Help

A little help along the way.

Every question families ask, a knowledge base covering every part of the app, and a form that reaches one of the three of us, screenshot and all.

Good questions

The things families ask.

Grouped by topic. Open one and the others in its group close, so the page stays readable.

Getting started

Where do I start?

Choose “Start your flock” to open the app. Create an account, set up your household and start with one small thing: the calendar, a task or the shopping list. Home explains what each area is for, so nobody has to guess.

Does it work on a phone, a tablet and a computer?

Yes. Open the web app on whichever you have to hand. The layout adapts to the screen, and your household keeps the same shared plans, lists and Vault on every one of them.

Do children need their own account?

No. A child gets a profile, their own duck and jobs to claim without a login or an email address. When they are older you can invite them to sign in, and their whole history of claimed chores comes with them.

How do I invite the other grown-up?

From Your flock, add them with “Their own login” and the app sends a link that works for thirty days. The link opens a page in their browser that asks one real question about the household first, so they see what the app is for before they are asked to make an account. There is no account wall in front of it.

Can a grandparent be on the calendar without seeing everything?

Yes. Add them as a family member rather than a grown-up. A family member sees the calendar and the chat and is on the lists, and never opens the documents, receipts or passwords.

Price and billing

What does Ducks in a Row cost?

Fourteen days free, with nothing held back, then $4.99 CAD a month or $45.99 CAD a year. That is one subscription for your whole household and every feature in the app: there is no higher tier and nothing kept back to sell you later. Cancel any time in a couple of taps.

Does everybody in the family pay?

No. One grown-up subscribes and the whole flock is covered: the other grown-up, every child, and an extended member like a grandparent on the calendar. There is no price per person and no seat to count, so adding somebody never changes what you pay.

Are there ads or things to buy inside the app?

No ads, no pop-ups trying to sell you something, and nothing a child can be charged for. Duck Bucks are earned by doing jobs, never bought, and there are no loot boxes, no randomised rewards and no paid advantages in the arcade. We email you about your account and nothing else.

What happens when the fourteen days end?

Nothing is taken away quietly. The trial is the whole app, and at the end of it the household picks the monthly or the yearly plan to carry on. One grown-up subscribes for everybody; the children and any family members never see a payment screen.

Can I cancel?

Yes, in a couple of taps, and the app never argues with you about it. There is no cancellation call, no countdown and no “are you sure” maze.

Jobs, chores and Duck Bucks

What does “up for grabs” mean?

A job without an owner is up for grabs, and anyone in the flock can choose “I’ll do it” to take it on. A grown-up can also put a job straight on someone’s list. The app never scolds: there is no “overdue” and no “you failed to”.

How do repeating chores work?

Set a chore to repeat, daily, weekly or on the days you choose, and it comes back on its own. A repeating chore is ticked off on the day it is for, in your household’s time zone. If a day is missed, that one quietly closes and the next takes its place, with no nagging.

What are Duck Bucks?

A grown-up can make a job worth one to ten Duck Bucks, and whoever finishes it collects them. They are spent in the duck builder on hats, glasses and the like; every colour is free. Duck Bucks are earned, never bought, and there is nothing to purchase anywhere a child can reach. If you like, a grown-up can turn on the Exchange and say what Duck Bucks are worth at home; the app keeps a note of what you agreed and never moves any money.

Why will the app not let me tick off tomorrow’s chore tonight?

A repeating chore is ticked off on the day it is for, in your household’s own time zone, and there is no override for anybody, grown-ups included. Ticking it early would mint the next one a day early and the chore would drift. The day, not the time: “before school” can be due at 6 p.m. and ticked at seven in the morning. One-off jobs are not affected.

What happens to a chore nobody did?

It closes unpaid at the end of its own day and the next one takes its place. Nothing says “missed” or “overdue”; unpaid is the whole of it.

Can I take back a tick?

Yes. Untick a job and it goes back on the list, and the Duck Bucks it paid go back with it. On the earnings grid the day is shown as if it never earned them, rather than as a minus.

