Almost everything you’ll find about HeyPolo was paid for by someone. Two of the friendliest write-ups carry a small “sponsored” label, and one of the pages that ranks for its reviews is a press release. We aren’t neutral either: we make a family location app of our own. So for this comparison of HeyPolo vs Life360 we’ve stuck to what each company says on its own pages and in its App Store listing, where it can be held to it.
HeyPolo is a location-sharing app for iPhone and Android, launched in March 2026 by the team behind Surfshark VPN, in which each person chooses, group by group, whether others see their exact location, only a general area, or nothing at all.
That last part is the real story. The two apps differ on price and privacy, but most of all on who decides how brightly each person in the family shows up.
HeyPolo vs Life360: the short answer
HeyPolo suits a family that wants each person to control how visible they are and wants a clean answer on advertising; Life360 suits a family that wants a free plan, a mature app with millions of users, and driving and roadside cover on its paid tiers.
Picture everyone in your circle carrying a lit lantern across the map. Both apps show you the lanterns. The difference is the shutter. On Life360 the lantern is lit by default, and the family expects it to stay that way. On HeyPolo the person carrying the lantern holds the shutter, and can open it fully, half-close it, or close it.
What HeyPolo is, and who makes it
HeyPolo is a paid family location app from HeyPolo Inc, a company built by the people who make Surfshark VPN. Surfshark announced it on 23 March 2026 as an answer to “always-on” tracking.
On HeyPolo’s own site, the feature list will look familiar to any Life360 user: a live map, arrival and departure alerts, SOS, crash detection, a driving score, and groups that mix iPhones and Androids.
The app is young. On 29 October 2026 its App Store listing showed 4.7 stars from 99 ratings. Life360’s listing showed 4.8 from 3.1 million. That isn’t a verdict on quality; it means far fewer families have lived with HeyPolo’s rough edges.
Who holds the shutter: how sharing works on each
The core difference between HeyPolo and Life360 is that HeyPolo lets each person set their own visibility per group, while Life360 shows everyone’s exact location to the circle by default.
HeyPolo has three settings for each group: exact location, general area (roughly the neighbourhood), or private. You can be exact for your partner and general for the school-run group. Sharing can also run for a set time, so a “while I’m walking home” window closes on its own.
Life360 is built around everyone being visible to the whole circle, but it has a half-shutter: Bubbles, added in 2020 after teenagers on TikTok complained about the app. A Bubble blurs your dot into an area 1 to 25 miles across for one to six hours. TechCrunch reported at launch that a parent can pop the bubble, the teen is told when that happens, and it bursts automatically if a crash is detected. The sponsored HeyPolo pieces we read don’t mention it.
For two adults, HeyPolo’s model is easy to like. For a parent and a fourteen-year-old it’s a real question. The setting that lets a teenager show “somewhere in town” instead of a street also lets them choose private. Some families will call that respect; others, the off switch they were trying to avoid. If that argument is already happening, read when a teenager won’t share their location.
HeyPolo vs Life360 on price
HeyPolo has no free plan, while Life360 does. That is the price difference that matters most.
HeyPolo is free to download with a short trial, then it’s a subscription. One person in a group pays and everyone they invite joins free. On 29 October 2026 the App Store listed a monthly subscription at $11.99 and a 12-month one at $47.99, which works out at about $4 a month. It also listed pricier versions ($19.99 and $94.99) without saying what they add, and sponsored articles quote $1.99 to $5.99 a month. Treat the store’s checkout screen as the only real price.
Life360 has a free plan with no time limit: the live map for the whole circle and two place alerts. Its paid plans cost $9.99, $16.99 and $24.99 a month in the US on Life360’s pricing page in late October 2026, one plan per circle, and add crash detection, roadside assistance, driver reports and insurance-style cover. We’ve broken those tiers down in what Life360 costs.
Put plainly: a family happy on Life360’s free plan would pay more on HeyPolo. A family paying for Silver or Gold mainly for extra place alerts might pay less. HeyPolo has no roadside assistance at any price.
What each app says it does with your location
HeyPolo says it doesn’t sell location data, and its App Store privacy label doesn’t list location as data linked to you; Life360’s label lists precise location as linked to you and used for third-party advertising, among other purposes.
Every App Store app fills in a privacy label. The labels are the developer’s own declarations, and Apple defines “tracking” as linking your data with other companies’ data for advertising, or sharing it with data brokers. The two labels on 29 October 2026:
| HeyPolo | Life360 | |
|---|---|---|
| Data used to track you | Identifiers | Identifiers |
| Precise location | Not linked to you; app functionality | Linked to you; used for app functionality, analytics, the developer’s own marketing and third-party advertising |
| Advertising data | Analytics, not linked to you | Linked to you |
Both list identifiers under “used to track you”, so neither is spotless. The difference is the lantern-maker’s use of the light: Life360 declares your location as part of its advertising, and HeyPolo doesn’t.
