brightwheel 2026: Benefits, Features & Pricing

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Overview
Pricing and Plans
Features
Integrations
User Reviews

Overview

brightwheel

4.7

(3254)

FrontRunner 2026

Pricing

Pricing available upon request

About brightwheel

brightwheel is a cloud and mobile-based childcare solution that simplifies administrative tasks, automates billing, and enhances family communication. Key features include check-in/out feature, intuitive parent communications, and simple activity logging for digital daily sheets.

The platform also assists with back-end business management, reporting, and data management. brightwheel also enhances communication with a messaging system for updates and sharing milestones. It offers tools for curriculum creation and progress sharing.

brightwheel Screenshots

brightwheel Pricing and Plans

Starting price: Pricing available upon request

Free Trial

Free Version

Basic

Pricing available upon request

No plan information available

brightwheel Features

Popular features found in Daycare
Alerts/Notifications
Billing & Invoicing
Daily Reports
Employee Management
Immunization & Allergy Tracking
Meal/Nutrition Management
Parent Portal
Payment Processing
More features of brightwheel
Activity Dashboard
Attendance Management
Attendance Tracking
Calendar Management
Class Scheduling
Client Portal
Communications Management
Contact Database
Customer Accounts
Data Import/Export
Data Security
Document Management
Document Storage
Electronic Payments
Enrollments/Onboarding
Event Calendar
Facility Management
Faculty/Staff Management
Financial Management
Independent/Private
Learning Management
Lesson Planning
Milestone Tracking
Multi-Location
Online Calendar
Parent/Student Portal
Real-Time Reporting
Records Management
Registration Management
Reminders
Role-Based Permissions
Scheduling
Special Education
Student Information/Records
Student Management
Wait List Management

brightwheel Integrations

QuickBooks Online

Gusto

Birdeye

brightwheel User Reviews

Overall Rating

4.7

Ratings Breakdown

71%

25%

Secondary Ratings

Ease of Use

4.6

Value for money

4.5

Customer support

4.6

Functionality

4.5

Heather L.

Verified reviewer

Education Management

11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed December 2025

Love Brightwheel

I do not have any complaints about this software. The parents and staff love using this software daily!

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Previously 4

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

How easy and fast it is to use and communicate with parents and staff regarding the child's daily activities

Cons:

I do not have any complaints about this software. The parents and staff love using this software daily!

Kristie R.

Verified reviewer

Child Day Care Services

2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed March 2025

TALK ABOUT IT

DONT LIKE CHATTING I WANT TO CALL AND TALK

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

BILLING TO THE PARENTS IS EASY AND GETTING PAYMENTS DOCUMENTED IS GREAT. I ALSO LIKE THE COMMUNICATION TO AND FROM PARENTS

Cons:

HAVENT LEARNED EVERYTHING THAT BRIGHTWHEEL HAS TO OFFER

Reasons for choosing brightwheel

DHS PAID FOR US TO TRY IT AND OTHER CENTERS RECOMMENDATIONS

Kim M.

Verified reviewer

Child Day Care Services

1001-5000 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed December 2025

Brightwheel remains one of the best

Brightwheel is great to use to track the daily happenings with my child and offer updates for other families.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The ease of use remains the most important. I also like the wide range of uses it has, which prior I was unaware it had so many varying options. Videos, pictures, chats, logging times of events, etc.

Cons:

i can not think of any cons at this time. I love Brightwheel and all the things I can do with it. It makes my day go by easier knowing my child's happenings.

Shaun G.

Verified reviewer

Child Day Care Services

2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed October 2024

A bright spot in Child Care!

Overall my experience with brightwheel has been great. We have used it at 2 separate facilities and it works very well for communication with the providers and keeping the parent informed of any and all aspects of their children's daily routine while at the facility.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

I like that brightwheel does a great job of allowing the staff at my child's preschool to keep me as a parent updated on what is going on throughout the day in many different aspects.

