Brightwheel Alternative & Pricing

Brightwheel pricing, without the sales call.

Updated 8 September 2026 · every price below was checked on the vendor’s own site that day.

Brightwheel does not publish their monthly pricing publicly — only quotes after a sales call. MyKidReports does: $0.99 per child per month, free up to 5 children, every core feature included on every plan.

★★★★★ 5.0 on Capterra, GetApp & Software Advice
Brightwheel vs MyKidReports
Side by side
B
Option A
Brightwheel
Pricing
Custom quote
Plan details
Not publicly listed
Features
Revealed in sales call
Support
Contact form only
vs
MyKidReports
Option B
MyKidReports
Pricing
$0.99/child/mo
Plan details
Free up to 5 kids, all core features
Features
Listed openly on site
Support
Real humans on every plan
Switching from Brightwheel? Free data migration is included — rosters, billing history, parent contacts.
Start free →
The Brightwheel Pricing Search

You searched "how much does Brightwheel cost" and got nowhere.

Brightwheel does not publish a price anywhere on its own site — not per child, not per month, not for the app. Its pricing page asks you to book a sales call first. Here is what that looks like next to a price you can read in three seconds.

Brightwheel pricing is custom — contact our sales team for a quote based on your enrollment.
— What Brightwheel's pricing page tells you
Or you can just see it
MyKidReports pricing — published, no quote needed
$0.99 per child / month
Free up to 5 children · All core features included on every plan · No setup fee · No contract
What Changes

Three things that change the day you switch.

These are the three differences centers describe most often after moving off Brightwheel. Each is a deliberate product decision — not an upgrade tier.

🔒

You see the price first

No sales call to find out what you will pay. The published rate is what every center pays at every size.

Before
Brightwheel pricing is custom-quoted — depends on enrollment, features, and the sales call.
After
MyKidReports is $0.99/child/month. Free up to 5 children. Same rate for every center.
🎯

One plan, every core feature

Staff scheduling, assessments, CACFP, advanced reports — included on every plan, from day one. No quote-locked features.

Before
Brightwheel does not publicly list which features come at which price — you find out only after contacting their sales team.
After
MyKidReports lists its pricing openly — every core feature is included on every plan, free or paid.
💬

Same support for everyone

Real humans on every plan. No tier gate between you and a reply. Same support whether you have 5 children or 500.

Before
Brightwheel customer service details — channels, response times, tier structure — are not publicly listed. You find out through their contact form.
After
MyKidReports support is the same on every plan — chat, email, or phone, with real humans on the other end.
What You Get

Every core feature, on every plan — no Premium tier.

The modules a multi-room childcare program actually needs — from check-in to billing to licensing reports. Everything ships with every plan, even the free tier. No quote-locked features, no per-staff fees.

📱

Parent app (iOS + Android)

Daily activity feed, photos, two-way messaging, and contactless check-in/check-out. Same app for every family.

💳

Billing & tuition

Auto-billing, Stripe + Deluxe + ACH and card payments, late-fee rules, and parent-app invoice payments.

Attendance & check-in

QR or PIN check-in/check-out, room rosters, late-pickup alerts, and audit-ready attendance logs.

👥

Staff scheduling

Drag-and-drop scheduling by room, time clock, time-off requests, and ratio-aware coverage.

🍽

CACFP food program

USDA-aligned meal logs, daily attendance counts, and quarterly reimbursement reports.

📊

Reports & analytics

Enrollment, capacity, revenue by room, A/R aging, staff cost ratio — for directors and owners.

📝

Enrollment & waitlist

Public inquiry form, tour calendar, digital enrollment packets with e-signature, and per-room waitlists.

🔒

Paperwork & licensing

Immunization tracking, staff certifications, incident reports, and licensing-ready document exports.

🏫

Center website builder

A public website for your center with built-in inquiry form — included on every plan.

Looking for the full feature breakdown by module?

Every module above has a deeper page on the site — with screenshots, customer use cases, and the operational decisions behind how each one works.

See the full feature breakdown →
Their two plans, from their own page

Brightwheel free vs Brightwheel Premium.

Brightwheel does have a free plan. It is smaller than most people expect, and the line between it and Premium is where the cost of running your center actually sits.

Every Brightwheel figure below is taken from Brightwheel’s own page “Brightwheel Premium Pricing: What’s Included vs. the Free Plan”, last updated 18 August 2026 and read on 8 September 2026. No price is published on it, and none is invented here.

