brightwheel Software Reviews & Ratings | 2023 (2023)

October 2021

love this platform

5

5

4

4

November 2018

Brightwheel is great but could still be more amazing...

Pros

I love how easy it is to use and how simple it makes managing the classroom(s). Having everything connected to the same app is great and limits the amount of time I need to spend running payroll and billing.

Cons

I dislike that parents are not able to add their own approved pick ups. At this point all approved pickups need to be added by an administrator and have to have their own separate account. For a lot of families that are just adding people as an emergency or for very infrequent it doesn’t make sense. I also would appreciate not having to deal with it on my end and instead allowing the parents to add someone connected to their account but still with a separate check in code. I also would love a way to upload or create student files for all required licensing documents to move away from using so much paper and having those important files also stored with everything else in the system making it even easier to keep track of everyone and set families up when they start

5

4

5

4

January 2023

Absolutely recommend this amazing platform

The management of child care on a daily basis is made simpler by brightwheel. Accessing reports, entering daily activities, and managing attendance without paper are all simple processes. The application and lesson preparation processes have not yet been used, although they appear to be quite simple.

Pros

The option to publish numerous images simultaneously is fantastic. Taking a nap, eating, using the restroom, and other alternatives are all clearly indicated and easy to discover.

Cons

the option to upload forms that people may fill out and submit using the app for families. The families we work with don't have access to computers; instead, they use their smartphones as their primary computers. When we need to update a form, we still have to ask the families to fill it out and return it, which is challenging because most of the families lose the paperwork or don't have time to stop and fill it out on site. I like that staff members and administrators may submit their fillable forms rather than a read-only PDF. I am aware that Brightwheel allows for document customization, however we still need a little book for intake forms.

4

5

January 2023

Great platform that schools don't really utilize and notifications can improve

Pros

I like how all my school documents are in one place. I can go check the calendar and reference the handbook when needed. I also like the communication and messaging feature that allows me to hear from staff regularly.

Cons

There are many features to utilize here. My problems lie with the schools lack of effort to use this technology. I also dislike how the invoicing is done. No notifications were sent prior to paying my invoice, it just automatically took it out. Since my school does not invoice the same day every month. I wish they would notify you prior to withdraw. I get notifications daily about messaging. The same can be use to notify when an invoice is posted.

5

5

5

5

November 2022

Amazing Experience with this software

Pros

I love the ease of use. Brightwheel is easy to set up and for my staff to use as well as myself. My families absolutely love getting real-time information about their child as well.

Cons

I have not found anything that I don't like about Brightwheel. I recommend it to anyone that will listen.

4

4

January 2023

brightwheel Software Review

Pros

One important and impactful feature of brightwheel is the parent portal, which allows parents to access real-time information about their child's daycare or school experience, including daily reports, photos and videos of their child's activities, and communication with teachers and staff. This feature helps to keep parents informed and involved in their child's education, and also allows for easy communication between parents and caregivers. Additionally, it helps to keep all the information in one place and easily accessible, which can help to improve overall organizational performance.

Cons

Some cons of Brightwheel may include: its cost, its dependency on internet connection and device compatibility, limited functionalities for certain types of institutions or programs, and some users may find the interface not intuitive.

5

5

5

5

January 2023

The best app for Parents!

My experience has been great! Everything I need is all in one place. My daycare providers upload photos of my kid and all their daily information so I know exactly what they ate and what they have done while they were at daycare all day.

Pros

I love how easy Brightwheel makes tracking my baby while they are at daycare. I see every diaper change, nap time, and bottle. It also allows me to communicate with his daycare provider through messenger and allows me to pay online each week. The app has made our entire daycare experience better!

Cons

I don't have any cons about this program. As long as the providers use it like they should and upload the information, then the app is great as a parent!

5

5

January 2023

Good for Parents

Very good - I recommend all daycares to use this tool with their parents

Pros

We've been using Brightwheel for our 5 years now at several daycares. It helps us keep track of our son, including check-in/out and daily activities. It lists activity in chronological order with newest first and it helps us make sure the daycare is taking care of the children. I like that it can include photos and videos uploaded by the teachers.