Your flock and the other home

How does co-parenting work?

Two homes each keep their own household, then link them. Sharing is chosen one event at a time: an event you mark as shared appears in the other home’s calendar, and nothing else does. Tasks, lists and Duck Bucks stay home. Documents, receipts and private notes are never shared across a link. Either home’s grown-ups can pause or end the link at any time.

Who can see the family’s documents and receipts?

Grown-ups. Documents, receipts and member settings are for the adults in the household; a child or teen sees their own jobs, the calendar, the lists and the chat. An extended member such as a grandparent can be on the calendar without opening the family’s papers.

Can two ducks be the same colour?

Yes. Colours are free and are not unique, so two people in one house can both be teal; the builder only mentions who else has it. What makes a duck yours is the whole look, and every row, bubble and leaderboard entry draws it.

Can a child play the arcade?

Any member with a login can play as their own duck, and a grown-up can switch the arcade off for a child at any time. A profile without a login cannot play, and nobody can play as somebody else’s duck, even on a shared device.

The Vault, capture and the Mailbox

What can we keep in the Vault?

Artwork, documents, receipts, photos and passwords. A photographed drawing is filed under the child who made it, on the day the photo was taken. A photographed page is straightened and cleaned up like a scan, and a receipt is read so every item on it is tracked. A password entry holds what it is for, the login address, the username and the password, and is searchable; a grown-up chooses which passwords the children can see, one at a time. Everything is encrypted on its way to us and while it sits with us, and saved passwords are encrypted again on top of that, with the key kept outside the database. The full picture is in the privacy policy at my.ducksinarow.app/privacy.

What is the Mailbox?

Your flock gets its own unique email address. Forward a school notice, an appointment reminder or a team schedule to it, and the dates and details are pulled out for a grown-up to approve and add to the family calendar. Anyone in the flock can forward to it; the address itself is what keeps it private.

Who reads a receipt when I photograph it?

A receipt or a document is read on the way in by an AI service, which is how the merchant, total, date and the items are filled in for you. Only receipts and documents are read; artwork and photos are kept exactly as they are. The privacy policy at my.ducksinarow.app/privacy names the service and says what it is sent.

Is the Mailbox address private?

The address is what keeps it private: anyone who has it can forward to it, so keep it to the family and never post it anywhere public. If it gets out, a grown-up can ask us for a new one.

Privacy, your data and your account

Where is our information kept, and can we delete it?

In a Canadian region, with the database, sign-in and uploaded files hosted by Supabase. There are no advertisers and nothing is sold. You can delete your account from the menu and it happens straight away; a grown-up deletes a child’s. The privacy policy at my.ducksinarow.app/privacy says exactly what is collected and why, and hello@ducksinarow.app answers questions about it.

Does the app track us or sell anything?

No. There is no analytics or tracking of any kind in the app, no advertisers, and nothing is sold. What we keep, we keep to run the app for your household, and the privacy policy lists every piece of it.

Is it end-to-end encrypted?

No, and we say so rather than imply it. Everything is encrypted on its way to us and while it sits with us, and saved passwords are encrypted again on top of that with a key kept outside the database. We hold the keys, which is what lets a receipt be read and a document be searched. The privacy policy explains what that means for you.

How do I delete my account?

From the menu behind your duck, straight away. A grown-up deletes a child’s. The last grown-up who can sign in takes the whole household with them, so the app asks first, and if something in the tidying up does not finish it tells you and a person clears it.

Where can I get more help?

The help page has a knowledge base covering every part of the app, and a form where you can describe what happened and attach a screenshot. Or email hello@ducksinarow.app. Please do not include passwords or private family documents.

Knowledge base

How every part of it works.

Every module of the app, what it is for, how it works and the rules it keeps, written from the app itself rather than from what a family organizer usually does.

Getting started

Your account, your household and the people in it.

Your account and your household

One grown-up makes an account and a household; everyone else is added to it.

