Questions, answered plainly
What Carpool Scheduler costs, how the fairness engine decides, and what the families you invite will actually experience.
What does Carpool Scheduler cost?
Nothing right now. The whole product is free during early access. Paid plans may come later, but nothing about pricing is decided yet. There is no card to enter, and no trial that turns into a charge.
Do the other families need to install the app?
No. Only the organizer uses the iPhone app. Everyone else joins from a link, sent by the organizer in a normal text, and does everything in their phone's browser: entering availability, seeing the schedule, recording switches. No install, no account, no password.
How does it decide who drives?
The engine applies fixed rules, in order. Rule one: never give a family a slot they said they can't do. Rule two: keep trip counts even. Each drop-off and each pickup counts as its own trip, and the engine makes the difference between families as small as the season allows. Rule three: follow preferences when they do not reduce fairness. If a family says Fridays are hard, the engine avoids Fridays for that family when it can. The engine gives the same schedule every time for the same answers.
What keeps one family from getting all the worst slots?
Two of the engine's rules cover this. After trip counts are even, the engine spreads the types of trips, so one family does not get every Friday evening pickup while another gets all the easy afternoon drop-offs. The engine also avoids giving a family three trips in one week when the same total can be spread across the season.
What happens when the math doesn't work out perfectly?
The schedule shows it plainly. If a season's trips don't divide evenly, one family drives one extra trip, and the schedule shows who. If no family can cover a slot, the schedule marks that slot as needing a driver. It is never silently assigned to a family that said "would rather not."
What happens when plans change mid-season?
The engine runs once, at the start of the season, and then the schedule stays put. Families plan around their assigned days, so nothing reshuffles on its own. When drivers trade a day, anyone in the carpool can record the change with a tap. The schedule shows what changed, who recorded it, and who was originally assigned, and the trip counts update to match, so the fairness picture stays honest all season.
Does the app send notifications?
No. There are no push notifications, texts, or emails from the app. When something changes, the organizer tells the group the way they already do, usually the group text, and the app helps by drafting the message for them, ready to send. The schedule in the app and on the web is always the current one.
How does the calendar integration work?
Each person gets a personal calendar feed they can subscribe to. It shows the season's events with the drivers, and their own driving days marked. It's a subscription, not a sync: Apple Calendar refreshes it roughly hourly, and Google Calendar refreshes subscribed feeds on its own cycle, typically about once a day. A last-minute change can take a while to reach a subscribed calendar, so the schedule in the app and on the web is always the source of truth.
Can families see each other's availability?
No. What each family said about when they can and can't drive stays private to them. The group sees the roster, the finished schedule, and everyone's trip counts. That is enough to see that the outcome is fair, without telling the group why someone can't do Tuesdays.
What platforms does it run on?
Organizing a carpool requires an iPhone; that's where the app lives. The families you invite can use any phone with a browser, iPhone or Android, and desktop browsers work too.
Something else? Write to hello@carpoolscheduler.com, or see how the scheduling engine works in more depth.