The full child care platform for $0 a month

Every center starts on a free Lite account with all core features. The Pro account activates automatically when you enable online payments — still $0/month. Merchant fees are 1% + $0.40 for PAD/ACH and 3.75% + $0.30 for credit cards, and you can pass them through to families automatically so the software costs your center nothing.

Absolutely. We’ve simplified the billing process, eliminating any confusion or complexity. You won’t encounter unexpected charges or hidden fees. Plus, you can conveniently view all merchant fees at any time through the Reports Center.

Nope. We believe in fairness and simplicity, which is why we offer a single rate for all credit cards. Whether it’s Visa, Mastercard, Discover, AMEX, JCB, Apple Pay, or Google Pay, the rate remains the same across the board.

The only additional fee is the Returned Payment fee ($40), which applies when a payment bounces due to insufficient funds or incorrect banking information. While this fee is initially charged to your center’s account, you can configure the system to pass this charge on to the family automatically. Aside from that, there are no hidden fees — no startup fees, monthly charges, fixed costs, PCI-compliance fees, or terminal fees. With ChildFriendly, what you see is what you get.

All credit cards are charged at 3.75% + $0.30 per transaction. For PAD/ACH, you pay 1% + $0.40 per transaction. Remember these fees can be automatically passed on to families, leaving you with no cost for ChildFriendly at all!

Merchant fees are charged on the same day that your credit card or PAD/ACH payments are deposited into your bank account. If you’re absorbing the merchant fees, the total deposit will simply have those fees deducted. If you’re passing the fees on to families, you won’t notice a thing — the full payment amount is deposited to your account, and the fees are automatically routed to ChildFriendly.

In Canada, you can legally pass on up to 2.4% of merchant fees to your clients. ChildFriendly offers a setting to automate this process. You can adjust the fee (up to 2.4% or lower) in your settings. When families are billed, the additional merchant fee is automatically included, billed, processed, and deposited to your account without any extra effort on your part.