Maple is closing: what UK families should move to

If you are here because Maple emailed you, the short version is: yes, it is really closing, and yes, you need somewhere to go.

What actually happened

Maple was a family-organisation app that raised around $3.5m and pitched itself as a back office for the household. In late July 2026 the team was acquired by the travel company Wander, and Maple’s own site now carries a shutdown date of 31 December 2026.

That is an unusually generous runway as these things go — you have months, not days. But it does mean that whatever is in there now is on a clock.

Export before you do anything else

Whatever you choose next, do this first, while Maple is still up:

• Your calendar. If Maple was syncing to a Google or Outlook calendar, that copy survives independently — check it before you assume anything is lost. If it wasn’t, export or screenshot the next few months.
• Lists and recurring chores. These are the things nobody remembers until they’re gone. The bin day, the medication, the every-third-Tuesday one.
• Anything with a date attached to a child. Term dates, club times, kit days.
• Notes and household reference. Boiler codes, wifi passwords, the name of the person who fixed the shower.

Do not wait for December. Apps that are winding down tend to get less reliable before they get switched off, not after.

What to look for in a replacement

Most people, at this point, reach for the nearest shared calendar and consider the job done. That works, and if a shared calendar is genuinely all Maple was doing for you, you should do exactly that and stop reading.

But it is worth being honest with yourself about why you installed Maple in the first place. Family-organiser apps split into two rough camps:

Apps that record the work. A shared calendar, a shared list, colour-coded by person. Everyone can see what needs doing. This is genuinely useful and it is what most of the category does.

Apps that redistribute the work. These try to change who does what, not just show it. This is a much smaller group, because it is a harder problem — it needs some notion of how much a job actually costs the person doing it.

If you were in the second camp, a plain calendar will feel like a downgrade no matter how polished it is.

How Equal House is different

Equal House is built around the second problem specifically.

Its Fairness Engine weights chores by effort, not by count. Ten minutes of putting the bins out and ninety minutes of the weekly shop are not the same job, and a to-do list that treats them as one item each will always let the split drift. It then shares work out by who a job suits and who is genuinely free that day, and gives the household a live 0–100 Fairness Score so the balance is a number everyone can see rather than an argument nobody can win.

One tap on Auto-Balance shares out the week. “Fairer week ahead” suggests a better split of the days to come.

Around that sits the ordinary stuff you would expect: a shared family calendar with repeating events and busy-day flags, meal plans with an aisle-sorted shopping list, a kids’ party planner, a school-run rota, Kid Mode with pocket money and money jars, and family documents with expiry reminders.

It is UK-first in the small ways that matter — bank holidays by nation, pounds and pence, a UK schools directory — and it works elsewhere.

Price

Equal House is free with a rolling three-day planning horizon. Pro is £2.99 a month or £29.90 a year, as one subscription for the whole household rather than per person.

What Equal House does not do

Being straight about it, because you are about to migrate a family and you do not want a second surprise:

• There is no free trial of Pro. The free tier is genuinely free and genuinely limited — you can see three days ahead. If you need to plan a fortnight, you need Pro.
• There is no direct Maple import. Nobody has one. Moving means re-entering your recurring chores and reconnecting your calendar. Budget an evening.
• It is a phone and tablet app, not a kitchen wall display, though the Family Wall view will fill a spare tablet screen.

The honest recommendation

Try the free tier before you pay anyone anything, including us. Add your recurring chores, get the other adult in the house to join, and look at the Fairness Score after a week. If the number tells you something you did not already know, that is the product working. If it does not, a shared calendar will serve you just as well for less.