The rules, in full
Exactly how points, chores and rewards work
Most of FridgeDoor explains itself. A few things don't — what happens to a chore nobody does, how points split when two kids share one, why a helper got a single point. This page is the whole rulebook, with the real numbers, so you can answer those before your kids ask.
Describes FridgeDoor as it works today — last reviewed 8 October 2026.
You set every price
There is no built-in idea of what a chore is worth. You write the chore, pick its emoji, and give it a number — 5 for making a bed, 20 for the bathroom if that is what it takes in your house. Rewards work the same way: you name them and price them. The only rule is that the two lists have to make sense against each other, because a child earning 10 points a day and looking at a 400-point reward will stop believing in it.
Prices can be changed whenever you like. Changing one does not retroactively alter points already earned — the history keeps what was actually paid at the time.
A rough starting point
Price a daily chore so a week of them roughly buys the small reward, and a month of them roughly buys the big one. If the cheapest reward is out of reach after a good week, the numbers are wrong, not the child.
A hint while you write it
When a chore name describes several steps, or a price jumps sharply, the app shows a short Parenting tip under the field — why a combined chore gets put off, why doubled points become the new baseline. Each one can be dismissed for good, and the whole thing is a switch in settings: Parenting hints.
Who a chore belongs to
Every chore is one of three things, and this is the choice that decides how your list feels day to day.
Assigned to one person
It appears on their list and nobody else's. Nobody can take it, and nobody else can earn its points.
Open to anyone
It shows on every list marked Anyone. The first person to tap I'll do this claims it, and it then disappears from everyone else's list. Whoever claimed it can hand it back — a child's put-back is a request a grown-up approves, a grown-up's is immediate.
Shared between several people
Named co-assignees who are all meant to be on it. Points split — see sharing and helping.
Marking one done
Tapping I did it ✓ finishes a chore. Swiping the row right does the same thing, and the points land immediately — a toast says how much closer that puts you to your reward. Swiping left, or pressing and holding, opens the row's menu: send the chore to someone else, or put it back. Sending is a grown-up action, so children see a shorter menu.
Then: anyone help?
Straight after a chore is finished the app asks Anyone help? and shows the family. Tap whoever pitched in — or Just me. Anyone tapped is credited with an assist, which pays as described in sharing and helping.
Photo chores
If the chore asks for a photo, the camera opens as part of finishing it, and the chore is not done until the picture is taken. What happens to those pictures is under photos.
When a chore doesn't get done
You choose this per chore, and it is the single most useful setting in the app. A chore can either be written off at the end of the day, or follow the child into tomorrow.
Marked missed
The day closes and the chore is gone. It shows up in Recently missed on the Family tab, worth nothing. Right for anything that genuinely only mattered yesterday — setting the table, say.
Carried over
It reappears tomorrow marked From yesterday and priced at 60% of normal, rounded. Doing it late still counts; doing it on time is worth more. Right for anything that does not stop needing doing — the bins, the bathroom.
The number you see is the number you get
A carried-over chore shows its reduced price on the row, not its full one — a 10-point chore reads 6 pts the next day. The reduction is applied once; a chore carried over twice is not reduced twice.
When in the day a chore happens
Chores are scheduled by day — daily, weekly, or particular weekdays. On top of that, each one can carry an optional part of the day: anytime, morning, afternoon or evening. Anytime is the default, and it is a real answer rather than an empty field.
What it changes
Today's list stops being one flat pile. It groups under Morning, Afternoon and Evening in that order, with anytime chores kept together, so a child can see what is theirs right now instead of reading the whole day.
What it doesn't change
Nothing about points, and nothing about deadlines. A chore is still due that day — an evening chore is not late at 6pm. Setting a part of the day does not send a notification at that hour either; reminders work as described below.
Why parts of the day and not clock times
A time picker asks a parent to invent a number. Four choices can be answered instantly, and they match how a house actually runs — before school, after school, after dinner. If you want a chore pinned to a real hour, tell us; it is the obvious next step and we have deliberately not guessed.
Reminders
FridgeDoor can send one reminder a day, at a time the family picks in half-hour steps. It lists what is still due and nothing else. If there is nothing to do, it is not sent at all — a reminder that fires every day regardless is one nobody reads by week two.
Each device decides for itself
Permission is asked per device, never family-wide, and nothing is ever sent to a device that did not ask. Turning it off is one switch in settings, and it takes effect immediately.
A shared tablet is treated differently
A device says once whether it is personal or shared. A shared device — the tablet on the fridge — gets the family's list with nobody named, and never anything meant for a parent. Three children on one tablet should not get three notifications, and a child's screen should not announce what a grown-up has yet to approve.
Not there yet
One digest per family is all there is today. Per-person messages, a reminder at a chore's own time, and a parent nudge for waiting approvals are all things we can build — none are in the app right now, and the page will say so when they are.
Text size
Text size is a per-person setting, not a per-device one. It is saved with the family member, so a child who needs larger type gets it on the family tablet, on a parent's phone, and on any device they join from later — without touching anyone else's view.
It follows the phone first
On iPhone and iPad the app starts from the text size already set in Settings, so a family that has turned type up everywhere does not have to do it again here. From there each person can go larger or smaller.
The whole screen scales
Chore names, point values, buttons and labels all grow together, and rows grow with them — the text is not left clipped inside a box built for smaller type. Buttons stay big enough to hit at every size.
