Childcare software questions, answered

Childcare management software is one system that runs the administrative side of a daycare, preschool or after-school program: enrolment, attendance and check-in, tuition billing, parent communication, staff scheduling, daily reports and compliance records. Instead of a sign-in clipboard, a spreadsheet for invoices, a messaging app for parents and a filing cabinet for forms, everything lives in one place and updates in real time. See what our childcare software covers.

On a normal day it does five jobs for you. It checks children and staff in and out and timestamps it. It watches every room against its required ratio. It raises tuition invoices and collects the money. It sends families their daily report, photos and messages. And it keeps the records a licensor may ask for — immunisations, forms, attendance history — ready to print. See how it works.

Five things decide it. Price you can actually read — if a vendor will not publish one, budgeting is guesswork. Scope — does it cover billing, attendance, enrolment and communication, or will you still pay for three more tools? Migration — will they move your existing children, families and balances for you? Staff time — can a teacher learn check-in in one shift? Exit — no contract, no lock-in, your records exportable. Compare our pricing or book a walkthrough.

Spreadsheets work until three things start happening: tuition goes uncollected because nobody chased it, a room slips out of ratio without anyone noticing, and a licensing visit takes two days of paperwork to prepare for. Software earns its place the moment the admin hours cost you more than the subscription. On our free plan the maths is easy — up to 5 children costs nothing at all.

All-in-one. Billing and payments, attendance and check-in, admissions CRM, parent messaging and newsletters, daily reports, staff scheduling and ratios, food program menus, immunisation and form records, reporting, and a website builder are all included. Most centers that move to us retire their separate billing tool, parent app, check-in app and spreadsheets at the same time. See the full feature list.

Yes. It is used by full-service daycares, preschools, Montessori programs, after-school and camp programs, and home-based family childcare providers. A one-room home daycare and a multi-site group run on the same platform — the difference is what you switch on. Home daycare software · Camp programs.

Yes. Multi-center groups run every site on one account, with a director's view across all locations and per-site permissions so each manager only sees their own rooms. Groups over 100 children sit on our Enterprise plan. Built for multi-site owners.

Whatever you already own. MyKidReports runs in any modern browser on a laptop or desktop, and as one app on iOS and Android for admins, teachers and families. Most centers put one tablet at the door for check-in and use phones for the rest. There is no proprietary hardware to buy and no kiosk to lease.

The clearest difference is that our price is published and theirs mostly is not. When we checked the eighteen main childcare platforms in September 2026, only six published a price at all, and $0.99 per child per month was the lowest of them. Brightwheel, checked on its own site on 8 September 2026, asks you to book a sales call before it will quote. We also include billing, CRM, scheduling and the parent app on one plan rather than splitting them into modules. Brightwheel comparison · Procare comparison · Lillio / HiMama comparison.

Side-by-side pages, each with current published pricing, for Brightwheel, Procare, HiMama / Lillio, Kangarootime, KidKare, Playground, iCare, Sandbox and Storypark.

Across the market it ranges from free to several hundred dollars a month, and most vendors quote per child or per center after a sales call. Of the eighteen main childcare platforms we checked in September 2026, only six published a price at all. MyKidReports publishes: free forever up to 5 children, then $0.99 per child per month.

Free forever for up to 5 children. Above that it is $0.99 per child per month on the Pro plan, up to 100 children, with unlimited staff accounts. Over 100 children or multiple centers moves you to Enterprise, which is quoted. No setup fee, no contract, cancel any month. See the full pricing page.

It is free forever, not a trial. Up to 5 children and 1 staff account, with the dashboard, daily activities, parent messaging, digital check-in, attendance and one room included. It is built for home daycare owners and brand-new centers. Billing and payments, custom reports and dedicated support sit on Pro.

Beyond the free 5 children, Pro is billed in tiers of ten. So 6–10 children is $9.90 a month, and the calculator on our pricing page shows any enrolment. A center with 30 children pays $29.70 a month. You are billed on your tier, not on daily attendance swings.

Yes — 14 days, full access to Pro, no credit card. If you do nothing at the end of it you simply drop back to the free plan; nothing is charged and nothing is deleted.

