// Guide · Choosing a blocker
Looking for a blocker you can’t just tap past?
You have tried a blocker. It worked for a week, and then you found the button. Before you pay for another one, ask it four questions.
1. Is there a one-tap way out?
Screen Time has Ignore Limit unless Block at End of Limit is on with a passcode. one sec lets you through after the pause, and says so. Opal’s strictest option, Hard Mode, is on its Pro plan. If the way out is one tap, the limit is a suggestion.
Tech Lockdown: fixing the “Ignore Limit” bypassone sec: official siteOpal: pricing page
2. Does it depend on you starting it?
Session blockers block when you start a session. The nights you need it are the nights you won’t. Look for something that runs on its own schedule.
3. Does getting out cost anything?
An exit that costs nothing gets used every time. An exit that makes you wait, or explain yourself, or might be refused, gets used less. That is the whole idea behind a pause like one sec, and a study of it found 57% fewer app opens after six weeks.
4. Is it honest about what it can’t stop?
Every blocker on iPhone runs on Screen Time access, which can be removed in Settings. Every blocker on Android can be stopped by Safe Mode. A second phone beats all of them. A product that promises you can never get around it is telling you something false. The bypass ledger lists the documented failures, product by product, with sources.
How Aegin answers the four
No one-tap way out: the way in early is a plea, and the Judge can refuse. Nothing to start: feeds open on a published schedule that tightens over weeks. Getting out costs an argument. And it can’t stop Settings, Safe Mode or a second phone, same as the rest.
Aegin is free to start, and the limits work on the free plan. Pro is $12.99 a month or $99.99 a year in the US, and prices differ by country.
Try the Judge first
Tell it what you want to open and why, in your browser, with no account. Then decide.
Who wrote this. Aegin makes a competing product, so read this as information from an interested party. Every claim about another product links to its source, and prices are the US prices we read on the date below.
Names. Apple, Screen Time, one sec, Opal, Freedom are the trademarks of their owners and are used only to identify the products discussed. No affiliation or endorsement is implied.
Right of reply. If something here is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
Last reviewed 12 October 2026.