Running a childcare center means living inside at least five different tools on any given Tuesday.
A spreadsheet for your waitlist. A Google Form for inquiries. An enrollment packet you email as a PDF and then chase down for signatures. QuickBooks or a paper ledger for invoices. A separate app your teachers use to log attendance. And somewhere, a binder of state compliance documents that may or may not be expired.
None of these talk to each other. Every family’s information gets typed in at least twice — sometimes five times. When a child moves from your waitlist to enrolled, someone has to carry that information across every system by hand.
This is the normal state of childcare administration. It does not have to be.
Kinderly is four connected products — Enroll, Grow, Manage, and Billing — that each solve a different part of running your center. They share the same information, so a family’s details entered once are available everywhere. No re-typing, no copy-pasting, no version confusion. This article walks through each one: the problem it solves, what it does, and how it hands off to the next piece.
Why Most Centers End Up With So Many Tools
It helps to understand why the patchwork happens in the first place.
Older childcare software was built to do everything — enrollment, attendance, billing — in a single system. The problem is that doing everything meant doing nothing particularly well. The enrollment experience was hard for families. The billing was hard to configure. The interface was built for a desktop computer in 2005.
So many centers quietly abandoned the all-in-one and started stitching together better individual tools. A nicer form builder here. A payment processor there. A spreadsheet for the waitlist. It works — until someone leaves, or something falls through the gap between two tools.
Kinderly was built to close those gaps. Each product handles one part of the job, does it well, and hands off cleanly to the next.
Kinderly Enroll — Enrollment Without the Paper Chase
The problem
Enrollment is the first real paperwork a family does with your center, and in most centers it still runs on paper. You email a PDF. The family prints it, fills it out by hand, scans it, and emails it back. Or they forget. Or one page is missing. Or you can’t read their handwriting.
Someone on your staff has to chase every family, remind them to send back the missing form, and then retype the information into whatever system you use. The average enrollment packet takes two to three weeks to close — not because it’s complicated, but because nothing is automatic.
What it does
With Kinderly Enroll, you build your forms once — health history, emergency contacts, allergy disclosures, immunization records, medication authorization, custody agreements, whatever your state requires — and bundle them into a packet.
When a family is ready to enroll, you send them a link. They open it on their phone, fill everything out, and submit. No printing. No scanning. No back-and-forth. Their answers come in organized and readable — not as a photo of a handwritten page.
A few things that make this work in practice:
Families don’t need an account. Each link is unique and protected by a 6-digit PIN. There’s nothing to download, no account to create. The family clicks the link, enters the PIN, and fills out their forms.
The right questions show up automatically. If a family says they have a sibling already enrolled, the sibling discount section appears on its own. If their child has a specific medical condition, the relevant form shows up. Families only see what applies to them — you don’t have to manage which forms go to which family.
You control every field. If your state requires a specific immunization record or a USDA food program disclosure, you build it into the packet exactly as required. Nothing is locked down.
Documents are stored automatically. Completed packets and anything the family uploads — vaccination records, custody papers, doctor’s notes — are saved in Kinderly and attached to the child’s record. No separate filing system, no folder hunting later.
How it compares to what you might already have
Most families abandon paper enrollment partway through — it asks too much of them. Kinderly Enroll is designed from the family’s side first: one link, any device, done in one sitting. For centers currently using paper packets, a PDF sent by email, or a general-purpose form tool like Google Forms or DocuSign, Enroll replaces all of it with something built specifically for childcare enrollment.
Kinderly Grow — Your Website and Your Waitlist, Together
The problem
Most centers have one of two website situations: a site that was set up years ago and hasn’t been touched since, or no website at all. And even centers with a decent website run into the same problem — when a family fills out a contact form, that message lands in someone’s email inbox and sits there until someone remembers to follow up.
There’s no way to see, at a glance, how many families are interested right now, how many have toured, or how many have been waiting three weeks for a response. When a spot opens up, you scramble to remember who was on the waitlist.
Warm interest goes cold. Families who toured but didn’t enroll get forgotten. When spots are available, they fill slowly — not because families aren’t out there, but because there’s no system to keep track of them.
What it does
Kinderly Grow handles two things at once: your public website and your family tracker.
Your website lives on your own web address and is built with childcare in mind. You can add as many pages as you need — programs, staff, hours, policies, photo galleries, contact — using layouts designed for how families shop for childcare. Your center’s colors and style carry through every page automatically. Updating a tuition rate or swapping a photo takes a few minutes and no technical help.
Virtual tours let families walk through your space before they ever call you. You upload photos of each room, add a short caption, put them in order, and publish. Families can explore on their own time — on their couch at 10pm, or at work during lunch — which means the families who do reach out are already serious. They’ve seen your classrooms. They’ve pictured their child there.