None. No setup fee, no onboarding fee, no annual contract, no minimum term. It is month to month and you can cancel any time. Onboarding, migration help and staff training are included rather than sold as a package.

Free covers up to 5 children and 1 staff account: dashboard, My School setup, daily activities, parent messaging and app notifications, digital check-in/out, family profiles, attendance with reports, and one room. Pro adds 1–100 children, unlimited staff, billing and payments, school calendar, custom reports and analytics and dedicated support.

Enterprise is for groups over 100 children or more than one center: custom quote, multi-location dashboards, deeper customisation, priority onboarding and a named specialist with a priority SLA. Ask for a quote.

Three, all optional: a custom-built website for your center, marketing tools to promote and grow the business, and social sharing. Nothing you need to run the center day to day is an add-on. Website builder · Marketing tools.

Card and bank payments are processed by our PCI-DSS certified partners, Stripe and Deluxe, and the applicable rate is confirmed with you during setup before you switch payments on. Nothing is deducted by MyKidReports on top of the processor's rate.

Yes. Move up or down as your enrolment changes, and cancel in any month with no exit fee. Because there is no contract there is nothing to buy your way out of.

For a single site, most centers are live within days rather than months: a kickoff call, migration and configuration, then staff training and a family rollout. Multi-site groups take longer because rooms, ratios and billing rules are set per location. The slow part is rarely the software — it is deciding your billing rules, and we walk you through that. See the onboarding process.

Yes. Children, families, staff, rooms and balances are migrated for you as part of onboarding, at no extra cost. Send us an export from your current provider and we map it — you do not have to retype a roster.

No. Historic invoices and balances come across in migration so your year-end and tax reporting stay whole. If your current provider only gives you a PDF or CSV, we work from that.

Check-in, daily reports and messaging are the parts teachers touch, and they are usually learned in a single shift. Directors need longer because billing and reporting are theirs. Hands-on training for your team is part of onboarding, and support continues after launch.

We help with the family rollout as part of setup — invitations, the parent app, and what to say to families about payments. Running the old and new system in parallel for one billing cycle is the usual way to do it without drama. See the parent app.

We do, with you, on the setup call. Rooms, ratios, tuition plans, discounts, late fees, subsidy agencies and parent communications are all configured to how your program actually runs before you go live.

Yes. Start on the free plan or the 14-day trial and build your setup in parallel, then switch families over when your current term ends. Because we have no contract there is nothing to sign in advance.

Chat, email and phone. Pro and Enterprise centers get dedicated support, and Enterprise gets a named specialist with a priority SLA. There is no support tier you have to buy separately. Support and onboarding.

Families or staff check in on a tablet at the door or from the app, and every check-in and check-out is timestamped. Attendance builds itself from those records, so daily rosters, absence lists and attendance reports are always current. Check-in software · Attendance software.

Yes. Build the staff rota once and every room shows against its required ratio live, so you see a room about to go out of compliance before it does rather than after. Staff clock in from their phones. Scheduling and ratios.

You set the tuition plan once. Invoices are raised on schedule, autopay collects from families who have enrolled in it, reminders chase the ones who have not, and late fees apply by your own rule. The chasing runs in the background instead of eating your Monday. Billing software.

Yes to online payments by card or bank, and yes to recurring autopay. Receipts and year-end tax statements are generated for families automatically, which removes most of the January admin.

Yes, and this is where many platforms stop. Add every agency you work with, assign children to them, and each invoice is auto-split between the family co-pay and the agency share, with Unpaid, Received and Distributed totals per agency. Unlimited agencies per center. Subsidy management.

Yes. Plan weekly menus, run more than one menu side by side, duplicate a week in bulk, and share the menu with families in one tap. It is CACFP-aware as you plan, so rule errors surface at planning time rather than at a state visit, and CACFP is one of the built-in report topics. Food program software.

Yes. Build the rota, let staff clock in and out from their phones, and see the hours against each room's ratio requirement. Staff reports are part of the reporting module.

Inquiries come in from your website into an 8-stage pipeline built for childcare. You book tours, run a waitlist, and automated follow-ups keep families warm until they enrol — then the record flows straight into enrolment packets and billing without re-entry. Childcare CRM · Enrolment software.

