My grandparents used to go on for hours about how a candy bar only cost a nickel when they were kids. My parents, I think, paid a bit more for their sweets, but still under 50 cents. As a kid, I often wondered if that disconnect over inflation between the generations affected my allowance, or the amount of money I was getting as a “gift” from the tooth fairy. Parents, I am sure, often struggle to know what the right amount of money is to give a kid. Factors like the child’s age, the parent’s wealth, and the payout of their peers all contribute to the final sum. Now, Visa has an app that aims to make finding the right payout amount easier for parents. This app is called Tooth Fairy Calculator.

What is it and what does it do

Main Functionality

Tooth Fairy Calculator is an iPhone app that helps parents determine how much money to give their children as a “tooth fairy” gift.

Pros

• Attractive interface
• 7-step process takes the guesswork out of leaving money from the tooth fairy
• Explanations are given to explain why a certain amount has been recommended to you
• App works quickly, and without any crashes during testing
• Share your results on social media

Cons

• 7-step process to determine correct amt. may seem too long to some people
• Would be nice if there were more demographic questions being asked to get a really precise result.
• Targeted towards US-based parents

Discussion

Here’s how this app works. You are taken through a 7-question survey. You are asked about your age, gender, state of residence, annual income, and family size (among other things.) Based on your inputs, the calculator determines what you should be giving your kids per tooth.

These figures are correlated from what other people who have your same demographic info are doing to their kids. However, if I am reading this app correctly, that means that these survey results aren’t constantly in flux. This app would be more interesting if it was constantly being updated with live data from users.

One thing that seems a bit off to me about this calculator tool is that it only takes the age of the parent into account, and not the age of the kid (or how many teeth the kid has lost before this tooth.)

Growing up, we got an increasing amount of money for each tooth lost…and it always seemed to be that the older kids in my family got more money for teeth lost than the younger kids did. It would be helpful for this app to ask more questions about the kids (age, gender, how many teeth lost, what is their current weekly allowance, etc.)

Conclusion and download link

Overall, this is a helpful app for parents and kids alike. It can teach kids about good savings habits, and helps parents feel confident about giving money to their kids. It is simple to use.

Price: Free

Version reviewed: 3.1

Supported OS: Requires iOS 6.1 or later

Download size: 18.5 MB

Tooth Fairy Calculator on Apple App Store