Ducks in a Row is a web app. Open my.ducksinarow.app on a phone, a tablet or a computer, create an account with an email address and a password, and set up your household: a name for the flock, your own name and birthday if you like, and a duck.

The household is the unit everything belongs to. Plans, jobs, lists, meals, the Vault and the chat are the household’s, and every member you add sees the parts their role allows. You can be in more than one household, for instance your own and a linked co-parent home, and the app keeps them apart.

The app fits the screen it is on. On a phone it is a five-tab app with Home, Today, Calendar, Lists and More; on a computer the same screens have room to breathe. Nothing is phone-only except taking a photo with the camera, and even that accepts a file you already have.

1
Create the account
An email address and a password. A confirmation email arrives from hello@ducksinarow.app; the link in it brings you back signed in.
2
Name the flock
The household’s name is what appears on the flock portrait and in the other home’s calendar if you ever link one.
3
Add your people
Children need no login. A second grown-up gets an invite link. Everyone gets a duck.

Grown-ups, children and family members

Three kinds of member, and what each can do.

A household has three kinds of member. Grown-ups run the house: they add people, hand out jobs, set what things are worth, open the documents and receipts, keep the passwords, and change anyone’s name, birthday or role. The person who made the household is its owner, which is a grown-up who cannot be demoted or removed by another grown-up.

Children are full members with no permissions to manage anything. A child claims and finishes jobs, reads the calendar, uses the lists and the chat, builds their duck and plays the arcade. A child does not see the Mailbox tile or the documents, and cannot add a calendar event: the app says “This one is for the grown-ups” rather than showing a button that fails.

Family members are the grandparent or the aunt who wants the calendar but not the paperwork: on the calendar and in the chat, never in the documents, receipts or passwords.

These rules are enforced in the database, not only on the screen, so a role means the same thing on every device and in every version of the app.

Good to know

Only a grown-up edits a member; a child cannot rename themselves or change their birthday
The owner is never reassigned or demoted
A birthday can be cleared but never set in the future

The Your flock page

Children without logins

A child is on the lists the minute you add them. A login is a separate, optional step.

Add a child with a name, a duck colour and a birthday if you like, and they are in the flock: they can be given jobs, they appear on the calendar, their artwork is filed under them, and their Duck Bucks accrue to them. No email address, no password, nothing for a small child to remember.

A grown-up ticks off jobs for a child who has no login, and the Duck Bucks land in the child’s wallet all the same.

When they are older, invite them to sign in from their row on Your flock. Their whole history of claimed chores, earnings and books comes with them, because it was always theirs.

The Your flock page

Inviting the other grown-up

A link that lasts thirty days, and a page that asks one real question before anything else.

From Your flock, add the person and choose “Their own login”. The app makes a link that works for thirty days; send it however you like, most often by text message. Sending a new one replaces the old, so two links cannot both work.

The link opens a page in their browser that asks one real question about the household, so they see what the app is for before they are asked to make an account. That is the whole design: the most common way a family app fails is that the second grown-up never signs up, so nothing stands in front of them.

If they close the page, the link still works until it expires, and the app brings them back to the same invite when they return.

The Your flock page

Phones, tablets and computers

One app, on whatever is to hand.

The web app runs in the browser on any phone, tablet or computer, and the layout adapts to the screen. Your household keeps the same plans, lists and Vault on every one of them, so a grown-up can plan the week on a laptop and a child can tick off a chore on a tablet.

On a phone, add it to the home screen from the browser’s share menu and it opens like an app. Taking a photo uses the phone’s camera; on a computer, choose a photo or a PDF you already have instead.

Some things print, and only from a browser: the reading log, for one. The phone says so and leaves it at that.

The everyday screens

Home, Today and the calendar: the three screens a family opens most.

Home

The landing page, with a tile for every part of the app and a sentence saying what each is for.

Home greets you by name and lays the app out as tiles: Today, the calendar, jobs, lists, meals, the Vault, the flock, chat, books, the arcade and the rest. Every tile carries a sentence saying what it is for, never a name alone, so nobody has to guess what a word like “Vault” means.

