The most frequently asked SmaKi questions!
Whether it’s about the safety of your children or membership details.
We have compiled the most important information for you.
Free visitor mode
You can initially test SmaKi free of charge in visitor mode to get to know the platform and build trust. You have the opportunity to explore all learning areas as well as the parental control and monitoring functions. This will give you a first impression without having to actively participate.
Adventure membership
To trade at the flea market, make payments via the SmaKi wallet or solve quizzes and collect points in the academy, you need a SmaKi adventure membership. This costs:
- Monthly: 3.90 euros per child, plus a one-off fee of 6 euros for the identity check (SmaKi earns nothing from the identity check)
- Annual: 42.90 euros including identity check (you save 8.90 euros compared to monthly payment)
SmaKi protection fee
Your safety is taken care of! If you kids have bought and paid for an item at the flea market, SmaKi will keep your money in the secure SmaKi escrow account for a few days. As soon as you confirm receipt of the item, SmaKi will transfer the amount to the seller child. If the item has not arrived or there is a problem, you can contact SmaKi support. Your money will be held by SmaKi until the problem has been resolved. A small SmaKi protection fee is payable for safekeeping. The fee is calculated automatically when the item is listed and paid by the buyer-child. Don't worry, it's really small - just €0.20 plus 2% of the item price, for example €20 is €0.60. This keeps everything fair, safe and fun!
Starting balance, pay ins & payouts
For an optimal start, SmaKi recommends loading a starting balance of at least 20 euros onto the child's SmaKi wallet. This means that the kids can not only sell items, but also buy used items in the spirit of sustainability. The children could possibly finance the starting balance directly from the pocket money they have saved. This teaches them to take financial responsibility for their flea market deals right from the start.
Of course, you can also start your adventure without starting balance and sell items to earn pocket money.
Pay ins
Pay ins are made by you parents using the stored credit card. A small fee of €0.20 + 1% is charged to cover the transaction costs.
Payouts
You parents can make payouts at any time. You store your bank account for this. A small fee of 1.5% is charged for each payout to your parents' bank account to cover the transaction costs.
SmaKi offers a particularly safe space in which children between the ages of 7 and 14 can act independently and safely. In order to achieve these high security standards, increased investment is required compared to other platforms. The membership fees flow directly into the implementation and continuous further development of security measures, functions and the operation of the platform. This means that SmaKi remains a safe and educationally valuable place for your children.
Pay ins and recurring membership fee payments currently require a credit card. You enter your credit card details once for both purposes. SmaKi is already working on adding further payment methods.
Payouts are simply made to your bank account, which you store once for payouts.
SmaKi attaches great importance to a safe environment in which children are protected. That's why we work with trusted partners Treezor and IDnow to perform rigorous identity verification. You must verify yourself and your child to ensure that only "real" parents or legal representative and "real" children use the platform. This ensures that only children between the ages of 7 and 14 interact with each other and that abuse by adults is avoided.
As SmaKi also offers payment services via a payment provider, we are subject to the strict requirements of the financial supervisory authorities. We must meet all security standards for identity verification and money laundering prevention.
What does that mean for you specifically?
- Upload the ID documents: You must provide the identification documents of yourself and your child.
- Live verification: A live verification of the parents is carried out via IDnow, including a test transfer of €0.01 to confirm the bank account.
It sounds like a lot of effort, but it's worth it. This way you can be sure that all users are checked in the same secure way. And your data is safe with us! Verification is carried out in accordance with the highest data protection standards. Your data will only be checked and stored by our partners - SmaKi itself does not store sensitive data.
For parents:
As a parent or legal representative, we record the following data:
- First and last name
- Address
- E-mail address
- Mobile number
- Nationality
- Date of birth
- Gender
- password
- Copy of identity card or EU passport
- Account details
Furthermore, we are obliged to request additional information as part of the identity check (KYC procedure). These include:
- Place of birth
- Residence
- Indication of US citizenship
- Income
- Assets
- Profession
For children:
To ensure a safe environment for the children, we collect the following data:
- First and last name
- Address
- E-mail address (optional)
- Mobile number (optional)
- Nationality
- Date of birth
- Gender
- Password/PIN
- Copy of a valid identity document / birth certificate for different surnames
- Pseudonymized profile name and anonymized profile picture as SmaKi avatar
These measures guarantee that all activities on SmaKi are safe and comply with regulations. We attach great importance to data protection and security so that you children can use the SmaKi platform safely and carefree.
You can cancel SmaKi at any time. Please note that the membership fee already paid will not be refunded. To cancel your membership, the first step is to cancel your children's account. The remaining balance in the SmaKi wallet is then paid out to the stored parent bank account. You can then delete your child and parent account with all your data.
At SmaKi, we know how challenging it can be for parents to sensibly limit and control their children's screen time. To support you, we don't want to make this challenge any bigger.
That's why the SmaKi online flea market is only open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. This allows the children to concentrate on school, learning and their other activities during the week.
At the same time, we are convinced that the time children spend at SmaKi is used sensibly and with joy. At our flea market, they learn important skills such as sustainable action, safe digital behavior and the responsible use of money.
