Five 2houses alternatives, by how much of a record each keeps
Where to go from 2houses: OurFamilyWizard or TalkingParents for a court-facing record, two private homes with the other parent free, a calculator, or email.
Compare › 2houses alternatives
Quick answer
OurFamilyWizard if you need certified records or practitioner access. TalkingParents for recorded calls, billed monthly. Chickadee Bandit to keep each home private, with an append-only shared record and the other parent joining free. The free custody calculator to settle the schedule first. A shared calendar and email if you need no record.
2houses is one subscription for the whole family: $169.99 a year on its website, paid by one parent, covering both parents, the children, third parties and mediators. It is built for separated parents who get along, and for them it is a sound choice. People reading a page like this usually want something it is not built to be: a record a court will take seriously, or a way to keep each home to itself.
This list is ordered by how much of a court-facing record each option keeps. We make the third entry and it is marked; every claim about another product is restated from the head-to-head page linked from its name.
The list
Best for: A contested case, or an order that names it
The other court-facing platform, and the one more often named in orders. Messages cannot be edited or retracted and carry first-viewed timestamps; PDF downloads on Essentials and above; certified records requests unlimited on Premium; documented audio and video calling from Essentials, with recordings and transcripts on Max; and practitioner accounts so an attorney or mediator can view the record directly. Costlier than TalkingParents at the tiers that matter and billed annually, but if certification or practitioner access is the point, it is the only entry here that has them.
Cost: Per parent, billed annually: Basic $110, Essentials $149.99, Premium $216, Max $299.88. Two parents pay two subscriptions.
Best for: A case that needs recorded calls and PDF records, billed monthly
The other court-facing product. Unalterable messages with send and first-view timestamps, Accountable Calling with recorded audio from 30 minutes a month on Essentials to unlimited on Ultimate, PDF records unlimited on Enhanced and above, and printed record packages sold separately. Payments carry a per-transaction fee of 2 to 4 percent by tier. Against OurFamilyWizard it is the same category at a lower entry price and monthly rather than annual billing, without OFW's practitioner accounts or certified records.
Cost: Per parent, monthly: Essentials $7, Enhanced $16, Ultimate $32, about 8% off annually. No free plan since March 30, 2026; fee waivers for financial or domestic-violence hardship.
Chickadee Bandit
That's usBest for: Two homes that stay private from each other, with one shared record
Like 2houses, one parent pays and the other joins at no cost. The difference is shape. 2houses is one shared family account; here each parent keeps a private household the other cannot see into, and the space between them holds only what they co-manage. Messages are append-only, with server timestamps on send and on first view; custody swaps are proposals until the other parent countersigns; expenses split with receipt photos and two-party reimbursement, with no transaction fee. Either parent can export the whole record at any time, as one document downloaded as a PDF or as a verified copy anyone can check against what we issued. Each household's data lives in its own encrypted database. No calling or recording, no certified records, and no accounts for a mediator or attorney: if you need those, look at the two entries above.
Cost: $6/mo or $60/yr for one household. One parent sponsors the co-parenting space and the other parent joins free.
Best for: Agreeing the schedule before paying for anything
Lay a 2-2-3, 2-2-5-5, alternating-week or every-other-weekend pattern on a month, count each parent's overnights, and see the percentage measured off the whole cycle — the number an agreement quotes — then print it. It is the schedule and nothing else: no messages, no timestamps, no ledger. Useful before a platform decision, and no substitute for one.
Cost: Free. Runs in your browser, no account.
A shared calendar and email
Best for: Cooperative parents who need no record
2houses is built for parents who get along, and some of them never needed a co-parenting app at all. A shared Google or Apple calendar and ordinary email cost nothing and run on any device. Nothing is unalterable, nothing is countersigned, and there is no expense ledger — which is fine exactly as long as neither of you ever needs to prove what was said.
Cost: Free, with the accounts you already have.
Prices and features are restated from our head-to-head comparison pages and reflect each product's published pricing as of September 2026. Products change — always check the other product's site for current details.
Why people look for a 2houses alternative
The record, first. 2houses' pages say conversations can be archived or printed but never deleted. They do not say whether a message can be edited, and they describe no court-ready or certified records. Expense reports export as CSV or PDF. If a lawyer has asked what you can produce, that matters.
The second reason is shape. 2houses is one shared family account in which both parents have the same rights and there is no administrator, so each parent's own household, and a new partner, lives somewhere else. The third is data: 2houses' own data-safety section on Google Play states "Data isn't encrypted".
Choosing between them
- If an order names a platform, use it. If certification or practitioner access might ever be needed, OurFamilyWizard is the only entry that offers them.
- If you need recorded calls and want to pay monthly, TalkingParents.
- If the record you need is "nobody can edit or delete this" rather than "a court will certify this", and each home wants to stay private, that is what we built — and the second parent pays nothing.
- If the schedule is still in dispute, settle the overnight count with the free calculator before arguing about software.
- If you have never needed to prove anything and do not expect to, a shared calendar and email are free.
What you give up by leaving
Mediator access is the thing 2houses does that we do not: a mediator can have read-only access to the whole family account, and professionals can create and manage client accounts. OurFamilyWizard is the entry here with practitioner accounts.
No option here imports 2houses history. Its privacy page says you can export a backup of your account from your subscription page; do that before you cancel.
The feature list is not fixed
Every other product on this page is a fixed set of features: it does what it does, and a need it did not anticipate gets a no. Chickadee Bandit is built from small apps, and a household can add one of its own. An admin describes the app in a paragraph on the Apps page and the hub builds and installs it, using the AI credits that come with every plan; someone who writes code can start from any of the open-source apps and install their own version from a URL. A custom app gets the same checks as the ones we ship: it declares what it reads and writes, keeps its data in your household's own database, and the hub refuses anything it did not ask for.
Where this list comes from
We make one of the products on it, and it is marked. Every claim about another product is restated from the head-to-head page that links from its name, where it was checked against that product's own site on the date shown there — nothing on this page was researched separately. The order is how close a like-for-like replacement each one is for someone leaving 2houses, not a ranking of merit.
Read next
- Chickadee Bandit vs. 2houses, side by side
- Seven co-parenting apps, by what each one is actually for
- Every product we compare, by what it is for
- Four OurFamilyWizard alternatives, and the one case where there is none
- Four TalkingParents alternatives now that the free plan is gone
- Seven Cozi alternatives, sorted by what you are actually leaving for
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