Happy HerdThe family board that
fills itself in.
Photograph the soccer flyer. Forward the school email. Say it out loud while your hands are full. Happy Herd turns it into real events, real chores and a real grocery list — on every phone, tablet and the screen on your kitchen wall.
Free forever for the whole family · The Family Plan is $4.99/mo with 7 days free · No card to look around
Already have a family? Open Happy Herd →
From the recipe box · 3 ingredients already on the grocery list
12 of 25 ⭐ · $6.50 earned
Pulled in from the school calendar, the team feed and one photographed flyer.
Photograph the paper
One photo of the season schedule became:
Nothing is saved until you press Add it all.
The carpool text that answers itself
One link into your group text. Whoever taps it first gets it — no app on their end.
The app was never the problem.
Getting things into it was.
Every family calendar works if somebody types everything in. Nobody does. So Happy Herd reads the paper, the email and the group chat for you.
The paper on the counter
A season schedule, a permission slip, a birthday invite. Six dates, a $45 fee and one thing to buy — and none of it will ever be typed in by hand.
The calendar nobody checks
It lives on one parent's phone. The other double-books. The kids have no idea what's happening on Saturday, so they ask you, four times.
The 5pm scramble
Nobody planned. Nothing thawed. The takeout app wins again — and it wins about eighty dollars a week.
One Tuesday, from the inside
Every feature below exists because of a specific moment in a specific kitchen. Here they are in the order they actually happen.
Did you do your reading?
The board answers, so you don't have to
Every kid gets their own lane: their name, their nickname, their avatar and exactly what they owe today. Must-do is marked separately from optional. They tap it done, you approve, and stars and real dollars land on their card.
- Real allowance in dollars and a screen-time bankPLUS
- Reward goals with a bar they can watch fillPLUS
- Streaks, celebrations and a whole-family perfect day
- Six seconds to undo a mis-tap; drag to hand a chore to a sibling
- An evening reminder, so you stop being the reminder
Wait — does Jack have soccer today or tomorrow?
A calendar a nine-year-old can read
Month, week or day, one tap apart. Filter to just Jack before the school run, or tap All and see the whole week. Every event is coloured by whose it is — and the school calendar, the team feed and Google are already in there.
- Subscribe to the school, the team and the district calendar
- Two-way Google Calendar, and publish your family's calendar back out
- Follow a coach's published schedule — changes flow through by themselves
- Correct an imported event once and it's never overwritten again
- Attach the permission slip to the field trip
Calendar Sep 6 – 12
Today ＋A soccer flyer comes home in a backpack. Fourteen dates, one fee, one thing to buy.
Point your camera at the paper. That's the whole workflow.
✦ Magic Add pulls out every date, every "bring this" and every fee — then shows you the list before it saves anything. Repeats become real repeats. Names already on the board get assigned automatically.
- Whole-word matching, so "Sam" never matches "Samantha"
- People who aren't family are noted, never added
- Nothing is written until you press Add it all
- Photos are downscaled on your phone before they're sent
- Works by text, by email forward, and from the share sheet too
You're stuck at work and the game ends at five.
The carpool text that answers itself
Pick what you need — 🚗 pick up, 🚙 drop off, 🧺 bring something, 👀 watch them — and how many people. Happy Herd mints one link and hands it to your group text. Whoever can help taps it, types their first name, and the chip on your event flips to "✅ Sarah" by itself.
- The person helping needs no app, no account and no password
- Two people tap at once? One wins; the other sees "Sarah just got this one"
- Or ask one named neighbour — they reply YES or NO and your board updates
- A number can only be asked once a day, across every family using Happy Herd
- Invite your partner by text: one message, and it never chases
Asked 4 people · 1 of 1 claimed
No app, no account, no password on their end.
Nobody planned. Nothing thawed.
"What's for dinner" — answered on SundayPLUS
Seven rows. Tap one, pick a meal, done. Anything you cook twice goes in the recipe box and drops onto a day in two taps — and its ingredients go straight to the grocery list, live on every phone in the house.
- A whole week planned in about three minutes
- Photograph a recipe card and it reads itself in
- 🛒 Add to Grocery — one tap, live everywhere
- Tonight's dinner shows on the wall display to whoever walks past
I already did that!
A plain-language history — and the wall it lives on
Happy Herd keeps a record of who did what, and when. Not for surveillance — for ending the argument in four seconds instead of four minutes. And it means a kid can prove they did the thing, which turns out to matter a great deal to kids.
- Mount any tablet you already own — there's no hardware to buy
- Everyone's column, tonight's dinner and tomorrow's preview
- Kids can tick a chore; everything else stays behind the parent PIN
- Photo screensaver when nobody's using it
🌷Mom
🐻Dad
🦊Ella
🐢Jack
Not every child can use
the same board
One child needs one-thing-at-a-time. Their sibling wants the whole list. A separate app would make that family choose — so Calm is a mode instead. Each person sees the thing they're on, with the next resting quietly behind it. No counts. Nothing moves on its own.