Cons

Sometimes I wish I could send photos and videos to the teachers as well! I'd also like to be able to message some teachers directly instead of having it shared with the administration.

5

5

5

5

December 2022

Wish I Knew of It Sooner!

Overall Brightwheel has been a great addition to my business. It has made record keeping, billing, and communication a breeze and the parents really like the added value of being able to see daily reports in real time.

Pros

The features that are most important to me as the childcare provider are the billing, feed log, and attendance tracking. The features that the parents enjoy the most are the feed and nap logs and picture/video uploads.

Cons

I wish more administrative features were accessible via the mobile app.

5

5

January 2023

BrightWheel to Communicate

Pros

I was easily able to read, receive and write messages to my child's teachers. We used it as a daily communicator to discuss daily activities. The app is super easy to use and takes little time to set up.

Cons

There were not any specific features that come to mind that I did not like.

5

5

5

5

January 2023

Brightwheel Review

Brightwheel has generally been a good experience for me. This technology is often dependable, inexpensive, and a fantastic tool to utilize in a daycare facility. Overall, it has been a wonderful and practical tool that has allowed me to monitor the well-being of my grandson and feel at ease.

Pros

I definitely appreciate Brightwheel's features, and ease of use compared to other apps of a similar nature. There are many different functionalities accessible, all of which speed up and improve the efficiency of managing classrooms and communication.

Cons

Nothing negative I can say about the software.

5

4

5

3

January 2022

Easy to set up and easy to use with many features

Our overall experience has been great. The software does most of what we need and we are able to do a work around for items that may one day be implemented through customer feedback. Most importantly we have NEVER had a lock out of software or temporarily unavailable for any reason. We have had access to our software 100% of the time. That was not the case for the software we were using previously.

Pros

The onboarding was easy and the specialist was friendly and knowledgeable. Customer service was easy to contact with questions and responses were professional and clear for quick use. Extensive online help is available at your finger tips if needed. Real time attendance and real time communication with parents through the app are exceptional. Pictures are posted with captions along with one touch categories for quick future reference. Timecards are easily generated for payroll purposes while also providing real time ratio numbers with a touch of a button. Private or group messaging is easy and helps with teacher/director/parent logging so everyone involved has access to what is being communicated.

Cons

Brightwheel struggles with after care billing/invoicing that our center could benefit from. The attendance base billing for that needs options with one touch toggles to accommodate different scenarios. The Room Device Mode also needs a toggle for children assigned to that classroom as a "homeroom" in their profile, instead of being able to see all children in the center that are assigned to a room as a secondary room. Tracking room transfers are imperative to align with state mandates but having a clean visual of attendance is also important.

5

5

4

4

February 2021

Brightwheel Became Our Bright Spot!

Brightwheel has helped me simplify many aspects of my job. Messages to teachers and staff go in real time. No more running all over the school looking for people. Parents love the app because the get daily communication about their child as the day progresses. During this pandemic, grandparents are being added so they can see daily pictures of their grandchildren. It works well with our school community.

Pros

I love the fact that the one program takes care of communications with faculty and parents, billing and payments, and student information. All of it quickly accessible by computer or cell phone. Customer service is attentive and thorough.

Cons

There are some areas where improvement is necessary. Sometimes when you export information, you may need to tweaking the organization of the information to look the way you want it. The thing is, they invite you to share what you believe needs to improve. In the short 7 months of using this software, and they have made significant updates many of these aspects.

5

5

5

5

November 2020

Perfect for communication, logging activities, and billing

Being able to message parents back and forth is so nice now that our staff doesn't have to use their personal phone to text. With COVID rising and possible winter weather arriving soon, the fact that we can send out an alert if we need to close is crucial! It sends a text message as well as the message in the app. Also, they are constantly adding new features and making updates using feedback from users. They are always friendly and helpful!

