How Much Does It Cost to Build a Custom Child Care and Day Care App like Brightwheel?

Childcare has been a rapidly growing phenomenon worldwide, particularly in the US. The number of working parents is continuously rising, making it increasingly challenging for them to balance their personal and professional accountabilities, thus leading them to opt for daycare centers and track their children’s activities using childcare apps.

As per a report by Grand View Research, the US childcare industry’s revenue will amount to around 83.6 billion by 2030.

The growing market opportunities are leading entrepreneurs to invest in childcare app development and estimate the child care app development cost to determine budgets.

Now, when it comes to childcare and day care app development, the one application that captures everyone’s attention is Brightwheel.

What makes Brightwheel stand apart from competitors?

Brightwheel is a childcare management solution specifically designed to streamline operations and facilitate communication between daycare administrators, caregivers, and parents. What sets Brightwheel stand apart from other childcare management applications is its extensive range of functionalities and easy-to-navigate interface, catering to the diverse needs of parents and educators alike.

Brightwheel facilitates its educators to easily take attendance, record daily activities of children and create lesson plans while enabling parents to stay informed on their child’s progress in real-time.

Furthermore, Brightwheel supports the advanced features of messaging, image sharing, video calling, online billing, custom analytics, etc., simplifying communication and payment processes.

The average cost to build a child care app like Brightwheel can range from $40,000 to $300,000, depending on various factors explained in detail in the article below.

Factors that Affect the Cost to Build a Childcare App like Brightwheel

Developing a daycare app like Brightwheel involves several factors that impact the total cost of development. Therefore, having a thorough understanding of these factors is essential to correctly estimate the child care app development cost and ensure your application meets the desired requirements.

1. App Features

One of the most significant factors that affect the overall child care app development cost is the number and complexity of features you want to integrate into your application. The more features your app has, the higher it will cost you. Similarly, the higher the complexity of your features, the more it will cost.

For instance, if your application includes Brightwheel app features like meal planning, video calling, time tracking, third-party integrations, etc., it will cost higher than the average amount.

2. App Platform

The choice of platform you want your application to run on is also an influential factor that determines Brightwheel app development cost. Building an app for a single platform, like Android or iOS, will cost you less than a cross-platform application that runs seamlessly on both platforms.

3. Location of App Development Company

The development company’s location is one of the most influential factors to consider when estimating the cost to build a childcare app. The app development cost varies from region to region. For instance, on average, in the US and Europe, the development cost to build a child care management app ranges from $150 to $250 per hour, while in India the development cost ranges from $30 to $50 per hour.

4. Testing and Deployment

Testing, debugging, and deploying the application is also a significant factor affecting the overall cost of daycare app development. For instance, if your app doesn’t find any critical error to fix during the testing process, it will cost you considerably less than the instances when your app has so many issues to resolve before the final launch.

5. Maintenance

No matter how good your application is, if you fail to keep it regularly updated and maintained, it will most likely fail to draw users’ attention. Therefore, app maintenance is a crucial step of an app development process that affects the overall cost to build a child care app like Brightwheel.

Top 10 Features Every Child Care App Must Have

The need for an all-inclusive child care management app to meet the burgeoning need of teachers, parents, and of course, little learners have been at an all-time high in the current epoch. So, we have created a list of some essential features to help you build a successful daycare app similar to Brightwheel. After all, embracing the right features will help your business and learners thrive. Without further ado, let’s dive into the list of features:

1. AI Chatbot

AI chatbot integration is one of the most significant artificial intelligence services every childcare app must have. This feature is extremely helpful for parents who are curious about their child’s progress, want to get real-time information about day care activities, track their child’s behavioral pattern and performance, or likewise.

The AI elements of interactive chatbots allow users to connect with experts who give the best answers to parents’ queries. Often, it is the chatbot that gives a satisfactory resolution to most of the queries asked by the users without requiring them to connect with experts.

2. Online Payment Option

Another head-turning feature that your daycare app must have is the option to pay fees via different payment gateways. It allows parents to make payments through their Credit/Debit cards, UPI, Net Banking, and other possible options. The more payment gateway options your application supports, the better it is as it provides greater flexibility to parents in choosing their preferred payment methods and making payments more conveniently. Know how to integrate a payment gateway in an app.

3. View Activity Report

Gone are the days of paper reports that accidentally get lost between the couch cushions or thrown in bins. Make sure your app supports the feature of the virtual reports that allows parents to access the detailed reporting of their kids’ daily, weekly, and monthly activities in terms of their sleeping, playing, studying, and eating patterns.

4. Meal Tracking

Parents’ tension about their kids’ meals is natural. Hence, enabling them to track what exactly their children eat and ensuring that they get the essential nutrition, fruits, and veggies they require a day will make parents happy and confident of their child’s progress.

