About the Tool
Divorce Number is a free set of private, browser-based calculators for the financial parts of divorce: asset division, house buyouts, alimony, and child support. The goal is not to replace an attorney or court worksheet. The goal is to give people a clean first pass at the numbers so they can organize documents, understand the variables, and have a more productive conversation with a qualified professional.
What we believe
- Tools should be free and frictionless. No signup, no email wall, no "unlock your results." You type, you see the answer.
- Your numbers are yours. Every calculation runs entirely in your browser with JavaScript. Nothing you enter is sent to a server, stored, or shared. Close the tab and it's gone.
- Plain language beats jargon. We explain the math and the rules in words a normal person can follow, and we show our work so you can sanity-check every number.
Who writes this and how it's checked
Divorce Number is written and maintained by Charlie Brennan, the site's research and editorial lead. Charlie is not an attorney, CPA, or CDFA, and nothing on this site is a substitute for one. What Charlie does is research: every state-specific statute citation on this site — the exact code section, the factor list, the duration rule — is checked directly against the official state legislature or state code publisher's own text (linked at the bottom of each state page) before it's published, not pulled secondhand from other calculator sites or AI summaries. When a state's law changes, or when a citation can't be verified against the primary source, the page says so explicitly rather than guessing.
That means: real statute citations with working links to the primary source, an explicit non-statutory disclaimer wherever a state has no formula, and no invented case-law or invented section numbers. It does not mean legal advice, and it does not mean the estimate matches what your specific judge will order. Found an outdated link or a statute that changed? Tell us — corrections get fixed fast because the whole point of citing primary sources is that anyone can check our work.
What "divorce number" means
The core divorce number is the net marital estate: marital assets minus marital debts, before any spouse-specific adjustments. From there, the tool estimates how that net value might divide between spouses and how related issues, such as a home buyout or support payment, affect the practical settlement picture. It is a planning number, not a legal conclusion.
Source logic behind the calculators
Asset division: The main calculator is built around the distinction between marital and separate property, the two dominant U.S. property regimes, and the common settlement workflow of classifying property, netting debts, and applying a proposed division percentage. It treats community-property states as a 50/50 starting point and equitable-distribution states as adjustable because courts in those states weigh fairness factors rather than applying one national percentage.
House buyout: The buyout calculator uses standard home-equity math: market value minus mortgage and liens equals equity, and equity multiplied by the departing spouse's share equals the buyout. It also models a refinance scenario by adding the existing mortgage balance to the buyout amount, then compares that with a sell-and-split scenario after estimated selling costs. These are financial mechanics, not lender approval.
Alimony: The alimony estimator uses common guideline-style formulas as a planning range. It does not claim that every state uses those formulas. Many states give judges broad discretion, while some jurisdictions publish local guidelines. The calculator therefore shows a low, middle, and high estimate and lists the human factors a court may consider, including income gap, marriage length, earning capacity, health, caregiving, and property division.
Child support: The child support estimator follows the two broad model families used in U.S. guidelines: income shares and percentage of income. It links users to official state resources because each state controls its own binding worksheet, income definitions, add-ons, caps, and parenting-time adjustments. The federal Office of Child Support Services directory is used as a fallback route to state and tribal agencies when a direct calculator is not listed.
Data and source limits
Divorce Number does not maintain a database of personal cases, court filings, or user submissions. Calculator inputs stay in the browser and are not collected. The tools use public legal and financial concepts, state model classifications, official agency links where available, and plain arithmetic. When a topic depends on current law or a court's discretion, the page says so and points users toward an attorney, CPA, lender, or official state worksheet.
For state-specific child support routing, we prefer direct official calculator or agency pages when they are stable. When a state changes its website or publishes only a PDF worksheet, we route users to the closest official resource and make the limitation clear. Reports about broken or outdated official links are prioritized because they affect whether users can verify the estimate with the source that actually controls.
Because divorce law changes and local practice matters, no calculator here should be treated as authoritative. State statutes, court rules, agency worksheets, local judicial practice, lender underwriting, tax law, and the facts of the marriage can all change the result. We review pages for clarity, broken links, stale assumptions, and overly broad claims, and we revise copy when a calculator needs stronger limits or a better explanation.
What we don't do
Divorce Number gives estimates for planning and negotiation — not legal advice, not financial advice, not tax advice, and not a prediction of what a judge will order. Your actual outcome depends on your state, your documentation, your settlement posture, and the discretion of a court. Use our numbers to walk into those conversations informed. Then confirm the details with a qualified family-law attorney and, where relevant, a CPA, lender, or certified divorce financial analyst.
Contact
Questions, corrections, official-source updates, or suggestions for a calculator we should add? Visit the Contact Us page or email hello@divorcenumber.com. We read everything, especially reports about stale state links or unclear calculator assumptions.