What you are comparingBrightwheel freeBrightwheel PremiumMyKidReports
Staff accounts1 staff memberUnlimitedUnlimited, on every plan
ChildrenFewer than 20 studentsUnlimitedFree up to 5, then $0.99 each per month
Family accountsUnlimitedUnlimitedUnlimited
Photos and videoPhotos onlyPhotos and videoPhotos and video
Messaging familiesNot includedIncludedTwo-way, on every plan
Online forms and signaturesNot includedIncludedEnrollment packets with e-signature
Waitlist and enrollmentNot includedIncludedInquiry form, tour calendar, per-room waitlists
CACFP and food programNot includedIncludedIncluded
Live chat or phone supportNot includedIncludedReal people, on every plan
A price you can read before you callFree is freeQuoted per program$0.99 per child per month, printed on this page
Scroll the table sideways to see all three columns.
On top of Premium

Card and bank fees depend on your plan

Brightwheel states that Premium customers get discounted card and ACH rates compared with the free plan. The rate you pay to take a tuition payment is therefore tied to which plan you are on.

On top of Premium

Payroll is an additional fee

Brightwheel lists payroll as an additional fee, connected through Gusto from inside the app. It is not part of the Premium subscription.

On top of Premium

Their curriculum is quoted separately

Experience Curriculum — the pre-made lesson plans and monthly materials — is quoted separately from Premium, in Brightwheel’s own words.

MyKidReports has no line above and no line below. There is one rate, $0.99 per enrolled child per month, free up to five children, and every module on this page comes with it — on the free plan and the paid one alike. Nothing is quoted separately.

Start free →
Simple Pricing

Free to start. Pay as you grow.

No setup fees. No per-feature upcharges. Cancel anytime. Brightwheel gives a monthly figure only after a sales call, at every enrollment size. Ours is printed below — the same rate for a home programme of four and a group of four hundred.

MKR Lite
Free
Free forever — up to 5 children. Every feature included.
  • Up to 5 children, free forever
  • Every module — billing, attendance, reports, scheduling
  • No credit card required
  • No contract, cancel anytime
Start free
Enterprise
Custom
For multi-location centers. Volume pricing and SSO.
  • Every module, same as every plan
  • Multi-location dashboard
  • Volume pricing
  • Dedicated success manager
Talk to sales
Looking for a deeper breakdown? See the full pricing page →
Beyond the pricing comparison

There's more to MyKidReports than published pricing.

The reasons centers stay (not just switch) — how the product was built, who built it, and the operating choices behind every-feature-on-every-plan. The full story.

Switching

Move off Brightwheel in two weeks.

Most centers think switching software is a six-month nightmare. With a free data migration from Brightwheel, parent-facing templates, and our team running the cutover, the average switch is ten to fourteen business days — with one parallel week in the middle.

Day 1-2
1

Free Brightwheel export

We pull your rosters, billing history, attendance, and parent contacts from Brightwheel at no charge.

Day 3-4
2

Audit & clean

Our migration team audits the data, flags incomplete records, and works with your director to fill gaps.

Day 5-7
3

Staff training

90-minute live training for your director. 30 minutes each for teachers. Pre-recorded videos for anyone who joins later.

Day 8-10
4

Parent app rollout

Family email goes out. Parents install MyKidReports during the parallel week, alongside My Brightwheel.

Day 11-14
5

Cutover

All operations switch. Billing runs on the new system. Brightwheel subscription cancelled at month-end.

Personalized demo

Considering a Brightwheel alternative? — See MyKidReports walked through your way.

A few honest questions. Pick the ones that match your day — we'll tailor the walkthrough to the modules that solve them.

  • Are you spending too much time on manual administrative tasks instead of focusing on providing quality education and care at your childcare center?
  • Do you want to make communication with parents easier for things like billing, scheduling, and daily activity updates?
  • Is manually tracking staff schedules, attendance, and absences becoming too time-consuming for your team?
  • Are you finding it difficult to manage essential records — attendance logs, incident reports, and staff certifications — in one centralized system?
  • Would you like to streamline your center's operations and offer a better family experience with an all-in-one childcare center management solution?
  • How do you handle staff scheduling and attendance tracking efficiently without relying on paperwork?
  • Are you struggling to manage multiple administrative tasks — billing, scheduling, attendance — across different systems?
  • Do you want to learn how automated notifications can keep parents updated — from schedule changes to billing reminders — effortlessly?
Free walkthrough

Request your demo

Tell us about your center — a product expert will reach out to schedule.

Why Centers Switch

The most common reasons centers move from Brightwheel to MyKidReports.

These four reasons show up in roughly nine out of ten switching conversations. None of them are about features — they are about how the software is sold and supported.

$

"We could not get a real Brightwheel price"

Directors comparing apps for daycare providers describe hours wasted scheduling sales calls just to learn the monthly cost. With a published per-child price, the comparison takes a minute.

🔐

"We grew — and the price grew faster than enrollment"

Quote-based pricing tends to compound at renewal. A published per-child price means cost scales linearly with the number of children, predictably and openly.

