Compare / Procare vs Centerly
Procare vs Centerly
Procare is the long-established leader in childcare software. Centerly is a new system built around AI agents that do office work and ask your staff to confirm. This page compares them area by area, including the places where Procare is the better choice.
Last reviewed September 30, 2026. Written by Centerly. We ran our own licensed center on Procare Desktop for years, and we say so wherever a statement comes from that experience.
How to read this page
Statements about Procare come from Procare's own website, support documentation, release notes and published terms as they stood on September 30, 2026, or from our first-hand use of Procare Desktop. Where we could not confirm something from Procare's own materials, we say "not found in Procare's documentation" instead of "no". Software changes quickly, so check anything that matters to you with Procare directly. If we have something wrong, write to [email protected] and we will correct it.
The short version
| Procare | Centerly | |
|---|---|---|
| In one line | A mature, broad record-keeping and billing system with a very widely used parent app. | An agent-first system: software that reads, checks, files and follows up, and asks your staff to confirm. |
| Best for | Centers that want a long track record, built-in payroll (Desktop), Head Start tools, or accredited staff training courses from the same vendor. | Centers whose office time goes to paperwork, licensing files, billing exceptions and chasing follow-ups. |
| AI today | RoomRunner (enrollment planning) and Tucker (a support assistant that answers how-to questions). | An office assistant that reads documents and prepares changes, a compliance watch, a website chat agent for parents, and managed advertising. |
| Compliance | Immunization due dates from a CDC-based schedule (Procare Online); ratio alerts you configure. | Every child and staff file checked each night against your own state's rules, with reminders sent for you. |
| Track record | Founded 1992. Procare says it serves more than 40,000 centers. | New. Built inside a working licensed center. |
| Published pricing | Not published for centers; quote on request. | Not published; quote on a demo. |
Which Procare?
"Procare" is several products, and they behave differently. Comparing fairly means saying which one.
- Procare Desktop is the original product. It installs on Windows, or runs as a Procare-hosted workstation. This is the one we ran our center on.
- Procare Online is Procare's cloud product, with a web app and a phone app shared by staff and parents.
- Tuition Express is Procare's own payment processing, used by both.
- Procare SchoolCare Works (school-age programs) and ChildPlus (Head Start) are separate products.
- Playground is a separate childcare product. Procare announced on September 14, 2026 that it had acquired Playground, and said nothing changes for customers of either product today.
Below, "Desktop" and "Online" mean those two Procare products. A feature documented for one is not evidence for the other.
The real difference
In the Procare products we used and the documentation we read, Procare holds your records and automates scheduled steps such as invoices, autopay and immunization due dates. Reading an incoming document, checking it and entering what it says is done by staff.
Centerly starts from the other end. It holds the same records, but the reading, checking and first draft of every routine decision is done by software agents. Your staff see what the agent found and what it proposes, and they confirm. That is what we mean by "fully agentic", and it is the thread through everything below.
That is not a criticism of Procare's quality. Procare was founded in 1992, long before current AI models existed. Centerly was designed in 2026 around them.
Office work and AI
| Area | Procare | Centerly |
|---|---|---|
| Reading documents | Not found in Procare's documentation for Desktop or Online. Parents can upload documents to a student profile (Online), and staff are notified. | The assistant reads immunization records, hearing and vision screenings, CPR cards and background-check notices from a scan or phone photo, and matches each to the right child or employee. |
| Filing | Parents and staff upload documents to a profile. Automatic naming or filing was not found in Procare's documentation. | Each scanned page is named and filed to the right record. A page the assistant cannot place is held for a person. |
| Parent emails | A feature that reads parent emails was not found in Procare's documentation. | Paste in a vacation email: the assistant records the dates, checks the notice period and prepares the tuition credit from the family's agreement. |
| Staff documents | eDocuments can be sent to staff for signature; background checks run through a Checkr integration (Online). | Uploads are read at once. A wrong or expired document is turned away with the reason. The I-9 is pre-filled from the uploaded ID for the employer to verify. |
| AI products | RoomRunner (launched May 2026, included for Procare Online customers) forecasts room availability, suggests move-ups and matches the waitlist to openings. Tucker answers how-to questions about the software. Playground, which Procare now owns, has its own AI assistant, Camber; it is a Playground feature and is not part of Procare Desktop or Online. | The Centerly Assistant for office work, a nightly compliance check, a chat agent on the center's website, and an advertising autopilot. |
| Who is in control | Staff enter and change records. Scheduled automations such as invoices, autopay and lead emails run by rules you set. | Staff confirm every change the assistant proposes. The one exception is routine staff-document checks, which you can switch off. |
RoomRunner is a real and useful AI feature, and Centerly has nothing that forecasts room moves in the same way. The two companies have pointed AI at different problems: Procare at enrollment planning, Centerly at the paperwork and follow-up that fill an office day.
