About Child Support Estimate

Welcome to ChildSupportEstimate.com, an independent, free legal utility designed to make complex child support math clear, accessible, and transparent.

For parents navigating a divorce, separation, or custody modification, calculating child support is one of the most stressful financial hurdles they will face. In the United States, child support is not an arbitrary number; it is governed by strict, state-specific statutory schedules and mathematical models.

Our mission is to break down these dense legal formulas into simple, automated, browser-based tools that parents can use to find clarity in seconds.

Sourcing & Mathematical Standards

Child support models differ dramatically by jurisdiction. To ensure our calculators provide highly reliable estimates, our tool architecture is built around the two primary American child support models:

The Income Shares Model (Used by 41 States)

This model operates on the principle that children should receive the same proportion of parental income they would have received if the family had remained intact.

The Percentage of Income Model (Used by 6 States)

This model applies a flat or sliding percentage to the non-custodial parent's monthly net or gross income.

Our engineering team updates our calculators annually to reflect the latest cost-of-living adjustments (COLA), statutory revisions, and bracket updates published by state agencies, such as the New York child support guideline tables and the Tennessee statutory schedules.

Who We Are

ChildSupportEstimate.com was founded by Daniel Terry, a licensed Real Estate Broker and Loan Originator who recognized how difficult it was for self-represented parents to access accurate calculations without paying for expensive legal software. Every state-specific calculation tool is built programmatically and cross-verified against official state court worksheets to ensure the underlying math is accurate.

Our editorial and technical content is reviewed by experienced legal analysts to ensure we explain complex parenting time adjustments and proportional add-on splits in plain, easy-to-understand English.

Transparency & Security

We believe your private information should remain private. Unlike other online tools that sell your personal data or force you to create a paid account, ChildSupportEstimate.com is 100% free and requires no registration. Your income, parenting time, and financial calculations are processed in real-time and are never stored on our servers.

Legal Disclaimer

ChildSupportEstimate.com is an independent educational publisher and is not a law firm or a government agency. The calculators on this website provide estimates based on current state statutory guidelines. They do not constitute formal legal advice, representation, or a binding judicial determination. For official calculations to file with your local family court, please consult a licensed family law attorney or your state's child support enforcement agency.

Contact

Founder: Daniel Terry
Contact & Feedback: [email protected]
Mailing Address: 130 11th St NE, East Wenatchee, WA 98802