📱

"We couldn't tell what we were paying for without calling sales"

When pricing and feature tiers aren't published, every renewal becomes a sales conversation. Listing every core feature on every plan, openly, removes that recurring decision.

💬

"Customer service quality depended on which plan we paid for"

Tiered support means the directors who need help the most — often the smaller programs — get the slowest response. We do not tier support by plan.

Common Questions

Brightwheel pricing & alternative, answered.

Direct answers to the questions centers ask most often when comparing Brightwheel to MyKidReports.

How much does Brightwheel cost?

Brightwheel does not publish a price anywhere on its site. We checked its pricing page on 8 September 2026: it asks seven questions about your center, then asks you to speak to a specialist. No figure appears at any point. MyKidReports publishes per-child pricing openly: $0.99 per enrolled child per month, free up to 5 children.

What is Brightwheel?

Brightwheel is a childcare app used by daycares, preschools, and centers for check-in/check-out, photos, parent communication, and basic billing. My Brightwheel is the parent-facing side of the app. It is one of several apps for daycare providers — alongside Procare, Lillio, HiMama, and MyKidReports.

Is Brightwheel free?

Yes. Brightwheel has a free plan and it publishes what is in it: one staff member, fewer than 20 students, unlimited family accounts, daily reports, photo sharing, tuition invoicing, subsidy tracking and next-business-day direct deposit. It does not include family messaging, online forms, waitlist management, ratio tracking, lesson planning or live chat and phone support — those are Premium, and Premium is quoted per program. MyKidReports is free up to 5 children with every module included, then $0.99 per child per month.

How much is Brightwheel per month?

Brightwheel gives a monthly figure only in a quote, after the form and the call. Its own pricing page carries no per-month number, no per-child rate and no app price. MyKidReports publishes the monthly rate on the page you are reading: $0.99 per enrolled child, free up to 5 children.

How much is Brightwheel per year?

Brightwheel does not publish annual pricing — only quote-based. Yearly cost varies by enrollment, features, and negotiated contract terms. MyKidReports annual cost is straightforward to calculate: $0.99 × enrolled children × 12 months, with the first 5 children free, all core features included.

Does Brightwheel have different pricing tiers?

Two: free and Premium. Brightwheel publishes the feature split between them, and the table above sets it out. What it does not publish is the price of Premium, which is quoted per program — and payroll and its Experience Curriculum are billed on top of that. MyKidReports does not tier features by plan: every module is on every plan, at one published rate.

How much is Brightwheel Premium?

Brightwheel does not publish a Premium price. In its own words, Premium pricing is customized for each program rather than published as a price list, and the quote itemizes what is included before you sign. Brightwheel also warns that pricing figures on third-party review sites are often inaccurate or out of date — so the only real number is the one its sales team gives you. MyKidReports is $0.99 per enrolled child per month, free up to 5 children, and that is the number for a program of any size.

What fees does Brightwheel charge?

Brightwheel names its fees but publishes no rates. In its own words there are service fees on card payments and on ACH or check, discounted for Premium customers compared with the free plan; payroll through Gusto is an additional fee; and Experience Curriculum is quoted separately. No figure is attached to any of them. MyKidReports charges $0.99 per enrolled child per month and nothing else: no setup fee, no per-staff fee, no per-feature fee, no contract.

How much does the Brightwheel app cost?

Parents do not pay to use it — the cost sits in the center’s subscription, and Brightwheel does not publish what that subscription costs, so there is no app price you can look up. With MyKidReports the parent app is included for every family on every plan, inside the $0.99 per child per month.

What is Brightwheel customer service like?

Brightwheel customer service is reachable through their help center and contact form on the Brightwheel website. Specific support channels, response-time SLAs, and any tier structure tied to support are not publicly published — those details are part of the sales conversation. Brightwheel for parents is supported through in-app help. MyKidReports provides the same support to every customer regardless of plan size: real humans by chat, email, or phone, with no support tier gated by which plan you are on, and no hidden Brightwheel fees or per-staff surcharges in our model.

How do I switch from Brightwheel to MyKidReports?

Most centers complete the switch in 10-14 business days. Our migration team pulls your rosters, billing history, attendance records, and parent contacts from Brightwheel at no charge, audits the data, trains your staff (90 minutes for director, 30 for teachers), runs a parallel week with one room, then cuts over. Brightwheel subscription is cancelled at month-end. Free data migration is included.

What is the best alternative to Brightwheel?

MyKidReports is a transparent Brightwheel alternative: published per-child pricing ($0.99/child/month, free up to 5 children), every core feature included on every plan, no setup fee, no per-staff fees, no contract. Free data migration covers the move. For centers that want to see the price before talking to anyone, this is the difference.

See the price before you talk to anyone.

Free up to 5 children. No credit card. Every core feature included. If you decide it's not for you, the export is free too.

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