How the calculator works
Each row is one recurring job. For every job you set four things: how often it happens, roughly how many minutes it takes each time, who does it, and who notices and plans it. The calculator multiplies minutes by how often the job comes around to get minutes per week, then adds each person’s rows together. A job you both do counts half for each of you.
The example list covers about two dozen common jobs across the kitchen, food, laundry, cleaning, admin and upkeep. Add the pets or kids sets if they apply, remove what does not, and add your own jobs, such as planning the holidays or managing a parent’s appointments. When you are done, copy a link and send it to your partner so you are both looking at the same list.
Why time beats task count
Counting tasks makes very different jobs look equal. Taking out the trash twice a week and cooking dinner every night are both one row, but one takes about ten minutes a week and the other can take four hours. A split that looks even by task count can be lopsided by time, which is why this tool counts hours.
Time is also what each of you actually runs out of. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics found that in 2024, 87 percent of women and 74 percent of men did some household activities on an average day, and on those days women spent an average of 2.7 hours on them and men 2.3 hours (BLS American Time Use Survey, 2024 results). Your home will not match a national average, and it does not need to. Your own hours are the number that matters to you.
Time still misses something: the noticing. Sociologist Allison Daminger describes the thinking side of housework as four steps: anticipating a need, identifying options, deciding, and monitoring the result (Daminger, 2019). Those steps rarely show up on a clock, so the calculator records them separately as the person who notices and plans each job. If you want to look at that part on its own, the mental load guide goes deeper.
What the result does and doesn't tell you
The result tells you roughly how many hours of doing each of you carries, how many jobs each of you notices and plans, and which jobs are split between a doer and a planner. It uses plain bands: within 55 percent is close to even, up to 65 percent leans one way, and beyond that most of the doing sits with one person.
It does not tell you whether your split is fair. Only the two of you can decide that, because fair depends on paid work hours, health, preferences and the season you are in. It also does not measure quality, standards, or the emotional work of keeping a household running. Treat the numbers as a shared picture you can both point at, so the conversation is about the list instead of about each other.
Turn the result into one change this week
- Look at the three biggest jobs on the heavier side, and the jobs where one of you plans and the other does.
- Choose one whole job to move. Moving the noticing, planning and doing together beats helping out with pieces of several jobs.
- Agree what done means for that job, and who it belongs to from today.
- Give the new owner what they need: the login, the budget, the kid’s schedule, the store you usually use.
- Check in after two weeks. Adjust the job, not the person.
One useful rule
If you still have to remind your partner about a job, it has not moved yet. Hand over the noticing with it.
Put these chores in Tiptoe
A spreadsheet or a calculator shows the split once. In Chores in Tiptoe, each recurring job gets one owner and a repeat, either of you can propose a handoff that the other accepts or declines, and finished jobs can get a thank-you. Your weekly check-in is a natural place to review the split.
Free for both of you Pro is $9.99/month. No card needed. Your first 30 tasks and chores are free.
Looking for a who does more chores quiz?
This calculator replaces our old page of alternatives to a who does more chores quiz. Most quizzes give one score, which tends to start a contest. Here you get two separate pictures, the doing and the noticing, and a short list of jobs to talk about. If you would rather start with the thinking work alone, try the four-step map in our guide to the four jobs behind the mental load, or the guide for when one partner does more.
Methodology and limits
- Minutes are Tiptoe editorial estimates for one time through each job in a typical home. They are not survey data. Change them to your real numbers.
- Frequency to weekly time: daily is 7 times a week, weekdays 5, every 2 weeks 0.5, monthly 12 times a year divided by 52 weeks, every 3 months 4 times a year, and once a year 1 in 52.
- Shared jobs count half for each person. Jobs set to nobody yet are shown separately and not added to either person.
- Noticing and planning is counted in jobs, not minutes. A job planned by both of you counts in its own group.
- Paid work hours are optional and only add context. They never change the bands.
- Sources: national time-use figures are quoted as BLS publishes them. The noticing steps follow Daminger’s 2019 study. The bands (55 and 65 percent) are a plain editorial choice, not a scientific threshold.
Questions couples ask
- Is a 50/50 chore split the goal?
- Not necessarily. A fair split is one you both agree fits your time, energy and preferences right now. If one of you works longer paid hours, an uneven home split can be fair. What matters is that you chose it together and can change it when life changes.
- How do you count mental load in a chore split?
- Count it as its own job. For every chore, ask who notices it needs doing, who plans it, and who checks it got done. This calculator records that person separately from the one who does the work, because the noticing is where most of the hidden effort sits.
- How should chores be split when one partner works more hours?
- Look at total weekly load, not home hours alone. Add each person's paid work to their chore time and compare those totals. The partner with fewer paid hours may reasonably take more home jobs, but they should own those jobs fully, including the planning.
- How do we use this without starting a fight?
- Fill it in separately, then compare. Treat the gap between your two versions as the useful part, not proof that one of you is wrong. Pick one job to move this week, agree on what done means, and talk again in two weeks.
- Do you store our answers?
- No. The calculator runs entirely in your browser. Your list is saved in this browser so it is there when you come back, and if you copy a link, the list travels inside that link. Nothing is sent to Tiptoe and there is no sign-up or email gate.
- How often should we redo it?
- Redo it after any big change, such as a new job, a move, a baby, a pet or an injury, and otherwise every few months. A quick look during a weekly check-in is enough to notice when a split has drifted before it turns into resentment.