- The day becomes a sequence, not a wall of twelve
- Events are drawn as blocks sized to how long they last, with "12 min left" counting down
- A quiet "five minutes until we leave" line on the board — no notification permission needed
- The wall tablet becomes a visual schedule that updates itself
- Per device — one child's tablet, not the whole house. One tap back to the full board
Built for autistic and ADHD families. Free on every plan.
One board. Everything on it.
Chores, calendar, meals, lists, rewards and allowance were built as one thing — not five products bolted together.
Chores that stop needing a second reminder
Every kid gets their own lane — what they owe today, what's must-do, and what it's worth. They tap it done, you approve, and stars and real dollars land on their card.
- Must-do chores marked separately from the optional ones
- Time-of-day grouping — morning, after school, evening
- Approvals: a chore a child adds lands pending until a parent says yes
- Pay out and settle up when the bank is fullPLUS
- Focus mode: one thing at a time, with a time ring
Everyone's week, colour-coded by whose it is
Month, week or day. A per-person filter rail across the top. Overlap badges when two things collide. Weather on the day view, so you know before the game.
- Eight one-tap providers, or paste any calendar link
- Publish your family's calendar out — link, QR or one-tap subscribe
- Busy-only mode if you'd rather not show what each event is
- Comment threads on any event — "who's driving?" in one place
- Repeat handling that asks: just this one, or this and future?
Calendar Sep 6 – 12
Today ＋A week of dinners in about three minutes
Seven rows, one tap each. The recipe box holds the ten meals you actually rotate, and every one of them can push its ingredients to the grocery list.
- Photograph a recipe card — several photos of one recipe count as one
- Recipe detail with 🛒 Add to Grocery
- Tonight's dinner appears on the wall display
- Leave days empty on purpose — "tap to plan" is not a nag
Already full by the time you're at the store
Grocery and School stuff are created for you. Everything else is yours. Anyone in the house can add — including the kid who finished the cereal.
- Say "add coffee to the grocery list" without unlocking your phone
- Magic Add drops "bring shin guards" onto School stuff by itself
- Recipe ingredients added in one tap
- Check-off syncs in seconds — nobody buys milk twice
A flyer in, a week of plans out
Every event and every "to buy or bring" arrives pre-ticked on a confirm sheet. Untick anything. Nothing is written to your board until you press the button.
- A name the parse found that isn't on your board gets a "＋ Add" button
- Items to buy or bring go to a School stuff list, created if needed
- An .ics file is parsed on your device — no AI call, and it can't hallucinate
- One free read every week, forever, even on the free plan
Nobody has time to type it in
So there are six rails onto the board — and they all land on the same confirm sheet you tick before anything is saved.
The camera
Photograph a flyer, a season schedule, a recipe card or a permission slip.
Your voice
Tap the mic and say it. On the free plan — no PIN, no upgrade, no setup.
"Add feed the dog for Ella, every day."
Siri
Without unlocking your phone or opening the app. iPhone only.
"Hey Siri, what's on today in Happy Herd?"
The share sheet
An email, a PDF, an .ics a coach sent, a WhatsApp thread. Shared while signed out? It's queued, not lost.
A private email address
Forward the school newsletter to your family's own address and the dates land on the board.
A text messagePLUS
Text the assistant like you'd text your partner — including a photo of a flyer.
Built for the kitchen wall,
not squeezed onto it
This started as a tablet in a Pennsylvania kitchen. Mount any tablet you already own, join with your family code, and the board becomes readable from across the room by a nine-year-old holding a bowl of cereal.
- Everyone's column, tonight's dinner and tomorrow's preview at a glance
- Kids can tick a chore; everything else stays behind the parent PIN
- The screen stays awake and returns to the board by itself
- Photo screensaver when nobody's using it
- On the free plan. There is no hardware to buy.
🌷Mom
🐻Dad
🦊Ella
🐢Jack
Six themes. Set once, changes every screen in the house.
A household setting, not a per-device preference — so the board feels like your family's board and not a spreadsheet with a logo on it. Nobody else in this market offers this at all.
❄️ Snow in December · 🍂 Drifting leaves in October · ✨ Fireflies on summer evenings — on by default, off in one tap.
without typing
on one plan
have to create
for the wall display
Set up in about four minutes
No accounts for the kids, no email addresses, no logins to distribute. Here's the whole thing.
Take one photo
Point the camera at a family photo and Happy Herd suggests everyone's card. Or type the names — about a minute either way.
Say whose device this is
Tap your own face. That's how the right phone buzzes for the right person.
Add one chore
The guided tour walks you through it. One chore is enough to see the whole loop work.
Point it at the school
Paste the school or team calendar link — or forward the newsletter to your family's private address.
Hand out the code
Six characters. Kids and your partner join on their own devices. Mount a tablet and you're done.
Free is not a demo.
The board, the calendar, the lists, voice, the wall display and all six themes are free for your whole family, forever — with no ads and no trackers. The Family Plan adds the paid half.