Cons:

While not a huge problem, I would like the chat functionality within the App to send push notifications when my wife responds to messages as well. As it is, I will receive a notification if someone from my child's preschool sends a message, but I will not get a notification that my wife sent one as well in response. This would be helpful so that I would know without having to open the App and navigate to find the exact conversation, just to realize that a question has been answered or situation handled.

Reasons for switching to brightwheel

We switched due to the childcare provider switching. It's been a positive move, even though we didn't have any large complaints about Remind.

Christine A.

Verified reviewer

Education Management

51-200 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed March 2025

Office Manager/Designated Employee

Mostly positive. As I mentioned before, the applications are easy to use.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The useful features and that the application is very user-friendly.

Cons:

Customer Service, not being able to get a REAL person on the phone. I feel like text or email are fine for small issues, but bigger issues may get lost in translation via email or text. Also, texting and emailing are time-consuming, especially for someone in a preschool who has to constantly be moving.

Reasons for choosing brightwheel

Over all functionality, although I think their customer service was more accessible.

Jessica R.

Verified reviewer

Child Day Care Services

11-50 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed October 2024

Pros and Cons

Overall, it's easy to use and has a very organized structure so you can see where things should be or how they should go, even if you haven't done that specific thing yet.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

I really like that you can save lesson plans from one year to the next. It makes it easier to see where the kids should typically be at at certain times of the year. The communication with the parents is really great too. It's easy to take pictures and attach them to lesson plans and send them to the parents. Messaging can be sent either from the lesson plan, from a photo or video, or from the messaging section, which is nice. And you can send to entire classrooms for announcements like our recent Halloween party.

Cons:

The assessment portion is difficult. It doesn't connect to the lesson plans, so when you take a picture of a lesson plan that has developmental goals/milestones on it, it doesn't automatically upload that photo and lesson plan to that kids' portfolio. And you have to input everything separately. Each kid, each photo, each goal, each section, each description (because again, it doesn't pull from the lesson plan descriptions, even when the photo is from a lesson plan that's in Brightwheel), it's just really time consuming. It's not clear how you make a template, or if that would even be helpful. And there aren't any example templates or template tutorials so you can see what that would look like. You can't send them to the parents either. Which kind of defeats the purpose in my opinion.

Reasons for switching to brightwheel

I'm told it was the board's decision. I have no idea why they decided on something different, though.

Courtney M.

Verified reviewer

Child Day Care Services

2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed December 2024

Awesome program!!!

Brightwheel has been fantastic. It has really helped us with parent communication and on boarding of new students and staff.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The ease of parent, communication and the integration with payroll

Cons:

Some things that are easily done on the computer are not as easily done on the app and most of the time I’m on my phone

Reasons for choosing brightwheel

I thought that it was easier to use from both the parent and and the administrative end

Priscilla L.

Verified reviewer

Child Day Care Services

2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed March 2025

Brightwheel Review

Overall, I had a great experience with using brightwheel. I would definitely recommend.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The thing I liked most about brightwheel is that for the most part, it’s an all in one system.

Cons:

The thing I liked least was that I couldn’t schedule my newsletters and I was restricted to only using pics from the app

Reasons for switching to brightwheel

It was when Procare only option was the software being downloaded to the schools computer.

Tynei H.

Verified reviewer

Education Management

2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed August 2024

Brightwheel is literally #1 software for childcare management!!! | Level Up Childcare Development

Brightwheel is great, but sometimes the video is not available.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

My days are very busy, the app helps me show parents everything their children has done throughout the day and parents LOVE it! Teachers/Childcare Providers can message, send pictures, share education progress and ideas, and SOOOOO much more. The app has everything you need in one place.

Cons:

The app is only an app. I wish I could use Brightwheel on the computer. Typing would be quicker, and sometimes my phone is not accessible (at this very moment my phone is broken....). :(

Reasons for choosing brightwheel

More appealing and more features than other apps, plus I think I saw it on shark tank at a time I needed a product like this

Mandy M.

Verified reviewer

Education Management

2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 6 months

Review source

Reviewed January 2025

Brightwheel review