What 2Houses is built for
2Houses originated in Belgium and has the longest European market history of any co-parenting app. The product covers a shared calendar, expense tracking with detailed categorization, a daily journal for documenting child events across households, an information section for medical and school records, and a messaging channel. The design philosophy sits between amicable and high-conflict, documentation when needed, without the litigation-first framing of OurFamilyWizard or TalkingParents. The app has a substantial user base across Western Europe and a smaller US footprint. European courts and mediators in several countries have experience with the platform.
What 2Houses does well
2Houses does documentation breadth better than most co-parenting apps. The daily journal feature is genuinely useful for families who want a shared record of children's daily experiences across both households, school events, medical appointments, developmental milestones. The expense categorization is detailed enough for contested situations: receipts can be attached, and categories can be mapped to parenting-plan line items. The information bank for medical providers, school contacts, and insurance details is organized for shared access by both parents rather than just one parent's reference. For comprehensive record-keeping outside of litigation, 2Houses is a credible option.
Where 2Houses is thin
2Houses calendar is event-based, it does not have an overnight-aware proportional view that shows actual custody time distribution across a month or year. The US user base is substantially smaller than AppClose, OurFamilyWizard, or TalkingParents, which limits community resources and attorney familiarity for US families. Blended-family support is not a design priority: step-parents and additional caregivers have no defined household role with differentiated access. The interface has a functional-but-utilitarian quality that does not match the polish expectations of US mobile-app users accustomed to current consumer software standards.
Pricing reality
2Houses charges €4.99 per month per parent, approximately $5.40 at current exchange rates. A co-parenting pair on 2Houses pays approximately €120 per year combined, or roughly $130 at current rates. The per-parent billing model treats each parent as an independent customer on a separate European-market invoice. Currency conversion adds friction for US families paying in euros. Annual billing is available but still per-parent. For US co-parenting pairs comparing on-paper costs, 2Houses at ~$130/year combined is more expensive than a single-family subscription covering both parents.
Which family fits which app
2Houses is the right choice for families that need comprehensive documentation across many categories, families with European legal involvement where 2Houses has court and mediator familiarity, and families that use the daily journal as a meaningful shared record rather than a nice-to-have feature. Families where the journal and broad documentation breadth are actively used will find 2Houses justifies its per-parent cost. Families that want focused calendar-first visualization, single-subscription pricing, and household support for step-parents and grandparents have a different set of priorities that 2Houses was not designed around.
How CoFam approaches the same problems
CoFam covers the core 2Houses use case, shared calendar, expense tracking, communication, but with overnight-aware custody visualization and a household model that explicitly names step-parents and grandparents as members. Expense reimbursements run on tap-to-pay category rules rather than itemized monthly reconciliation. CoFam does not have a daily journal feature; families that need comprehensive cross-household journaling may prefer 2Houses for that dimension, or use a journaling tool alongside CoFam. CoFam charges $7.99/month or $79/year, one subscription covers the whole family, and the other parent is permanently free.
See how CoFam's pricing actually works → CoFam pricing