Choosing a drawing app for kids: a parent's checklist

By the Scribblie team · Published October 10, 2026 · 9 min read

The best drawing app for your child is one that opens straight onto a canvas, has no ads or purchase buttons in reach, asks for nothing you cannot explain, and fits your child's age. You can check most of that yourself in ten minutes, and that is more reliable than any "top ten" list, because those lists go out of date and often earn money from the very apps they rank.

So this is a checklist, not a ranking, and we will not name apps. You get what to look for, why each item matters, and how to test an app on the sofa while your child is at school or asleep.

Why we do not give you a ranked list

Rankings are comforting. They are also usually out of date within a season, since apps change owners, prices and policies, and a free app that was lovely last year can arrive this year with a banner across the bottom.

A list also cannot know your child. A four-year-old who wants to smear colour with her whole hand needs something different from an eight-year-old who wants layers and an undo button. Your home matters too: shared tablet or personal one, wifi everywhere or patchy, grandparents who hand over their phone in a pinch.

What does not go out of date is the way you judge an app. That is the part worth learning once.

The first thing to look at: how the app makes its money

Every app has to pay for itself somehow. There are only a handful of ways, and each one shapes how the app behaves around a child.

A paid-up-front app is the simplest: you pay, you get it, and the developer has no reason to hook your child into tapping things. A subscription app is fine if the subscription is clearly yours to manage and does not nag. A free app with ads earns when a child sees or taps an advert, so its design tends to push toward that. A free app with in-app purchases earns when a child, or a tired parent, taps buy.

None of these is evil by default. But when you know the business model, a lot of the app's behaviour makes sense. If a drawing app is free, ask yourself what is paying for it, and then look for that thing in the first ten minutes. We cover the ad side in more detail in why "no ads" matters in a kids' app.

The checklist

Here is the list we would run through. You do not need every item to be perfect, but you should know the answer to each one.

• Ads: are there any, in any screen, including the one after you save a picture?
• Purchases: can anything be bought from inside the app, and does it need a grown-up check first?
• Links out: can a child tap something that opens a browser, a store page or another app?
• Sharing: can drawings be posted publicly, or sent to people you do not know?
• Permissions: does it ask for the camera, microphone, photos, location or contacts, and does the reason make sense?
• Accounts: does your child need to sign in, or is it the parent who does that?
• Age fit: do the tools and the language match your child, not just the store rating?
• Deleting: can you find where your child's drawings and data can be removed?

Print that if it helps, or keep it in your notes. We will go through the trickier ones below.

Permissions: the question "why does a drawing app want that?"

When an app asks for a permission, say the reason out loud in a sentence. "It wants the camera so my daughter can photograph her paper drawing" is a sentence that holds together. "It wants her location so she can draw" is not.

The camera makes sense if the app lets a child photograph a paper drawing. The microphone makes sense only if the app has a voice feature, and you should know exactly what it does with the recording. Photos access makes sense for importing a picture. Contacts and location almost never make sense in a drawing app, and we would treat a request for them as a reason to stop and read the privacy policy.

You can usually decline a permission and see what still works. A well-made app explains itself and carries on. A pushy one blocks the whole screen until you say yes, which tells you how it treats the people using it.

Links out, nag screens and the accidental tap

Little fingers tap everything, which is what fingers do. The real test is what happens when a tap lands somewhere it should not.

Watch for banners at the edge of the canvas, "rate us" pop-ups, a small cross that is deliberately tiny, and buttons that open the store. Watch also for a "more apps from us" tile. An app can have no ads in the usual sense and still send a child out of the picture and into a shop window.

The best sign is calm. When you tap around in the app, does it keep you inside the drawing space? Or does every third tap throw something new at you? A good kids' app is a bit boring in that way, and boring is what you want here.

Stylus or finger, and what the canvas should do

Children can draw happily with a finger, and for the youngest ones we would not rush into buying a stylus. A finger is chunky and forgiving, and it suits the big sweeping marks of early drawing. Our piece on the toddler scribble stage explains why those loops and zigzags matter.