The family tracker is a board that shows every family who has expressed interest in your center, where they are in the process, and what your next step is. When a family fills out the contact form on your website, they show up on the board automatically. You move them from “New Inquiry” to “Tour Scheduled” to “Offer Sent” to “Enrolled” with a click. Notes and follow-up reminders live on each card, so nothing gets forgotten.
Website stats show you how many families visited your site, which pages they spent time on, and which buttons they clicked — right inside Kinderly. No separate tool needed.
How it connects to Enroll
When a family is ready to enroll, you send their enrollment packet directly from their card in the family tracker — one click. You don’t switch to a different tool or copy anything over. The packet goes out, the family fills it in, and their card updates automatically when it’s done.
How it compares to what you might already have
Centers using Squarespace, Wix, or a generic website builder for their site — and a spreadsheet or inbox for their waitlist — can replace both with Grow. The inquiry form on your Grow website feeds your family tracker automatically, so the gap between “someone filled out our contact form” and “we’re tracking that family” disappears entirely.
Kinderly Manage — Your Whole Center, Running From One Place
The problem
Once a family enrolls, the paperwork doesn’t stop — it just changes shape. You need to track the child’s records. Assign them to a classroom. Log their attendance. Watch your child-to-staff ratios. Keep track of which staff certifications expire when. Report attendance to the state if the child is on a subsidy program.
A lot of centers are managing all of this with a combination of older software and workarounds. The older software was designed before most people had smartphones. It charges the same flat monthly fee whether you have 20 children or 80. It requires teachers, directors, and office staff to log in from different places with different access. And running a report means exporting a spreadsheet instead of just looking at your screen.
What it does
Kinderly Manage covers the daily operations of your center from one place.
Child and family records. Every enrolled child has a complete record — medical history, allergies, immunizations, authorized pickups, custody arrangements, USDA food program information. Every parent and guardian is attached to that record with their contact info and any custody notes. Families get their own app to see their child’s day.
Classrooms and ratios. Children and staff are assigned to classrooms. Manage tracks your child-to-staff ratio throughout the day and flags it if a room is getting close to the limit — before a licensing inspector does.
Programs. Set up your programs — Full-Time Infant, Part-Time Toddler, Pre-K, After School — with schedules, capacity, and fees. Each enrolled child is linked to a program. Manage tracks who’s active, who’s starting soon, and who’s aging out.
Attendance. Teachers check children in and out from the classroom view on their phone. Every record is time-stamped. You have a complete attendance history for every child and staff member — useful for licensing, state reporting, and any parent question that comes up later.
Staff scheduling. Build weekly schedules and see at a glance where you have gaps before the week starts.
Reports. Licensing summaries, immunization status, attendance records, ratio snapshots — all pulled from what’s already in the system. When a licensing inspector asks for something, you run a report and hand it over. No assembly required.
State subsidy reporting. For centers in states that use KinderSystems, Manage connects directly. Attendance goes from Manage to the state system automatically on the state’s schedule. You don’t keep two separate attendance records or run manual exports to get reimbursed.
Apps for teachers and parents. Staff clock in, log daily notes, and message from their phone. Parents see their child’s daily feed, photos, and later, their invoices — in the same app.
How it connects to Enroll
When a family finishes their enrollment packet in Enroll, their child’s information — name, birthday, allergies, emergency contacts, guardian details — moves into Manage automatically. The director reviews, confirms, and the child’s record is live. No one retyped anything.
This handoff is the one that matters most. It’s where errors and lost information happen in a patchwork setup. In Kinderly, it’s handled without anyone doing anything extra.
How it compares to what you might already have
For centers on Procare, Brightwheel, or a similar system, Manage covers the same ground with a few key differences: you pay per child who’s actually enrolled — not a flat fee that stays the same in your slow months — there’s no annual contract, and the interface was built recently for the way people actually use software today.
For centers not on any management system yet, Manage is the piece you add when spreadsheets stop working. You add it when you’re ready — not before.
Kinderly Manage Billing — Tuition That Doesn’t Require Chasing
The problem
Childcare billing is not like billing for most other businesses. Tuition is recurring — weekly or monthly — and the amount can vary by program. One child’s schedule changes mid-month. Another family has their tuition split between two guardians. A third has part of their tuition covered by a state assistance program.
General billing tools handle one-time invoices well. They don’t understand how childcare billing actually works — the recurring cycles, the per-program fees, the subsidy splits, the sibling discounts.
What it does
Manage Billing reads directly from the children, programs, and family records already in Manage. It already knows who’s enrolled, what program they’re in, what the fee is, and who pays. At the start of each billing period, it generates invoices for every active child — automatically.