Yes. Meals, naps, diapers, learning moments, photos and videos are recorded in the room and reach the family's app the same second, so there is nothing to photocopy at 5pm. Daily reports.

Yes. Observations and learning activities are recorded against each child and build into a developmental record over time, which is what most emergent-curriculum and portfolio programs need. Child development tracking · Learning software.

Yes. Immunisation records, enrolment forms and authorisations are stored on the child's record and are reportable, so a licensing request is a report rather than a filing-cabinet search. Free childcare forms and checklists.

Attendance, billing, staff, activities, students, wellness, contacts, forms, enrolment, CACFP food program and subsidy. Pick a topic, set the dates, hit Generate, then print, export or email it in one tap. Reports and analytics.

Yes. Multi-site owners get a cross-location view of enrolment, revenue and attendance, with per-site permissions so each director only sees their own center. For owners and multi-site groups.

A website builder is available as an add-on, and it plugs into the CRM so an inquiry form on your site lands directly in your admissions pipeline instead of an inbox. Childcare website builder.

Yes. Roles are granular, so a bookkeeper can see billing without seeing child records, and an enrolment coordinator can work the pipeline without touching invoices. For bookkeepers · For enrolment specialists.

On AWS infrastructure. Everything in transit travels over TLS and everything at rest is encrypted, with role-based access controls on top. Read our trust and safety page.

You decide, per role. Directors see everything for their site, teachers see their rooms, bookkeepers see finance, and families see only their own child. Access is controlled by role rather than by trust.

Yes — our data privacy practice is built to align with COPPA, which matters because the records are about children. Children's information is collected on your instruction as the center, for your program, and is not sold.

Your center owns its records. We process them so the platform works for you; we do not sell them and we do not use a family's information for anything outside your program.

We never hold card numbers. Payments run through PCI-DSS certified partners — Stripe and Deluxe — so card data goes to the processor, not to us or to your office.

The record stays on your account as an archived child so your attendance history, billing history and compliance records remain complete for the period the child attended. Archived children do not count toward your billed enrolment.

Yes. Reports export from the dashboard in one tap, and if you are leaving, contact support and we will help you pull a full export of your records. There is no contract holding you and no charge to walk away.

In rough order: decide your model (home-based or center), check your state's licensing requirements and ratios, secure and prepare a compliant space, write a business plan with realistic enrolment and staffing costs, complete licensing and inspections, hire and background-check staff, then start enrolling before you open. Requirements differ by state, so your state licensing agency is the authority on the specifics. Free daycare startup checklist.

It depends almost entirely on your model and your space. A home-based program can start with licensing, insurance, basic equipment and a background check; a center carries lease or fit-out, playground, staffing before revenue, and licensing costs that vary widely by state. We keep a working breakdown you can put your own numbers into: what it costs to start a daycare.

A licence from your state, a space that passes health, fire and safety inspection, staff who meet your state's qualification and background-check rules, ratios you can staff at every hour you are open, insurance, and written policies for enrolment, illness, emergencies and discipline. Our compliance guide walks through what licensors typically look for.

Cover the program you are offering, who it is for, your local competition and their rates, your ratios and staffing costs, your enrolment ramp month by month, and the point at which fees cover payroll and rent. Use our daycare business plan template.

Usually three levers, in this order: collect what you are already owed (late tuition is the biggest silent loss), fill empty spots rather than discounting full ones, and stop paying staff hours that ratios do not require. Automated billing addresses the first, an admissions pipeline the second, and live ratio scheduling the third.

Be findable locally, capture inquiries the moment they arrive, and follow up automatically — most lost enrolments are inquiries nobody called back. Our marketing tools handle the follow-up, and the CRM shows where families drop out of your pipeline. Childcare marketing automation · List your preschool.

Yes, and it costs nothing to start. Set up rooms, load your enrolment forms, and run your inquiry pipeline before you open a single day — the free plan covers up to 5 children, so you are only paying once families are actually enrolled. Start free.

Enrolment and registration forms, emergency contact and medical authorisation, drop-off and pick-up authorisation, immunisation records, and an illness and incident policy. We publish editable versions free: childcare forms and checklists.