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For Parents & Families
You can't monitor it. You can't get reports from it. And that's exactly why it stays on their phone past October. Cray helps your student see relationship red flags for themselves — free, private, and entirely theirs.
The Honest Part First
Every parent's first instinct is a tool that shows you your student is safe. Here's what a year of building in this space taught us: surveillance tools get deleted. Location shares get turned off in week three. Monitoring apps disappear the first time they feel like a leash. A safety tool only works if it's still installed — and it's only still installed if it answers to the person using it.
So Cray is private to your student, completely. Nothing they do in it is posted anywhere. Nobody — including you, including us — gets notified when they run a score. The app even blocks screenshots. Their read on the people in their life belongs to them alone, which is precisely why they'll trust it enough to use it when it matters.
THE TRADE, PLAINLY
You give up visibility. They gain a tool they'll actually use.
The moment safety feels like surveillance, it stops working. We chose the version that works.
What It Actually Does
Your student answers honest questions about someone they're seeing, talking to, or living with — and gets an objective read on the behavior patterns. Three tools, all free, forever:
Measures red flags — 74 research-grounded questions across 18 categories, from control and monitoring to deception.
Catches manipulators — is this person deceiving, exploiting, or playing them?
Measures green flags — because knowing what a healthy relationship looks like is half the skill.
A few deeper checks (like phone-number and registry lookups) are small one-time purchases — under $8, no subscriptions ever. You're not co-signing anyone up for a monthly bill.
The Conversation
The pitch matters less than the posture. Three approaches that work — pick the one that sounds like you:
Casual, on the drive to move-in: "Someone told me about this app that scores red flags — apparently there's a quiz thing that's actually kind of funny. It's free. No idea if it's cool, you tell me." Then drop it.
"I'm not asking to see anything — I literally can't, it's private to you. I just want you to have something in your corner when you're meeting a lot of new people. That's the whole ask."
Don't pitch the app at all. Send the game: Red Flag or Nah? is a free scenario quiz you can both take — and the app comes up on its own.
THE ONE RULE
Don't make it a condition.
A tool that arrives as a demand becomes surveillance by proxy — and gets deleted like one. Offer it, then let it be theirs.
The Shortcut
Written to not sound like a pitch — copy it, tweak it, send it:
saw this and thought of you — not in a checking-up way, I literally can't see anything on it. it's a free app that scores red flags 🚩 before things get weird. figured you'd be the judge: cray.app
The Questions You're Actually Asking
No — and there's nothing to request, export, or unlock. Cray has no parent portal by design. What your student does in the app is theirs alone, which is the reason it earns enough trust to still be on their phone in November.
Different job entirely. Location apps tell you where your student is — they say nothing about who they're with, which is where most college risk actually lives. Cray builds your student's own judgment about people. Many families use both: location for logistics, Cray for judgment. Only one of them still helps when the phone is face-down in someone's apartment.
Cray is built by a Tampa-based founder who lived the problem — the whole story is on the About page — and it's used in partnership with colleges across the country. The scoring is grounded in documented behavioral research patterns, and the app's privacy posture is the strictest in the category: nothing posted, nobody notified, screenshots blocked.
Honest answer: some students download it and forget it — until the first time someone gives them a weird feeling, which in a first semester rarely takes long. That's the moment it exists for. You're not asking them to use it daily; you're making sure it's already there on the night they need a second opinion at 1 AM.
Lead with the specific things you've noticed, not conclusions — "I noticed they check your phone" lands better than "I don't like them." Then offer Cray as a neutral second opinion they can consult privately, with nobody watching, so it's their conclusion instead of yours. And if you believe your student is in real danger, don't wait on an app — involve campus resources or local support directly.
The core app — CrayScore™, SchemerScore™, and BaeScore™ — is free forever. A few deeper checks are one-time purchases under $8. There are no subscriptions, so nobody ends up with a surprise monthly charge.
Yes — iOS, Android, and a web app for anyone who'd rather not install anything. Whatever your student carries, it works.
No — the same pattern-reading works for roommates, friendships, and classmates. The first semester is a flood of new people; Cray is for reading all of them.
Have the conversation once, casually — the car ride works — or send the text above. Then leave it alone. One genuine offer beats five reminders.
A good second window. If the app didn't land in August, the game usually does in October — play a round of Red Flag or Nah? together and let the conversation happen on its own.
Please do — link this page in your family newsletter freely. And if your campus wants Cray officially, the Campus Ally tier is free and comes with launch materials: see campus partnerships and the free housing flyers.
That's the whole assignment. Not a rule, not a condition — one genuine offer, and then it's theirs.