See the Centerly Assistant screen by screen.
Billing and proration
| Area | Procare | Centerly |
|---|---|---|
| Recurring tuition | Online: tuition-based plans (flat rate per cycle) and attendance-based plans (hourly or daily from sign-in data). Invoices generate on the plan's cycle. | Weekly, monthly, twice-monthly or your own schedule. Charges are generated from each family's signed tuition agreement. |
| Proration | On Desktop, we calculated mid-month starts, withdrawals and absence credits by hand and entered the adjustments. For Online, we did not find proration described in the billing documentation. | Automatic. Mid-month starts, withdrawals and qualifying absences are prorated from the enrollment dates and the agreement's terms, and posted for review. |
| Changing a plan's dates | Online: per the documentation, plan dates cannot be edited once a plan is assigned to students; the plan is cancelled and re-assigned. Plans can be paused and resumed. | Billing follows a dated enrollment history. Add a line (for example "Vacation from Nov 9") and billing follows it. |
| Discounts | Online: discount and subsidy line items on plans; the documentation recommends naming a plan after its rate, such as sibling or staff. Desktop has family-discount formulas. | Sibling, staff and corporate discounts applied by rule to the families they cover. |
| Late pick-up fees | Online: calculated automatically from sign-out times. | Calculated from sign-out times. |
| Late-payment fees | Desktop: a batch the user runs. Procare's blog describes automatic late fees; we did not find the Online setting documented. | Applied by rule from the tuition agreement. |
| Subsidy billing | Online: recurring subsidy invoices with a subsidy line and a parent co-pay. A real strength, with specific agency support. | Subsidy and co-pay split on one bill. |
| Hold-spot and registration fees | Registration fees can be collected with an online registration form (Online). | Hold-spot fees replace tuition during an extended absence; annual registration fees post on schedule. |
See Centerly billing screen by screen.
Payments
| Area | Procare (Tuition Express) | Centerly |
|---|---|---|
| Methods | Bank draft and card, in-app payments, card readers for in-person payments, autopay. Cash and checks can be recorded. | Bank draft and card, autopay, and offline payments (check, cashier's check, money order) recorded against the family account. |
| Funding | Procare says funds typically arrive the next business day, with daily cut-off times. | Ask us on a demo; timing depends on the payment method. |
| Returned bank payments | Online: a returned payment is pulled back from the center's deposits and the center is emailed; a report lists returns and declines. Procare's documentation says a transaction fee is charged for a failed bank payment and none for a failed card payment; the amount is not stated. Release notes indicate autopay makes up to three attempts. On Desktop the reversal posted to the ledger automatically; we checked for returns ourselves each day and re-submitted them by hand. | Flagged the day it happens, with the reason, and tools to retry on a date, split the amount, or use the family's other payment method. |
| Published processing rates | Not published. Procare's documentation refers to each center's own rate. | Not published on this site. You get the rates in writing with your quote. |
| Security | PCI DSS Level 1; registered with a sponsoring bank. | Card and bank details are held by a licensed payment processor or kept encrypted. Centerly staff never see full card numbers. |
Procare's payments business has operated since 2003 and is one of its strengths. If payment processing is your main concern, compare the written rates and the funding timeline from both of us side by side.
