Comparison

School Gateway vs eSchools

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

eSchools

Access school-related features like messaging, notifications, and homework tracking. View important letters and attendance records. Easily find school contact information.

Highlights
  • School messaging
  • Text notifications
  • View school letters
  • Homework diary
  • Attendance tracking
  • School contact details
Features
Read full description

If your school uses eSchools, download our app to gain access to a number of your account features. Communicate with others in your school community through messages, receive text notifications from the school office and view letters that have been sent home. Students and parents can keep on top of deadlines thanks to the new homework diary feature as well as being able to track the attendance records for the current academic year. The contact details of the school are also easily accessible. Please note your school has to be an existing eSchools subscriber to use this App.

Screenshots

School Gateway4 screens
eSchools4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is monetization model: eSchools at free against School Gateway's ad-supported. School Gateway's advantage is review sentiment (16% vs 8%). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

School Gateway ships an update every 6 weeks, eSchools every 2 months. Both last shipped on September 24, 2026.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
School Gateway versus eSchools: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSchool GatewayeSchools
PriceFreeFree
Rating2.5 (2 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews15.7% of reviews — better7.5% of reviews
Number of ratings2 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeks — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationAd-supportedFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS13.012 — better
Further details — not scored
Size14 MB48 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperISUZ LimitedeSchools Ltd

Customer experience

School Gateway

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

eSchools

Written reviews80 reviews
Positive7.5%
Neutral7.5%
Negative85.0%

Bugs and requests

School Gateway

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

eSchools

Reported bugs

38 issues
  • App no longer works and needs updating for new iOS
  • App crashes when it tries to launch
  • App crashes on opening
  • App takes me back to Home Screen after clicking
  • App shuts down immediately after clicking to open
Show 33 more
  • App simply doesn’t open
  • App has been crashing since the last update and is unusable
  • App doesn’t open after update
  • App crashes instantly and won’t load after update
  • App refuses to open since the latest update
  • Latest version crashes when you open it
  • App flashes and crashes each time after update
  • App closes as soon as you open it after update
  • App crashes instantly when trying to open after update
  • App won’t work at all, refuses to even open after update
  • App no longer even loads after update
  • App blinks and returns to Home Screen after update
  • App no longer loads after update
  • App doesn’t work after update
  • App fails to open after recent update
  • App will not open at all after latest update
  • App won’t load up after update
  • Crashes on startup
  • Always says 1 notification when there are none
  • Failed to map data to decodable object
  • Invalid domain name after update
  • App crashes and shuts down before loading
  • App closes down when trying to open a message
  • Crashes before logging in
  • Calendar still doesn’t work
  • Crashes on most pages
  • Crashes and puts user back to login screen
  • Doesn’t recognise daughter’s school
  • Crashes way too often
  • Notifications received but content not found in app
  • Previous notifications/messages/letters have disappeared
  • App will not open meaning inability to access school information
  • App stopped working after phone updated to iOS 11.2

Requested features

6 requests
  • Update app for new iOS
  • Add overall attendance for the year
  • Mark all as read
  • Way to exit attachments without closing app
  • Allow deletion/archiving of notifications
Show 1 more
  • Show which child is logged in on Home Screen

In-app purchases

None

School Gateway

No in-app purchases

None

eSchools

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is School Gateway free?
School Gateway is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is eSchools free?
eSchools is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do School Gateway or eSchools have ads?
Neither School Gateway nor eSchools shows ads.
Which is updated more often, School Gateway or eSchools?
School Gateway ships an update every 6 weeks, and eSchools every 2 months. Most recently, School Gateway was updated on September 24, 2026 and eSchools on September 24, 2026.

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