Parent CabThe family taxi, now metered
The taxi meter for parents
Tap Start as you pull away with the kids, watch the fare climb, and send them a receipt they can pay in cash, chores or hugs.
It won't make the lifts any shorter. It will make them a lot funnier.
Parents already run a taxi service
- 1,650 extra miles a year that UK parents drive for their children
- 3 hours a week behind the wheel, give or take a late pickup
- 66% of parents say they feel like a taxi driver. Now they can charge like one.
Figures from a 2019 Škoda survey of UK parents.
How it works
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Pick who's on board, tap Start
One big roof-sign button as you pull away. Then leave it be: nothing on the meter needs touching while you drive.
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Watch the fare climb
A proper meter. On the Standard tariff that's £2.50 to get in, £1.50 a mile, 25p a minute waiting outside, and half as much again after dark. Change any rate in Settings.
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End the trip, send the receipt
Share it to WhatsApp, Messages or anywhere else. They don't need the app to read the receipt. Just to pay it.
Receipts they can pay in cash, chores or hugs
Every trip ends with a proper receipt: where from and to, how far, how long, the fare line by line and a word from the driver. Town names only, never street addresses.
Parent Cab
- Passenger
- Maya
- Route
- Newbury → Thatcham
- Distance
- 5.0 mi
- Time
- 18 min
- Waiting
- 4 min
- Pick-up
- £2.50
- Distance
- £7.50
- Waiting time
- £1.00
- Late-night rate
- £5.50
- Total
- £16.50
The meter never sleeps. Your driver would like to.
Parent Cab
- Passenger
- Sam
- Route
- Hermitage → Newbury
- Distance
- 5.2 mi
- Time
- 16 min
- Waiting
- 4 min
- Pick-up
- £2.50
- Distance
- £7.80
- Waiting time
- £1.00
- Total
- £11.30
or 1 × Wash the car, 1 × Empty the dishwasher, 1 × Bins out, 1 × Make a cuppa
Waiting time includes “I'll only be two minutes”.
The chore price list
Choose money or chores for the whole family, or child by child. Chores cover the fare from the biggest job down, then one small job mops up any pennies left over. Change the list, and the prices, in Settings.
Hugs are always welcome as a tip. They just don't count towards the fare. Nice try.
| Chore | Worth |
|---|---|
| Wash the car | £8.00 |
| Empty the dishwasher | £2.00 |
| Bins out | £1.00 |
| Make a cuppa | 50p |
| Hug | Tip only |
A running tab for every passenger
Each child gets a tab: trips, miles and what's owed, week by week. Settle up whenever you like, as paid, paid in chores, paid in hugs, or written off. Your cab, your rules.
Two in the back? The fare splits evenly between them.
- Maya£16.50 owed 1 trip this week · 5.0 mi
- SamPaid in chores 1 trip this week · 5.2 mi
Your month in the cab
At the end of the month, Parent Cab adds it all up: miles driven, hours behind the wheel, trips and your most loyal customer. Then it compares your mileage with something everyone knows, and only when the comparison is true.
Share the card with the family chat, or wave it at the dinner table. It's free, every month.
Your month in the cab
September 2026
116
Miles driven
That's a whole lap of the M25.
Five-star driver.
- Trips
- 18
- Behind the wheel
- 6 hrs, 56 min
- Top passenger
- Ava
- Fares
- £246.60
parentcab.app
On the Lock Screen. On the iPad. In the car.
Lock your phone and the meter keeps going. The fare, time and distance sit on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, so there's nothing to open and nothing to tap on the way.
Connected to CarPlay? The meter shows on the CarPlay Dashboard too, just to look at: nothing to press while you drive.
On iPad the map and the meter sit side by side. Signed in to iCloud? Passengers and trips sync between your iPhone and iPad by themselves.
Got an iPhone Duo? Unfold it and the meter takes one half and the map and End trip the other, so nothing sits on the fold, upright or on its side.
On Android the fare rides along in a notification on the lock screen, the meter and map sit side by side on tablets and unfolded phones, and your trips are kept in your phone's backup to your Google account.
16:40
Parent Cab Plus
Everything above is free, for good. Plus is an optional extra for parents who want to run a posher cab: one payment of £2.99, no subscription, and shared with your Family Sharing group.
| What you get | Free | Plus |
|---|---|---|
| The meter, receipts, running tabs and settling up | Yes | Yes |
| Late-night rate | Yes | Yes |
| Your month in the cab | Yes | Yes |
| Cheeky extras: no one said thank you, party pickup fee, weekend rate, a discount for your own music | – | Yes |
| Your own charges and discounts, like a muddy boots fee | – | Yes |
| London Black Cab and Premium Chauffeur tariffs | – | Yes |
| Receipt styles: vintage ticket, black cab and neon | – | Yes |
| Your year in the cab, a story to share from 1 December | – | Yes |
Receipt styles
- Parent CabTotal£14.00Vintage ticket
- Parent CabTotal£14.00Black cab
- Parent CabTotal£14.00Neon
Buy Plus in the app, from Settings → Parent Cab Plus or any item with a Plus tag. Already bought it? Restore purchases in the same place.
Private by design
Nobody's watching the meter but you. Not us, not advertisers, not anyone.
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No accounts
Nothing to sign up for, no passwords, no email address. Each child is just a first name and an emoji.
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Your account, not our servers
Trips and passengers live on your devices and in your own iCloud (or, on Android, your own Google account). We don't run a server, so we can't see them.
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Location only while the meter runs
It measures your drive, then stops. It records your driving and never tracks your children.
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Town names, not addresses
Receipts say “Newbury → Thatcham”, not your front door. The route map stays off unless you turn it on.
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No ads, analytics or tracking
Not in the app, and not on this website either. No cookies here, and nothing loaded from anywhere else.
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Easy to leave
Export everything as CSV or JSON, or delete it all, from Settings → Your data.
Start the meter
Parent Cab is free on the App Store for iPhone and iPad, and on Google Play for Android.
Free on the App Store Free on Google Play
Questions? Try the help page or email hello@parentcab.app.