Licensing and compliance
| Area | Procare | Centerly |
|---|---|---|
| Immunizations | Online: a preloaded schedule based on CDC recommendations, editable; due and overdue status calculated from date of birth; exemptions; reminder emails; a past-due report. State-specific schedules are not described in the documentation. Doses are entered on the student record; reading them from a document was not found. Desktop also tracks immunization due dates. | Doses are read from the record by the assistant, then checked one by one against the schedule your state requires for child care, including doses given too early. |
| Hearing and vision screening | A dedicated screening tracker was not found. Desktop has general date-based requirements that can be used for it. | Tracked by age and enrollment date under your state's rule, with results recorded. |
| Staff training hours and credentials | Procare sells accredited online training courses with certificates and a director's transcript (Procare Professional Development). Tracking expiry of credentials earned elsewhere, such as CPR cards, was not found in the Online documentation. Desktop has date-based employee requirements with a due report. | Annual training hours counted only with a certificate attached; CPR and first-aid cards, background-check renewals and affidavits tracked to expiry, with reminders sent to the employee ahead of time. |
| Ratios | Online: real-time ratio alerts that you configure per room and time window. | Live room counts against the ratio in your state's rules. |
| State rules | Procare markets licensing reporting generally. A rule set for each state's licensing standards was not found in the documentation. | A rule pack for each US state and DC: required records, immunization schedule, training hours, ratios and forms. |
| One list of gaps | A single combined list was not found; immunization and requirement due reports are separate. | One office to-do page lists every gap across child and staff files, by urgency. |
| Inspection day | On Desktop, we checked each file by hand before a visit. | Open the files the inspector names. Each shows every required record, signed forms and dates, and can be printed as one packet. |
Centerly helps you track what licensing requires and shows the gaps. Your center remains responsible for meeting the standards, with either system.
Walk through a licensing visit in Centerly.
Parents and enrollment
| Area | Procare | Centerly |
|---|---|---|
| Parent app | A native iPhone and Android app, rated 4.9 from about 164,000 ratings on the App Store. Daily sheets, photos and video, classroom and office chat, newsletters, incident reports with signatures, payments. Procare reports 10 million downloads. | Family Journal: classroom posts and photos, daily reports, notices, incident reports acknowledged with one tap, and moments parents can share with family. It runs in the browser and installs to the home screen; it is not an app-store download. |
| Online registration | Online: custom registration forms, shareable by link or embedded on your website; submissions create lead profiles. | A full enrollment packet online, including the forms your state requires, pre-filled from what the family has already entered. |
| E-signatures | eDocuments: upload PDFs, send to parents or staff, collect signatures, store the signed copy. | Tuition agreement, handbook and state forms signed online, with a dated, versioned copy for the family and the center, and the center's countersignature where a form needs one. |
| Parent self-service | Parent portal and app for payments and documents. | Parents upload immunization records from a phone, manage authorized pick-ups, update contacts, allergies and special needs, and see statements. |
If a polished native app with a very large base of reviews matters most to your families, that is a point for Procare.
