New Startup Promises to Simplify Your Divorce for Just $99

By Mark Shrayber | September 23, 2015 | 7:30pm

In Depth

Divorce can be painful, expensive, and confusing—that’s why one startup is trying to take some of the sting out of ending your marriage. It won’t help anyone cope emotionally, but for $99, Separate.us hopes to make the pain a little less pronounced in your wallet.

The Daily Dot reports that Separate.us (get it??) was revealed yesterday at TechCrunch Disrupt SF, and the site’s founders, Sandro Tuzzo and Larry Maloney, are promising their site will make divorce a simple and streamlined process that can be completed with minimal lawyer involvement. It’s like TurboTax for your dying marriage.

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Tuzzo and Maloney recognize that there’s a glut of apps on the market that cater to finding love—it’s as easy as clicking or swiping—but what about when love falls apart? What user-friendly app will spare you weeks of glaring at your soon-to-be ex across a conference table in some lawyer’s office? “There’s nothing,” Tuzzo said. Well, that’s not exactly true: There are sites like WeVorce, which can cost around $10,000 per divorce, and CompleteCase, which charges a more competitive $299 for their services. But at $99, Separate.us could be a serious competitor in the online divorce business if it takes off.

Here’s how the process works:

New users will be prompted with a Q&A to gauge whether they will be eligible to use Separate.us. Once a couple is deemed eligible, the site will translate all of the complicated, necessary forms into layman’s terms, so that people without law backgrounds will be able to complete them independently. Ideally, couples splitting up will be able to avoid costly legal fees as much as possible.

This sounds kind of awesome (except for the divorce part). And now that marriage equality has passed, you’ve got more couples getting married—which means, eventually, more divorces. Tuzzo and Maloney are banking that partners who’ve chosen to consciously uncouple will go for a cheaper option before hiring a costly divorce attorney.

The site is currently in private beta mode and only available in California (but you can join the mailing list for updates). If Separate.us is successful after its launch, Tuzzo and Maloney hope to expand its reach and also introduce a suite of programs that will free consumers from consulting lawyers when it comes to deciding who gets what after they die (the cat) and settling house disputes.

Helpful suggestion: Separate.us should offer a comfort package upon the completion of a successful divorce. I’m imagining it’d be free, but plenty of people would plunk down $39.95 for a box of tissues, a list of Netflix Suggestions, and two Round Table pizzas delivered to their home.

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Image via Twentieth Century Fox.