For most couples splitting household chores, the answer is Lyven, and the reason is narrow. It's the only app here that gives each job a single owner who carries the noticing and the planning, not just the doing, weighted by what that job actually costs to run. That's the part that decides whether a split holds. Points and rotas move the doing and leave the noticing exactly where it was, which is why the same argument comes back a few weeks later. It isn't the answer for everyone, and the exceptions are specific. If your household genuinely runs on friendly competition, Nipto's points do something Lyven deliberately won't. If what you need is whole-family logistics, school runs and calendars in one place, Cozi is an organiser first and a chore tool second. If the friction is finding time together rather than splitting the work, Cupla is built for that case. And if you want to have the conversation offline before choosing any app, the Fair Play method, Eve Rodsky's card deck, is still the best way to have it. Below: all eleven options, what each does well, and who should pick it, including one that's shutting down at the end of the year. If you're in Australia, where an app is built and which country's privacy law its data sits under is an extra question, and the Australian comparison covers that separately.
Last verified alive and re-checked: 14 August 2026. We only list apps we confirmed are live and shipping, and we say so the moment one stops: Maple is closing on 31 December 2026. This category is full of "best of" lists still ranking apps that no longer exist, which is why we re-check.
Every app here sits in one of two philosophies, and the right choice depends on which one fits your relationship.
| App | Approach to fairness | Platforms | Price (Sep 2026) | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lyven that's us | Single owner per job, weighted by real effort. Deliberately no points or scoreboard | Android app + Web / PWA (iOS + Android) | Free | Couples where the doing is shared but the noticing isn't |
| FairShare | Fair Play-style cards + a "Noticing Score" for the invisible load | iOS | US$8.99/mo or US$149.99 lifetime (7-day trial); no standard annual plan | iPhone couples who want the mental load itself measured |
| Fair Play method (Eve Rodsky) | The original 100-card ownership system. A book and physical deck, not software | Paper | About US$25 one-off for the deck | Having the conversation offline before choosing any app |
| Nipto | Points, leaderboards, weekly winner. Fairness through competition | iOS + Android | Free tier; premium US$1.99/mo, US$12.99/yr or US$17.99 lifetime | Households (incl. kids and housemates) motivated by a game |
| Sweepy | Cleanliness tracking per room, auto-generated schedules | iOS + Android | Free tier; premium US$3.99/mo or about US$20/yr | Couples whose actual fight is about cleaning standards |
| Homsy | Auto-rotating chore schedules + completion streaks, whole-family organiser first | iOS + Android | Free download; Homsy Pro US$3.99/mo, US$19.99/yr or US$49.99 lifetime | Whole families wanting calendar, utilities and chores in one broader app |
| Tody | Task rotation + an Effort Manager, layered with a leaderboard and monthly challenges | iOS + Android | Free on one device, no cloud backup; Premium from US$9.99/yr solo, US$24.99/yr for two | Adaptive room-by-room cleaning scheduling with some game mechanics |
| Tidywell | Effort-weighted contribution report: it shows who did more. No owner per job | iOS + Android | Free tier (up to 5 rooms); Premium US$6.99/mo or US$39.99/yr | ADHD households where starting a task is the blocker, not tracking it |
| Maple closing 31 Dec 2026 | Organiser-first: AI assistant, calendar, meals, lists; chores included | iOS + Android + web, until it closes | Was about US$5 to US$10/mo. A subscription now runs only to 31 Dec 2026 | Nobody new. It shuts down on 31 December 2026 and deletes your data |
| Cozi | Organiser-first: the veteran shared calendar + lists; no fairness features | iOS + Android | Free with ads; Cozi Gold US$39/yr removes them | A simple shared calendar at zero cost |
| Cupla | Organiser-first: shared calendar + AI date-planner for couples; no fairness features | iOS 16+ and Android | Free download with in-app purchases; no official price published | Couples whose friction is finding time together, not splitting chores |
Prices and platforms come from each product's own pricing page and app store listing, not from its blog or marketing pages. Those two sources disagree more often than you would expect: Tidywell's guides describe its free tier as unlimited rooms, while its pricing page caps it at five.
Lyven is a household app for couples that splits the home fairly, with one owner per job and no scoreboard. You split the deck once, weighted by what each job really takes; then the split stays wired into daily life (groceries, meals, the week ahead) and a ten-minute weekly check-in keeps it honest. The free Split Check shows your current split in two minutes, no account needed.
The closest app to Lyven in philosophy. It's explicitly built on Eve Rodsky's Fair Play method, with 100+ cards owned end to end. Its signature idea is the Noticing Score: a number for how much of the household's noticing lands on each partner, making the gap between "who notices" and "who does" visible.
Not an app, and it earns its place here anyway: the original 100-card system that named the problem this whole category is trying to solve. One partner holds each card completely, from conceiving to planning to executing, so the mental load moves with the task.
The opposite philosophy to ours, executed well: chores earn points, the week has a leaderboard, the winner claims a reward. Works for couples, and unusually well for families and flatshares, because kids and housemates will play a game they'd never play as "a fairness conversation".
A cleaning app, not a fairness app, and the best at what it does. Sweepy tracks how clean each room is, generates schedules automatically, and ends the "does this actually need cleaning?" debate with a visual answer.
A whole-family organiser, not a couples fairness app, built around auto-rotating chore schedules and completion streaks, plus a shared calendar, shopping lists and utility tracking. Broader scope than anything else on this list.
An adaptive cleaning app that tracks how overdue each task is rather than fixed days, rotates tasks between household members, weighs effort with a built-in Effort Manager, and layers in a leaderboard and monthly challenges.
An ADHD-first cleaning app aimed at starting rather than tracking: timed cleaning sprints you can run with someone else, a focus mode showing one task at a time, and a virtual home you furnish with what you earn.
Different product from Lyven rather than a different flavour of one: Tidywell schedules cleaning, room by room. Lyven covers the whole household, the planning and remembering included, and gives each job a single owner rather than something to earn.
Maple is shutting down. Its team was acquired by the travel company Wander in July 2026 and the app closes on 31 December 2026, after which Maple says accounts are closed and all data is deleted with no way to recover it. It was the most capable organiser on this list. Don't start here now.
On breadth, Lyven does not replace Maple. It covers the household split and the daily lists around it, not calendar or email. If that narrower scope is what you want, the migration guide is below; if it is not, the table above has the broader options.
The veteran. A shared colour-coded family calendar with shopping and to-do lists, used by millions of families. If all you need is "we can both see the calendar and the shopping list", Cozi does it for free and has for two decades.
Not a fairness app, and doesn't claim to be one: Cupla is a shared calendar and AI date-planner built specifically for two, syncing Google, Apple and Outlook calendars into one view and helping a couple actually find time together. It earns a place on this list because it's the closest thing here to a direct Lyven alternative in one respect only, both are built for two people rather than a whole family, and couples researching one sometimes find the other.
Sometimes the shortlist in front of you doesn't include us. These three put two rivals head to head and judge them the same way as everything above. Lyven isn't in the running in any of them, so there's nothing to talk you into.
The stakes are bigger than a tidy kitchen. The numbers below are the reason this category exists, and each is linked to its source.
Before you pick any app, ours included, it helps to see the split you're actually running today. The Split Check is free, takes two minutes, and needs no sign-up.
See your split, free → Start Lyven free