A shared family calendar is mostly a solved problem. Google, Apple and Outlook each share a calendar for free, the dedicated family apps add lists and chat on top, and for many households that is the end of the search. This page walks through those options honestly, including the one we build — and says plainly where a built-in calendar is all you need.
Where every shared calendar struggles is the same place: the kids’ team and school schedules don’t start on your calendar. They live in a team app, a league site, or a PDF the school posted in August, and they change. Sharing a calendar is easy; keeping it true is the work. We cover both halves.
Third-party details checked October 28, 2026, on each product’s own site. Tell us if something has changed.
Before installing anything, check what the household already has. All three big calendars share for free, and the sharing is built in.
Share any calendar with specific people by entering their email address and choosing a permission level, from “See only free/busy” up to “Make changes and manage sharing” — on a computer, on Android, or from the iPhone app. Or create a Google family group: Google automatically creates a calendar called “Family” that anyone in the group can edit, and from a computer you can share it with people outside the group too.
Enough when: everyone has a Google account and a phone with the Google Calendar app, which covers iPhone and Android. Where it stops: adding a team’s calendar link is a computer-only step (Other calendars → From URL), and when that link changes, the event just moves — nobody is told. Our guide to Google Calendar’s secret address explains the link that lets other apps read a Google calendar.
Set up Family Sharing and, in Apple’s words, “a calendar shared with all the members of your family is created automatically.” You can also share any iCloud calendar with specific people as read-only or with editing allowed — but Apple notes that private invitees must have an Apple Account and use iCloud. For anyone else, turn on Public Calendar and send the link; that is read-only and works in any calendar app.
Enough when: the whole household is on iPhone or iPad. Where it stops: there is no Apple Calendar app for Android, so a co-parent or grandparent on Android gets the public-link route only. Team links do subscribe on iPhone (Calendars → Add Calendar → Add Subscription Calendar), one per team, and updates arrive silently.
Outlook.com shares a calendar with permission levels from “Can view when I’m busy” to “Delegate,” and the Outlook app runs on iOS and Android. Someone not using Outlook “will only be able to accept the invitation using a Microsoft 365 or an Outlook.com account,” so for anyone else you publish the calendar as an HTML or ICS link, which is read-only.
Enough when: everyone has a Microsoft account anyway. Where it stops: subscribed calendars refresh “approximately every 3 hours,” sometimes “more than 24 hours” — and again, silently.
These start from the household rather than a calendar account: one place for the calendar, the grocery list and the group chat. All are “type it in” calendars at heart, with varying ways to pull in a calendar from elsewhere.
Free on iPhone, Android and web, with ads; Cozi Gold ($39/year) removes them and adds, among other things, calendar change notifications. Everyone shares one family account. Cozi accepts calendar links under Settings → Connected Calendars and says updates show “within about an hour,” which makes it the easiest of the three to feed from outside. We wrote a fuller Cozi comparison and a guide to getting team schedules into Cozi.
Free on iOS and Android, with Premium at $4.49/month or $44.99/year for file attachments, pinned events and no ads. Its App Store listing describes syncing with “a device calendar such as Google Calendar,” so events already on the phone can show up inside TimeTree. Its pages don’t describe subscribing to a calendar link directly, so we don’t claim it.
Free on Android, iPhone, iPad and the web for the calendar, lists, messenger, gallery and locator. Subscribing to a calendar by URL and Google or Outlook sync are Premium ($4.99/month or $44.99/year); no refresh interval is published. See our FamilyWall comparison for the detail.
| Option | Cost | iPhone + Android? | Kids’ team schedules auto-updating? | Sharing with no account? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Calendar (shared or Family calendar) | Free | Yes — Google Calendar app on iPhone and Android | Only if you add each team’s calendar link yourself (from a computer); updates arrive silently | No — shares go to email addresses and the recipient adds the calendar to their own account |
| Apple Calendar (iCloud / Family Sharing) | Free | iPhone yes; Android has no Apple Calendar app. Private shares need an Apple Account; a public calendar link works for anyone | Only if you subscribe to each team’s link on the iPhone; updates arrive silently | Partly — a public (read-only) calendar link; private sharing needs an Apple Account |
| Outlook calendar (Outlook.com) | Outlook.com account | Yes — Outlook app on iOS and Android | Only if you subscribe to each team’s link from the web; Microsoft says roughly every 3 hours, sometimes 24+ | Partly — a published HTML or ICS link is read-only for anyone; direct shares need a Microsoft account |
| Cozi | Free with ads; Gold $39/yr | Yes — iPhone, Android and web | Only if you add each team’s link under Connected Calendars; refreshes about hourly; change notifications are a Gold feature | No — everyone shares the one family account |
| TimeTree | Free; Premium $4.49/mo or $44.99/yr | Yes — iOS and Android apps | Shows events from the phone’s own calendar; TimeTree’s pages don’t describe subscribing to a link directly | No — members use the TimeTree app |
| FamilyWall | Free; Premium $4.99/mo or $44.99/yr | Yes — Android, iPhone, iPad and web | Only on Premium (subscribe by URL); no refresh interval published | No — family members use the FamilyWall app |
| Schedule Caddie (this site) | Free | Yes — runs in any phone browser; its feed subscribes into iPhone, Google or Outlook calendars | Yes — paste each team’s link once; re-read hourly; an email lists what changed | Yes — share pages open from a link, no app or account |
Prices and features from each vendor’s own site or app-store listing, read October 28, 2026. Product names are trademarks of their owners; we’re not affiliated with any of them.
