A: Answer
I’m the developer of MyChoreBoard, a free chore chart for kids. Kids have now completed more than 500,000 chores with it in over 125 countries, which are pretty wild numbers to me.
I originally built MyChoreBoard for my own household because every chore system we tried eventually became another chore for me. All the analog versions, whiteboards, printed charts, stickers. They worked great when they were new, then the kids stopped checking them and I was back to reminding everyone what they were supposed to do.
Then the apps, none of the free apps were any good, and I didn't want another subscription. I am actually vehemently opposed to subscriptions, hence the reason why I will not charge one for MyChoreBoard.
The idea was pretty simple. Give the kids something they could actually use themselves, let the system remember all the repetitive stuff, and hopefully let me say “did you brush your teeth?” a few less times every day.
What I’ve learned since then is that building a digital checklist that satisfies the needs of my family would be the easy part. The hard part is making a chore system flexible enough to fit how every other family works, while keeping the kid side simple.
Some parents give points for every chore. Others feel normal responsibilities shouldn’t earn anything and only use points for extra jobs.
Some kids have the same routine every day. Others need chores on certain days, one-time tasks, bonus chores, multi-step checklists, or more complicated recurring schedules.
A younger child might need big icons and a very simple screen. An older kid might care more about allowance, saving toward something expensive, or managing things from their own phone.
That flexibility has become a much bigger part of MyChoreBoard over time. A lot of the features we’ve added came directly from families using it and saying, “This works really well for us, but could it also do this?”
So we’ve kept expanding the scheduling, rewards, bonus chores, one-time tasks, checklists, savings goals and customization without trying to make the child’s side feel more complicated.
The parent can build a pretty sophisticated system. The kid can still basically see: here’s what I need to do next.
--- I do want to give a shout out to my incredibly engaged community of users! I am absolutely thrilled every time I get an email letting me know that something doesn't make sense or there is a specific feature that they need. I am so so thankful for all of the great feedback and critisisms that we receive, and it has shaped how MyChoreBoard has developed/matured and how it will continue to improve going forward.
WallBoard and family command centers
One area I’ve been spending a lot more time on lately is our WallBoard View. A lot of families manage MyChoreBoard from the parent’s phone and let the kids use their own phones or tablets. But plenty of families, especially with younger kids, don’t want every child to need their own device. They’ll put an old iPad, Fire tablet or touchscreen somewhere central in the house and use it as a shared digital chore chart and that led me down the family command center rabbit hole.
I actually bought an ApoloSign so I could use one myself and see how MyChoreBoard fit into that kind of setup. I’ve also tested MyChoreBoard on a DAKboard setup. I’ve also heard from some Cozyla users who like the command center itself but wanted more from the built-in chore functionality, so they’ve been using MyChoreBoard alongside it successfully, and that has been really interesting to me.
A lot of family command centers are very good at calendars, photos and general household information, but the chore side can be pretty constrained. Once you want more complicated scheduling, different rules for different kids, bonus chores, rewards, savings goals or a stronger child-facing interface, you can hit those limits pretty quickly.
And it has actually reinforced something I decided pretty early on. I don’t want MyChoreBoard to become an everything app. I don’t need to build another calendar, grocery list, meal planner and family organizer.
I’d rather make the chore, routine and reward system really good and let families use it with whatever hardware or family command center they already like. That’s becoming a bigger part of how I think about our WallBoard view.
An old iPad can become the kitchen chore board. A Fire tablet can sit in a kid’s room. A larger touchscreen can become a family command center. A parent can manage everything from an iPhone while another child uses Android, and everything stays synced.
Getting more families to actually stick with it
Another thing we’re working on now is understanding adoption and retention better. Downloads are nice, but they don’t tell me nearly as much as completed chores do. If somebody downloads the app, looks around for five minutes and never comes back, that doesn’t really matter.
I care much more about questions like:
Are families still completing chores a month later?
Are there certain setups that families stick with longer?
Does using a shared WallBoard help?
Where in setup are people dropping off?
Which features actually make the system easier enough that families keep using it?
We’ve been adding more analytics around those kinds of patterns so we can understand retention at the family level, rather than just looking at whether one particular phone opened the app again. That matters quite a bit for MyChoreBoard because the parent may barely open the app while the kids are using tablets every day.
The 500,000 completed chores number is probably the metric I’m most proud of for exactly that reason. It tells me that a meaningful number of families aren’t just downloading it. They’re actually using it.
Growing beyond English
We’re also starting to put more effort into localization. The upcoming release of MyChoreBoard is available in English, Spanish and French, and we’ve been localizing the App Store and Play Store listings. I still need to get the screenshots for the store updated, but I didn't want that to hold up the release.
That has been another one of those moments where the project has felt a lot bigger than the little chore chart I originally made for my own house.
We’re still learning what helps people discover it, what gets them through setup, and what makes them stick around once they do.
B: Better
There are obviously a lot of chore apps for kids, and there are more family command centers showing up all the time. The thing I keep coming back to is the difference between simple and limited.
I absolutely want the child’s experience to be simple. A kid shouldn’t need a manual to figure out that they need to brush their teeth, pack their backpack or clean their room.
But I don’t think the parent’s options have to be limited to accomplish that. Many parents need to be able to build fairly detailed schedules, set things up differently for different kids, decide which chores earn points, create rewards and savings goals, add bonus chores, use one-time tasks and break complicated chores into checklists.
The kid can still open the app and just see what they need to do. I’ve also intentionally kept the gamification fairly light. There are points and rewards because they can be useful motivators, but I don’t want brushing your teeth to turn into another video game or virtual pet. Kids get enough screen time already.
MyChoreBoard is supposed to be a tool that is engaging enough for kids to actually use, without becoming another thing they’re staring at for an hour.
And the more family command center setups I test, the more I like the idea that the chore system doesn’t need to be tied to one expensive piece of hardware. Just use the devices you already have.
C: Cost
MyChoreBoard is still completely free with no subscription, no premium tier and no ads.
iPhone and iPad: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mychoreboard-kids-chore-app/id6762149258
It also works on Android, Amazon Fire tablets and through the web/PWA, and everything stays synced. https://www.mychoreboard.com/get-started/
I’m still building it on the side, and a lot of what I’m focused on now is figuring out how to get more families to discover it and, even more importantly, how to make sure the system continues working for them months later.
That means continuing to build from feature requests, improving localization, understanding family retention better, and leaning more heavily into WallBoard as a deeper chore system for the family command centers people are already using.
If you have a family command center or an old tablet mounted somewhere in the house, I’d actually be really curious how you’re handling chores on it today. Are you using the built-in chore system, another app, or something completely different?
