ParentShield vs Smarty: which SIM for your child?

ParentShield is the safety-first child SIM, £9 a month on EE, with a whitelist, call and text logs and quiet hours. Smarty is the cheap general SIM, from £6 a month on Three, with no child controls at all. For an 8 to 11 year old on a first phone, ParentShield earns its extra £3. For an older or lower-risk child where your house rules already do the job, Smarty is the right answer, and we say so even though both links pay Knock a commission.

Knock doesn’t lab-test SIMs and we’re not the network. This is our editorial reading of each provider’s published tariffs, set against our SIM rankings.

The one-line verdict

ParentShield does the safeguarding at the SIM level so the phone doesn’t have to. Smarty just does cheap, reliable connectivity on a good network. Pick the one that matches the child, not the price tag.

Choose ParentShield if

• The child is younger, roughly ages 8 to 11, and this is a first phone.
• You want a whitelist (you choose who can call or text, both directions), not a blocklist.
• You want the call and text logs, which a parent sees in the online account, and quiet hours to rest the phone overnight.
• The handset has no controls of its own. A Nokia 3210 at £79 runs no apps, no social apps, and only a buried unusable browser, so any control has to sit on the SIM.
• Cold-call scams aimed at children are a worry. The whitelist answers that directly.

Choose Smarty if

• The child is older, or it’s a second phone, and you’d rather set your own house rules than pay for software ones.
• You want the lowest sensible monthly bill on a quality UK network, from £6 a month.
• You don’t need a whitelist, logs or quiet hours.

ParentShield vs Smarty, side by side

	ParentShield	Smarty
From	£9 a month	£6 a month
Network	EE	Three
Built for	A child’s phone	Anyone wanting cheap connectivity
Whitelist of numbers	Yes, incoming and outgoing	No
Call and text logs	Yes, in the parent’s online account	No
Quiet hours	Yes	No
Parental controls	Whitelist, logs, quiet hours	None
Data	250 MB to 5 GB	2 GB to unlimited
Minutes	100 to unlimited	Unlimited
Texts	Unlimited on most tariffs	Unlimited
Contract	Rolling monthly, no minimum	Rolling monthly

All tariff detail above is from each provider’s published plans, as recorded in our SIM data.

The honest angle

The extra £3 a month buys exactly three things: the whitelist, the parent-facing logs and quiet hours. Nothing else. That’s the whole trade. If the child is older, or a basic phone is already doing the heavy lifting, you’re paying for controls you won’t use, and Smarty is the better-value choice.

One thing we won’t overstate: on a basic phone there’s almost nothing for a SIM to filter, because the phone can’t browse or run apps in the first place. The case for ParentShield is the whitelist and the logs, not content filtering. And no SIM is a substitute for handset controls on a smartphone, where Wi-Fi and apps go round the mobile network entirely. That’s why we point first-phone families at a simple phone before either SIM.

ParentShield is also the page that earns Knock an Awin commission on a signup, and so is Smarty. We’re telling you that on purpose. The ranking and this verdict don’t move because of it: if Smarty fits your child better, take Smarty.

Still weighing the contract question? Read PAYG vs SIM-only for kids. For the deeper look at each, see the ParentShield review and what actually makes a SIM child-safe.

We earn a small commission on marked buy links, through Amazon Associates and our retail partner programmes. Unmarked links are direct. See the affiliate disclosure.

Common questions

Is ParentShield worth £3 more a month than Smarty? If you want the whitelist, the parent-facing call and text logs and quiet hours, yes. Smarty at £6 a month on Three has no parental controls at all. If house rules and a basic phone already cover it, Smarty is the right answer.

Does Smarty have any parental controls? No. Smarty’s plans list parental controls as none. It’s a cheap, no-frills SIM on the Three network. The controls in a Smarty setup come from the handset and from you, not the SIM.

Which network does each SIM use? ParentShield runs on EE, Smarty on Three. Coverage where you live is EE coverage or Three coverage, so check your postcode on the network’s coverage map before signing up.

Can my child keep their number when switching? Yes. Under Ofcom’s text-to-switch scheme, text PAC to 65075 from the old SIM, free on every UK network, then give the code to the new provider within its 30-day validity. Our switching kit has the steps.