Everything parents ask about Savella

Savella is a pocket-money and money-skills app for South African families with kids aged 8 to 18. Parents set chores and pocket money, kids earn, save toward goals and work through a game-style money curriculum, and the whole family sees progress in one place, including across two households.

Ages 8 to 18. The curriculum runs in three tiers: Foundations (8 to 10), Building Skills (11 to 13) and Independence (14 to 18). Each child only sees lessons for their own age, from tuck-shop maths up to credit, investing and first paycheques.

Savella runs on both iPhone and Android. During beta we onboard families in waves, so join the waitlist and we will email your invite with download instructions for both platforms.

No. Kids can use Savella on your phone: every family member gets their own profile, and a profile switcher plus a PIN keeps each child’s space separate. If your child has their own device they can sign in there too. Kids always operate inside your family account, never an account of their own.

Yes. The app includes a demo family you can tour before creating anything, so you can poke around chores, lessons, goals and the wallet first. The demo runs entirely on your device.

We are onboarding families in waves while Savella is in beta. Join the waitlist and we will email your invite as spots open.

No. There is no bank account, card or ID document involved. Pocket money in Savella is a running tally of what you owe your child: the app tracks chores and allowance in rand and shows what is owed on payday, and you pay it out however your family already does, whether that is cash, EFT or a bank app.

Real money. There is no separate app currency: the balance your child sees is their actual pocket money, shown in rand, and you both look at the same number. Only chores you approve and the allowance you set add to it. Lessons, practice and daily quests pay XP and badges, never money, so a child can never mint money you did not grant. You settle what is owed on payday, however your family already pays.

You set an amount per child and a payday day of the month, anywhere from the 1st to the 28th. Savella adds the allowance to each child’s pocket-money tally monthly, and from payday a reminder shows what is owed until you mark it paid. Prefer chores-only pocket money? Leave the allowance at zero.

As a rough starting band, our in-app suggestions use about R100 a month for ages 8 to 10, R250 for ages 11 to 13 and R500 for ages 14 to 18. The right number is the one your budget sustains every month. We wrote a full South African guide on picking your amount.

No. Balances only move through earned allowance, chore payouts and goal deposits, and the ledger blocks overdrafts, so a child can only put money toward a goal if their balance covers it. The numbers always add up.

You create a chore with a rand reward and a due date. Your child marks it done in their own profile and it lands with you for approval. Approve it and the reward is added to their pocket-money tally on the spot, or send it back if the bed was “made” with everything shoved underneath.

Yes. Chores can be once-off, daily or weekly. When you approve a repeating chore, a fresh copy appears with the next due date, so the Monday bins come back every week without you re-creating anything.

Kids pick something they actually want, set a target between R25 and R3000, and put pocket money toward it whenever they choose. A progress bar fills as they save. When they hit the target you get a nudge to make good on the purchase, and that moment of a promise kept is the whole point.

The curriculum is 48 interactive lessons across the three age tiers (five core modules per tier plus a bonus path), covering earning, saving, smart spending, budgeting, banking, credit and first paycheques, all with South African prices and examples. It is built on international financial-literacy standards and delivered as short, game-style lessons rather than lectures.

A little, by design. One new lesson unlocks per day (two on a child’s first day) and takes about five minutes. Daily quests, practice rounds and the Guess the Price challenge add a few optional minutes. Savella is built for a short daily habit, not long screen sessions.

Streaks for daily effort, with shields kids can buy for R10 of their own pocket money to protect a missed day (a real save-versus-spend decision). Three rotating daily quests with a treasure chest of bonus XP. XP, levels and a shelf of badges. And Guess the Price, a daily challenge where kids guess what things really cost in South African shops.

Savella is built for co-parenting, including split households. Invite your co-parent by email and they get full access to your kids’ chores, goals and progress from their own phone. Chores and pocket money stay visible to both of you, so the same chore never gets paid twice.

Everything about the kids, nothing about you. Both guardians see the children’s chores, lessons, goals and balances, but neither can see the other’s personal details or account. That wall is enforced in the database itself, not just hidden in the app.

No. A Savella family includes both guardians. Co-parenting is the point of the product, so the second parent will never sit behind an upsell.

Nothing during beta. Every feature is free while we build alongside our first families. When paid plans arrive, Savella will be priced per family rather than per child, with multiple kids and both co-parents included, and beta families will hear first with founding-member pricing.

Yes. When paid plans launch, every new family will start with a full-access free trial that is long enough to run a complete pocket-money cycle: set up chores, watch the first lessons land and see a payday through before deciding.

We collect the minimum: a first name, an age and progress in the app. No surnames, no school, no location, no ads, and we never sell data. Kids sign in with a PIN under your account.

Kids do not have their own accounts, email addresses or passwords. They use a 4-digit PIN inside your family account, and a grown-up gate keeps parent areas like approvals, allowance and settings out of reach.

No ads, no third-party content, and no in-app purchases. There is nothing a child can buy from us or anyone else. The only things kids "spend" in the app are their own earned pocket money, moved into savings goals or a streak shield, and both stay inside your family's tally.

Yes. You can delete your account from inside the app, which removes your family’s data. If you share kids with a co-parent, deleting your account never deletes theirs: the family carries on under the other guardian.