Narrowing down the best childcare software is not an easy task. There are so many factors to consider. This list will help you sort through what is available and determine which apps will make your life easier and what will be worth your investment.
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What are the best daycare apps?
Daycare apps are an excellent management tool for parents as well as for daycare centers. They help parents to communicate with teachers, schedule pickups, and track their child’s development through the day. Yet, when it comes to picking the best daycare software, they all look and feel the same. You are often left wondering why one is better than the rest. Let us help you! Here are the best daycare apps in 2021 that you can choose for better data management.
1. Illumine
Illumine is the best childcare software that offers a comprehensive management system for childcare centers and daycare providers. The platform makes it easy for parents to stay connected with their child’s daycare schedule and activities, view business hours and contact information, enroll their child, view photos of fun activities, etc. Be it enrollment details or parent-teacher communication, this app has all the features that the best daycare apps should have.
Features:
- Enables to share child’s progress
- Allow recording of live sessions
- Provide real-time updates
- Parents can track the live bus location of kids
- Enables to compile lesson repository
Price: Starting from $0.50/month
“This app is an excellent alternative app that allows managing records together in one place. I will strongly advise this application to other daycare owners.”
– Roy C.
2. Sandbox
Sandbox is a childcare software solution that can help you keep track of everything from schedules to payments. For childcare centers, this web-based application includes comprehensive inventory management features, customer relationship management (CRM) tools, and a full suite of reports to help you keep track of your center’s performance. It is one of the best daycare apps through which parents can easily manage their account details, invoice-related concerns, printing receipts, etc.
Features:
- Parents can easily register details of their children
- Receive timely updates for child’s activity
- Offer automated invoices for parents
- Allow business owners to automate record-keeping
- Enables childcare staff to access emergency contacts
Price: Starting from $59/month
“We are pleased with what Sandbox has provided for our childcare center. Setup was easy, but there is a learning curve, as with any new software. Moreover, the customer support has been outstanding.”
– Lisa Haydon
3. LifeCubby
LifeCubby is the best childcare app with exclusive features. It helps streamline the child care management and payment process for providers, parents, and administrators. It is designed to help ease communication between parents, provide a single view of their children’s schedule, and organize all their childcare-related communication. The best part about the application is that it works on both iOS and Android platforms. Thus, it is easy to view information and access documents from any device.
Features:
- Allows digital check-in/out
- Support advance reporting
- Allows live messaging between parents and teachers
- Enable allergy and immunization tracking
- Easy nutrition management
Price: Starting from $30/month
“Lifecubby is a must-have app for childcare providers. I love this application. Families have also sent me nothing but positive reviews. The technical assistance is outstanding. ”
-Missy Ondero
4. Brightwheel
Brightwheel provides a cloud-based technology to help manage all aspects of childcare, managing schedules, payment and billing, communication, and more. Brightwheel is the best childcare software solution for people who want to handle their childcare business in a better way. It allows teachers to share class recordings with parents and reduces the need for paperwork with its detailed reporting feature. Moreover, parents can use Brightwheel from their browser, tablet, or mobile device.
Features:
- Easy to schedule events with Brightwheel’s calender
- Enables attendance tracking
- Provides activity dashboard
- Allows to create reminders, alerts, and messages
- Enable to track the performance of kids
Price: Starting from $15/month
“This program assists me in streamlining all aspects of my preschool administration. Many parents appreciate the application due to the opportunity to pay online and communicate with us.”
-Kelly Jenner
5. HiMama
HiMama is a free daycare app that helps childcare centers manage everything from scheduling to marketing. HiMama helps to improve communication between parents and teachers, keep track of children’s activities and analyze crucial operational metrics for childcare centers and daycare providers. HiMama’s staffing calendar syncs to a school’s online calendar, offer childcare staffing and scheduling tools and allow caregivers to capture and connect with parents through an instant messaging app.
Features:
- Keep track of children’s wellbeing and happiness
- Use regular sheets to keep track of meals, naps, and other tasks
- Enables parents to communicate with their children in real-time
- Easy check-in and check-out feature
Price: Free of cost application
“HiMama is outstanding software that offers a wide range of features. The photographs and regular reports are a hit with the parents. It is incredibly simple to use, and it eliminates mountains of paperwork.”
