Comparison

School Gateway vs ParentZone

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

School Gateway

This app streamlines communication and management of your child's school life. It allows parents to receive messages, make payments for school items, manage dinner money, book clubs, and view academic reports and attendance. All your children's school information is consolidated in one place.

Highlights
  • Receive school messages
  • Make school payments
  • Manage dinner money
  • Book school clubs
  • View reports and timetable
  • Monitor attendance
  • Update contact details
Read full description

School Gateway, the easiest way to interact with your child’s life at school. Designed to support schools in achieving outstanding parental engagement, School Gateway helps you manage school communications, payments, clubs, dinner money and more all in one simple, easy to use app. Key features: • Receive push notifications and in-app messages from your school • Easily pay for items using your preferred payment method • Top-up your child’s dinner money and select meal choices • Book before and after school clubs • View your child’s timetable and end of year reports • Monitor attendance • Update the contact details your school hold for you • All your children across multiple schools in one account Things you need to know: • Your school must be subscribed to School Gateway before you can use this app • Your school controls the information shared with you • To register/login, your school must have your email address and phone number on their system. If you can’t log in, please check these details are up to date at your school • Your account will automatically display information for multiple children /schools as long as the schools use School Gateway. Please check that your email address and mobile number at all your schools match • You must turn on push notifications for the app to receive messages and updates from your school

About

ParentZone

This app allows parents to receive real-time updates on their child's daily activities and milestones from their childcare provider. View photos, meal logs, nap schedules, and important health information securely. Share access with other family members to keep everyone informed.

Highlights
  • Daily activity updates
  • Photo sharing
  • Meal and nap logs
  • Health and accident reports
  • Secure family access
  • Developmental milestones
Read full description

Stay up to date with your child’s activities and achievements even when you can’t be with them. Your Childcare Provider will upload photos and descriptions of your child’s day so that you’ll never miss a moment of your child’s development again. You can log in securely whenever is most convenient for you and see important information about your child’s day. Secure logins can be sent to other family members and carers so you can all join in to celebrate your child’s development. ParentZone will show you information about your child’s • Meals • Naps • Nappy Changes • Medicine • Accidents • Moments ParentZone can only be accessed via invitation from your Childcare provider. Speak to your Childcare provider about getting ParentZone today.

Screenshots

School Gateway4 screens
ParentZone4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: ParentZone at 60% against School Gateway's 16%. ParentZone also leads on rating (4.8 vs 2.5) and ratings volume (103 vs 2). School Gateway's advantage is iOS requirement (13.0 vs 15.1). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

ParentZone holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 2.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: ParentZone has 103 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 16% of School Gateway's written reviews are positive against 60% of ParentZone's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

School Gateway ships an update every 6 weeks, ParentZone every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and September 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
School Gateway versus ParentZone: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSchool GatewayParentZone
PriceFreeFree
Rating2.5 (2 ratings)4.8 (103 ratings) — better
Positive reviews15.7% of reviews60.3% of reviews — better
Number of ratings2103 — better
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeksEvery 3 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationAd-supportedAd-supported
DevicesiPhone, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS13.0 — better15.1
Further details — not scored
Size14 MB49 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperISUZ LimitedConnect Childcare

Customer experience

School Gateway

All ratings2 ratings
Positive50.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative50.0%
Written reviews108 reviews
Positive15.7%
Neutral15.7%
Negative68.5%

ParentZone

All ratings103 ratings
Positive96.1%
Neutral1.0%
Negative2.9%
Written reviews184 reviews
Positive60.3%
Neutral14.7%
Negative25.0%

Bugs and requests

School Gateway

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

ParentZone

Reported bugs

6 issues
  • Constant login issues
  • Biometrics not working
  • Video/photo upload failures
  • Timeline not updating correctly
  • Filtering not working as expected
Show 1 more
  • Notifications not working

Requested features

7 requests
  • Allow emojis in messages
  • Add meal details
  • Allow bulk download of photos
  • Improve notification details
  • Allow two-device login
Show 2 more
  • Add sleep tracking
  • Improve account switching

In-app purchases

None

School Gateway

No in-app purchases

None

ParentZone

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is School Gateway free?
School Gateway is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is ParentZone free?
ParentZone is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, School Gateway or ParentZone?
ParentZone is rated higher. School Gateway averages 2.5 out of 5 from 2 ratings, while ParentZone averages 4.8 from 103 ratings.
Do School Gateway or ParentZone have ads?
Neither School Gateway nor ParentZone shows ads.
Which is updated more often, School Gateway or ParentZone?
School Gateway ships an update every 6 weeks, and ParentZone every 3 weeks. Most recently, School Gateway was updated on September 24, 2026 and ParentZone on September 25, 2026.

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