For preschools, child care centers, small schools & after-school programs
Scale the warmth.
Systems for schools that want to grow without going cold.
You didn't open a school to run a front office. But the invoices, the waitlist, the sign-in sheets, the calendar, the inbox: someone has to hold all of it, and right now that someone is you.
I build that layer so it holds itself. In the Google Workspace (or Microsoft 365) you already pay for. With your directors in the room. Documented so it runs when you're on the floor, on vacation, or opening your next site.
None of this replaces the way you greet families at the door. It's what makes sure you're at the door to greet them.
Same tools, same way of working. The difference is how much of the front office we hand off.
Quiet Mornings
For the director doing everything
- One True Roster — the single list everything else draws from
- The Five-Minute Invoice — monthly billing, start to sent
- Ready for the Knock — licensing-ready sign-in sheets, generated from the roster
- Binder pages for each, written for your team
Billing and licensing off your plate, and one roster you can trust.
$5,950
2 weeks
Ask about Quiet MorningsBack on the Floor
For the founder with a director or two
- Everything in Quiet Mornings
- A calendar system that tells the right people the right things
- An inbox that sorts itself (labels, filters, the unsubscribe blitz)
- Contact groups synced from the roster
- An at-a-glance dashboard: counts by group and site, no filtering
- Director training, live, at each site
- The full binder
Your mornings back. The whole school running from one set of systems you own.
$8,500 for up to two sites
3 weeks
Get my mornings backRoom to Grow
For multi-site schools, or opening your next
- Everything in Back on the Floor
- From Hello to Enrolled — every application ever received in one tracker, a waitlist pull planner, a redesigned application, and a wait-pool announcement ready to send
- Opening Day can be added for $3,950 when bundled
Every application found. Every family knowing where they stand. A new site that opens full.
$14,500 for up to two sites (+$1,500 per additional site)
6 weeks, two milestones
Ask about Room to GrowHalf at signing, half at delivery. Room to Grow can be paid in three parts across milestones.
| Quiet Mornings | Back on the Floor | Room to Grow | |
|---|---|---|---|
| One True Roster | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| The Five-Minute Invoice | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Ready for the Knock (sign-in) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Calendar system | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Inbox that sorts itself | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Contact groups synced | ✓ | ✓ | |
| At-a-glance dashboard | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Director training, on site | ✓ | ✓ | |
| The Binder | pages | full | full |
| From Hello to Enrolled (enrollment & waitlist) | ✓ | ||
| Opening Day (new-site launch) | +$3,950 | ||
| Sites included | 1 | up to 2 | up to 2 (+$1,500 each) |
| Timeline | 2 weeks | 3 weeks | 6 weeks |
| Price | $5,950 | $8,500 | $14,500 |
Every piece below stands on its own and fits into the tiers later. Prices are fixed; timelines assume you can give me an hour a week.
The Walkthrough
Find out where the hours go.
- One day at your school, arrival through the midday crunch
- A sit-down with you and your director
- A plain-language map of everything that's manual, sorted into what to fix now and what to leave alone
- One quick win shipped that week
$1,500
one day + a memo within 48 hours · credited toward any build within 60 days
Ask about the WalkthroughThe Five-Minute Invoice
Monthly billing, start to sent, before your coffee's cold.
- Invoices generated from your roster, siblings combined onto one
- PDFs filed by month in your Drive
- Gmail drafts to spot-check, or send-all once you trust it
- A "needs attention" list so nobody's missed
- A log of every send
- Month-specific announcements on every invoice
$2,950
1 week
Ask about invoicingReady for the Knock
Sign-in sheets that already match what licensing asks for.
- Sheets generated from your roster, one page per class, optional per-weekday versions for part-time kids
- The licensing rule printed on the sheet
- A daily routine and the 10 a.m. check, written for teachers
- Parent announcement copy in your voice
- A site roster for licensing (physician, allergies, authorizations) pulled from the same source
$1,950
1 week
Ask about sign-in sheetsOne True Roster
Every child, every family, one place that's true.
- A roster designed so invoicing, sign-in sheets, and contact groups all read from it
- Enrollment status, bill-to, rates, and program fields that drive everything downstream
- Counts by group and site, no filtering
- Export by site or group for any purpose
$3,500
1–2 weeks
Ask about the rosterBack on the Floor
Your school's operating system.
- See the Back on the Floor tier above — same build, same price
$8,500
3 weeks
Ask about Back on the FloorFrom Hello to Enrolled
No application ever lost. Every family knows where they stand.
- Every application source merged into one tracker with IDs and a clear status for each family
- A waitlist pull planner you can filter by age and start date
- Priority and sibling flags
- Payment reconciliation and a flags tab for the odd ones
- Your application form redesigned so returning families skip the fee and the data comes in clean
- A wait-pool announcement list, ready to send
- A summary dashboard
$9,500
3–4 weeks
Ask about enrollmentOpening Day
Open on time. Open full.