Pros

I love that it keeps us (mostly) paperless! All activity is logged so we have no need for paper daily sheets. We can easily message our parents individually AND send out messages to the whole school.

Cons

The billing feature isn't quite where we need it do be, but they have already fixed it and we are just waiting to be updated to the new platform.

3

4

3

November 2018

Perspective from a Teacher who is also a Parent using Brightwheel

Overall, I like the app. It is helpful during the day and once you get the hang of it, really easy to navigate and update, although it can be a bit time consuming. When I have emailed customer service they have emailed me back in a polite and timely manner, which is always a plus. This is my third school year using the app, and have yet to hear a negative comment from any of my student's families. All have had rave reviews, shared it with family members, and are constantly thanking me for sharing things with them throughout the day.

Pros

As a teacher, I like the convenience of being able to get in contact with the parents of my students quickly and effectively. I am able to keep track of attendance and absences easily, it also helps with parents who need to monitor their child's eating. As a parent, I like receiving updates about my child, especially pictures. When it is kept up by my child's teacher, it is a great app because I can see what is going on during his day even though I am not with him.

Cons

One of my biggest frustrations is that I have to COMPLETELY log out and log back in when switching from my teacher account and my parent account, at the same school. My son goes to the school that I work at but is in a different class. It would be so much easier if there was a way to toggle back and forth between the two. My other major concern is, though we have the app on our school chromebooks and it's great, I cannot upload pictures from the computer to the app to share them with parents. So, instead of keeping the app on my cellphone logged in to my child's account, I have to log out and then in to my teacher account to be able to share pictures of my students with their families. It is really frustrating. The parents of the children in my class are constantly giving me positive feedback about the app and love getting the pictures and videos, but it is difficult for me since I want to share the pictures with them but I can't do it all from the chromebook unless I try using the poor-quality webcam. It would be much more of a positive experience for me if I was able to use a classroom camera, upload the pictures to a computer, then be able to upload the pictures to the app for the families. I am sure that for someone who has a designated work cellphone or maybe even a tablet with a decent camera, this would not even be an issue, but for someone who has to use a personal cellphone to take and upload pictures to the app, is a bit of a downfall.

4

5

5

5

August 2022

I was hesitant but so glad I tried this. Never going back!

The onboarding for this software was better than any other company I have worked with. They were not going to take my money and leave me alone. They "forced" me to learn how to use it and that is really important. I would have kept pushing it off "until next week" and never done it. I have 2 children that are computer scientists for a top tier company and they are both impressed with it. That says a lot!!

Pros

The customer support has been spectacular. I am a small school and don't pay much but I'm always treated like I could be their biggest client. I get a quick response when I have a question and they are always polite and professional. This has made my job so much easier on a daily basis. The billing would be my second favorite aspect. So much less check handling, deposits, chasing down parents that owe money, etc. The overall professional appearance this software gives my school. Okay, the grandparents don't always love it but everyone else does. :)

Cons

There are a few things that changed with the billing that I don't like as much. I liked going to the overview page and seeing recent transactions without having to click on other links. Also, ALL of my children are billed the first of the month, billing ends May 1, notice goes out 3 days prior to bill being due. There should be a way to "lock" these features and change them only when needed. I have to go on and click these for EVERY child. I would like to see more of what a parent sees. For instance: what does a parent see when a payment is past due? Do they see something daily when they check in? How often are they reminded? It's probably hard to do but I would love to have a feature that had a time stamped late fee for late pick up. Example: children have to be picked up at 12:30. At 12:35 they are billed a certain amount, at 12:45 another amount, etc. I would LOVE to be able to set a "don't check in yet" warning. Example: Check in is at 8:30. If they try to check in at 8:27 something flashes "oops, 3 more minutes. Proceeding will charge you for early drop." I can't always stop them. This is a big problem at my center and probably many of the smaller centers. The ability to print a more detailed breakdown of deposits. Every 2 weeks the treasurer prints out the deposit report and I have to break it down by: tuition, registration, book fees, etc. Every fee is broken down when it is charged. It would be nice if that showed up.