– Cassey Z.
6. EZCare
Childcare professionals need a modern platform to manage their day-to-day operations. The EZCare is one of the best childcare software that is packed with features that are specifically designed to help simplify the management of a daycare. These features include a single point of online access, weekly automated reports and analysis, online scheduling, and even a Meal Planning Tool. It takes the pain out of managing the people and processes involved in the day-to-day childcare operations.
Features:
- Enable automatic notifications
- Provides easy attendance management
- Allow third party integrations
- Accounts Receivable/Cash Receipts
- Offers customizable reporting
Price: Starting from $59/month
“I like the EZCare software; it is a massive help for our school. We bought it about a year ago, and it is been great.”
– Charles Deck
7. Kangarootime
Kangarootime is an all-in-one childcare management platform that allows parents to easily manage their child’s activity. Also, schedule, communicate with teachers, as well as track all expenses in real-time. This one of the best childcare software that allows childcare providers to manage their business, take payments and communicate with parents. Kangarootime makes it easy to run your business from an app on your phone, tablet, or computer.
Features:
- Provide separate parent portal
- Make billing and invoicing easy
- Enable document management
- Supports nutrition/meal planning
- Enables Self Check-in/Check-out
Price: Has a free-trial plan and different subscription plan
“Kangarootime has aided us in improving contact with parents and teachers while also removing a significant amount of paperwork”
– Jane Austin
8. Cheqdin
Cheqdin is a platform that revolutionizes the way parents and daycare providers handle their day-to-day interactions. It’s a comprehensive solution that gives you complete control of your childcare business from anywhere. Whether you are a small or big childcare organization, Cheqdin has the features you need to achieve efficiency and success. It is one of the best preschool apps free trial that is tailored to the needs of Caregivers. It helps them manage their day more efficiently while also giving them the support they need to do a great job.
Features:
- Allow digital attendance tracking
- Provide access to emergency contacts
- Supports smart reporting
- Enables email notifications
- Easy calendar management
Price: Starting from $32.00/month
“The platform is cloud-based and reasonably priced. It has a lot of useful features that help with nursery management, and parents have appreciated the enhanced communication. Happy to be Cheqdin user”
– Pary Watson
9. Famly
Built with the latest technologies in web and mobile application development, Famly provides parents with complete visibility into the day-to-day happenings at their childcare centers, group care arrangements. This free daycare app is used by many organizations to manage their daily operations, streamline communication between parents, educators, and staff, and raise funds with ease. Many childcare considers it to be the best daycare software. It is a complete HRM software for your caregivers and the children they care for.
Features:
- Send and create calendar invitations
- Allows staff messgaing
- Comes with occupancy controls
- Easy to manage to holidays and sick leaves
- Allow sharing photos & videos in real-time
Price: Free of cost application
“It is one of the top daycare apps that is useful for any childcare center. It provides an easy platform for communication between parents and teachers.”
– Richard S.
10. Procare Desktop
ProCare Desktop from ITWorks, Inc. is a Desktop-based childcare management software that offers care providers a complete solution for creating and maintaining a high standard of regulatory compliance, while also improving operational efficiency. It is easy to install, configure and use, allowing you to get up and running in no time at all. Financial reporting, payroll processing, processes, and reports are just a few of the features that make it the best daycare app for childcare center operators.
Features:
- Provides database management
- Allow automated billing and reporting
- Provide electronics document storage
- Attendance tracking and scheduling
- Offers childcare software security
“Procare is simple to set up and use, and the instruction on how to use the software was extremely beneficial. I use the Procare app regularly to streamline processes and improve my efficiency at work”
– Dale Con
11. Jackrabbit Care
Jackrabbit Care is an online child care management solution. This application makes it easy for childcare center owners to manage all their daily operations. From scheduling to managing clients, payroll, and reporting, Jackrabbit Care has you covered. It enables you to track attendance, records, communicate with parents, and providing them with helpful resources. The software also features live parent-teacher conferences with chat, video, and screen sharing. This helps parents to better communicate with their child’s teachers.
