Parenting & Family · pricing
Brightwheel pricing
Brightwheel publishes 2 tiers. Below is each one, what it adds over the tier beneath it, and where the ladder stops being worth climbing for most people.
- Entry price
- Free
- Model
- Subscription
- Tiers
- 2
- Free tier
- Yes
Brightwheel plans, side by side
Every published tier in ascending order of price, with the number of features each one lists. An absence here means the record does not itemise it, not that the tier lacks it.
| Plan | Price | Features listed | Step up from the tier below |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | 4 | Entry tier |
| Plus | $100/month | 5 | +$100/month, 5 more features |
What each tier adds
The set difference between each tier's feature list and the one beneath it. Where a tier lists nothing new, the vendor has either stopped repeating the inherited list or the tier raises limits rather than adding capability, the record does not distinguish the two, so this page does not either.
Free
FreeThe entry tier. It covers messaging, daily reports, photo sharing, basic attendance.
Plus
$100/monthOver Free, this tier adds:
- All Free features
- Billing & payments
- Staff management
- Learning assessments
- Advanced reporting
Where Brightwheel stops being free
Free, Free
- Messaging
- Daily reports
- Photo sharing
- Basic attendance
Plus, $100/month
The first thing you pay for:
- All Free features
- Billing & payments
- Staff management
- Learning assessments
- Advanced reporting
What the product covers
The full Brightwheel feature record, grouped as the catalogue groups it. This is the product as a whole; the record does not map every feature onto a specific tier.
Core
- Daily activity reports
- Parent messaging
- Photo and video sharing
- Attendance tracking
- Billing & invoicing
- Staff time tracking
- Learning assessments
- Check-in/check-out
Integrations
- QuickBooks
- Stripe
Security
- Data encryption
- COPPA compliant
- Secure payments
Deployment
- Cloud deployment
Platform
- Web support
- Ios support
- Android support
Localization
- English language support
- Spanish language support
People bring Brightwheel in for childcare centre attendance and check-in, parent communication with photos and daily reports, billing and tuition collection from families, staff scheduling and ratio tracking, learning assessments and developmental records. If that is not the job you are buying for, the alternatives to Brightwheel are worth a look before you commit to a tier.
How that compares in Parenting & Family
Too few parenting & family tools in this directory publish a starting price to quote a meaningful median, so the table below is a like-for-like list rather than a ranking.
| Tool | Entry price | Model | Rated | Head to head |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brightwheel (this page) | Free | subscription | - | |
| BusyKid | $4/month | - | - | vs Brightwheel |
| Bark | $5/month | subscription | - | vs Brightwheel |
| Artkive | Free, then $75/product | - | - | vs Brightwheel |
| BabyCenter | Free | free | - | vs Brightwheel |
| Apple Screen Time | Free | free | - | vs Brightwheel |
| Baby Tracker - Newborn Log | Free, then $4.99/one-time | freemium | - | vs Brightwheel |
Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry, they are not reviews hosted on Softwr. How each figure is used is set out on the Brightwheel badges page.
Before you pay for Brightwheel
Three things this page cannot tell you, and all three change the bill. The record carries a price and a billing period but not the unit - per-seat and flat-rate pricing are indistinguishable in this data, so a five-person team may be looking at five times the figure above. It carries no annual rate, so any discount for paying yearly is not something this page can quote. And it carries no trial length.
What it can tell you is the shape of the ladder: 2 tiers between Free and $100/month, with the jump itemised above. Because there is a free tier, the cheapest way to answer the rest is to use it before paying anything.
Brightwheel runs on web, ios, android, and is published by Brightwheel Inc. of San Francisco, CA. The full record is on the Brightwheel review, and the rest of the category is under best parenting & family tools.
Brightwheel pricing questions
- How much does Brightwheel cost?
- Brightwheel publishes 2 tiers, from Free for Free up to $100/month for Plus. The entry tier costs nothing.
- Does Brightwheel have a free plan?
- Yes. The Free tier costs nothing and covers messaging, daily reports, photo sharing. Paying starts at $100/month for Plus.
- What is the difference between Free and Plus on Brightwheel?
- Plus costs $100/month against Free, and adds all free features, billing & payments, staff management, learning assessments.
- Which parenting & family tools can I use without paying?
- 5 of the 7 parenting & family tools listed alongside Brightwheel have a free tier: Artkive, BabyCenter, Apple Screen Time, Baby Tracker - Newborn Log, Brili Routines.
- What am I actually paying for with Brightwheel?
- The record lists 19 features across 6 areas: core, integrations, security, deployment, platform, localization. In practice it is brought in for childcare centre attendance and check-in, parent communication with photos and daily reports, billing and tuition collection from families.
- Does Brightwheel charge per user?
- The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 2 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.
- Are these Brightwheel prices current?
- They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.
- What should I compare Brightwheel against before paying?
- The closest parenting & family tools in this directory are BusyKid, Bark, Artkive, BabyCenter. Each has a side-by-side comparison with Brightwheel covering price, platforms and features.