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Why buy once

Why a Shield is bought once, not rented.

Most family protection is rented by the month and runs through someone else's cloud. Shield is the other way round: you pay once, and the filtering and dashboard run on the device on your network. The sums come first, then the reasoning.

The maths

What protection really costs over time.

Buying once instead of renting is a principle, but it is also arithmetic. People routinely underestimate what they spend on subscriptions, so the sums below are spelled out rather than assumed.

Subscriptions a family pays every year

Australian dollars. “≈” marks approximate USD conversions.

  • Qustodio Complete

    Leading parental-control app, Australian pricing

    Per year
    $159.95
    Over 3 years
    $479.85
    Over 5 years
    $799.75

  • Bark Premium

    US parental-control app, billed in USD, converted

    Per year
    from ≈ $150
    Over 3 years
    from ≈ $450
    Over 5 years
    from ≈ $750

  • eero Plus

    Required for eero's content filtering and SafeSearch

    Per year
    $159.99
    Over 3 years
    $480 + hardware (from $199)
    Over 5 years
    $800 + hardware

  • Telstra Device Security

    McAfee-based add-on, billed $10/mth, up to 10 devices

    Per year
    $120
    Over 3 years
    $360
    Over 5 years
    $600

  • Aura Family

    All-in-one US family bundle, annual billing, converted

    Per year
    from ≈ $576
    Over 3 years
    from ≈ $1,728
    Over 5 years
    from ≈ $2,880

  • Shield Core — bought once

    No subscription, ever

    Per year
    —
    Over 3 years
    $424 founding (AUD, inc GST) · $574 standard from unit 21, plus $25 delivery in Australia
    Over 5 years
    $424 founding · $574 standard, plus $25 delivery in Australia — nothing more to pay

Pay in 4: From $106.00 a fortnight with Afterpay or PayPal, interest-free — or Zip, with weekly, fortnightly or monthly repayments on Zip's terms. The total is the same either way.

Three years of Qustodio Complete at Australian pricing is $479.85. A Shield Core at the founding price is $424, bought once — less than the three-year subscription. Five years of the same app is $799.75; at the founding price, a Shield Vault, with a built-in drive and travel Wi-Fi on top, is $724.

The Australian picture is worth spelling out. Telstra removed its free Broadband Protect network filter in 2023 and sells a device-security add-on for $120 a year, and Optus closed WiFi Secure to new customers in July 2025 before shutting it down entirely in March 2026.

Competitor prices are public list prices, checked July 2026; converted figures are approximate.

Hardware with a subscription attached, over three years

Device price plus three years of the protection subscription each product sells. Optional subscriptions are marked in the notes.

  • Gryphon AX with Premium Protection

    3-year cost: ≈ $854

    Hardware plus three years of its optional Premium Protection subscription (US$89.99/yr), converted; basic parental controls are free. Doesn't ship to Australia.

  • Bark Home with Bark Premium

    3-year cost: ≈ $875

    Network device plus Bark's separate Premium monitoring plan (US$14/mo, optional), converted. Ships only within the US.

  • eero 6+ (single) with eero Plus

    3-year cost: ≈ $729

    Australian retail hardware ($249) plus three years of eero Plus, which its content filtering requires.

  • TP-Link Deco X50 (3-pack) with HomeShield Total Security

    3-year cost: ≈ $890

    Australian retail hardware plus three years of the optional full security tier, converted.

  • WOMBATS Shield

    3-year cost: from $424, once (founding)

    No subscription — in year one or year ten.

Competitor prices are public list prices, checked July 2026; converted USD figures are approximate. Where a price depends on platform or billing period, the lowest published rate is shown ("from"). Subscription products can change price or plan structure at any time.

There is one more line in the ledger: what happens when the company behind a product moves on. Circle discontinued its Home Plus hardware after an acquisition and folded the product into subscription software, leaving the boxes people had bought without a successor. Winston Privacy shut down in 2021, ending support and updates for the devices it had sold. Shield runs locally — no activation server, no cloud login, nothing that can lapse.

Comparing Shield with a specific product?

Start with the map, one picture of what a Shield does next to Screen Time, the parental controls in some modems, Pi-hole and AdGuard Home. Then the honest, side-by-side versions: Shield vs Screen Time, Shield vs modem controls, Shield vs Pi-hole, Shield vs AdGuard Home, Shield vs Firewalla and Shield vs Synology. Each one tells you honestly who should buy the other product.

How Shield is built to stay yours.

It runs in your house.

Filtering decisions and the dashboard run on the device on your network, so your protection isn't run from a company's cloud.

Nothing to rent.

You pay for Shield once. No monthly fee, no feature unlock, no premium tier behind a paywall.

We never see your browsing.

We don't send your traffic to a cloud for inspection, and we don't collect your browsing history or profiles of your behaviour.

Curious what's inside? Real, repairable Raspberry Pi 5 hardware, a hardened AdGuard Home filter and signed updates. The details are on How it works and Security.

Who Shield is for

A good fit for some homes. Honestly not for others.

Shield is a considered purchase, and we'd rather you knew before you paid. If you're still unsure after reading this, ask us — 'it's not for you' is an answer we give.

Shield is for you if…

  • You want every device covered at once — the TV, the console and the smart speaker included — without installing and managing an app on each one.
  • You'd rather buy one thing once than rent protection by the month, and you want it to keep working whatever happens to us.
  • You want the filtering, the dashboard and the history to stay in your house: no account, no cloud, no one else reading it.
  • You like to see the mechanism — public filter lists, a dashboard on the device itself, signed updates you apply yourself.
  • You'd like to check in from your phone when you're out. On Shield Vault, Back to Shield opens the dashboard and the family's files from your phone or laptop away from home — no cloud account needed.

Probably not, if…

  • You enjoy networking as a craft. Custom firewall rules, VLANs and traffic flows are a different product's job, and our comparison says so plainly. Shield vs Firewalla →
  • You want to see inside your children's messages. Shield filters what the network serves; it can't read a chat or a video call, and it doesn't try. What Shield doesn't do →
  • You want to hide from your internet provider. Your provider still sees which sites you connect to; Shield stops everyone else building the profile. What Shield can and can't hide →
The promise that matters

If we disappear, your Shield keeps working.

Shield does not require an activation server, a cloud login, or a subscription to keep filtering. The filter lists it uses are public and continue updating without us. The dashboard is on the device, on your network. The hardware is real, repairable Raspberry Pi 5 silicon.

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