Life360’s record explains why people ask. In December 2021 The Markup reported that it was selling precise location data to about a dozen data brokers; the company later said it would stop selling precise data to most of them. Its privacy policy, updated in August 2026, says it still shares precise location with select business partners, which adults can turn off under “Your Privacy Choices”. If you stay, do that today. More in family trackers that don’t sell your data.
Is HeyPolo legit?
HeyPolo is a legitimate app from an established security company, but most of what’s written about it is marketing, and its privacy promises are the company’s own word rather than an independent audit.
That’s true of nearly every app in this category, us included. What you can check:
- The business model. HeyPolo is paid by subscription. An app that’s paid for has less reason to sell what it collects. Not proof, but the right shape.
- The label. Read the store’s privacy section yourself. It takes two minutes.
- Reviews from people, not partners. HeyPolo’s App Store reviews are mostly warm. The complaints worth knowing: some members stop updating unless they open the app, and one family found the iPhone location indicator stayed on too long.
Which one suits your family
The right choice between HeyPolo and Life360 depends on who you’re sharing with and what you’d pay for.
- Adults only. HeyPolo’s per-group settings make sense here. So do the free options in Life360 alternatives.
- A new driver in the family. Life360’s paid tiers bundle roadside help with crash detection. HeyPolo has crash detection and a driving score but no tow truck.
- Younger teenagers. Decide first whether you want them to hold the shutter. If yes, HeyPolo was built for you. If not, Life360’s lit-by-default model fits better, though no app can stop a determined teenager from switching it off.
- Cost is the main problem. If everyone has an iPhone, Find My is free; for mixed phones, Google Maps sharing is free and we explain it in how to share location between iPhone and Android.
Where we fit
We make a family location app, so read this part knowing that.
There’s a third way to carry the lanterns. Protego is a family GPS location app for iPhone and Android that shows a family circle on a parchment-style map; it is free to download and free for a circle of two. The circle is mutual by design: everyone sees everyone else, parents included, each person a portrait in a scalloped frame with a ribbon label.
Your family, together on one map
A GPS locator for the whole family, on a map that feels like magic.
What changes in the terms you came here with: we don’t sell location data, iPhone and Android sit in the same circle, and a couple or one parent and one child pay nothing, so nobody has to start a subscription to find out whether the family likes it. A paid plan adds more people and wards, our place alerts.
What we don’t do, so you can decide fairly: Protego has no crash detection and no roadside help, and it doesn’t offer HeyPolo’s exact, general or private setting for each group. If those matter most, HeyPolo or Life360 is the better pick. Our Protego vs Life360 comparison has the rest.
The bottom line
HeyPolo vs Life360 comes down to who holds the shutter and what you pay for the light. HeyPolo hands the shutter to each person, keeps location out of advertising by its own label, and costs about $4 a month on the annual plan, with no free tier. Life360 keeps every lantern lit, has a free plan and paid road cover, and declares location as part of its advertising. Pick the model your family would actually agree to.
Frequently asked questions
Is HeyPolo better than Life360? HeyPolo is better than Life360 for a family that wants each person to choose how precisely they are seen and wants no location data used for advertising. Life360 is better for a family that wants a free plan, a long track record, and roadside and insurance-style cover on its paid tiers. Neither is better for everyone.
Who makes HeyPolo? HeyPolo is made by HeyPolo Inc, a company set up by the team behind Surfshark VPN. Surfshark announced the app on 23 March 2026. It runs on iPhone and Android.
Is HeyPolo free? HeyPolo is free to download and comes with a free trial, but it has no free plan after the trial. One person in a group pays the subscription and everyone they invite joins at no cost. Life360, by contrast, has a free plan with no time limit.
How much does HeyPolo cost? On 29 October 2026, HeyPolo’s App Store listing showed a monthly subscription at $11.99 and a 12-month subscription at $47.99, about $4 a month, plus higher-priced versions of both. Sponsored articles quote lower introductory prices, so check the store before you pay.
Does HeyPolo sell your data? HeyPolo says it does not sell location data to advertisers, insurers or data brokers. Its App Store privacy label lists location as data not linked to you and used for app functionality, though it does list identifiers as data used to track you. Both labels are the developer’s own declarations and are not verified by Apple.