Two shortcuts sit in the header: the bell, which counts what has happened on the family board since you last looked, and the chat, which counts unread messages. Both carry a live number; nothing else is allowed up there.

Your duck in the header opens your profile: your name, your birthday, your duck, your Duck Bucks and, on your own profile, the way to the duck builder, the privacy policy, deleting your account and signing out.

Home never opens with how many things are left to do. That is a telling-off in a friendly font, and the app does not do it.

Today

The day on one screen: plans, meals and every open job.

Today shows the weekday and the date, up to two events from the calendar, whatever is on the meal planner for the day, and every open to-do in the house grouped by the person doing it, with the jobs nobody has claimed first. A filter shows everyone, only yours, or only what is up for grabs.

A tick moves a job to Completed today, with an undo beside it in case the tick was a slip. Anyone can take an up-for-grabs job with “I’ll do it” right from this screen. Nothing is hidden behind a cap: every open job is listed.

The day and its times are the household’s, not the phone’s. A parent travelling in another time zone does not move the family’s Thursday.

The Today page

The shared calendar

Week and month views, who is going, repeats, and dates that arrive on their own.

Add an event with what is happening, where, when it starts and for how long: a duration, an end time, or all day. A camp or a trip can run over several days. Tap the members who are going. Each event wears a colour of its own, so a colour means the event, not a person.

Week view shows a full day from midnight to midnight with the waking hours standing tall and a line where now is. Month view shows the month with the chosen day’s events listed underneath.

A birthday on somebody’s profile appears on the calendar by itself. A child’s says “Anya turns 11”; a grown-up’s says “Amanda’s birthday”. A birthday is changed where it lives, on the person, and the calendar follows.

Every date is the household’s own wall clock, converted once and never again. That is why an event never slides a day when somebody opens it from a different time zone.

1
Repeat it
Every day, weekdays, every week, every two weeks or every month, until a date you choose. One event is stored and every occurrence is shown.
2
Say “I’m in”
Anyone can put themselves on an event or step off it. Who else is going stays with the grown-up who made it.
3
Let the Mailbox suggest
Dates from forwarded letters wait at the foot of the calendar for a grown-up to add. Nothing lands on its own.

Good to know

A child sees everything coming up and can join or leave an event; adding and editing events is a grown-up’s
A repeat can be edited or deleted as a whole
A shared event from the other home can be seen, never changed

The Shared calendar page

The bell: what you missed

What other people did on the board in the past week.

The bell in the header opens a feed of what has happened in the household: jobs added, claimed, assigned and finished, events made, and the like. Your own actions are left out, because a feed reporting what you just did is noise.

The badge counts only what is new since you last opened the feed. Jobs that have slipped past their date appear under “Running late” but never drive the badge, because a dot that can never be cleared stops meaning anything. Copy reports the board, never a person: “Running late”, not “you are late”.

A message in the chat is not a notification. The chat has its own badge for unread messages; only a mention or a nudge crosses over to the bell.

The morning digest and notifications

One email a morning to each grown-up, and a push for the things that need a person.

Each morning every grown-up in the household gets one short email from hello@ducksinarow.app with the day’s plan: what is on the calendar, what is for dinner, and which jobs are open. It is built from the same information the app shows, so the two never disagree, and a birthday reads the same in both.

The app can also send a notification to your phone or browser when somebody mentions you in the chat or nudges everyone. There is no notification for an unfinished job; the app does not chase people.

We email you the digest and about your account, and nothing else. No newsletters, no marketing, and your address is never sold or shared.

Jobs, chores and Duck Bucks

Claiming, assigning, repeating, and what a job is worth.

To-dos and chores

Put a job up for grabs, or straight on someone’s list.

A grown-up writes down what needs doing and, if it matters, when: whenever, today, tomorrow, this weekend or a date. There is no time picker, because a family job rarely needs one.