Every option above shares a calendar well. None of them fill it. If your kids’ activities publish schedules in a team app, a league site or a school PDF, someone is either retyping those into the shared calendar — and retyping the changes — or subscribing to each source one link at a time, on each phone, and hoping to notice when something moves.
That is the part Schedule Caddie does, and it is the only part. It is a free web app (no native app, nothing to install). You paste each team app’s calendar link — nearly every app has one, and we have step-by-step guides for finding it — or upload the school’s PDF calendar. From there:
If your family’s events are all things you create yourselves — dinners, appointments, who has the car — you don’t need us. A shared Google, Apple or Outlook calendar is the right answer and it is free. Schedule Caddie earns a spot when the events come from somewhere else and keep changing. We don’t do lists, meals or chores.
Share a Google Calendar; both phones have the app. For activity schedules, put every source into Schedule Caddie once and subscribe to the merged link from each phone’s calendar — the paste-in steps for each platform.
They need to see, not edit, with no new account. An Apple public calendar link or an Outlook published link is read-only; a Schedule Caddie share page is read-only, scoped to one kid or one team, and already current when a practice moves.
The shared calendar holds custody weeks and appointments. The team and school schedules are what drift between households — one of you hears about the moved game, the other doesn’t. A share page or a followed share means both homes see the same feed and both get the change email. Our “did your calendar tell you?” page covers why a subscribed calendar alone won’t.
For most households, the one already on the phones. If everyone has a Google account, a shared Google Calendar (or the Family calendar Google creates with a family group) is free, works on iPhone and Android, and everyone can add events. If everyone is on iPhone, the Family calendar that Family Sharing creates automatically does the same job. Cozi, TimeTree and FamilyWall earn their place when you also want lists, meals or a family chat. The gap none of them close alone is schedules that live in other apps and keep changing, which is what Schedule Caddie is for.
In the calendar’s settings, under “Shared with,” add each person’s email address with a permission level — from “See only free/busy” up to “Make changes and manage sharing.” Google’s help covers this on a computer, on Android, and from the iPhone app. Or set up a Google family group and Google creates a calendar called “Family” that everyone in the group can edit. Either way, each person needs a Google account to add the calendar to their own view.
Pick a calendar with an app on both: Google Calendar or Outlook. Apple’s iCloud calendar has no Android app, and private iCloud sharing requires an Apple Account on the other end — though a public iCloud calendar link is read-only and works in any calendar app. If what you are sharing is the kids’ team and school schedules, a Schedule Caddie feed sidesteps the question: everyone subscribes to the same link from whatever calendar their phone already has.
With the built-in calendars, only partly: an Apple public calendar link or an Outlook published ICS/HTML link opens read-only, but a direct Google share needs a Google account, and Cozi, TimeTree and FamilyWall all put the grandparent inside the app. A Schedule Caddie share page is a plain web link scoped to whatever you chose — one kid, one team, or everything — with nothing to install or sign up for. If they want it on their own phone, they can subscribe from the page or follow the share into an account of their own.
Not on its own. Google, Apple and Outlook all pick up changes to a subscribed calendar on their next refresh and simply redraw the event — nobody is told. Cozi offers calendar change notifications as a Gold feature. Schedule Caddie re-reads every linked feed hourly and emails you the change itself: the old time, the new time, and which schedule it came from. There is a longer explanation of why calendars work this way on our “Did your calendar tell you?” page.
No — the opposite. Schedule Caddie produces one merged calendar link, and you subscribe to it from Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Outlook or Cozi (each accepts a calendar link; see the table). The shared family calendar everyone already looks at keeps working; the team and school half just stops needing a typist. The per-kid colours inside Schedule Caddie do not travel through the feed — a subscribed calendar shows one colour of its own — so keep a share page handy if colour-by-kid matters.
Each product’s own website, help center or app-store listing, read October 28, 2026: Google, Apple and Microsoft support pages, cozi.com, timetreeapp.com and its App Store listing, and familywall.com with its support center. Where a vendor doesn’t publish something — a refresh interval, a group size limit — we say so rather than guess. If any of it changes, tell us and we will update the page.
Every kid, every schedule, every app — merged, color-coded, and watched for changes.
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