Features:
- A web-based CRM software
- Offers employee performance management
- Employee time and attendance tracking
- Easy payroll processing
- Build & track medical record
Price: Starting from $23/month
” The product is easy to use. It has a lot of choices, is adaptable to business needs. The opportunity for parents to pay for their children’s activities online is a fantastic addition ”
– Nadia Robe
12. Parent
The parent is one of the best daycare apps that provides child care management solutions. It helps parents and teachers manage online booking, payments, and communications. The software takes care of all tedious tasks of managing kids’ schedules, calendars, classes, teachers, schools, activities, fees, etc. Parent application allows parents to communicate with teachers and engage in group discussions using a messaging app. Moreover, teachers can track each student’s progress, schedule their classes, and send notifications to parents.
Features:
- Access to child’s daily activity log
- Provide class management feature
- Enables health records and documentation
- Easy reporting
- Employee management feature
Price: Starting from $25/month
“I have been using this software for the past two years. It is helped keep track of and monitor the progress of the kids. I am glad we went for this app. ”
– Regine Fernandes
13. Educa
Educa is an online school management software. It enables the schools with easy and efficient management of day-to-day activities of the school and reduces paperwork to a large extent. Being the best childcare software, it helps childcare providers to track their work schedule, provides a self-learning management platform for school children, tracking client details, attendance, evaluates and improves their expertise in an evidence-based way. Additionally, the app is compatible with both iOS and Android platforms.
Features:
- Supports lesson plan management
- Allows teacher development tracking
- Easy assessment management
- Children progress tracking
- Send and create invitation and reminders
Price: Starting from $1/month
” We’ve been using Educa for a few months and are very happy with it! Our staff members find it very easy to track and maintain records with the help of this software”
– Jacob Acker
14. Prime Child Care
The Prime Child Care Services software is an easy to use, budget-friendly application for childcare centers. If you are looking for the best childcare software to manage school administration processes effectively, you must give it a try. Unlike other software solutions, it takes into account all your needs and is highly flexible and customizable. Furthermore, with online check-in, check-out system, and real-time headcount distribution, Prime Child Care enables accurate attendance management.
Features:
- Provides Comprehensive User Management
- Enables school calendar management
- Real-time attendance tracking
- Offers web, email & mobile communication tools
- Customizable online enrollment & admissions
Price: Starting from $65/month
“I just want to mention that this software has provided me with outstanding customer service and extremely trustworthy assistance. It is not only simple to use but very helpful for data management.”
– Nicole Miller
15. Kinderlime
Kinderlime offers a unique solution to improve your business operations, gain insights about childcare services, and help you grow your business. It gives a platform to make childcare center management easy and accessible to run your operations smoothly and efficiently. This child care app provides them the ease for website creation, lesson planning, and communication via email, text messaging, and online calendar. Kinderlime helps daycare centers to build better relations with the parents they serve.
Features:
- Web-based administration
- Offers accounting automation
- Supports parent messaging and reporting
- Allows online payment processing
- Activity management
Price: Starting from $1.25/month
“I am glad that I choose Kinderlime. Everything is so easy to manage with this application. It saves time and the best part is that it is an affordable software.”
– Smith Jacob
16. 1CoreSolution
1CoreSolution is the best childcare software that has all the features you need to manage your business and communicate with parents and employees. With 1Core, your entire team can be managing your center on the same platform and work on the same documents. What’s more, you can share information with parents and pay staff securely in real-time. It can be used to manage your center in three primary areas: enrollment, streamlining administrative tasks, and marketing via automated alerts.
Features:
- Family billing & accounting
- Ease parent communications
- Provides detailed reporting
- Time & attendance tracking
- Timesheet management
Price: Starting from $49/month
“1CoreSolution is a good go alternative. I like that I can change a lot of the settings according to convenience. All of the comprehensive reporting that is available is appealing to me.”
– Sarah Gracia
17. Enrolmy
If you are searching for the best childcare software to book and manage childcare activities, Enrolmy can help you! The platform offers complete workflow management with integrated payment and communication between activity providers, parents, and children. The system works on any tablet or smartphone with an Android or iOS operating system. To save time, email templates can be customized, and bulk email communication is possible.