The first choice is always “Up for grabs”: a job with no owner that anyone in the flock can take with “I’ll do it”. A grown-up can also put a job straight on a person’s list, and the copy says so: claimed work reads “You”, assigned work reads “Sarah asked you”. The app never scolds. There is no “overdue” and no “you failed to”; a late job simply says “yesterday” or the date.

Each row is washed in the colour of the duck who has it; up for grabs is white, nobody’s colour. A job can be marked for grown-ups only, and a child sees “Not yours to take” rather than a button that errors.

Every to-do also posts itself into the family chat as a live card with “I’ll take it” right there, so a job can be claimed from the conversation it came up in.

1
Write it down
What needs doing and, if it matters, when.
2
Choose who
Up for grabs, or on a particular person’s list. A grown-up sets what it is worth, from 0 to 10 Duck Bucks.
3
Tick it off
The finisher collects the Duck Bucks, a coin flips over the screen and the app quacks. A tick can be undone, and the Duck Bucks go back with it.

Good to know

A child can claim, finish and hand back a job; adding, editing and deleting is a grown-up’s
A grown-up can tick a job off for a child who has no login
Nothing about a job ever says “overdue”

The To-dos & chores page

Repeating chores

Written once, comes round on its own, ticked off on the day it is for.

Once a job has a date, a grown-up can make it repeat: every day, weekdays, every week, every two weeks or every month. Leave it up for grabs each time, or put it on one person’s list so they get every one. The Duck Bucks it is worth come round with it.

One occurrence is open at a time. Ticking it off mints the next one, and so does the day coming round again, so the flock can always see what is coming.

A repeating chore is ticked off on the day it is for, in the household’s own time zone. The day, not the time: “before school” might be due at 6 p.m. and done at seven in the morning, and that counts. Tick tomorrow’s chore tonight and a duck answers rather than an error: “This one is for tomorrow. Tick it off on the day and the Duck Bucks are yours.” There is no override for anybody, grown-ups included, because a second path is a second thing to get wrong.

A chore nobody did closes unpaid at the end of its own day and the next takes its place, with no copy about it. Unpaid is the whole incentive. One-off jobs are untouched by all of this: doing one early is simply doing it early.

Stopping a chore leaves the one in hand and every finished one alone. Stopping a chore is not erasing who did it.

The Repeating chores page

Duck Bucks

Earned by doing, spent on your duck, never bought.

A grown-up makes a job worth 0 to 10 Duck Bucks and whoever finishes it collects them. Finishing a book can pay too, if a grown-up set a value, and the arcade’s weekly challenge mints an award the grown-ups choose. Nothing is ever bought with money, and there is nothing to purchase anywhere a child can reach.

Your profile shows your balance and your lifetime earnings, and an eight-week grid of days shaded by what was earned. Tap a day and it lists the actual jobs, the time each was finished and what it paid. A day with nothing is cream, never red; an empty Saturday is not a failure.

Untick a job and the Duck Bucks go back. The grid cancels the pair at the day the work was done rather than showing a minus later, because a day you unchecked something is not a day you went backwards.

The leaderboard names today’s top duck by jobs finished, so two small jobs beat one big one and a small child can win a day. There is no last place: everyone is listed in the order they joined, and a child never sees a sibling ranked beneath them.

Good to know

Duck Bucks are earned, never bought
Every duck builder accessory costs ten; every colour is free
A grown-up can turn on the Exchange and say what Duck Bucks are worth at home; the app keeps a note of what you agreed and never moves any money

The Duck Bucks page

Lists and the kitchen

The shopping list, recipes, the pantry and the week’s meals.

The shopping list

One list the house already has. Whoever is out next ticks things off.

Every household starts with a Shopping list; there is no “create a list” step. Add an item the moment you notice it, and in the shop tick it in the aisle: everyone sees “You got it” or “Sarah got it”. At the end of a shop, clear the done items in one go.

