Household Management

Add family members to your household so everyone can track their meals while sharing the same pantry and subscription.

How to Invite

1. Go to Settings → Household
2. Click "Invite Member"
3. Enter the person's email address
4. They'll receive a magic link to join your household

What Members Can Do

• Track their own meals: Each member has their own meal history and nutrition tracking
• Share pantry inventory: Everyone sees the same pantry items and can scan receipts
• View shared meals: Family meals are visible to all members
• Private meals: Personal meals remain private to each member

If you and someone else both created separate Eatomate accounts but want to share one household, you can merge your accounts together. This combines your pantry data, meal history, and subscription into one household.

How to Merge

1. Go to Settings → Household → Advanced Household Management
2. Click "Merge Households"
3. Enter the other household founder's email address
4. Review the merge preview (shows data from both households)
5. Click "Check Merge Compatibility"
6. If compatible, this creates a pending merge request
7. The other founder will receive a notification and must confirm the merge
8. Once both founders consent, the merge executes automatically

Requirements

• Both households must be in TRIAL or ACTIVE status
• Only household founders can initiate or confirm merges
• Both household founders must consent to the merge (two-party consent required)
• If both households are on paid subscriptions, they must have matching billing intervals (monthly or yearly)
• Combined member count cannot exceed 10 members
• Limited to 5 merge attempts per hour per user (to prevent abuse)

What Happens After Merging

• Members: All members from both households are combined
• Pantry: Pantry inventories are merged together
• Meals: Meal history from both households is preserved
• Subscription: The source household's subscription is cancelled, and you continue with the target household's subscription
• Billing: Additional seats are added to the target household's subscription (£4.99/month per additional member)

Privacy & Security

• Email Privacy: When entering another founder's email, the system won't reveal whether that email has an Eatomate account or if they're a founder. You'll only get a generic success/error message.
• Rate Limiting: To prevent abuse, merge attempts are limited to 5 per hour per user.
• Founder Verification: Both parties must be actual household founders—regular members cannot initiate or confirm merges.

If some members need to leave your household and form their own, you can split the household. This creates a new household for the leaving members while keeping the original household intact.

How to Split

1. Go to Settings → Household → Advanced Household Management
2. Click "Split Household"
3. Select which members will leave to form the new household
4. Designate who will become the founder of the new household (must be one of the leaving members)
5. Review the split preview (shows data allocation)
6. Confirm the split

Requirements

• Only household founders can initiate and execute splits
• The household founder cannot be in the leaving group (transfer founder role first if the founder wants to leave)
• You must designate a new founder from the leaving members
• At least one member must remain in the original household
• At least one member must leave to form the new household
• Household must be in TRIAL or ACTIVE status

What Happens After Splitting

• Original household: Continues with remaining members and subscription
• New household: Created with leaving members
• Pantry: Goes to either original or new household (your choice)
• Meals: Each member keeps their own meal history
• Subscription: Original household keeps its subscription; new household starts a new trial or subscription
• Trial inheritance: If original household is in TRIAL, new household also gets a trial. If original is ACTIVE (paid), new household members will need to subscribe

Founder

The person who created the household. Founders have full control over the household.

• Invite and remove members
• Manage subscription and billing
• Initiate household merges and splits
• Transfer founder role to another member
• Delete the household

Member

Regular household members who were invited to join.

• Track their own meals
• View and add to shared pantry
• Scan receipts
• View shared meals
• Cannot invite others, manage billing, or initiate merges/splits