FAQ
If something is not here, it is probably in how it works or the privacy notice, both linked at the bottom.
The basics
Nothing outright. It rations the whole app you pick, not one screen inside it. You get three minutes in Instagram per visit by default, and the clock runs whenever Instagram is in front, whether that is Reels, Stories or your DMs. Limiting the app is how it limits Reels, Shorts and For You. The app is never blocked or deleted, so a message still gets answered, inside the same minutes.
Because it cannot see which screen you are on. On iPhone, Shortcuts only tells it when an app opens and closes. On Android it only knows which app is in front. Seeing more would take accessibility access, which lets an app read everything on your screen, and Skerrick does not ask for it. So the ration covers the whole app.
Three minutes in the app per visit by default, and you can change that. The clock runs whenever the app is in front, whichever screen you are on. When the ration runs out, Skerrick calls time: on Android the cut-off lands over the app where you are, and on iPhone a notification tells you. It refills after thirty minutes away from the app.
A full-screen card says 'Not a skerrick left', with the countdown at zero. On Android it lands over the app, mid-scroll. On iPhone, which does not let one app close another, a notification says it instead. Tap it and the card comes up, and if you open the app again with nothing left, Skerrick comes to the front on the card. From the card you can put it down (on Android that takes you back to the home screen), or ask for sixty more seconds and wait out the delay first.
Yes, and that is deliberate. You can always ask for sixty more seconds. The catch is that each push-through that day makes the next wait longer: five seconds, then twenty, then forty-five, then ninety. The count starts again at midnight, but if you have been pushing through twice a day or more over the past few days, the ladder starts further up rather than back at five seconds.
Because a lock you cannot open is a lock you delete. Published research on this kind of friction found the dismiss option did more work than the delay itself. People need the door to open. They just need it to be annoying.
Both ask you at the door, before you have opened anything, and both leave your own limit a tap or two from off. Screen Time on iPhone offers a button that ignores it for the rest of the day, and Digital Wellbeing on Android links its pause screen straight to the switch that turns the timer off. While you have time left, Skerrick does not ask at the door. It lets you in, then calls time mid-scroll, which is the moment you actually want to stop.
No. Using Skerrick needs no sign-up, no email and no login, and what you scroll is counted on the phone and stays there. The one thing that signs in is backup, which is off until you turn it on in the You tab. Turning it on signs in with Apple on iPhone or a Google account on Android, so your settings can follow you to a new phone on the same platform: a backup made on an iPhone comes back on an iPhone, and one made on Android comes back on Android.
On iPhone, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, X, Snapchat, Reddit, Threads and Pinterest. On Android, any app on the phone. The free tier rations one of them, and Pro rations as many as you like.
Android, on Google Play. The iPhone app is still being built, so for iPhone the buttons on this site join a waitlist, and you will get one email on the day it reaches the App Store.
How the ration behaves
Yes. The clock runs whenever the app is in front, whichever screen you are on. On Android Skerrick only knows which app is in front, and on iPhone it only hears when the app opens and closes, so a DM spends the same minutes as Reels.
The clock pauses. Come back inside thirty minutes and you pick up the remainder. Stay away for thirty minutes and it refills to the full ration.
The count does: at midnight, local time, you are back to your first push-through of the day. Where the ladder starts is read off your last week. Push through twice a day or more for a few days and tomorrow opens at twenty or forty-five seconds instead of five; ease off, and it falls back. A fixed delay stops working once you are used to it, which is the finding this whole app is built on.
Yes, from inside the app, in a few taps. It is not a prison. It is a speed bump you chose to put in your own road.
Money
One feed is free forever, with nothing crippled. Pro is £4.99 a month, or £29.99 a year, and only the annual plan comes with 14 days free.
One app of your choice with the whole mechanic: the ration, the cut-off, the refill and the escalating wait. You also get today's numbers and the weekly receipt, which you can share. It is not a trial and it does not expire. If one feed is the one eating your day, the free tier is the whole product.
Every other app you want to ration, each with its own ration, plus Lights Out bedtime schedules and the home-screen widget. The escalating wait and the weekly receipt are not Pro. They are in the free tier and they stay there.
The annual plan includes 14 days free. The monthly plan does not. You can cancel inside those 14 days from your App Store or Google Play subscription settings and you will not be charged.
Through the App Store or Google Play, the same way you cancel any subscription. We cannot cancel it for you and we never see your payment details.
Privacy
No. Skerrick knows when an app you ration opens and closes, and how long it was open. It cannot even see which screen you are on inside it. It does not read posts, capture the screen, or record accounts, captions or messages. None of that ever leaves the phone because none of it is collected.
Nothing you scroll, ever. Two things do go over the network. First, each time the app opens it asks RevenueCat, our subscription service, whether this phone holds Pro, using a random app user id that is not linked to you; if you subscribe, RevenueCat also gets the store's record of the purchase. Second, backup, which is off until you turn it on in the You tab. Turning it on signs in: on iPhone with Sign in with Apple, and Skerrick asks Apple for no name and no email; on Android with a Google account, and Google shares that account's name, email address and profile photo link, which are stored with the backup. Either way our server holds an account id, your settings and your weekly totals, never what you watched or scrolled. Turning backup off asks whether to delete the copy, and deleting removes the account too.
No. There is nothing to sell. The app has no advertising and no analytics, using it needs no sign-up, and your counts stay on the device unless you switch backup on, which uploads your settings and weekly totals and nothing else of what the app counts.
On iPhone, only notifications, and only for the alert that says your ration has run out. It does not use Apple's Screen Time permission. Instead, setup walks you through two Shortcuts automations for each feed, one that runs when the app opens and one when it closes. On Android it needs usage access, to see which app is in front, and display over other apps, to draw the cut-off. It may also ask to be left out of battery optimisation so the phone does not stop it. None of these hands us your browsing history.
Get Skerrick
Get it on Google Play. The iPhone app is not out yet: one email on the day it is, nothing before, nothing after.
On iPhone? It is not out yet.
Leave an email and we will tell you once, on the day it reaches the App Store.