PayByPhone Parking

What reviewers actually said

Built only from these 120 real reviews (foreign ones translated). Superscripts jump to the quote here. Apple has no per-review links, so [ref] opens that app's reviews on the App Store.

1. [R16] 5/5 · US So easy!: PayByPhone makes parking so easy and affordable! Can’t beat it!!!
2. [R17] 5/5 · US Happy Customer: Makes everything do easy! Simple to use, faster than walking from car to kiosk where I pay on the sidewalk, saving me time that I often don’t have. Love it! Many thanks for inventing this:)Customer in
3. [R20] 5/5 · US No ticket: Best way to pay and not worry about running back to the meter. Pay and it will remain you to add more time too. Convince of paying by phone .
4. [R26] 5/5 · US Bang: Im just happy you can actually pin how long you want to stay at a spot. Also super easy and reliable
5. [R3] 5/5 · US Lo mejor: Resuelve todo
6. [R15] 5/5 · US Súper bueno: Todo es fácil y rápido o mejor es económico
7. [R43] 5/5 · US Nice app: Convenient way to pay for parking. Pull in, enter the parking area, select your vehicle if more than one, how long and ‘pay’. Done. Bit slow setting up the account on mobile. For whatever some reason my password manager doesn’t recognize it when I log in, how er, mei or points, did not lower the score.
8. [R86] 3/5 · US the new way: i liked the credit card machine ok... and a coin machine option everything on an app is annoying, but extending the time by phone is a good idea
9. [R94] 5/5 · US So easy and flexible: I live in Denver Metro and much of the street parking meters offer PayByPhone parking. We often take a photo of the meter and pay for parking as we walk to our destination. Be able to add time remotely is super convenient.
10. [R2] 1/5 · US Non functional: After happily using this app for years, it has not worked for the past month or so. It doesn’t recognize the parking zone making it unusable. Moved on to another app.
11. [R6] 1/5 · US Broken in SF: Completely broken in San Francisco, no locations recognized anywhere. What’s the point of this anymore?
12. [R7] 2/5 · US Hardly helpful: I’m literally standing here at the meter and it won’t let me punch in the number of the meter to pay on my phone. Even though it shows the meter available as one of the current meters, when I tap on that meter number, it says it’s unavailable. Seriously, what is the point of this app. I just spent the last 30 minutes of my life trying to figure this out. It’s so unreliable
13. [R9] 1/5 · US No longer working in sfo: For the last few months, the app is no longer working in San Francisco error messages all around, even if I type in the exact location it doesn’t work please fix
14. [R12] 1/5 · US Who’s eating this 5 stars??: Horrible app. Blacked out and wouldn’t let me sign up for SMS or even set up an account. Charged me, but I still got a ticket. Then the site they are sub contracted for is totally broken so I can’t dispute or even pay it if I wanted to just be done!!
15. [R18] 1/5 · US Completely useless: Absolute BS, they don’t allow a single card I have to pay. They have zero options for you if you use a bank they don’t cover and they cover a pathetically small amount.
16. [R23] 1/5 · US Horrible App: It says it accepts Apple Pay and Amex through the app but both are grayed out, so I had to use a card I never use for a $3 charge. Seems like a poorly designed and glitchy app.
17. [R25] 1/5 · US Garbage App: This app never works!!! Takes forEVER to process and you have to enter information over and over. When you phone falls asleep because the stupid app is still processing… it harasses you that you still haven’t finished your payment. SFA!!!
18. [R8] 1/5 · US Why do I need to log in EVERY TIME I open the app?: Horrible horrible experience. The app forces me to log back in every time I open it
19. [R63] 3/5 · US Upgrades eliminate saved favorites and stored credentials: For at least the last two upgrades, the app has made me re-enter my login credentials. This can be a minor crisis when you’re standing on the curb in a hurry and don’t have all of your credentials memorized. Also, these upgrades somehow lost all of my favorite parking locations. What’s the point of offering a feature like favorites if you
20. [R95] 3/5 · US Keeps signing me out, recovering password very slow: This is not the first time I tried to pay and the app signed me out, and it said my password was not valid. When I try to recover my password the SMS never arrives. Almost every app I use does not do this. This is one that does and it's a real inconvenience when your sitting in a space trying to pay to park
21. [R295] 3/5 · GB Nearby spaces don’t work: The app needs to improve in several areas: - Location services - nearby parking locations are not shown and haven’t worked for some time. - Random log outs - frustrating when you’re trying to park and the app has logged you out.
22. [R1] 1/5 · US PayByPhone parking: App doesn’t work at all when I open it. Only then is the green dots on the screen.
23. [R11] 2/5 · US New update - app broken: This app used to work fine/smoothly, but the latest update (as of July 2026) has deleted all my personal information, can't add my phone number for some reason, and actually just doesn't let me park ("This isn't working right now, sorry").
24. [R45] 1/5 · US I’m not able to add phone: When a type my phone, the numbers don’t disappear in order to verify it. Also I reported by email, nobody has been replied it.
25. [R56] 1/5 · US Incredibly difficult: I have never had such hassle parking, the errors made no sense, the phone number wouldn’t go in correctly, such a massive hassle
26. [R5] 1/5 · US Awful quality app: Even though I have cell phone signal it absolutely never tells me nearby spots so I have to walk over and look at the number to park. And it charges a $.60 convenience fee! Whose convenience is it? Especially when it doesn’t even tell me the nearby parking lot number and the sign is tiny and far away. And now I also see there’s a $.20 SMS fee. What is that for? Do better pay by