To further promote these skills, we publish new exciting learning content every Wednesday in the SmaKi Academy to collect points - so the focus is on gaining knowledge during the week too!
Children from the age of seven have limited legal capacity according to § 106 BGB. (german law) This means that they can make declarations of intent, such as the purchase or sale of items, but these only become legally effective with your consent as a legal representative(§ 107 and § 108 BGB).
At the SmaKi flea market, the actual legal transactions therefore always take place between you parents. When you register and create a children's profile, you give your consent for your children's activities on the platform.
SmaKi offers extensive control functions to make you feel safe. You can determine how independently your children are allowed to trade and whether you want to approve purchases and sales in advance.
All transactions are processed securely via the children's digital wallets. So everything remains transparent, protected and completely under your control!
When your kids list an item, the SmaKis help them select the right package size and enter the appropriate shipping costs. The shipping fee is then automatically added to the sales price. You parents have the opportunity to check this step in the approval process.
We ask you to help your children pack, stamp and send the parcels and show them how to do it. In this way, you help them to master these tasks independently and sustainably - and together you ensure that everything runs smoothly!
No, cash payments on pick-up are not permitted on SmaKi. A central aim of SmaKi is to teach children aged 7 to 14 how to handle money responsibly. To do this, we use the digital SmaKi wallet with its own payment account, which clearly displays all purchases and sales. To ensure this transparency and provide an accurate overview of finances, all payments are processed exclusively digitally. For you parents, this has the added advantage that you don't have to worry about paying at the front door - everything is done conveniently and securely online!
On SmaKi, children can collect points through various activities, which they can exchange for great rewards. The points system playfully promotes important skills such as sustainable action, digital learning and the responsible use of money.
This is how it works:
- Collect points: Children receive SmaKi points for trading at the flea market, solving quizzes in the SmaKi Academy or other learning activities.
- Unlock rewards: By collecting points, kids can reach different levels and unlock exciting rewards, such as new SmaKi avatars, cool additional features or vouchers for leisure activities such as climbing parks and indoor playgrounds.
- Motivation through progress: Occasional notifications remind children how many points they still need to reach the next level and motivate them to stay active.
The points system not only encourages independence, but also makes learning and doing things on SmaKi even more exciting!
With SmaKi, you as parents have full control at all times! You can monitor your children's activities comprehensively via your parent account. You have the option of setting individual limits for spending and activities and can approve purchases, sales, negotiations or incoming chat messages in advance. This way, you always have an overview and can ensure that your children are protected - while they learn to act independently at the same time.
If you notice a violation of the SmaKi guidelines, you can easily use our reporting system for articles or chats. The SmaKi team will investigate the incident as quickly as possible and act accordingly to ensure an age-appropriate experience. Your report helps us to keep the SmaKi world safe for all children!
Here are a few valuable tips on how you can best support your children on their SmaKi adventure and encourage their independence at the same time:
- Familiarize yourself with SmaKi: First familiarize yourself with the objectives, functions and the security and control mechanisms.
- Individual supervision: Monitor your children's activities depending on their age, maturity and independence.
- Set approvals: Decide whether you want to approve all sales and purchases individually or give your children basic approval so that your children can act without individual approvals.
- Shipping and pik-up options: Specify whether your children can buy and sell items by shipping or pick-up and define the desired radius for pick-up.
- Message monitoring: Determine whether you want to see and approve incoming chat messages for shipping or pick-up approves before your children read them.
- Age-appropriate content: Define the age group for which articles and academy content should be displayed to your children.
- Regular checks: Check the settings made regularly for their appropriateness in terms of age, maturity and independence.
- Motivation for tidying up: Encourage your children to regularly clear out and sort out their toys - especially before the next SmaKi flea market weekend.
- Emphasize learning content: Point out new learning content to your children and remind them of the great rewards that await them
- Shipping support: Help your children with packing, franking and shipping and show them how to do this independently.
- Check the condition of items: Help your children to check the condition of the items for sale and show them how to develop a good sense of this themselves.
- Give feedback: Share your suggestions, concerns and ideas for improvement with us so that we can continually improve the SmaKi experience for your children.
- Report violations: Report violations of the guidelines or behavior that is not age-appropriate so that we can maintain safety on the platform.
The SmaKis guide your children step by step through the process, especially when posting items on the online flea market. Due to the children's quick comprehension and digital affinity, they can do this quite quickly on their own.
From our experience, you as parents will mainly invest time in approving articles and providing feedback with change requests. You will also check the condition of the items for sale at the beginning. But don't worry - we have noticed that children are becoming more motivated to regularly tidy up and sort out their toys so that they can sell them on SmaKi at the weekend and supplement their pocket money.
Thanks to this growing independence, your time spent on organizing children's things will decrease over time.
In addition to system notifications about their activities, children receive a limited number of helpful reminders and tips on SmaKi. These are intended to motivate them and remind them of important events. Examples of this are
- "Time to sort out, the SmaKi online flea market opens in two hours..."
- "New interesting learning content for you..."
- "You're only 100 SmaKi points short of your next reward..."
These notifications help children to keep track of things and encourage their independence in a playful way!