- A milestone calendar from licensing to rent day
- "Coming Soon" banner and landing-page copy in your voice
- New-site interest captured on your application
- An announcement to your wait pool
- Your brand assets exported and organized
- Your new director onboarded to every system before the doors open
$4,950
2 weeks (or $3,950 bundled with Room to Grow)
Ask about Opening DayIn the Loop
Families hear from you sooner, and it sounds like you.
- Contact groups that update themselves from the roster
- Templates for every stage, from "we got your application" to "here's your spot," written in your voice
- Filters so family email lands in one place
- A newsletter rhythm on the calendar
$3,500
2 weeks
Ask about In the LoopThe Front Door
A first impression that works as well as it feels.
- Your application form rebuilt so the questions are clear, the branches make sense, and the data lands clean
- The payment page rewritten
- Duplicate notifications fixed
- Landing and About copy that sounds like your school
$2,500
1 week
Ask about the Front DoorThe Binder
So it runs without you.
- A printable how-to for every system, in one findable place
- Short video walkthroughs
- A practice quiz or two for the tricky habits
- Live sessions with your directors at each site
- A final test: a director runs it start to finish without me in the room
$2,950 standalone
included in Back on the Floor and Room to Grow
Ask about the BinderMost childcare platforms price by the child, by the site, or by quote, and the bill grows as your school does. Here's what the market looks like for a two-site school of about a hundred children, using published prices where they exist and commonly reported figures where they don't.
| Platform | How they price | A school like yours, per year | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brightwheel | Quote-based; scales with enrollment | ~$3,600–6,000 (operators commonly report $150–500/month per program) | Card processing of 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction on tuition paid through the app; 12-month terms are common |
| Procare | Quote-based, modular | ~$2,000–4,800 before hardware and setup | One center reports $85/month for the core plus the parent app; kiosk hardware and implementation are extra; payments add-on from $25/month plus processing |
| Lillio (formerly HiMama) | Quote-based, usage-based | Quote only | Typically billed annually in advance |
| Playground | Quote-based | Quote only | Historically cited around $2 per child per month |
| Famly | Published, by enrollment band | ~$1,400–1,700 ($119/month for 70–100 children; $139 for 100–150) | The most transparent of the group; every feature on every tier |
| Illumine | Published, flat tiers | ~$3,000 (billing lives on the $249/month tier); ~$6,000 for the multi-center tier at $499/month | Flat pricing rewards larger schools |
| Enrollment CRMs (LineLeader, IntelliKid) | Per location or quote | ~$2,600–4,000 for two to three sites at $110/month per location; LineLeader is quote-only | Sold separately from the platforms above; a large wait pool pushes contact-based plans up a tier |
Prices as of August 2026. Quote-based vendors don't publish rates; figures shown are commonly reported by operators and review sites. Always get your own quote in writing.
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Three-year total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All-in-one platform + enrollment CRM, two sites (before processing fees, setup, and a third site) | $3,700–8,700 | $3,700–8,700 | $3,700–8,700 | $11,000–26,000 |
| Room to Grow, two sites | $14,500 | $0 | $0 | $14,500 |
Two things the tables leave out. First, payment processing: if families pay tuition by card through a platform, every $10,000 of tuition costs roughly $290 in fees, on top of the subscription. Second, the third site: most platforms charge per program, so opening a new location raises the bill the month you open.
What the platforms do that I don't build
A parent app with photos and daily reports · a tap-to-sign-in kiosk · in-app card and bank payments · subsidy billing. If those matter to your school, keep them. I'll build around them.
What I build that no platform sells
A calendar system your team actually uses · an inbox that sorts itself · a binder so your directors run everything · training at each site · your data in your own Drive, exportable any time · no per-child creep, no renewal call, no cancellation phone tree.
We already use Brightwheel (or Procare, or…).
Keep it if it's working. Most schools I meet use a platform for the parent app and still run invoicing, the waitlist, licensing sheets, and the calendar by hand. I build the parts that are still manual, around whatever you already have. The Walkthrough is where we decide which is which.
What do we need to have?
Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, a spreadsheet you're willing to make the truth, and about an hour a week from you while we build.
Will my directors actually use it?
That's the whole design. We build it with them, in tools they already know. Nothing launches until a director has run it start to finish without me in the room.
What happens when something breaks?
Thirty days of fixes are included with every build. After that, the binder covers most of it, and Systems Care is there if you want a standing hand.
Do you work outside the Bay Area?
Yes. The Walkthrough is best in person; the builds work remotely. I've also done the Walkthrough as two half-days on video with a director holding the camera.
Why fixed prices?
Because you should know the number before you say yes, and because I've built these enough times to carry the risk.
Tell me about your mess.
Bring the invoice that takes all afternoon, the waitlist you're not sure is complete, or the part of the week that always feels harder than it should. We'll find a calmer way through it.
Book an intro call