A grown-up decides per child whether they can see the list, suggest things, or add them. A suggestion waits under “Asked for” until a grown-up says yes, and is not counted in the to-buy badge until then. A declined suggestion disappears without a fuss.

The list also fills from elsewhere: “Add to a list” on any chat message puts what somebody said straight onto it, and the meal planner adds the week’s groceries once you have looked them over.

Good to know

Renaming an item is a grown-up’s; ticking is everyone’s
Suggested items wait for a grown-up

The Shopping lists page

Meals, recipes and the pantry

A recipe box, a plan for the week, and “what can I make?”.

Fill the recipe box three ways: find recipes online with eating-style filters and an avoid list, scan a recipe card, a cookbook page, a screenshot or a PDF into an editable recipe, or type in a family favourite. A scan opens in Add a recipe with the fields filled in for you to check before saving.

Plan breakfast, lunch, a snack and dinner for each day, or ask the app to plan the week from your pantry, preferences, ratings and what has been on lately; it only fills today and the days ahead and never touches what you have already eaten. Planned meals show on Today in their own section rather than filling the calendar.

The pantry is what you normally have. Pantry items are left off grocery lists and power “What can I make?”. When the week is planned, the ingredients are combined, what is in the pantry is left out, and the rest goes to the shopping list after you look it over.

Eating styles and things to avoid are kept per person, not per household. A recipe shows a family food check as a reminder from what you saved. It is not a guarantee about allergens, and the app says so.

Cooked something big? Schedule the leftovers without adding groceries again. A bumped meal waits under “Needs a new spot”; nothing is deleted. Children request a meal and grown-ups approve or decline from a small queue.

The Meals & recipes page

Things worth keeping

The Vault, photo capture and the Mailbox.

The Vault

Artwork, documents, receipts, photos and passwords, encrypted and searchable.

The Vault holds five kinds of thing. Artwork is filed under the person who made it, grown-ups included, on the day the photo was taken, and carries that person’s colour drawn rather than written. Documents and receipts are read on the way in and can be found by the words on the page: a shop, a name, a phrase. Photos are kept as they are. Passwords live on their own side.

Filter by kind or by what a receipt was for, browse by month, or search everything from one box. Each tile wears a coloured name tag saying whose it is.

Documents, receipts and passwords are for the grown-ups in the household. A child sees their own artwork and cannot take it down; they can ask, and a grown-up sees the request beside the picture and decides. A child can record up to fifteen seconds saying what their drawing is, and the picture stays if the note is removed.

Everything is encrypted on its way to us and while it sits with us, and files are served through short-lived links rather than public ones. Saved passwords are encrypted again on top of that, with the key kept outside the database. Passwords are never listed in the open: revealing one fetches exactly that one when somebody taps, and it is forgotten when the row closes. A grown-up chooses, one at a time, which passwords the children can see.

The Family vault page

Photo capture

Take a photo of it, say what it is, and it is flattened, read and filed.

Take a photo from the camera tile on Home, from the More tray or from the Vault itself, or choose a photo or a PDF you already have. Say whether it is artwork, a receipt, a document or a photo, whose it is, what a receipt was for, and the date, filled in from the photo where possible.

Every picture is flattened like a scan, with corners you can drag and three looks: like a scan, natural, or untouched. A painting held up to the camera wants the glare taken off as much as a permission slip does.

A receipt is read for its merchant, total, tax, date and a summary, and every item on it is tracked; if a read goes wrong there is “Read it again”. A document becomes searchable by the words on the page. Only receipts and documents are read, by an AI service named in the privacy policy; artwork and photos are never sent anywhere to be read.

The Photo capture page

The Mailbox

Your flock’s own email address, and the dates inside what you forward to it.

The first time a grown-up opens the Mailbox, the household gets an email address of its own. Copy it and forward to it from any email account: a school newsletter, a dentist reminder, the hockey schedule. Each letter is read once on the way in and turned into suggestions, grouped under the letter they came from.

