period
Cancelling, in the store description
Does not say how to cancel
Themes reported by reviewers
1 theme reported
Counted from the reviews we have read for this app. "No theme reported" means no theme reached our reporting threshold — it is not a finding that nothing is wrong with this app, and we do not say it is.
Five-star share of ratings
65–79% five-star
Arithmetic on the stores' own published rating counts. It says nothing about why the ratings fall where they do.
In the package we scanned
No package has been scanned for this app, so nothing is published about what it ships. That is an absence of evidence about the app, not a finding about it.
Graded bands · predicate set 1.4 · how these are measured
What the analysis found
App-specific findings, grouped by what each one rests on. How they are graded lives on its own page.
Context 1
Measured and published because a reader would want to know — deliberately not a charge. The measurement alone does not show a harm.
Cheapest and priciest options are far apart
The disclosed in-app purchases span an unusually wide price range. Published as context: the cheapest and priciest items may be different kinds of product entirely, so the spread alone deducts nothing.
What we saw: In-app purchases run from USD 3.99 to USD 89.99 — a 23x spread across 10 items
One source only — shown, not confirmed 2
A single kind of evidence. We publish these because withholding them would be the bigger distortion, and we do not treat any of them as a finding we stand behind.
Reported by users: Trial converts to a charge
The free trial demands a payment method up front and/or rolls into a paid subscription with no usable warning.
What we saw: Trial converts to a charge: raised by 5 distinct reviewers (9.6% of 52 reviews scanned)
From the store listing: Usable without an account
The app's own screens offer a way past sign-up — guest access, skipping, or browsing before registering — rather than gating the product behind an account. The store's privacy disclosure is checked alongside it: that disclosure is self-reported, so it corroborates this credit rather than establishing it.
What we saw: The store privacy disclosure (3 entries) links no contact details or identifiers to the user — consistent with an app that does not require an account. Self-reported by the developer.
Highlighted reviews
Representative public review excerpts shown as user reports, not Appworthy audit evidence.
“Fraud — I canceled the subscription day 1 of the free trial and they still charged me for a monthly subscription. I tried to find a contact on their website to report this issue and cannot find any contact information.”
“Careful — I cancelled my free trial the same day I downloaded the app and they immediately charged me the ENTIRE YEAR!”
Assessment & version history
App changes and Appworthy events in one timeline.
Store listing updated to version 5.2.5.
What this app sells
Useful store-disclosed pricing, kept below the app listing.
Items shown10
Lowest$3.99
Highest$89.99
Premium Weekly$3.99
Premium Weekly$4.99
Premium Monthly$14.99
Monthly Learning Plan for Kids$14.99
Premium Monthly$5.49
Show 5 more purchases
Smart Tales Quarterly$34.99
Yearly Learning Plan for Kids$89.99
Yearly Promo Subscription$54.99
Yearly Subscription$89.99
Smart Family Promo $39.99