A stylus earns its place when a child is older, wants to write small, or is making detailed pictures. If you do try one, check whether the app ignores a resting palm. If it does not, a child leaning on the screen will leave dots and streaks across the picture, and frustration comes quickly after that.

Beyond input, look at the canvas itself. Does it have a clear undo? Can a child clear the page without losing everything by accident? Are there too many tools at once? Many apps cram in forty brushes. For a five-year-old, four brushes and a handful of colours is plenty, and often better, because fewer choices leaves more room for drawing.

Age fit is more than the sticker on the store listing

A store rating gives you a rough floor. It does not tell you whether the app suits your child. Three things are worth thinking about.

First, reading. If the app needs a child to read menus, it is meant for someone older than the rating might suggest. Icons and voice are friendlier for non-readers.

Second, patience. A child who gets upset when a line goes wrong needs an easy undo. A child who loves to experiment may enjoy more depth.

Third, independence. Can your child get in and out of the app without you? If the answer is yes, then the grown-up-only parts, such as settings, deleting things and links, should be fenced off in a way a child cannot stumble through. A simple grown-up check, like a maths question, is common and works reasonably well for children who have not yet learned multiplication.

The ten-minute test

Do this once, with the tablet in your own hands, before your child ever sees the app. Set a timer if you like.

1. Read the store listing. Note the price model, the age label and what the developer says it collects.
2. Open the app with the wifi on, and see what it asks for before you have drawn anything.
3. Draw for two minutes. Notice how many times something other than your drawing tries to get your attention.
4. Tap every button on the main screen. Note anything that opens a browser, a store or a new app.
5. Find the save, share and delete options. Can anything be sent outside the app?
6. Look for settings. Are they behind a grown-up check? Are they easy for you to find?
7. Switch to airplane mode and try again. Does the app still work as a drawing space, or does it fall apart without a connection?
8. Close the app and open the privacy policy. Search it for "advertising", "share", "analytics" and "delete".

That last step is the one most parents skip, and it takes three minutes. If you want a plainer walk-through of what you are looking for, our guide to reading a kids' app privacy policy goes line by line.

When your child already loves an app that fails the test

This happens a lot. The app came from a cousin, or a school, or a grandparent's phone, and your child is attached to it. Pulling it overnight will cost you a bad evening.

We would not delete it in a hurry. Start by closing the doors you can close: turn off wifi while it is in use if it still works offline, restrict purchases in the device settings (our guide to parental controls on iPad and Android tablets covers that), and keep sessions short and in the room where you can see them. Then offer a replacement before you remove the old one, ideally something with the same feel. Children accept a swap far more easily than a loss.

What we do and do not know

We cannot tell you which apps will behave well next year. We also cannot see inside any app you pick up. The test above shows you what the app does on your device on the day you try it. It does not guarantee the app will never change.

So keep an eye out. After an update, an app can add a new feature, a new permission or a new business model. If your child's favourite suddenly looks different, run the first few steps of the test again. It takes a couple of minutes.

We are also a team building a drawing app of our own, so you should take what we say with that in mind. We have tried to write this checklist so that it would hold whether or not our app passes it. If you want to see how we approach it, how Scribblie works describes it, limits included. It is not in the stores yet.

Sit with them for the first few sessions

No checklist beats being in the room. For the first few sessions, sit next to your child and watch. You will see things the ten-minute test misses: a character that frightens them, a sound that is too loud, a button they love to press forty times in a row.

It also helps to keep the app in context. A drawing app is one way to make marks, not the only one. Paper, crayons and a wall of masking tape on the fridge still do things a screen cannot do. If you are not sure how a tablet session compares with a paper one, creative screen time versus passive screen time can help you decide where each one fits.

And if the app fails your test, that is fine. Delete it, and take the finished drawing, the one your child made on the screen, and print it or copy it by hand onto paper. Tonight, ask them to draw the app's best idea again, but with crayons. You may find they prefer the crayons.