Each suggestion shows the title, date, time and place and who is going. Add it, skip it, or add every date from one letter at once. A date that matches something already in the calendar says so and offers to replace it or skip it. A suggestion the reader was unsure of is marked “Worth a second look”.

Nothing lands in the calendar on its own. A machine read these off somebody’s mail, and the whole point is that a person decides. The same queue reads a photographed notice or a PDF, which is why the calendar says “from the Mailbox”.

The Mailbox is for the grown-ups; a child does not see the tile. Anyone who has the address can forward to it, so keep it to the family and never post it anywhere public.

The Mailbox page

Your people

Ducks, chat, books, and the other home.

Your duck and the duck builder

Every colour is free. Accessories are ten Duck Bucks each, earned by doing jobs.

Every profile has a duck, and that duck is you on every task row, in every chat bubble, on the leaderboard and in the arcade. Choose from fifteen colours, all free, from classic yellow to plum. Two ducks in one house can share a colour; the builder only mentions who else has it.

Try on head pieces, glasses, face pieces and extras: a witch hat, swim goggles, vampire fangs, a superhero cape, well over a hundred pieces. Trying on costs nothing. Drag the layers to choose what sits on top. One tap on “That’s me” buys whatever you do not own yet and saves the look, and if you are short the app says exactly how many more Duck Bucks you need. “Surprise me” picks a random outfit from what you already own, so it never asks you to pay.

When your look changes, the app offers to update the flock portrait: one shared picture of every duck in the household in their current outfits, with the flock’s name on it. In the chat, “My Duck” sends your dressed duck as a sticker.

Good to know

No purchasable cosmetics anywhere a child can reach
No loot boxes and no randomised rewards
Prices and ownership are decided in the database, not on the screen

The Your duck page

Family chat

One room for the whole flock, where words turn into things.

Say something to everyone: text, a photo, a voice note, a finger-drawn doodle, or your duck as a sticker. Each person’s bubbles are washed in their own duck colour, so who said what is clear before you read the name. Pin a message to the top, reply to one, tag somebody, or take back something you sent.

On any message: “Make a task”, “Add to a list” or “Put it on the calendar”. The words come with you into the real form. Every to-do, event and list item posts itself into the room as a live card that reads its current state, and “I’ll take it” and “I’m in” work right there.

There is one room and no private channels, on purpose: in a house, a grown-up is responsible for what a child is asked. A gentle “Brian nudged everyone” is there for the days a message is not enough.

The Family chat page

Books and reading

A family bookshelf, ratings in ducks, and a reading log you can print.

Scan the barcode on a book, or type the number under it, and the title, author, pages and cover are looked up; or type it in yourself and photograph the cover. The shelf shows being-read books first, and every row wears its reader’s duck. Kids add books to their own shelf; a grown-up can add for anyone.

“I’ve finished it” records the dates and how long it took, asks how it was out of five ducks, and pays any Duck Bucks a grown-up set for it. Putting a book back on the shelf is allowed, and hands back what it paid.

From a browser, choose whose reading and which period, and print a letter-size log with titles, pages and dates, the kind a school asks for. The shelf says who is reading what and never compares one reader with another.

The Books & reading page

Co-parenting: linking two homes

Two full flocks, one link, and only the events you choose crossing it.

A child often lives in two houses. Each home keeps its own household, with its own grown-ups, children and family members, and then the two link up. From Your flock, a grown-up sends a link; the other parent sees which home is asking before deciding, and accepts from their own household. There is no account-free path here, because you are linking a household you must already have.

What crosses the link is chosen one event at a time. When you edit an event, a switch says “Share this one”. It is off until somebody turns it on. The other home sees the title, time and place of that event in their own calendar, marked as coming from your household, and cannot change it; the home that owns an event owns what it says.

Nothing else ever crosses: not documents, receipts or the notes on them, not tasks or lists, not Duck Bucks, not the members of either home, not birthdays. That is a decision, not an omission.

Either home can end the link, and the other stops seeing everything that was shared straight away. One active link per pair of homes, and one live invitation at a time.

