This one looks optional. It is not. Notifications are how the shield hands you back to your question.
Here is the awkward truth about iOS: when the Tollgate shield covers your app, its “Answer to unlock” button is not allowed to open Tollgate directly. Apple forbids a shield from launching another app. No app can do it, and no setting changes it.
So Tollgate does the next best thing. When you tap Answer to unlock, it posts a notification: “Answer a question to unlock →”. Tap that notification and you land straight on your question. Answer it, and the shield lifts. With notifications on, the whole hop takes about two seconds and quickly becomes muscle memory.
The shield can no longer reach you. The unlock button has nothing to send, so the only thing it can do is close the guarded app. You would have to open Tollgate yourself to answer the toll. The gate still works, but the round trip gets annoying, and annoying is how good habits die.
If this is your current situation, the fix takes ten seconds: The unlock button just closes the app.
No marketing, no streak guilt, no “we miss you.” Tollgate sends the unlock notification when you ask for it and, if you opt in later, one summary on Sunday evening (you can turn that off). That is the complete list.