Features:
- Enable to customize the registration
- Improves data collection and organization
- Access to alerts/notifications
- Easy payment processing
- Offers separate parent portal
Price: Starting from $39/month
“With Enrolmy, I can get all enrolments and payments online. It is so much time-saving and eases out hustles in managing operations ”
– Duke Brown
18. OWNA
With the OWNA childcare software, you can easily manage your childcare business and see all data in one place. It includes different reports for you to analyze childcare business performance, such as number of families, number of children and their parents, attendance record, and more. It is among the best free daycare app. Besides, you can track the system’s health and performance continuously with information and updates being available instantly at any point in time.
Features:
- The application integrates with Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.
- Allows meal/snack planning and scheduling
- Easy to accept and record transactions
- Interactive dashboard to inspect activities
- Enables to schedule in-person or online classes
Price: Free of cost application
“I have been able to reduce a lot of our paper-based processes to OWNA, which fits in well with our ambitious targets. Also, the support team is awesome.”
– Davis Duff
19. Child Paths
Child Paths is a web-based application designed to help primary schools in improving the quality of their educational practice. This application allows teachers to keep a check on daily records, curriculum planners, enhancing learning measures for children. Its extensive tools will help you to track attendance, perform employee scheduling send and create reports and alerts. The platform allows teachers to focus on teaching instead of paperwork. It allows parents to see their child’s progress.
Features:
- Enable alerts and notifications
- Ease the process of enrollments/onboarding
- Provides immunization & allergy tracking
- Electronic signature feature
- Allows meal tracking
Price: Starting from $1/month
“This app is fantastic! We started working with Child Paths in 2019. It’s a wonderful tool that makes day-to-day paperwork a lot easier. ”
– Karen Alby
20. iClassPro
iClassPro is a class management application that is designed to help educators to manage their classes, schedule, grade, report, and communicate with students. This app is web-based, which means you can get started in minutes. Furthermore, parents can also access the application for modifying account details, tracking their child’s attendance, and gaining information about the class schedule. Many childcare centers consider it to be the best daycare software due to the availability of integration with applications such as Microsoft Excel, QuickBooks, ADP, etc.
Features:
- Allows activity tracking and management
- Easy client management
- Supports electronic payments
- Supports payroll management
- Class, email, event management
Price: Starting from $129/month
“Overall, I had a very good experience with iClassPro. With the assistance of customer service representatives, the setup process is simple and information is transferred quickly. ”
– Micheal Jones.
21. KidReports
KidReports is a digital classroom management and child care communication software. The platform allows parents to track their children’s schoolwork, homework, attendance, behavior, and even activity logs. At the same time, for daycare centers, it becomes easy to communicate with children’s parents by text, email, or phone call and regulate data management operations. Further, you can run this application on both iOS and Android platforms. Equipped with exclusive tools, KidReports is one of the best daycare apps.
Features:
- Allows flexible activity planning
- Send real-time updates
- Supports multiple languages
- Enable to keep digital records
- Easy to import and export data
Price: Starting from $129/month
“I love working with KidsReports. In my view, it has better features than any other childcare apps. Plus the customer service is also good”
– Charles Clark
22. Storypark
Storypark is a cloud-based web utility that helps educators to manage child care facilities easily. With this best childcare app, you can quickly manage your daycare or preschool business, from managing your staff to helping parents sign-up and enroll their children. If you own a daycare center, then Storypark can help you to keep track of attendance, performance, and results of children. Also, makes it easy to communicate with parents and staff members.
Features:
- Offer extensive reporting tools
- Allows custom teaching curricula
- Easy to build teachers portfolio
- Allows meal tracking
- Enables progress tracking and reporting
Price: Starting from $12.90/month
“Storypark improves communication by making it simpler and more effective. It is assisting us in reaching out to family members who have previously been difficult to contact.”
– Richard Musk
23. Tuition Express
Tuition Express is an online billing software designed for daycare centers. This application is the right choice for all those who want to keep the accounting information efficiently and effectively. Tuition Express is an affordable, easy-to-use software that can help your daycare center with its administrative tasks. Tuition Express allows users to create invoices, track payments, and check payment history. This billing software also helps users create reports for the financial department.
