Smartcare for Parents vs SmartTeach
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Smartcare for Parents
Streamline your child care center experience with this app. Easily sign your child in and out using your smartphone, receive real-time photos and videos, and manage payments conveniently on the go.
- Smartphone child care sign-in/out
- Real-time photos and videos of child
- Share media to social media
- On-the-go payment processing
- Credit card and bank account payments
Read full descriptionHide full description
Parents, we know you are busy and want to save as much time as possible. With the Smartcare Parent app, you can sign your child into and out of your child care center with your smartphone. No more hassling with fingerprint readers or pen and paper. Mobile technology means a quicker and more efficient sign-in and sign-out experience for you. We all know that nothing brightens your day more than a photo or video of your child having fun. Now you can get those photos and videos as they happen, and even share them to your Facebook or Twitter feeds. Do you wish you could make payments on the go and not have to worry about carrying your purse, wallet, or checkbook? Well, now you can! Pay your tuition with a credit card or have payments automatically debited from your checking account…all through this mobile app. Smartcare truly has the mobile solution for you.
SmartTeach
This app helps early childhood educators streamline daily classroom tasks. It simplifies documentation, classroom management, and family communication with easy-to-use tools for online and offline use.
- Create documentation and share insights
- View and teach from daily schedule
- Communicate with families
- Save and share photos/videos
- Assess from curriculum resources
- Track attendance and care routines
- Conduct health screenings
Read full descriptionHide full description
The SmartTeach® app by Teaching Strategies offers early childhood educators an easy and efficient way to quickly complete essential daily tasks on the fly, online, or offline. The SmartTeach app simplifies teaching, documentation, classroom management, and family engagement throughout the day, enabling teachers to make the most of every moment with easy-to-use tools right at their fingertips. The SmartTeach app is accessible to Teachers and Administrators using Teaching Strategies products such as GOLD®, The Creative Curriculum® Cloud, Kickstart LiteracyTM, and Tadpoles®. Download SmartTeach by Teaching Strategies to access our new and improved features & functionality. SmartTeach offers early childhood educators a single app to support all essential classroom tasks, including: Create documentation and share insights with families View and teach directly from your daily schedule, curriculum, activities, and care routines Communicate with families Save & share photos, videos, and other media across devices View & assess from resources like Intentional Teaching Experiences, Skill Development Cards, and Mighty Minutes®* Identify Infant and Toddler children’s developmental level with the Entry Screener to dynamically populate individualized support for each child* Take attendance, move children or staff, and complete name-to-face checks* Track care routines and share Daily Reports with families* Conduct health screenings for children and/or staff* *Feature availability is dependent on which Teaching Strategies products your classroom licenses.
Screenshots
Verdict
Smartcare for Parents and SmartTeach both sit at 4.8 stars, but that hides the real split: 24% of SmartTeach's written reviews are positive against 14% of Smartcare for Parents's. Smartcare for Parents's advantage is ratings volume (7.7K vs 1.2K). On price, rating, update cadence and ads there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.8 for Smartcare for Parents against 4.8 for SmartTeach. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Smartcare for Parents has 7.7K ratings behind it against 1.2K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 14% of Smartcare for Parents's written reviews are positive against 24% of SmartTeach's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly monthly. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 17, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Smartcare for Parents | SmartTeach |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (7.7K ratings) — better | 4.8 (1.2K ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 13.8% of reviews | 24.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 7.7K — better | 1.2K |
| Update frequency | Monthly | Monthly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod, Apple Watch | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 14.0 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 63 MB | 105 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | SmartCare | Teaching Strategies, LLC |
Customer experience
Smartcare for Parents
SmartTeach
User reviews
Smartcare for Parents
From 7.7K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Easy to use app
- 👍 User friendly
- 👍 Convenient for billing and payments
- 👍 Decent app, just seems to go down from time to time
Room to improve
- 🐛 Cannot open the app
- 🐛 Terrible for communication
- 🐛 Unreasonable convenience fee
- 🐛 App signs me out
- 🐛 Payments only sometimes work
SmartTeach
From 1.2K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Easy and awesome app to track notes and submit to Teaching Strategies Gold
- 👍 Brings together curriculum and assessment
- 👍 Convenient and easy to use
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent technical glitches and bugs
- 🐛 Performance issues
- 🐛 Login issues
- 🐛 Messaging and communication problems
- 🐛 Delayed or failed uploads
Bugs and requests
Smartcare for Parents
Reported bugs
7 issues- Cannot open app after recent update
- Notifications not working
- Cannot download or view videos
- Payments not processing correctly
- Frequent crashes and freezes
Show 2 moreShow fewer
- Notifications not clearing
- Login issues, unable to re-install app
Requested features
9 requests- Add ability to message teachers directly
- Improve payment system to allow credit card payments with fixed fee
- Improve statement format and billing period visibility
- Add automatic payment option
- Improve accessibility for blind users
Show 4 moreShow fewer
- Enhance security with dynamic QR codes
- Improve communication features like notes, absence reporting
- Consolidate notifications and media in a more user-friendly way
- Add Apple Pay support
SmartTeach
Reported bugs
4 issues- Screener not working when clicking plus sign
- Inability to log in through app, but able to log in on website
- Delayed or failed message delivery
- Uploaded documentation still showing in app, causing confusion
Requested features
5 requests- Add ability to select and apply objectives to multiple pieces of documentation at once
- Add ability to select and delete multiple photos/videos at once
- Add ability to change date on add documentation page
- Add landscape mode support for easier typing
- Improve translation and communication features for ESL families
In-app purchases
Smartcare for Parents
No in-app purchases
SmartTeach
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Smartcare for Parents free?
Is SmartTeach free?
Which has better reviews, Smartcare for Parents or SmartTeach?
Do Smartcare for Parents or SmartTeach have ads?
Which is updated more often, Smartcare for Parents or SmartTeach?
Other comparisons















