About CustodyTrac
CustodyTrac is a free co-parenting app: a shared custody calendar, time-stamped messaging, a transfer log, shared expenses, incident reports, and one-click court-ready PDF exports — for both parents, at no cost. Alongside the app we publish custody calculators, schedule references, and state-by-state parenting-plan guides.
This page explains who is behind that material, how it's researched, and what we will and won't claim.
Why we built it
The established co-parenting apps solve a real problem — a neutral, timestamped record that a court will accept — and then charge each parent a yearly subscription for the privilege. Families are ordered into these tools during the most expensive year of their lives, and the parent who can't afford it becomes the parent without a record.
CustodyTrac was built to remove the paywall from that record. Every feature that produces evidence — messages with per-person read receipts, the transfer log, incident reports, unlimited legal exports — is free for both households, with no premium tier gating the parts that matter in court.
Editorial standards
The rules we hold our own pages to.
Primary sources, not summaries
State pages and calculators are built from each state's own published guideline, statute, or court self-help materials — not from other blogs. Where a figure is an approximation of a published table, we say so on the page rather than implying precision we don't have.
Show the work
Every calculator shows its inputs and the steps between them. If a number changes, you can see which assumption moved it. Tool pages carry a 'How this is calculated' block and a dated review stamp.
No fake authority
We don't invent credentials, testimonials, ratings, or success statistics. We don't claim to be lawyers, and we say plainly that the site is educational rather than legal advice.
Your family's record is yours
The calculators run entirely in your browser — nothing you type into them is sent to us. Inside the app, your custody record belongs to you and your co-parent, and we don't sell it. See the privacy policy for the specifics.
Both parents, one price: nothing
Court-ordered communication tools that charge each parent hundreds a year price out exactly the families that need a shared record most. Free for both parents isn't a promotion — it's the point of the product.
How our calculators are researched
The child support estimator implements four different guideline models because states don't share one. Texas, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Alaska, North Dakota and Nevada apply a percentage of the paying parent's income; Delaware, Hawaii and Montana use the Melson formula; California has its own statutory algebraic formula; the remaining states use income shares. Percentage states and California are implemented from the exact statutory formula. Income-shares states publish long tables of basic obligations, so we store the effective share of combined income those tables produce at typical middle incomes and say on the page that the result is an estimate.
The custody percentage calculator counts overnights across a full repeating cycle, which is the measure most state worksheets use for parenting time. The custody laws index and the state parenting-plan guides draw terminology, parent-education requirements, and filing venue from each state's own court materials.
Each of those pages carries its own review date and source list at the bottom. When a state changes a guideline, the page and its date change together.
Common questions
- Is CustodyTrac legal advice?
- No. CustodyTrac publishes educational information and tools. Nothing on the site is legal advice, and using it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Custody and support outcomes turn on facts a calculator cannot see — have anything that matters reviewed by a family law attorney licensed in your state.
- How accurate are the child support estimates?
- Percentage-of-income states and California are implemented with their exact statutory formulas. Income-shares states use the effective share of combined income that the state's own published schedule of basic obligations produces at typical middle incomes, which tracks the published tables closely. Every result is an estimate for planning, not a court calculation.
- Who reviews the content?
- Every tool and state reference page carries a 'last reviewed' date and a plain-English description of how its figures are derived, along with the primary sources used. When a state changes its guideline or we materially change a page, we bump that date in the same edit.
- Is CustodyTrac really free?
- Yes. The app is free for both parents — shared calendar, messaging, transfer log, expenses, incident reports, and unlimited PDF legal exports. There is no premium tier and no per-parent charge. The calculators and templates need no account at all.
- How do you make money if the app is free?
- CustodyTrac is funded by its parent product work rather than by charging separated families at the worst moment of their lives. We do not sell user data.
Something on a page look wrong, or has your state changed its guideline? Email support@custodytrac.com and we'll check the source and correct it.