Features:
- Useful in billing
- Supports ACH payment processing
- Good for invoicing
- Electronic payments
- Supports POS
“I recommend this app. I like that you can do several billing cycles and that you can edit a payment even if it has not yet been released.”
– Sophie Parker
24. Bloomz
Bloomz offers a suite of school communication and collaboration tools in an easy-to-use cloud-based platform. It is the best childcare app that allows teachers to schedule conferences via messaging, create student portfolios. With blooms, tracking student’s reports, checking assignment submissions is easy and quick. Bloomz makes it easy for schools to stay connected with parents, students, and teachers in a fast-paced environment. It allows maintaining a record of the child’s daily activities including meals, nap time, class schedules, etc.,
Features:
- Multiple calendars can be created and shared
- Both internal and external communications can be recorded
- Oversee the registration and onboarding process
- Enables to make a list of all of the students who are enrolled in each class
- Allows communication with customers via multiple mediums
“Bloomz is my absolute favorite! The recent updates have made it even more user-friendly.”
– Laura Wills
25. Kaymbu
Kaymbu is the new-age classroom documentation tool that enables you to capture, record, and share your students’ learning experiences. Kaymbu allows teachers to create their learning modules with different activities, schedule them for multiple children, track the progress of individual children and share it across a network of users. This software is accessible from any device that is Android or iOS.
Features:
- Allows to monitor task progress
- Create and track educational activities
- Enables to collect, upload, store, and share all documents
- Add customized logos
- Manage database of students
Price: Starting from $8/month
” Kaymbu has been making our teachers’ lives easier! We adore how easily it interacts with our parents, and we enjoy the inclusion of the Parent App!”
– Henry Mark
26. Smartcare
Smartcare is a simple web application that is meant to help parents, family members, and caregivers connect. Smartcare has created an affordable, cloud-based child care platform that allows parents to coordinate all their child activities at daycare, such as scheduling, payments, communication, and more, from one easy-to-use dashboard. It has a platform that allows the caregiver to enter contact information for parents, monitor children’s activities in real-time, and manage employee scheduling and payroll from any device.
Features:
- Allows attendance management
- Easy-to-build custom records
- Integration with other applications like QuickBooks
- Automatic scheduled pickup notifications
- Quick billing/payment processing
Price: Starting from $3/month
” The main advantage of this product for a user is that it gathers all of the child and family information in one section. Also, you can print reports for attendance, billing, and other things. ”
– Becca Johnson
27. Procare Online
Procare is online school management software for corporate childcare providers. Its multi-facility management and classroom tracking features make it well suited for centers with multiple rooms and teachers. The free daycare app version can benefit in tracking attendance and communication. This best child care software offers parents the ability to do an online payment, track student attendance, and run reports for the entire team. Childcare software provides real-time data so that everyone is kept informed and up-to-date.
Features:
- Food program records
- Electronic signatures feature
- Track attendance
- Provides balance management
- Allows activity tracking
Price: Offers a free and paid version
“Procare online is one of my favorite app that makes it easy to handle daily operations of my childcare center. It helps to automate many operations.”
– Allison Bear
28. ZayCare
ZayCare is a school management software for daycare centers. This platform helps manage the day-to-day operations of your daycare center or school with its easy-to-use features. It helps you manage multiple locations, students, teachers, and parents. You can track enrollment and attendance, manage student grades, schedules and progress. Many daycare centers opt for this software to automate HR, finance, administrative, and various other operations.
Features:
- Compliance management
- Task tracking
- Progress reporting
- Send payment receipts
- Supports self Check-in/Check-out
Price: Starting from $50/month
“All of the features of the Zaycare application are excellent. It has got everything a teacher requires in the classroom daily.”
– Peter Jones
29. PREto3
If you are looking for an easy-to-use, affordable, and best childcare app, then PREto3 is the best fit for you. It is a robust software solution that enables daycare operators to choose from a range of functionalities necessary to run a center with ease and efficiency. With PREto3, you can easily manage your daycare business including classroom records, attendance reports, enrollment, payment solution, student management, parent portal, and many more.
Features:
- Allows to share event reminders with parents
- Parent/Student portal
- Provides staff management
- Lesson Plan Management
- Attendance Tracking
Price: Starting from $0.99/month
“Nice app, it helps a lot in streamlining many daily operations. However, we faced an issue where we couldn’t use a certain feature, but it was fixed soon after we reported it.”