5

3

3

5

August 2017

The best app for schools, day cares, etc.

It makes managing student attendance and communication with parents much easier.

Pros

This is one of the best, if not the very best, solutions to make my life easier managing my school. We started using this app just in our after school program and soon adopted the check-in/out system for our entire attendance tracking solution. We are able to run reports to see who, when, and where someone was checked in for any given day in our school year. All of my suggestions have been heard and considered and almost all (if not all) have eventually been added. I love how well they receive feedback and how they want to serve institutions of all sizes. Having been a long time user since their infancy, I have had the opportunity to talk to many people with the company and they are all wonderful. I wish more companies were like them.

Cons

I feel like the free version is quite limited. It used to have many more features and I sang its praises to everyone. Now I have to start the conversation by discussing the financial part of the system, which limits some potential users. I wish it integrated with student information systems so that I didn't have to export and prepare csv to upload to create students. It would be much simpler to have an automated sync each night to create or remove students based on our current student system, Renweb. I'm beginning to realize that part of this is due to their growing attempt to take over the educational information realm, but they are not there yet.

5

4

2

3

November 2018

Mixed Feelings

We are generally receiving our payments on time more. BrightWheel has caused new frustrations but relieved others. We like the parent communication aspect. The customer service of BrightWheel is getting better; however, I usually only get an answer after asking multiple people the same question and finally I will get a correct answer. They love their standard boilerplate responses which if I needed would have gotten from the library. The overall feeling of “we are only here to make the parent experience better” versus making the centers business operations better is frustrating. In the end, the center will get what we need and with BrightWheel a lot of times it causes inconvenience to the parents. Example, when a new child starts under the parents, they have to re-link to AutoPay. The parents can’t figure it out because of it shows they are linked with one student so we have to add their bill to their older student who doesn’t come anymore in order to get their autopay to work. That is not friendly experience for us or the parent. BrightWheel still needs a lot of work to get it to a product that is time-saving and beneficial for centers to use.

Pros

We love the AutoPay feature and the ability for our parents to get their invoices 24/7.

Cons

There isn’t a way to record credit, and when a payment fails without attempting to go through it doesn’t send an email to the parents or us. Also, when a payment fails it doesn’t give us an opportunity to recharge. Many parents will ask us to retry and we can’t without creating a new invoice. Also, on the Plan section, it doesn’t allow you to make changes to the days the invoice gets charged, or a new end date, etc. This means we are constantly canceling the plan and creating a new one.

5

5

4

5

November 2018

Awesome app for our preschool and daycare!!!

Sometimes when trying to set up new families, the ap (on the parent's end) will ask for a code; identifying which school. I was never given/provided with a code, so sometimes I have to delete the child and start over to see if the parent is able to obtain the 4-digit code.

Pros

We can do everything with this app. It's great! Parents can sign their child in/out, which is perfect for state regulations. Parents can see what their child is up to throughout the day by way of 30 second videos, pictures, messages, notes, meals served and quantity of food each child ate, incident reports, medications administered and bathroom breaks. There is also a custom icon, and if you are a staff member of a facility with multiple rooms, you can move the children from one room to another, so parents and staff know where their child is at at all times. There is a calendar, observation section and you can even do billing! I couldn't imagine NOT using Brightwheel. It is so quick, easy and comprehensive. Each child is separate and each profile affords space for all pertinent information, including doctor/dentist information, address, parent contact, emergency contacts, allergies, medications, and DOB. It is very inexpensive an parents are able to know what their child did, rather than trying to ask the busy staff or ask their child. Multiple members can be added to a profile and all receive a 4-digit code for signing their child in/out of care. I would recommend it a million times over! Awesome Ap!

Cons

Wish the videos could be longer and you had the option to crop/edit the pictures and video length.