5. Ease of Communication

A daycare application that offers ease of communication is one of the most loved features for users. The importance of maintaining easy and quick communication between parents and children/teachers is at an all-time high. Therefore, your childcare app should have an in-built feature to make parents feel connected to their children even if they can’t be physically present with them in the classroom.

Your app should support video calling, voice calls, and other communication modules to facilitate smooth communication. In a time when parents are not able to meet their children in-person, connecting them with each other through the child care app will be a hit idea.

6. Scheduling and Data Keeping

Scheduling and data keeping is one of the significant features your daycare app should have. Running a daycare center is not easy; you have many children to teach and train on a daily basis, along with maintaining their daily reporting sheet. Hence, having an app that can help you input data easily and swiftly is a blessing in disguise. It will help you spend less time doing paperwork and more time caring for children.

7. Lesson Planning

An ideal childcare app should also care about teachers with their lesson planning. Having an application to plan lessons helps educators manage their time more productively and be more insightful in creating personalized plans. Furthermore, keeping online records of learning activities helps parents know that their children’s key development skills are constantly being hit and what other activities their kids have in store.

8. Multimedia Support

Being able to send real-time activities and the progress of learners to their parents is a valuable app feature that you will come to appreciate. With that said, make sure your childcare app is able to send mass messages, images, and video updates to the parents over a digital platform. It helps parents know what their children are up to all the time and never miss a special moment.

9. Security

Security is a prime concern for all types of apps, and a daycare app is no exception. You never want any sensitive information about your daycare center, your little learners, or their parents to be hacked or misused elsewhere. Therefore, if you are considering to make a child care app like Brightwheel, you must be careful about building it with robust safety features which can’t be hacked.

Related Article: Blockchain: The Technology Revolutionizing Mobile App Security

10. User-Friendly Navigation

A daycare app is built to make life easier and carefree. Struggling to navigate the app and not getting the required information easily will just cause frustration in the long run. So, make sure to develop a lightweight app like Brightwheel that is easy to use and quick to load.

These are just the top 10 features that determine the overall cost to build a child care app like Brightwheel. However, you can consider other advanced options depending on your requirements. The goal of the ideal child care app features that you choose shouldn’t be just to meet your expectations but to exceed them. Having a daycare app that efficiently cares about your business, your teachers, your learners, and their parents is not just an application you have invested in but a solution that will shape the future of your little learners.

Discuss Your Childcare App Development Idea with Appinventiv

Building an app similar to Brightwheel is a significant investment for any daycare service provider. The Brightwheel app development cost can range from $40,000 to $300,000 or more, depending on the various features you want to embrace and other underlying factors.

However, considering an ever-increasing demand for daycare services and the potential revenue generation through the child care application, the investment can be worth it. After all, it is a place for your business and your little learners to grow.

Whenever you’re ready to go digital at your daycare center, we’re here to help! We, as a leading on-demand app development company in the US, leverage the proven strategy, approach, and execution to deliver a cutting-edge childcare app like Brightwheel.

We have a team of highly professional individuals who are committed to providing you with the best experience possible. During the process of app development for child care, our skilled engineers integrate revolutionary tech stacks, such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, etc., into the application to help you stand apart from the competitors and witness immense success.

Our skilled team has already delivered 100+ on-demand custom solutions successfully for many reputed brands like Nova, Bada Business etc. Also, we have recently collaborated with Vodafone to develop an education app, “Gurushala,” which is an online learning platform enabling millions of students to get self-paced courses, free study material, and other interactive forms of learning.

So, in case you are looking to create something similar or want to know the exact cost to build a child care app like Brightwheel, connect with our team now.

FAQs

Q. How to create a child care app like Brightwheel?

A. Building a childcare app like Brightwheel can be a challenging yet rewarding venture that involves various features. Considering the ever-increasing demand of day care services and higher revenue generation, you should follow the below-mentioned steps to build a successful daycare app:

• Research the target audience and their needs
• Hire a reputed and experienced app development company
• Determine the app features you want to integrate into the application
• Design an intuitive and user-friendly interface
• Code the programming language and develop the app
• Test, debug, and launch the app to the market
• Regularly maintain and update the application for the best user experience

Q. How much does a child care app like Brightwheel cost?

A. The cost to build a childcare app like Brightwheel can range from $40,000 to $300,000 or more, depending on the intended features, the experience, and the location of the app development company, the app platform, the marketing campaign, and ongoing maintenance. To keep the child care app development cost moderate, it is wise to work with a reputed and reliable app development company that is known to deliver high-quality products to meet the desired requirements.

Q. How long does it take to develop a child care app like Brightwheel?

A. The time required to build a daycare app like Brightwheel varies depending on various factors like the app’s features, the experience of your chosen app development company, and the development process. On average, the time to develop a child care app ranges between 4 to 12 months. A basic version with some crucial features will take around 3 to 6 months, and an advanced version with more complex features can take around 12 months to complete the development process.

THE AUTHOR

Dileep Gupta

DIRECTOR & CO-FOUNDER