-Brenda L.
Benefits of Daycare Management Software
Daycare business is a challenging field and you need proper management of the business to get better results. This can only be possible if you are using the best daycare software. Here are some benefits offered by the best daycare apps:
Reduces Paperwork
Today, most organizations are struggling to become more efficient and to cut back on paperwork. Luckily, childcare management software can help you eliminate most of the paperwork involved with running your daycare business. It ensures that all activities are documented digitally and can easily review reports for various reasons.
Better Track of Information
The software allows centers to better keep track of the important information about all the children and staff members. You can add, edit and delete information related to your daycare center. Unlike paper records, it is easy to modify any information in a fraction of seconds.
Easy Communication with Parents
Another benefit of online daycare management software is that it ensures better communication between teachers and parents. When parents sign up, they can log in and see their child’s enrollment information, daily schedule, and even pictures from the daycare. It also lets parents communicate with the facility at any time.
Saves Time
Of course, no system can replace human effort, but daycare management software saves a lot of time and makes daycare more organized. Instead of manually logging in attendance, tracking expenses, and managing employee schedules, you can do it all from your computer.
Automates Daily Operations
It automates day-to-day routine tasks and allows users to focus more on the children they serve. Automation also ensures that there are no duplicate entries in the database since it can tell if the same child is enrolled in more than one daycare center.
Track Children’s Progress
With the help of daycare management software, caregivers at daycare centers can manage children’s schedules, attendance, classroom activities, and assignments, and even track their day-to-day progress with reports and analytics.
Helps in Nutrition Planning
Daycare management software not only helps in monitoring the nutrition of children in a daycare center but also helps in making sure that the nutritional needs of all the children are met without any worries. Many software provides tools for monitoring the number of meals served as well as food planning.
Share Live Updates
The Best Daycare software is essential for the growth of your daycare center. It allows you to share real-time updates with parents. Parents don’t have time to call every day, so they look to the internet for live updates on their children. Parents can check in on their kids daily to see how they are doing.
How To Choose the Best Daycare App?
Choosing the right daycare app can be the difference between a thriving business and a failed one. However, with so many apps in the market, you may be wondering which one is the right one to suit your needs. Here are some tips that will help you to choose the best daycare software:
Check Essential Features
Today you will find that the daycare management app comes with a lot of features. You must make a list of features that are important for you and will make your work easier. While exploring the applications, make sure it contains all the features that meet your requirements.
Ease of Use
Daycare app is a major utility for child care centers that will be used to handle minor to major operations. Thus make sure that the application that you are going to choose for yourself has a user-friendly interface and is easy to operate. So that any of your staff members can finish their tasks without facing any difficulty.
Backed by Robust Customer Support
Technical applications are prone to face glitches. There may be circumstances when you might get stuck working with your child care app. To resolve the issue, you will have to reach out to customer care executives. Therefore, make sure that the company offers quality customer support.
Decide Your Budget
You will find that childcare apps are available in both paid and free versions. You must opt for the ones that meet your child care center’s requirements and accordingly decide the amount of money you are willing to pay for the software. Without any doubt, the paid version will offer a more comprehensive set of features than the free version.
Check Compatibility
These days cloud-based applications are given more preference than offline software. This is because they allow data sharing easily. So, check if the application is web-based or not. Also, check whether the application can work on different platforms like Android and iOS or not.
Research Online
The safest way to shortlist the best daycare apps is to do some research online. Check for details about each software and the features that it offers. Read from authentic and updated resources to make sure that you are gaining the right piece of information online.
Read Customer Reviews
If you are confused about which software is good and has a high-performance score, then check for user reviews. Reading reviews will help you to know about the real-time pros and cons of the software. Besides, you can also ask for a demo session from the service provider.
Use Trial Version First
Many software offers a free trial version of their application. Going for a trial version is the best opportunity for you to check whether the software can fulfill your requirements or not. During the trial period try to explore as much as you can about the functions, tools, and other utilities of the software.
Conclusion:
There is no doubt that the child care industry is a competitive one, which is why you should consider using the best daycare software that helps you stand out from the competition.