Leads, tours and marketing
| Area | Procare | Centerly |
|---|---|---|
| Lead pipeline | Online: built-in lead profiles, customizable stages, email and text to leads, source tracking, and a funnel report. | Every lead tracked from first question to first day, with source reporting. |
| Follow-up | Online: automation rules send an email or create a staff task when a lead's status changes. | A follow-up sequence before and after the tour runs on its own until the family enrolls or opts out. |
| Tour booking by parents | Not found for Procare Desktop or Procare Online. Playground, which Procare now owns, markets an AI phone receptionist and marketing tools of its own. | Parents book a tour themselves, on your website or in the chat. |
| Website chat agent | Not found for Procare Desktop or Procare Online. See the note on Playground above. | An AI chat agent on your own website answers parents at any hour, books tours and hands off to your office when it should. |
| Advertising | Not found for Procare Desktop or Procare Online. Partner CRMs are available through integrations. | Managed advertising to a monthly budget and a target cost per tour, across the major ad platforms, with a dashboard of spend and results. |
| Your website | Registration forms can be embedded on your site. | Centerly runs on your school's own web address: parents enroll, sign and pay under your name. |
Staff and HR
| Area | Procare | Centerly |
|---|---|---|
| Time clock | Staff clock in and out at the kiosk; timecards editable by admins. | Staff clock in and out on the same tablet parents use. |
| Payroll | Desktop has its own payroll module. Online syncs hours to Gusto. | Not a payroll system. Hours are recorded for use with your payroll provider. |
| Scheduling | Online: weekly staff schedules with shifts, templates and overlap warnings. | Weekly schedules by room, shown against ratio coverage. |
| Onboarding paperwork | eDocuments for signatures; Checkr for background checks. A dedicated onboarding workflow was not found in the documentation. | Online application, offer letter, W-4, I-9, direct deposit and policy acknowledgments, with a checklist by role tracked to completion. |
| Training courses | Procare Professional Development: accredited online courses and credential pathways. | Not offered. Centerly records training your staff complete elsewhere, with the certificate. |
Platform and attendance
| Area | Procare | Centerly |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | Desktop: Windows, or a Procare-hosted workstation. Online: browser plus iPhone and Android apps. | Any modern browser on any device. Nothing to install. |
| Sign-in and sign-out | Online: QR code, PIN kiosk on a tablet, or curbside by location. Desktop: ID and password, fingerprint, or card swipe, with optional hardware. | PIN or QR pass on tablets you already own. Only authorized pick-ups can sign a child out. |
| Corrections | Staff can edit attendance. Whether edits are logged was not found in the documentation. | A wrong mark is voided and kept, never deleted, and every change shows who made it and when. |
| Offline use | Procare's App Store listing says attendance has an offline mode. | Needs an internet connection. |
| Meals and food program | Online: meal logging, menus, food-program status per child and a meal report for your claim. | Meal counts by room for food-program claims. |
| Curriculum and assessments | Online: lesson plans, milestones, assessments and curriculum partners. | Not included. Classroom tools cover daily care, photos, notes and incidents. |
| Accounting | Online: one-way sync to QuickBooks Online. Desktop: a QuickBooks link. | Reports for your accountant. No direct QuickBooks sync today. |
| Security certifications | SOC 2 Type 2 and PCI DSS Level 1, per Procare. Two-step verification is mandatory for staff. | Role-based access, a full audit trail and encrypted sensitive data. No SOC 2 report yet. See security and data. |
| Support hours | Phone and email, weekdays 7 am to 7 pm Eastern, per Procare's support site, plus the Tucker assistant at any hour with hand-off to a person in business hours. | Email support, with the team that built it. Ask about hours on your demo. |
Where Procare is the better choice
We would rather you choose well than choose us. Procare is likely the better fit if:
- You want a long track record. Procare has more than 30 years behind it, a large support organization and a parent company listed on a major exchange. Centerly is new.
- You need payroll inside the same product. Procare Desktop has its own payroll module, and Procare Online connects to Gusto.
- You run Head Start or school-age programs. Procare has dedicated products for both.
- You want accredited staff training from your software vendor. Procare sells it; Centerly does not.
- You need lesson planning, assessments or curriculum in the same system.
- Your purchasing process requires a SOC 2 report today.
- A native app with a very large review base matters to your families.
- You need attendance to keep working without internet.
Centerly is likely the better fit if your office spends its week on paperwork, licensing files, billing exceptions and follow-ups, and you want software that takes that work on.
Price and contracts
Neither company publishes prices for centers. Procare asks you to request a quote; so do we. That means the only fair comparison is two written quotes for your own center.
On contract terms, read what you sign. Procare advertises no contracts, set-up fees or per-child charges. Its published terms, dated June 2026, say that the term is whatever the order form states, and that if the order form is silent the default is a one-year term that renews automatically. The same terms say a customer may end the agreement on 30 days' written notice, with charges for a term other than month to month still due for the rest of that term; that fees can change on 30 days' notice unless the order form says otherwise; and that promotional pricing applies for the first 12 months. An individual order form can of course say something different, including month to month. Ask for the order form before you compare.
When you ask Centerly for a quote, you get the monthly fee, any usage-based fees and the payment processing rates in writing. You are charged only for the parts that are live, so a staged switch does not mean paying for things you are not using yet.