5

5

5

5

March 2022

Great ABA software

It has been a great experience! We will continue to use it. Our staff and parents can use it and we are happy with it over all.

Pros

The auto draft option for the parents, and how they can pull their financial reports anytime they like. I can add a one time charge if they are late or require additional hours of service. The reports are easy and setting up the parent insurance information is a breeze. I also like the chat feature - when I have a question or concern.

Cons

That the parents can not use their HSA credit cards. The staff have said it is fixed, however my parents still have failed payments and can not use the card due to the system saying we are a day care service. If that could be fixed and placed under health services- the parents would be much happier, and I would not have to run their card manually and pay an extra cost for merchant services.

5

5

May 2021

Great childcare communication tool!

We have very much enjoyed the system and would recommend it to any childcare organization that wants to provide great quality communication with parents.

Pros

As a parent working with this system to check in his kiddo every day for daycare, I have found this program to be very well structured and easy to use. I can easily and securely check my son in and out of care, communicate effectively with daycare leaders, and receive updates and pictures from my son's day.

Cons

I haven't seen any issues with the program at all so far. Sometimes the check-in process is a bit lengthy, but I think that's more based on COVID and how my daycare set it up.

5

5

5

5

December 2018

So glad I went with this service!

Customer service is responsive, friendly and fast. I have seen this app change and grow for the better in just a few years. If you have looked at it or tried it in the past, take a second look. This app is extremely useful.

Pros

My families love this app, it makes communication easy. I feel like the increase in communication through this app during the day has helped me build deeper relationships with my families, help foster more positivity and trust, and help me help them with parenting topics, concerns and encouragement. The feature I love the most is autopay, all of my families use the payment feature. I never have to worry about chasing checks or manually adding payments for tax season.

Cons

I have had many issues sharing multiple photos at one time. I kind of gave up using this app as my primary way to share photos and set up a private group on social media for my families instead. I did enjoy how the app would keep an archive of the photos, but it was too much of a hassle for me to get them to upload, even after doing lots of troubleshooting. I don't use this app for this primary purpose, though and still feel the value is absolutely there with all the other features.

5

5

5

5

July 2020

Parents- your daycare needs this!

Brightwheel is an absolute game changer for daycare providers--it's the standard for top tier providers. We previously used another app and this one offers greater functionality. You can add lesson plans, update a calendar, message parents, send reminders etc.

Pros

Brightwheel is a simple, yet amazing app for parents. You are able to monitor your child's activities, food, diapers, naps, etc. while they are at daycare. It is so much more convenient than a paper report and staff members can easily add information and photos all day long.

Cons

There really are not many cons with this app. I will say that it would be nice if it would integrate more with other calendar apps.

5

5

5

3

October 2018

Best system for communication in Childcare

My overall experience with Brightwheel has been extremely positive. I recommend it to any school, large or small, looking for a means of communication and organization amongst their program.

Pros

The program is extremely easy to learn to use. My staff and parents are able to download the app and begin communicating with one another instantly. With this program, parents feel as if they are with their child each day, which is invaluable for preschool families. Parents and teachers can communicate in real-time without disrupting their day. This program is the BEST means of communication and most convenient tool for educator documentation I have seen in my 15 years as an Educator and Administrator.

Cons

I would love to see more options with billing and attendance reports. There are still some reports that help with auditing accounts that are not yet part of this program. I would love to be able to quickly pull attendance records for a whole classroom for a week and compare with billing. Unfortunately I do have to pull multiple reports or scan through attendance feeds to do so currently, which does take up a lot of unnecessary time. Brightwheel has; however, been changing and updating constantly to meet our administrative needs!

3

5

2

3

December 2020

Great way to communicate with parents

The is very good product and does a great deal g ft or teachers

Pros

The function that allow a text like interactions with families with photos and comments has been fantastic for our teachers.

Cons

It’s a little difficult to utilize to its potential. It goes more than is obvious to teachers. Maybe a video tutorial training for each new hire.