The Co-parent friendly page

Play

The arcade, and the rules that keep it fair.

The arcade and Quack Cannon

Launch your own duck, chase your best, and take on the flock every week.

Drag anywhere to aim and release a volley of ducks. Numbered blocks lose hit points and vanish; Classic ends when the blocks reach the line, and there is no countdown during play, so a family member can think before firing. Your duck, in its current look, comes along for the ride.

The weekly challenge gives everyone the same board and fifteen volleys. It closes on Monday night in your household’s own time zone. The highest verified score wins the Duck Bucks a grown-up set, and ties split it; no finished games means no winners and no Duck Bucks. Adults can win too. Six power-ups come from play alone: Quack Pack, CHONK, Fowl Play, Quackwave, Cold Duck and Bottoms Up. No purchases, no paid advantages.

Scores are never taken on trust. Every game is replayed and verified before it counts, and a game interrupted mid-way can be picked up again.

Any member with a login plays as their own duck. A profile without a login cannot play, and nobody can play as somebody else’s duck, even on a shared device. A grown-up sets the weekly prize, zero by default, and can switch the arcade off for a child at any time; the current week’s prize is fixed and an edit starts the following Monday. The leaderboard shows each player’s actual duck, their best this week, and a hall of quacks with past winners.

The The arcade page

Your account, your money and your data

The subscription, the privacy policy and leaving.

The subscription

14 days of the whole app, then one plan for the whole household.

Every household starts with 14 days of the whole app, with nothing held back. After that it is $4.99 CAD a month or $45.99 CAD a year. There is one plan and everything is in it: no higher tier, no feature kept back to sell later.

One grown-up subscribes and the entire flock is covered: the other grown-up, every child, and a family member like a grandparent on the calendar. There is no price per person and no seat to count, so adding somebody never changes what you pay, and nobody but the subscribing grown-up ever sees a payment screen.

There are no ads, no pop-ups selling anything, nothing a child can be charged for, no loot boxes and no paid advantages in the arcade. Cancel any time in a couple of taps.

Billing questions go to hello@ducksinarow.app, or through the form below. A charge you did not expect, a plan you want to change, or a cancellation that did not go through: tell us and we will sort it out.

Privacy and your information

Kept in Canada, encrypted, never sold, and written down in plain words.

The database, sign-in and uploaded files are hosted in a Canadian region. Email is sent through a service in the United States, which means an email address and the contents of an email leave the country; the privacy policy says so. There is no analytics or tracking of any kind in the app, there are no advertisers, and nothing is sold.

Everything is encrypted on its way to us and while it sits with us. It is not end-to-end encrypted, and we say so: we hold the keys, which is what lets a receipt be read and a document be searched for you. Saved passwords are encrypted again on top of that.

A receipt or a document you photograph is read by an AI service to fill in the details. Artwork and ordinary photos are never sent to be read. The privacy policy at my.ducksinarow.app/privacy names every service we use and what each one sees.

Questions about any of it go to hello@ducksinarow.app, and a person answers.

Signing out and deleting your account

Both are behind your duck, and deletion happens straight away.

Sign out from your profile, behind your duck in the header. Deleting your account is on the same screen and happens straight away, not after a waiting period. A grown-up deletes a child’s account or profile.

A grown-up may delete themselves only if another grown-up who can actually sign in is left to look after the household for the children; a profile with no login does not count. The last grown-up who can sign in takes the whole household with them, so the app asks first and says exactly what will go.

If something in the tidying up does not finish, the app tells you rather than letting you find out later, and a note to hello@ducksinarow.app gets a person to clear it.

Contact support

Show us what happened.

Describe what you were trying to do, what happened instead, and attach a screenshot if you have one. It goes straight to hello@ducksinarow.app, the one address we have, and one of the three of us reads it.

A real person reads every message
Usually answered within two days, sooner when something is broken
No ticket numbers and no canned replies

Rather write from your own mail? hello@ducksinarow.app works just the same.