Brightwheel

Brightwheel is the number one rated childcare management software, trusted by over 300,000 child care providers and used at thousands of early education programs across the United States. The platform provides an all-in-one solution for daycare centers, preschools, and early childhood education programs to manage billing, attendance, communication, learning, admissions, and staff operations from a single app.

Brightwheel has earned over 100,000 reviews and is consistently ranked as the leading childcare center software. The platform connects directors, teachers, and parents through real-time communication, activity sharing, and photo/video updates that bring parents into their child's daily learning experience. For administrators, Brightwheel handles the operational complexity of running a childcare business — from invoicing and autopay to subsidy management, payroll, licensing compliance, and customizable reporting.

Key Features: Billing and payments with invoicing, deposits, secure online bill pay, autopay, tuition plans, subsidy management, and tax reporting, parent and staff messaging with activity sharing, photo and video sharing, newsletters, and school calendars, student attendance with rosters and profiles, check-in and check-out, digital signatures, ratio tracking, and attendance reporting, operations and reporting with custom forms, document uploads, menu and CACFP tracking, customizable reporting, and licensing compliance, learning tools with lesson plans, observations, assessments, family sharing, state standards alignment, and Experience Curriculum, admissions management with process management, waitlists, enrollment, and custom digital forms, staff management with roster management, staff scheduling, time tracking, payroll, and professional development hours, and dedicated customer support with personalized onboarding, account specialists, live chat, and 24/7 online resources.

Pricing: Brightwheel offers custom pricing tailored to each childcare program's size and needs. Pricing is not publicly listed and is provided through consultation with the sales team. The platform serves programs of all sizes from small home-based daycares to large multi-location centers. All plans include core features with the full platform covering billing, attendance, communication, learning, admissions, and staff management modules.

Use Cases: Daycare centers streamlining daily check-in and check-out with digital signatures, preschools sharing real-time photos and activity updates with parents, childcare directors automating tuition billing and reducing late payments with autopay, early education programs tracking developmental milestones and creating lesson plans, centers managing CACFP meal tracking and compliance documentation, childcare businesses handling staff scheduling, time tracking, and payroll, programs managing enrollment waitlists and admissions pipelines, multi-location childcare organizations centralizing operations and reporting, and home-based daycare providers professionalizing their billing and parent communication.