Co-parenting apps in the UK, compared (2026)

OurFamilyWizard has been the default answer for high-conflict, court-involved UK separated families for several years. The product was built in the United States and is widely referenced by family courts there. In the UK it is increasingly recognised by family solicitors and Cafcass officers as a workable option for families with active reporting requirements.

The strengths are real. The message log is properly tamper-resistant. The Tone Meter, an opinionated text-tone analyser on outgoing messages, has its critics but does materially reduce escalation in many cases. The bundled exports (the 'My Files' system) are built for the legal process. If you are in active proceedings, OurFamilyWizard is the safer default.

The costs are also real. Pricing starts at around £99 per parent per year on the Standard tier and rises with bundled professional access. For a separated family with two parents, the annual cost sits at roughly £200 before any add-ons. The product is over-specified for most low and mid-conflict families. The user interface feels American, which is a small thing but a real one. The Children's Code posture is improving but not native.

The honest summary: if you are in court or expect to be, OurFamilyWizard is the safer default. If you are not, the per-parent pricing and the heaviness of the product tend to push families back to WhatsApp within months. Haevn was built explicitly for that group.

Talking Parents is the other established legal-grade specialist in the UK market. It positions slightly differently: a free tier exists for the basic message log, with paid Premium for richer features, and per-record fees for certified exports. The export model means active legal use can become surprisingly expensive even though the headline price looks lower.

The strengths are the explicit court orientation, the certified-record export model, and the relative lightness of the basic tier. The weaknesses are the absence of a meaningful shared expense ledger, the absence of a custody handover log in any depth, and the same per-parent pricing model that pushes total household cost up.

For court-involved families who primarily need a tamper-resistant message log and certified extracts, Talking Parents is a reasonable choice. For families who also need shared expenses, decision tracking, custody handover detail, or any of the wider household admin, Talking Parents will leave most of those problems unsolved.

Until 31 December 2025, AppClose was the standard recommendation for low-conflict separated families with a tight budget: free, sufficient, US-built but workable in the UK. From 1 January 2026, AppClose moved to a paid subscription model. The provider's published reasoning is that the free model was not sustainable, which is fair enough.

The change has reshaped the UK market materially. AppClose is no longer the default 'free option' for low-conflict families. The pricing, at the time of writing, is competitive but not dramatically lower than Haevn's per-household subscription. The product remains US-origin, US-data-law-resident, and not built to the ICO Children's Code as a primary standard.

If you are an existing AppClose user happy with the product, the new pricing is unlikely to be a reason to switch on its own. If you are starting today, the case for AppClose is materially weaker than it was twelve months ago, and the case for Haevn or for a legal-grade specialist (depending on conflict band) is materially stronger.

2Houses is a Belgium-built co-parenting app aimed squarely at the value tier. It has been the most-cited 'budget' option in UK editorial roundups for several years, including coverage by Mediate UK and family-law commentators. The product covers the core co-parenting functions: shared calendar, shared expense ledger with arbitrary split, a messaging surface, a journal for moments to share with the other household, and a document store.

The strengths are the price, the EU data residency (which is materially closer to UK GDPR norms than the US-built alternatives), and the focus on the day-to-day rather than the courtroom. The weaknesses are the per-parent pricing model, the lack of an append-only message log built explicitly for legal purposes, the absence of any meaningful Quiet Hours equivalent, and the lack of any wider household admin (calendar and lists for non-co-parenting use).

For UK separated families on a tight budget who do not need court-grade infrastructure and do not want the wider family operating system, 2Houses is a defensible choice. For families who want one subscription to cover both households (rather than per parent), or who want the tamper-resistance, or who want the wider admin layer, Haevn is the better fit.

Cozi is a US-built family organiser that has been around since the early 2010s. It is the most-searched family organiser brand in the UK by some distance, largely because of legacy SEO and a long-running free tier. It was acquired by OurFamilyWizard on 4 May 2022 (announced via PRNewswire), which moved it into the same corporate group as the leading legal-grade co-parenting tool, although the products remain separately branded.

In 2024, Cozi materially narrowed its free tier, moving several previously free features behind the Cozi Gold subscription. The change was reflected in a noticeable drop in Cozi's Trustpilot rating during 2024 as long-standing free users objected. The product is fundamentally a shared family calendar with shopping lists, recipes, and a household to-do board. It is not a co-parenting product. There is no append-only message log, no Decision Log, no shared expense ledger with an arbitrary split, and no Custody Handover Log.

The reason Cozi belongs in this comparison is not because it is a co-parenting app (it is not) but because so many UK families search for 'Cozi alternative UK' that any honest comparison has to address it. The honest answer: if you have been using Cozi as your family calendar and you are now also separating, Cozi will not give you what a co-parenting workflow needs. Either Haevn (for the family operating system plus co-parenting in one) or one of the legal-grade tools (for the high-conflict band) is the right next step.

One further note. Cozi's revenue model has historically included advertising in the free tier. That model has implications for data use that are worth weighing if your household includes anyone under 18, given the ICO Children's Code's stance on advertising profiling for minors.

Haevn was built UK-first, GDPR-native, and to the ICO Children's Code from the floor up. Co-parenting is not a separate product from the family operating system; the same one subscription covers a family that is together, separating, separated, blended, or any combination across the years.

The architectural choice that matters most for separated families is one subscription per family, not per parent. Both linked households are inside the same Haevn family group, with The Circle providing scoped permissions per feature and per member. Either side can revoke or narrow access at any time. The cost is £6.99 a month, or £69.99 a year, with a £49.99 introductory first year.

The co-parenting features are deliberately built for the mid-conflict middle: append-only Family Chat with timestamps and integrity hashes, a Decision Log with supersede tracking, a shared expense ledger with arbitrary split, a Custody Handover Log, Quiet Hours that hold late-night messages until morning, a read-only Child View configurable from age 11, and the wider household surfaces (calendar, lists, budget, home admin) that a separated family still needs alongside the co-parenting workflow.

Haevn is honest about its limits. It is not legal evidence by default. It is not a substitute for mediation or a parenting plan. It is not the right primary fit for active high-conflict court cases. For those, OurFamilyWizard or Talking Parents remain the standard answer, and Haevn can run alongside as the wider household admin layer.

If the household has read this far and is still unsure, here is the short version. The right answer depends on the conflict band today, the likely conflict band over the next two years, and whether the household needs only co-parenting tooling or the wider family operating system as well.

10 May 2026 (initial publication). Verified pricing across all six providers from their public pricing pages. Verified the AppClose paid-model change effective 1 January 2026. Verified OurFamilyWizard and Talking Parents per-parent pricing structure. Verified the OurFamilyWizard acquisition of Cozi (4 May 2022, PR Newswire) and the 2024 Cozi Gold tier change. Verified 2Houses per-parent pricing.

When any provider changes pricing or materially changes a feature listed in the table above, we will update this page and add a dated entry here. If you are reviewing this page and any external link is broken, please email support@haevn.co.uk and we will fix it within five working days.