27. [R55] 3/5 · US Fees: Stop charging extra fees like SMS I don’t need a text that should be optional my phone is smart enough to set a reminder 😑
28. [R292] 3/5 · GB Notifications: Why can’t you enable notifications from the phone rather than send SMS messages and adding an additional charge. If it’s a cost thing why can’t you take money from the parking charge, very frustrating. I’m being billed by PayByPhone for the cost of the parking!
29. [R309] 3/5 · GB RIP off prices spoil otherwise good app: Been using this a while and didn’t mind paying an extra 20p for the convenience … However , recently some car parks adding 50-70p on a £4 parking fee is ridiculous
30. [R170] 3/5 · US Slow loading: I’m at the parking spot and the app is taking forever to load. I think it was updating but that should never happen when you’re waiting to pay and in a hurry.
31. [R189] 3/5 · US Takes forever to load: The app often takes forever to open, it’s a hassle when you’re in a rush!
32. [R501] 3/5 · CA Ok mostly: Will not loadup after recent update - even after killing the app repeatedly.
33. [R552] 3/5 · CA Parking: Half of the time online app for parking is not working
34. [R29] 1/5 · US No Customer Service Support: Terrible app, no customer service, not clear instructions, confusing parking services.
35. [R31] 1/5 · US More reasons this app sucks!: It’s apparently, nearly impossible to get actual customer service. You can communicate with their horrible waste of time AI, and if you search for how to speak with someone, it tells you to use the AI, and also brings up 47 additional, irrelevant “help” articles. They want you to go through the AI in order to possibly get actual help, but that trash AI just sends you
36. [R173] 3/5 · US Misleading when parking is free: Great app overall, but this issue happens frequently - especially around evenings and weekends. When parking is free, the app shows “Parking unavailable” instead of telling you that no payment is required. This is misleading and defeats the purpose of the app - I still have to walk to the meter to confirm. The app should display the same message as the meter (e.g
37. [R36] 1/5 · US Bad timing: I only want to pay for parking, bad time to be soliciting 🤷🏽‍♀️
38. [R49] 1/5 · US super annoying: i’m paying for parking stop giving me ads
39. [R233] 3/5 · US Used to be amazing, now wants to sell me stuff: Taking up 3/4 of the screen with stuff I don’t need and prompting me for deals? Cmon, man.
40. [R592] 3/5 · CA Ads that can’t be disabled: Used to love this app and now there’s no way to turn off the in-app marketing and ads. Please just increase the markup on parking and make it possible to permanently “unsubscribe” or disable ads.
41. [R126] 3/5 · US Editing existing cars: It is a great app. But is not clear how to edit existing car description or how to remove existing cars
42. [R181] 3/5 · US Need to be able to edit: Need to be able to edit not delete vehicles.
43. [R13] 1/5 · US Why?!?: Why do I have to enter my car every time I use this app? Top 10 worst UI ever
44. [R19] 4/5 · US Difficult to use: If you aren’t using this routinely, it is a pain to set up. Then, if (as I did) you misspell your name when you enter your credit card, and do not notice until you are about to hit “pay with this card”, YOU CANNOT CORRECT YOUR TYPO, nor can you re-enter the card info with the correct spelling, as that is a “Duplicate Card”. Can’t wait until I can delete this waste of bits
45. [R48] 2/5 · US Forced update: Normally great, but 26.6.1 does not work on my iOS 26.5. Frozen on the green screen. If you're going to FORCE an update, please be sure that it's actually stable! Particularly with a payments app that people depend on.
46. [R53] 5/5 · US System crash: The system has crashed and has been unusable for a month, which is causing me much annoyance
47. [R54] 1/5 · US Unable to update: Trying to update app so that I can pay to park but app will not update. This so frustrating!!! It is late at night and I can’t get to pay your app. Last night it t was a problem trying to add my credit card. Could not see the boxes on the screen to enter the info. It took so minutes to finally enter the info. You need to fix your site. What do I do now. Get a ticket because
48. [R57] 1/5 · US App sucks and doesn’t work. Will steal From you.: Don’t use
49. [R548] 3/5 · CA App logs out after very use: Helpful app - when it works. Constantly logs me out and every day I go to pay for parking and it gets me to sign in again. Such a pain Also I have noticed several occasions where the price via the app is more than in person. Again, that would be fine if the app just stayed logged in and saved time
50. [R34] 1/5 · US Parking app: App no longer works at all? I’ve used it for years and now it’s useless, not sure why it is listed on App. Location in SF
51. [R37] 2/5 · US Locations are shown as non existent: Several times recently in San Francisco, I've repeatedly entered the location numbers and the app tells me it doesn't exist.. This happened to my coworkers as well. They ended up using another app which renewed their parking fee flawlessly. This is a relatively new problem. It could prove costly as a parking fine in SF is well over $150.00.
52. [R46] 4/5 · US Good app: Good app easy to use but it says u can pay with Apple Pay and I can’t even select the option
53. [R60] 1/5 · US Unnecessary: This is the stupidest thing ever invented, extremely unhelpful and unintuitive, apple pay not accepted, it asks for a description of the car and the plate (? Why), it also wants you to log in.. why do i need to log in to pay for parking… i stood there for legitimately 10 minutes inputting my information, i could have paid and gone in less than 30 sec if there was just a regular meter.