Switching from Procare to Centerly
We have done this ourselves, for our own center, so we know where it hurts.
- We convert your data. Children, families, contacts, staff and billing history come across from your Procare reports. For our own center we brought over six years of ledger history and reconciled it to the cent.
- You go live in stages. Most centers start with records and compliance, then billing at the start of a month, then the kiosk and the parent app. You do not have to change everything in one weekend.
- Families re-authorize payments once. Bank and card authorizations do not transfer between processors, so each family sets up payment in Centerly. We give you the message to send and track who has done it.
- We stay through your first billing run and your first month.
Before you leave Procare, export what you want to keep. Procare's terms give 30 days of access after termination to export your data, provided the account is paid up. More on switching.
Questions to ask both of us
- Show me a child starting on the 13th of the month. Who calculates the first bill?
- Show me what happens when a bank payment is returned, from the moment it happens.
- An inspector names three children and two employees. Show me their files.
- Who types in the doses from an immunization record?
- How will I know a teacher's CPR card is about to expire, and who tells her?
- What are your processing rates, in writing, and when do funds arrive?
- What is the term on the order form, and what happens to the price after the first year?
- If I leave, how long can I still sign in and see my records?
Our buyer's checklist has the full list.
FAQ
Is Centerly a Procare alternative for a single center?
Yes. Centerly covers the daily work of a single licensed center: records, attendance, billing, payments, parent communication, enrollment, compliance and staff onboarding. It also handles more than one location.
Does Procare have AI?
Yes. Procare launched RoomRunner, an enrollment-planning tool, in May 2026, and has a support assistant called Tucker. Neither, as documented, reads your paperwork or prepares office changes, which is what the Centerly Assistant does. Playground, which Procare announced it had acquired in September 2026, has an assistant called Camber that, according to Playground's website, can carry out billing and account actions from a conversation inside Playground. It is not part of Procare Desktop or Online, and this page does not compare it.
Can Centerly import my Procare data?
Yes. We convert children, families, staff and billing history from your Procare reports as part of switching.
Do I have to move everything at once?
No. You can go live in stages and you are charged only for the parts that are live.
We use Procare Online, not Desktop. Does this page still apply?
Yes, but read the tables carefully. Procare Online does more than Desktop in several areas, including a preloaded CDC-based immunization schedule, lead tracking and autopay retries, and we have said so in each row.
What about Playground?
Procare announced in September 2026 that it had acquired Playground, and said nothing changes for customers of either product today. This page compares Centerly with Procare Desktop and Procare Online, not with Playground.
Sources
All read on September 30, 2026. We name the documents instead of linking to them; each is easy to find on Procare's website or support site.
- Procare Solutions website: pricing page; payment processing page; family engagement page; staff management page; third-party integrations page; trust, security and compliance page.
- Procare article on what Procare costs (updated July 2026).
- Procare Products and Services Universal Terms and Conditions (June 2026).
- Procare Online support documentation: billing and invoicing overview; tuition-based and attendance-based recurring billing plans; enable autopay; fees for failed or declined payment; Tuition Express guide; immunization tracking and reports; student-to-staff ratio alerts; sign-in and sign-out options; leads automation; lead status for new families; staff scheduling; meal tracking and reports; integrating with QuickBooks Online; integrating with Checkr; what's new and monthly release notes (December 2025 to September 2026); Procare and Playground frequently asked questions.
- Procare Desktop support documentation: system requirements; check-in options; Tuition Express returned payments and declined cards; late payment calculator; payroll overview.
- Playground's website description of its AI assistant and receptionist.
- Procare press releases: RoomRunner launch (May 13, 2026); acquisition of Playground (September 14, 2026); Professional Development launch (March 2025); app downloads (August 2025).
- Apple App Store listing for the Procare childcare app.
- Our own use of Procare Desktop, Tuition Express and the Procare parent app at a licensed child-care center.
Procare, Procare Online, Tuition Express, RoomRunner and Playground are trademarks of their owners. Centerly is not affiliated with Procare Solutions.
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