One account per family. Guardians, children, program fees, and the running balance are all connected. If two guardians split tuition, both are on the same account.
Invoices go out, adjustments are easy. Manage Billing generates invoices based on each child’s program. Before you send them, you can adjust individual ones — apply a sibling discount, account for a week of vacation, add a supply fee. Then you send the batch.
Families pay online. Through their parent app or an emailed link. No cash, no checks to deposit, no following up on who paid.
Subsidy tracking. If the state covers part of a child’s tuition, that’s recorded on their account. The invoice shows the family only what they owe — and separately tracks what you’re owed from the state.
Who’s behind. A simple report shows you which families are current, which are 30 days out, and which owe more than that. Automatic reminders go out before accounts fall further behind.
How it connects to Manage
Billing is not separate from Manage — it reads from the same records. When a child’s program changes, the next invoice reflects it automatically. When a child unenrolls, they drop off the billing run at month end. The information lives once. Billing reads from it. You never have to update two systems when something changes.
How All Four Work as One
The clearest way to see this is to follow one family from start to finish.
A family finds you online. They land on your Grow website, look around, and fill out your contact form. Their card appears on your family tracker automatically.
You schedule a tour. You add a note to their card — “Very interested in the infant room, hoping to start in September” — and move them to “Toured.”
A spot opens. A few weeks later you go back to the card, see the note, and reach out. They’re ready. You send their enrollment packet directly from their card with one click. Their status moves to “Packet Sent.”
They fill it out. From their phone, in about 20 minutes, at their kitchen table. Their child’s medical history, emergency contacts, and guardian information move into Manage automatically. You confirm the enrollment. The child is assigned to the Infant Room, starting September 1st.
First day. The teacher checks the child in on the classroom app. At the end of the month, Manage Billing generates an invoice based on the infant room fee. The invoice appears in the family’s parent app. They pay with their card on file.
Every month after. Billing runs automatically. The family pays automatically. When their older child joins After School care six months later, that child goes through the same process — and lands on the same family billing account, sibling discount applied.
That is one system. The family entered their own information once. No one on your staff retyped it.
If You’re Already Using Other Tools
You don’t have to replace everything at once.
If you’re locked into another system right now
Some centers are mid-contract with a system they can’t leave yet. You can start using Enroll and Grow right now — they work on their own. When your contract ends and you’re ready to move your operations over to Manage, the enrollment information is already in Kinderly. The transition is a lot lighter than starting from scratch.
If your state has a subsidy reporting requirement
If your state uses KinderSystems to track attendance for subsidy reimbursement, Manage connects to it directly. You set it up once. Attendance recorded in Manage goes to the state system on the state’s schedule. You don’t keep a second set of records or do anything manually to get paid.
If your teachers use a curriculum or activity-logging app
Manage handles attendance, daily logs, and staff scheduling. If your teachers are attached to a separate app for curriculum planning or learning documentation, Manage can sit alongside it. The two don’t need to be the same tool.
How payments work
When a family pays an invoice, the money goes directly to your bank account — typically within two business days. You don’t need to set up any special payment account or use a proprietary system. It just works.
You Don’t Have to Start With All Four
Kinderly is built so you can start with what you need and add the rest when it makes sense.
The Free plan gives you Enroll — forms, packets, and share links — for one user. No credit card, no time limit. A small center or solo operator can run their whole enrollment process this way for as long as they want.
When you’re ready to add team members, Pro is $15 per seat per month and unlocks the rest.
Grow is $29.99 a month flat — your website, virtual tours, and family tracker. Add it when you’re ready to be intentional about filling spots.
Manage is $0.85 per enrolled child per month. Add it when spreadsheets aren’t cutting it anymore. Because you only pay for children who are actually enrolled, your cost goes down in the summer automatically.
Manage Billing is $0.20 per enrolled child per month on top of Manage. Add it when you’re done chasing tuition.
Most centers start with Enroll because enrollment is universal. Grow comes next when they’re ready to build their waitlist more deliberately. Manage comes when the operations get complicated enough to need structure. Billing comes when manual invoicing stops being manageable.
You add each piece when the problem it solves becomes real enough to act on. And because they all work from the same information, each new piece picks up exactly where the last one left off.
Getting Started
If you’re looking at Kinderly for the first time, the fastest way to understand how it fits together is to start with Enroll. It’s free, it takes about ten minutes to set up, and once you’ve built your first packet you’ll see how the rest of the system is meant to work.
If you’re switching from another system and want to understand what that looks like in practice, request a demo and we’ll walk through it together.
No credit card. No contract. No pressure.