Frequently asked questions

Equal House is a family planning app for iPhone and Android that organises your whole household — calendar, chores, meals, money and more — and uniquely shares the work fairly between everyone using a live Fairness Score.

Every task carries an effort weight. As tasks are completed they feed an effort-weighted ledger, which Equal House turns into a single 0–100 score for your household. Green means the load is balanced; amber and red show when it has tipped onto one person. One tap on Auto-Balance redistributes upcoming chores to bring it back into balance.

Yes. A 50/50 split by count ignores that some jobs take far more time and energy than others. Equal House balances by effort and by who is actually free that day — including skipping anyone marked as away, and allowing for anyone at work — so fairness reflects real life.

Not an account, but they do sign in. A child taps your family’s chosen set of emojis, picks their avatar and enters a PIN — and the code is only accepted on a device your family has approved. A grown-up can approve a device by signing in on it, or by sending a setup code to a child’s own phone. No email address, and no personal data is collected from a child.

A grown-up needs to approve that device once, and the emoji code will work again straight away. There are two ways: sign in on the device yourself, or — for a phone that is the child’s own — send a setup code from Your account, which they enter on their device without any adult signing in on it. Children can only sign in on an approved device because it stops a guessed code letting a stranger reach your children. You do it once per device, and you can see and remove approved devices under More → Your account. If a device still refuses after a grown-up signs in, tap “Your emojis not working?” on the kid sign-in screen and choose Start again, then sign in once more.

Yes. When a child completes a chore, their pocket-money pot is automatically credited, and finishing daily routines earns stars and streaks. A parent approves each completion before any stars or money are awarded.

There are four: a meals & shopping planner that builds a budget- and diet-aware menu and an aisle-by-aisle shopping list; a kids’ party planner; a school-run rota; and a PAR-Q-gated exercise planner. The meals and party planners turn their plans into fairly shared tasks. The school run fills your calendar with the term’s drop-offs and pick-ups, and exercise sessions stay personal — they never get handed to anyone else.

Magic Add lets you paste a school newsletter or snap a photo of one, and Equal House suggests the events and chores hidden inside it. Nothing is saved until you review and confirm — you always stay in control.

Yes. Open Magic Add, tap “Speak it” and talk naturally — “book the dentist by Friday” or “Leo has swimming Tuesday at 5” — and your words become suggested events and tasks. You review and confirm everything on screen before it is saved, so a mis-heard word can never quietly create a task. The listening happens on your device. “Speak it” is part of Equal House Pro — snapping a photo or pasting text into Magic Add is free.

Privacy is built in. Private documents stay private to their owner with signed, time-limited downloads, children share no personal data, your wellbeing journal is kept only on your own device and never uploaded, and we never sell your information. See our privacy policy for the full detail.

Yes. Equal House includes a directory of more than 30,000 schools across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — search by name or postcode and pick yours. You then set your drop-off and pick-up days and times, record each child’s uniform, PE and swimming days, and the whole term appears on your family calendar, skipping the closures you add for half-terms, inset days and bank holidays.

Yes. With Equal House Pro you can connect your household to Claude and other AI assistants and manage it in plain language — ask what someone’s doing on Thursday, or share out the week’s chores. You choose read-only or read-and-write access, you’re always asked to confirm any change, and you can revoke access at any time.

Safe Space is a calmer, kinder way to raise something tricky with another grown-up in the house. You write down what’s on your mind and choose who to share it with, and Equal House gently lets them know you’d like to talk it through — with gentle talking points and, if you like, a little time set aside. It’s part of Equal House Pro. There’s also a private wellbeing corner for everyone with a breathing time-out, an on-device journal and UK helplines.

Yes. On phones with a secure lock screen, you can switch on App Lock in Settings to require your fingerprint or device PIN whenever you open Equal House. It is set per device and stays on your phone, and it is designed to fail safely — if your device credentials are removed it unlocks rather than shutting you out, so you can never be permanently locked out of your own family’s data. There is also a “Sign out instead” option on the lock screen.

Equal House is free to use with a rolling 3-day planning horizon — you can view and create entries up to three days ahead across the calendar, tasks, events, meals and more. Equal House Pro removes that limit and unlocks the school run (a term spans months, so setting up a school needs Pro), Safe Space, Bric the in-app assistant (who both answers questions about your home and suggests changes to your week), the review inbox and email forwarding, linking a Google or Outlook calendar, “Speak it” dictation in Magic Add, sharing your household’s code with relatives, and the AI-assistant connector for £2.99 a month or £29.90 a year (two months free), as one subscription for your whole household. There is no free trial. You subscribe in the app and can manage your subscription anytime from the app. See the pricing page for full details.

Equal House is available on the App Store and Google Play — for iPhone, iPad, and Android phones and tablets. Everyone in the household installs the app and shares the same family data.