Free
Everything a family needs to stop double-booking.
- Chores, must-do badges, approvals & streaks
- Full calendar — month, week & day
- School, sports & Google calendar sync
- Publish your family calendar out
- Unlimited lists, live on every device
- Voice add & Siri
- Wall display & photo screensaver
- All six themes & seasonal ambience
- Carpool asks & ask-a-neighbour texts
- Event comment threads & family history
- One ✦ Magic read a week, forever
- Rewards & real allowance
- Meals & recipe box
- Smart Assistant
Happy Herd Family Plan
7 days free, then $4.99 a month. Whole family, every device.
- Everything in Free
- Rewards & real allowance — stars, dollars, screen-time banks, goal bars and settle-up
- Meal planning & the recipe box — with photo recipe capture
- Unlimited ✦ Magic Add — flyers, emails, PDFs, screenshots
- The Smart Assistant by text — morning brief, add-by-SMS, Friday wrap-up
- Up to 10 family profiles
- Support answered by a human
Same job. Very different shape.
Public prices as of August 2026. Check them yourself — we'd rather you did.
| Feature | Happy Herd | Cozi | FamilyWall | Skylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paid plan | $4.99/mo | Gold $39/yr · Max $79/yr | $4.99/mo · $44.99/yr | Display, then $79/yr |
| Ads on the free plan | Never | Yes | No | n/a |
| Hardware to buy | None | None | None | Their screen |
| Real allowance banking | Money + screen-time banks | No | No | Rewards, no banking |
| Photograph a flyer → real events | Yes — plus fees & supply lists | Max tier only | No | Yes |
| Google Calendar sync | Free plan, two-way | Yes | Premium only | Yes |
| Carpool claim links | Yes — helper needs no app | No | No | No |
| One-at-a-time mode with duration & transitions | Yes — free | No | No | No |
| Whole-family themes | Six, synced to every screen | No | No | Limited |
| Wall display on a tablet you own | Yes, on the free plan | No | No | Their screen only |
| Kids need accounts | No — a six-character code | Shared login | Accounts | Shared device |
| Assistant that texts you | Included in the Family Plan | No | No | No |
Three things worth checking for yourself
"I photographed the entire soccer season in the pickup line. Fourteen events, the team fee and 'bring orange slices' — all of it, before the light changed."
Placeholder — replace with a real review at launch"The tablet on our wall ended the 'I already did that!' argument. She can prove it, which turns out to matter a great deal to a nine-year-old."
Placeholder — replace with a real review at launch"My husband didn't install anything. He replied YES to a text and now his name is on the school pickup. That was the whole onboarding for him."
Placeholder — replace with a real review at launchI built this for my own kitchen first.
Happy Herd started as a tablet on a wall in Pennsylvania, because the family calendar we were using needed somebody to type everything into it and that somebody was always me. Every feature on this site exists because of a specific evening that went badly.
There's no growth team here and no ad network. When you email support, I answer. If something's broken, tell me and I'll fix it — that's the whole arrangement.
Asked by people as skeptical as you
Do my kids need accounts or email addresses?
No. Kids exist only as profiles — a first name, a nickname and an avatar — created and controlled by a parent. They join on their device with your six-character family code. No accounts, no email, no passwords, no social features, and nobody outside your household can see anything.
What's actually free, and what costs $4.99?
Free covers the board, chores and approvals, the full calendar including school and Google sync, unlimited lists, voice and Siri, the wall display, all six themes, carpool asks, event threads, history and one ✦ Magic read every week — with no ads.
The Family Plan adds rewards and real allowance, meal planning and the recipe box, unlimited Magic Add, and the Smart Assistant that texts you.
Is it per device or per family?
Per family. One subscription covers up to 10 profiles across every iPhone, iPad, Android device and the tablet on your wall.
Does it work on a wall-mounted tablet?
Yes — that's how it started. Mount any tablet you already own, join with your family code, and it becomes your kitchen command center, with a photo screensaver when idle. It's on the free plan; there's no hardware to buy.
What happens to the photos I take of flyers?
They're downscaled on your phone before they're sent, read once to pull out the dates, and shown to you on a confirm sheet before anything is written to your board. People named in the flyer who aren't in your family — a coach, another parent — are noted and can never be added as members.
What happens to my family's data?
It stays yours. No ads, no trackers, no selling, no advertising profiles. You can download everything your family has, and delete the whole household, from Settings. The full policy is a two-minute read.
If I stop paying, do I lose everything?
No. You drop back to the free plan and keep the board, the calendar, the lists and your history. Rewards, meals and the recipe box go quiet until you come back — nothing is deleted.
What if something breaks?
You email and a person answers — there's no ticket queue and no bot. hello@happyherd.app.
Be there on day one.
Get an email the moment Happy Herd is live — nothing else, ever. Nothing for the rest of your family to install: you'll hand them a six-character code.
Free forever for the whole family · The Family Plan is $4.99/mo with 7 days free · Nothing for the rest of your family to install