Chickadee Bandit vs. OurFamilyWizard
For separated parents who need a shared record without paying for it twice.
Compare › Chickadee Bandit vs. OurFamilyWizard
Which is a better fit?
Keep OurFamilyWizard if your court order names it or you need certified records, professional access, or recorded calls. Chickadee Bandit fits parents who need a shared record for day-to-day coordination while keeping each home private.
Where OurFamilyWizard shines — and where it doesn't
OurFamilyWizard is the co-parenting tool most family courts and attorneys already know. It has been around since 2001, it offers accounts for attorneys and mediators to observe a case, and its documented calling and certified-records service are genuinely useful when a matter is in litigation. If a court order names it, you should use it.
The cost is the recurring complaint. Every parent buys a separate annual subscription — there is no family plan — so a two-parent household pays twice, and the features most people need for records sit on the higher tiers. It is also a single-purpose product: it holds the co-parenting record and nothing else about either home.
Side by side
| OurFamilyWizard | Chickadee Bandit | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Per parent, billed annually: Basic $110/yr, Essentials $149.99/yr, Premium $216/yr, Max $299.88/yr, with lower monthly rates on two-year plans. Two parents pay two subscriptions. Fee waivers for qualifying parents. | One household plan from $6/mo (or $60/yr). One parent sponsors the co-parenting space and the other parent joins free. |
| Two homes, one record | One shared account space for the case. Each parent's own household life lives somewhere else. | Each parent keeps a private household — their own calendar, chores, and new partner — and the space between them holds only what they co-manage. Neither home can see into the other. |
| Custody schedule | Shared parenting calendar with trade and swap requests. | Rotation patterns (2-2-3, week-on/week-off, alternating weekends, custom) with countersigned swaps: a swap is a proposal until the other parent approves, then it locks and lands on both calendars. |
| Messaging | Messages cannot be edited or retracted; first-viewed timestamps; a writing assistant on Essentials and above. | Co-parenting spaces are append-only by design: no member can edit or delete a sent message, and the setting cannot be loosened by one parent. Timestamps on send and on the recipient's first view are set by the server and appear in the exported record. No tone checker. |
| Expenses | Expense log with receipts; OFWpay payments are capped on Essentials (12 a year), unlimited on Premium, and a paid add-on on Basic. | Log a cost with a receipt photo, split evenly, by exact amounts, or by saved category percentages, and request reimbursement through two-party approval. A running settle-up balance keeps score. No payment processing. |
| Calling & video | Documented audio and video calling: 45 min/month on Essentials, unlimited on Premium and Max, receive-only on Basic. Recordings and transcripts on Max. | None. Chickadee Bandit does not offer in-app calling, recording, or transcription. |
| Records & export | Unlimited PDF records on Essentials and above; unlimited certified records requests — notarized, printed and mailed — on Premium. | Either parent can export the space's records at any time without the other's approval: the custody record, the parents' messages, schedule history, swaps and handoff notes as one print-styled document with a cover page and checksums (downloaded as a PDF, or as a verified copy anyone can check for seven years), each custody report as CSV, or a ZIP archive of machine-readable files. Not a certified record. |
| Professional access | Attorneys, mediators, and other professionals can be given practitioner accounts to view the record. | No practitioner accounts. A parent shares records by exporting them. |
| Governance | Each parent manages their own account; no shared approval model. | Both parents are equal stewards. Deleting the space, removing a member, shortening record retention, or removing a records app requires the other parent's approval. |
| Beyond co-parenting | Co-parenting only. | Over 100 installable household apps for each parent's own home, on the same plan. |
Comparison reflects each product's published pricing and features and widely reported user feedback as of September 2026. Products change — always check the other product's site for current details.
Weighing more than these two? See every OurFamilyWizard alternative we'd point you at.
Or step back from both: every co-parenting app compared, by what each is for.
If your order names OurFamilyWizard
Keep using it. A court order or parenting plan that specifies a platform is not something an alternative can replace, and Chickadee Bandit does not offer certified records, practitioner accounts, or recorded calling. Some parents run both: OurFamilyWizard for the record the court expects, and a Chickadee Bandit space for the day-to-day logistics of two homes.
For mediators and attorneys
Chickadee Bandit is a good fit for clients who are separating amicably or whose case has settled, where the goal is a clear, attributed record rather than litigation support. Messages in a co-parenting space cannot be edited or deleted by either parent, every custody change and swap is recorded with who made it and when, and either parent can export the record independently. When a client hands you a verified copy, you can check at chickadeebandit.com/verify that it is the file we issued, unchanged. We make no claims about admissibility; that is a court's decision.
Moving from OurFamilyWizard
Your existing OurFamilyWizard history cannot be imported. Download your records from OurFamilyWizard before your subscription lapses and keep them alongside your new record. Then create a space, choose Co-parenting, and send the other parent a join link. See the co-parenting overview for what the space sets up.
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.
A shared record, paid for once
30-day free trial. One parent's plan covers the space, and the other parent joins free.
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