Tuesday night, kids at her place
The apartment is quiet. Cairn's dashboard shows the next step — small enough to finish tonight. You go to bed having moved the case forward by one piece.
Tonight
1 of 6 this weekDraft this week's parenting schedule
For men working through separation in Ontario
Separation touches every part of your life. Get a plan for all of it.
Your kids, your money, your wellbeing, your fresh start — and how to get ready for the legal process. One plan, built for men in Ontario. Free to start.
No credit card. 14-day money-back on any paid tier.
- Your information is private and encrypted
- Your data stays in Canada
- Calculator free to run — no signup, no credit card
The reality
The hardest part is starting.
You're not failing. You're in the hardest part. And you're not the first man to stand at this trailhead.
40–57%
of family court parties in Ontario represent themselves
$15K–$50K
average cost of a contested divorce in Canada
1 in 3
men going through separation report feeling completely alone in the process
Where a lawyer stops
What your lawyer isn't there for.
A good lawyer is essential — they protect your legal rights, draft the agreements, and represent you in court if it comes to that. That work matters, and you should not skip it. But it is a narrow slice of what separation asks of you.
Where a lawyer helps
The legal transaction: the agreement, the filings, court if it comes to that. Essential, and bounded. It ends the day the paperwork is filed.
01
Your money, month after month
A lawyer negotiates the settlement. No one at that table is watching your cash flow in month four, when support has started and you are running a household alone.
02
Your debt, and paying it down
Separation reshapes your debt — joint credit lines, the mortgage, the car loan. A lawyer settles how it splits on paper; no one helps you carry and clear it afterward.
03
Your health while you go through it
Separation takes a real toll — sleep, isolation, the habits you reach for under stress. A lawyer will not see any of it, and left alone it shapes every decision you make.
04
Your kids, beyond the schedule
A parenting plan settles who has the children, and when. It says nothing about how you tell them, how you handle the first Christmas in two homes, or how you stay present.
05
Who you are on the other side
A separation agreement closes one chapter. No one in the legal process asks what the next one looks like — where you live, what you rebuild, who you become.
Cairn is built for everything the legal process leaves out.
What Cairn is
What Cairn is, and what it isn't.
Plain about what we do. Plain about what we don't.
What We Do
Cairn builds a personalised plan across the non-legal parts of your separation — your kids, your finances, your wellbeing, your fresh start — and, for the legal process, shows you the general steps relevant to what you told us. It helps you understand what each step looks like, prepares you for the paperwork, and connects you to licensed professionals when that's the right call.
What We Don't Do
Cairn does not provide legal advice, represent you in court, or guarantee outcomes. It is not a substitute for a lawyer when one is genuinely needed. What it does is make sure you are never walking into any of that blind.
Built only for Ontario
Federal child support tables, Ontario tax rates, Ontario family court process. Not a generic calculator pretending to know your jurisdiction.
Designed for men, not for either party
Most family-law content is written from the court's neutral perspective. Cairn is written from yours — direct, plain, and acknowledging what this is actually like.
Every part in one place
Your plan, your support numbers, your budget, the forms, and a directory of Ontario professionals — one workspace, not twelve open tabs and conflicting advice.
For the full detail on scope, see our scope statement.
What you get after the five minutes
The four things you'll come back to.
The five-minute walkthrough drops you here. These are the screens men open in the middle of a tough week — when the case has a question and you need a real answer, not a search result.
Plan your next steps
The next five things. Not the whole mountain.
Cairn sorts the work into this week, this month, and later — sized to whatever track you're on. You don't have to figure out the order.
This week
2 of 4 done
- Gather your last 3 pay stubs
- Note the daycare pickup change
- Read: responding to an application
- A 10-minute walk before bed
Money & support
Essentials and up
See the trade-offs before you decide.
Child and spousal support estimates against the Ontario tables and the SSAG ranges. Save a scenario, change one number, see what shifts.
Scenario example
Incomes $85,000 and $55,000 · two kids, with mom most of the time
- Child support, table amount
- $1,296/mo
- Take-home before support
- $2,423 / pay
- Take-home after support
- $1,825 / pay
Real output from the Cairn engine. Run your own in about two minutes.
Cash flow awareness
Essentials and up
See financial stress before it sneaks up.
A daily running balance, plotted on a calendar. Negative days get flagged before they happen — early enough to do something about them.
Running balance
March
A negative day flagged before it happens, early enough to do something about it.
Personal check-in
Essentials and up
How you're actually doing. Not how you tell people.
A five-pillar check-in — sleep, calm, energy, happiness, growth — plotted over twelve weeks. One minute a day. The chart tells you the truth.
Mental fitness
12 weeks
One minute a day, across twelve weeks. The chart tells you the truth.
