Brightwheel pricing, without the sales call.
Updated 15 September 2026 · vendor pages re-checked that day; every reported figure below is attributed to its source.
Brightwheel publishes no monthly price — only a quote after a sales call. Centers report paying roughly $150 to $400+ a month, and small or home programs about $2 to $3 per child plus a $15 to $30 base. MyKidReports publishes its rate instead: $0.99 per enrolled child per month, free up to 5 children, every core feature on every plan. MyKidReports is all-in-one childcare management software: billing, check-in and attendance, enrollment, daily reports and the parent app in one login.
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.
So what do centers actually pay?
Brightwheel publishes no price, so the only figures that exist come from centers reporting what they were quoted, gathered by review and comparison sites. They are reported ranges, not Brightwheel’s official rate — Brightwheel itself cautions that third-party pricing figures can be inaccurate or out of date. Nothing below is invented: every line is attributed, and was checked on 15 September 2026. Get a current quote before you decide.
| Cost line | Brightwheel (reported) | MyKidReports (published) |
|---|---|---|
| Published price | None. A quote after a sales call. | $0.99 per enrolled child per month, on this page |
| Typical center, per month | Roughly $150 to $400+ a month, by center reports | 40 children = $39.60 a month |
| Small or home program | About $2 to $3 per child a month, on top of a $15 to $30 monthly base | 10 children = $9.90 a month |
| Per year, 10-child program | Roughly $420 to $660, before processing and add-ons | $118.80 |
| Free plan | 1 staff member, fewer than 20 students | Up to 5 children, unlimited staff, every module |
| Free trial of the paid plan | Not offered, per G2, Capterra and SaaSworthy | 14 days, no credit card |
| Card processing | 2.5% to 2.9% reported; G2 reviewers cite 2.9%, one noting there is no option to pass it to parents automatically | At the payment provider’s rate, with no markup from us |
| Setup or onboarding | $0 to $500 reported on larger contracts | $0 |
| Contract | A 12-month commitment is the default in reports | None. Cancel any month. |
| Billed on top | Experience Curriculum; payroll through Gusto | Nothing. Every module is inside the $0.99. |
| Room to negotiate | G2 records an average discount of about 15%, so a first quote is rarely the last | Nothing to negotiate — the rate is published |
Where these come from: Brightwheel’s own Brightwheel Premium Pricing: What’s Included vs. the Free Plan for the free-plan limits and the paid add-ons; G2’s brightwheel pricing page for the no-trial status, the average negotiated discount and the reviewer-reported 2.9% card fee; Capterra and SaaSworthy for trial availability; independent comparison write-ups for the monthly and per-child ranges. MyKidReports figures are our own published rate, before any payment-processing fees charged by the provider.
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.
One plan, every core feature
Staff scheduling, assessments, CACFP, advanced reports — included on every plan, from day one. No quote-locked features.
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.
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.
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 →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 — the reported ranges elsewhere on this page are attributed to the sources that collected them.
| What you are comparing | Brightwheel free | Brightwheel Premium | MyKidReports |
|---|---|---|---|
| Staff accounts | 1 staff member | Unlimited | Unlimited, on every plan |
| Children | Fewer than 20 students | Unlimited | Free up to 5, then $0.99 each per month |
| Family accounts | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Photos and video | Photos only | Photos and video | Photos and video |
| Messaging families | Not included | Included | Two-way, on every plan |
| Online forms and signatures | Not included | Included | Enrollment packets with e-signature |
| Waitlist and enrollment | Not included | Included | Inquiry form, tour calendar, per-room waitlists |
| CACFP and food program | Not included | Included | Included |
| Live chat or phone support | Not included | Included | Real people, on every plan |
| A price you can read before you call | Free is free | Quoted per program | $0.99 per child per month, printed on this page |
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.
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.
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 →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.
- Up to 5 children, free forever
- Every module — billing, attendance, reports, scheduling
- No credit card required
- No contract, cancel anytime
- Every module, same as the free plan
- Grows with your enrollment · unlimited staff
- Nothing is an add-on — no per-feature pricing
- 14-day free trial
- Every module, same as every plan
- Multi-location dashboard
- Volume pricing
- Dedicated success manager
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.
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.
Free Brightwheel export
We pull your rosters, billing history, attendance, and parent contacts from Brightwheel at no charge.
Audit & clean
Our migration team audits the data, flags incomplete records, and works with your director to fill gaps.
Staff training
90-minute live training for your director. 30 minutes each for teachers. Pre-recorded videos for anyone who joins later.
Parent app rollout
Family email goes out. Parents install MyKidReports during the parallel week, alongside My Brightwheel.
Cutover
All operations switch. Billing runs on the new system. Brightwheel subscription cancelled at month-end.
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?
Request your demo
Tell us about your center — a product expert will reach out to schedule.
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.
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 15 September 2026: it asks seven questions about your center, then asks you to speak to a specialist. No figure appears at any point. What centers report paying, collected by review and comparison sites, is roughly $150 to $400+ a month for a center, and about $2 to $3 per child per month on top of a $15 to $30 monthly base for small and home programs. Those are reported ranges, not Brightwheel's official rate. MyKidReports publishes per-child pricing openly: $0.99 per enrolled child per month, free up to 5 children, no quote required.
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?
There is no published monthly figure; Brightwheel quotes per program. Centers reporting to review and comparison sites put it at roughly $150 to $400+ a month, and small or home programs describe about $2 to $3 per child per month plus a $15 to $30 monthly base, which puts a 10-child home program near $35 to $55 a month. Treat all of that as reported rather than official, and get a current quote. 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 quotes. On the reported ranges, a 10-child home program works out to roughly $420 to $660 a year and a 14-child program to roughly $516 to $804, before card processing and add-ons; a center at $150 to $400 a month is $1,800 to $4,800+ a year. MyKidReports annual cost is arithmetic you can do yourself: $0.99 x enrolled children x 12 months, with every core feature 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 Brightwheel warns that pricing figures on third-party review sites are often inaccurate or out of date. The reported figures that do exist cluster around $2 to $3 per child per month plus a monthly base, and G2 records an average negotiated discount of about 15%, so a first quote is rarely the final one. MyKidReports has no Premium tier: every module is on every plan at $0.99 per enrolled child per month.
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. Reviewers fill in part of the gap: G2 reviewers report a 2.9% credit card processing fee, with one noting there is no option to pass it to parents automatically, and comparison write-ups put processing at 2.5% to 2.9% per transaction, setup fees at $0 to $500 on larger contracts, and a 12-month commitment as the default. On $20,000 of tuition collected by card in a year, 2.9% is about $580. 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.
Does Brightwheel have a free trial?
No. G2, Capterra and SaaSworthy all record that Brightwheel does not offer a free trial of its paid plan. The free plan is the only way to use it without a quote, and it is limited to one staff member and fewer than 20 students. MyKidReports gives every center a 14-day trial of the paid plan with no credit card, on top of a free tier that never expires.
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. Centers report roughly $150 to $400+ a month for the center account the app comes with. 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.