Most co-parenting apps were built for a courtroom. CoreParent was built for a Tuesday.
If a judge, a mediator, or your ex's attorney handed you a co-parenting app, you know the feeling: it works, technically, but it feels built to be evidence, not to be used. That's not an accident. The incumbents, OurFamilyWizard and TalkingParents, were built first and foremost to satisfy a court: immutable logs, records that hold up, a paper trail for the high-conflict cases that end up in front of a judge.
And credit where it's due: they're good at that. Courts have trusted them for years. If a judge orders one by name, you use it, and we'll even help you keep those records. But here's what we kept hearing from parents:
- "It feels like surveillance."
- "We both have to pay a subscription just to text about pickup."
- "It's clunky and cold, and it makes an already hard thing harder."
We're co-parents. So we built the thing we actually wanted to use.
Built for the day-to-day, not the deposition
Court-mandated tools are optimized for the deposition. CoreParent is optimized for the 360 days a year you're just trying to coordinate a soccer game, split a dentist bill, and not lose your mind. Everything is faster and warmer, built to reduce the number of tense interactions you have rather than document every one for a future fight.
A co-pilot that carries the mental load
Our built-in assistant, CoreParent Companion, reads the surfaces you already use and hands you the next step. "Spring break, March 14–21" buried in a text becomes a one-tap calendar add. A reply that lands a little hot gets a calmer draft before you send. You always confirm; Companion never acts on its own. It's the kind of quiet help the older tools were never built to offer.
It works even if your co-parent won't join
This is the big one. OurFamilyWizard and TalkingParents require both parents to sign up and pay. If your co-parent refuses, and plenty do, the app is dead weight. CoreParent's Bridge lets you use the full app while your co-parent simply receives a normal email, and their replies come back onto your record. It works one-sided. For a lot of parents, that single difference is the reason they can finally use anything at all.
Private by default
Your schedule, your notes, your expenses, none of it is visible to your co-parent unless you choose to share it. You're not handing the other side a window into your whole life. You share exactly what you decide to, and nothing else.
Court-ready when you need it, invisible when you don't
The old tools force a false choice: clinical and court-ready, or pleasant to use. CoreParent is both. Everything stays dated, organized, and exportable, so if you ever need documentation it's already done, but you don't feel like you're on trial every time you write "running ten minutes late."
And it keeps getting better
The incumbents look about the same as they did a decade ago. We ship constantly, and real co-parents shape what we build, the in-app feedback button goes straight to the founders. The version you use six months from now will be meaningfully better than today's. That's the difference between software a company maintains to keep a court contract, and software parents are building because they need it too.
You're not a case number. You're a parent trying to do right by your kids, and you deserve tools that treat you that way. Start free →