Built for the real world.
Private & secure
Your data is yours, always encrypted.
Simple & focused
Tools that help. Nothing you don't need.
Evidence-based
Built from trusted standards and real-world experience.
Human support
A real person for the moments a tool can't carry.
Cairn is here to help you steady today, plan for tomorrow, and build what's next.
Online chat
Stuck at 11pm? We already know where you are.
Every screen has a chat. When the wording on a form stops making sense, you don't leave and search for the answer — you ask us. We see the screen you're on, explain what it's asking, and point you to the right tool or the right kind of professional to call. We won't give you legal advice — we tell you plainly who can.
Ask anything...
In practice
What this looks like when you need it.
A few of the moments where Cairn earns its place in a typical week.
The morning you can't start
You've been staring at the financial paperwork for a week. Cairn breaks it into small pieces, each one short enough to do before the coffee is cold. You finish the first three this morning.
This morning
- Last 3 pay stubs
- Notice of Assessment
- Account balances
The case on one screen
Your situation in plain language: where you are, what's next, what each form does, what each number means. The first thing in months that doesn't make you scroll back to re-read.
Your case, one screen
Where you areNegotiating the agreement
NextFinancial disclosure
Form 13.1Your financial statement
Child support$1,180/mo
Why men come here
Different men come here for different reasons.
Five reasons men start with Cairn, none of them wrong. Tap the one that sounds like you.
Try the math first
See your numbers before you sign up.
Plug in two incomes and a parenting time arrangement. We'll show you what child and spousal support actually look like in Ontario, and what you'd have left every two weeks. No email, no credit card — create a free account for the full breakdown.
Run the calculatorWorked example
Incomes $85,000 and $55,000 · two kids, with mom most of the time
Child support, table amount
$1,296/mo
Take-home before support$2,423 biweekly
Take-home after support$1,825 biweekly
Real output from the Cairn engine for this example. Your numbers will differ — run your own in about two minutes.
Your first five minutes
Here's what happens in the next five minutes.
No commitment. Just a clear first step.
Answer 12 questions
Your situation, your kids, what's been filed. Plain language, one at a time.
See your scenario
Based on what you told us, the part of the Ontario process most relevant to you — in plain language.
See a suggested first step
One concrete thing you could do next, based on what you told us. No payment required to get here.
See your 5-minute plan
Decisions made without orientation in the first weeks can constrain your options later. The sooner you know where you stand, the more choices you have.
Pricing
Simple, fair pricing.
Cairn is not the affordable option. It's the complete option.
A contested divorce in Canada averages $15,000 to $50,000. Getting oriented at Cairn costs nothing. Essentials is $49 a month; Complete is $99.
Billed monthly. Cancel any time.
Free
$0always free
See where you actually stand. Today.
- Intake assessment
- Legal scenario classification
- Personalized action plan (read-only)
- Support calculator — full results, one saved scenario & an emailed PDF report
Best for most
Essentials
$49/mo CAD
or $39/mo billed annually — save $120/yr
Get through this without paying $400/hr to be confused.
- Everything in Free
- Interactive plan; check off tasks
- Child & spousal support estimators (unlimited saved scenarios), budget & tax flags
- Guided worksheets & court forms, filled from your info
- Custody calendar, document vault & professional directory
- Parenting & wellbeing modules, with wellbeing programs
Complete
$99/mo CAD
or $79/mo billed annually — save $240/yr
For significant assets, self-employment, or a contested file — walk in with the math handled.
- Everything in Essentials
- Complex assets & net family property tools
- Self-employment income calculator
- Court forms auto-filled from your financial worksheets
- Shared-cost ledger — split expenses by income and track support
- Lawyer-ready parenting record — court-presentable PDF of your log
- Housing options calculator
- Lawyer-meeting prep pack — a versioned PDF of your situation & numbers to bring to your lawyer
14-day promise on any paid tier. Use Cairn for two weeks. If your plan isn't clearer than the day you started, email us. We refund the month — no forms, no questions.
See the full pricing comparison.
Common questions
Here's what to expect.
Straight answers to the questions men ask before they start.
A cairn is a stack of stones hikers leave to mark the path — small, deliberate, left by people who came through before.
Ready when you are
You don't need a plan.
You need a starting point.
No payment. No commitment. Just the first step.
- Your Ontario plan — based on what you told us — free, in five minutes
- Your real support estimates — no credit card
- A clear first step you can take this week, based on what you told us
- 14-day money-back promise on any paid tier
Private and secure. No credit card required.
Not ready to sign up?
Free guides and videos, no account needed.
Plain-language guides to the first 90 days, your first lawyer meeting, and how property really gets divided — plus short video explainers on how the money and the law actually work. Free to read and watch.