Shout-outs: saying what you noticed
Next to each family member is a ⚡ button. It sends them a short message — Great job with the bins without being asked! — and nothing else: no points change hands. It is the answer to a child who did something nobody had written down.
One a day
You can give one shout-out a day. Try again the same day and the app says so rather than quietly sending nothing. The person who gets it sees who sent it, and the Family tab collects the week's shout-outs in one card.
Badges, not points
Shout-outs earn badges instead — for the first one you give, then at 50 and 100, and for the first one you get, then at 100 and 250. Points stay tied to chores, so a shout-out can never be traded for a reward.
Spending points
A child asks for a reward and the points leave immediately — not when you approve it. That is deliberate: it stops a child spending the same 40 points on three different things while three requests sit waiting. The request shows in their history straight away, marked as waiting for approval.
If you turn a request down, the points come back as a separate refund line rather than the original disappearing. Both lines stay, so the story of what happened is intact. A grown-up redeeming their own reward is approved on the spot.
The store has two shelves. Individual rewards are the usual kind — one person spends their own points. Family rewards are treats the whole family enjoys but that one person still pays for out of their own balance: a film night bought by whoever saved up for it. Neither is the same as a family goal, which everybody's points fund together.
When a child is a few points short of the reward they are saving for, the strip at the top offers Ask for a chore. That sends a request a grown-up sees with the amount still needed, so the answer is another chore rather than a discount.
Every point is traceable
Tapping any balance opens its full record — chores, help bonuses, streak bonuses, rewards, refunds — with dates and times, newest first. Recording started the day the feature shipped, so anything older than that is not in the list; the app says so at the bottom rather than pretending the history begins at zero.
Family goals
A family goal is one reward everybody's points feed at once — pizza night, a trip to the pool. Every chore anyone completes counts toward it, alongside their personal balance, so a child is never choosing between the two.
Reaching the target is not quite enough to unlock it. Every family member has to have completed at least one chore that week — otherwise the goal sits at full and tells you who it is waiting on. It exists so that one hard-working child cannot carry a passenger to pizza night, and in practice it is the rule that gets the reluctant one off the sofa.
More than one goal, and what happens when you switch
You can keep several goals; the app shows which is Up next. A new goal counts points from the moment it starts — it does not inherit the family total — and switching to a different one leaves the first with the points it already collected. When a goal is reached, any points past its target move on to the next goal, so nothing earned is wasted — and a goal once earned stays earned. When every goal is earned, the app says so and asks you to add another.
Where the week starts
You choose the day the week begins, and that setting governs the participation rule, weekly chores, streaks and the weekly totals on the Family tab alike.
Grown-ups: two separate switches
Being in charge and earning points are independent settings, and keeping them apart is what makes a mixed family work.
Can manage
Creates and prices chores, edits rewards, approves requests and photo proof, changes settings. As many grown-ups as you like can have it.
Earns rewards
Has a spendable balance and a personal reward shelf. Turn it off and that person still does chores and still earns — their points feed the family goal instead, and their header shows what they have contributed rather than what they can spend.
A grown-up with the second switch off is the usual setup: they take chores from the same list the children see, everything they earn goes to pizza night, and nobody is cashing in their own points for ice cream while asking the children to save.
Offline, syncing and updates
FridgeDoor keeps working without a connection. A chore finished on the way home from school is stored on the device and sent when the signal comes back; the header says No connection or Showing older data so nobody is guessing. Nothing is lost quietly.
If a change really cannot be saved
It is not thrown away. Settings lists it under changes that were not saved, with the reason — refused by the family, or the thing it belonged to no longer exists — and you can retry or discard it yourself.
Sync and version, by hand
Settings → App has Sync now for the latest chores and points, and Check for updates to pull the newest version of the app. The version it is running is shown right there, which is the fastest way to tell whether a device is stuck on an old build.
Anonymous statistics
The same section has an Anonymous statistics switch. It counts things like a chore being completed or setup finishing — never names, chores, rewards or photos — so we can tell which parts of the app are actually used. Turn it off and counting stops immediately. What it holds is written out on the privacy page.
The PIN, the family code, and photos
Nobody signs up for FridgeDoor. There is no account, no password and no email — for the children or the grown-ups. Two things take their place.
The family code joins devices
Six characters, shown when you create the family. Anyone entering it joins the same family, whether that is each child's own phone or one tablet on the fridge door. It is the only way back in — there is no email reset, so save it the moment you see it. One tap stores it as a file or a picture.
The PIN protects the rules
Four digits, and it is what stops a child re-pricing their own chores. Switching into a grown-up's profile asks for it, and so does any control that would change the list — a child tapping one is offered the PIN rather than a dead button. Forgotten it? Reset it with the family code. The whole family sees a quiet note when it changes, so it can never happen secretly. Parent mode does not stay open forever: it closes itself after a while of not being used, and immediately when you switch out of that profile.
Photo proof, and where photos go
Ask for a picture on the chores you would otherwise go and inspect. Photos go to your family's private album, which every device in the family can see and nobody outside it can, and the most recent 100 are kept — older ones roll off, but the chore, who did it and the points it earned all stay in the history.
Still an open question?
If something in your house does not fit these rules, tell us — the settings that exist are all here because a family asked for them.
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