SchoolMessenger
How much does SchoolMessenger cost?
Prices are current as of 7 Sept 2026.
SchoolMessenger has no in-app products on record in the United States.
10+ alternatives to SchoolMessenger
| SchoolMessenger |   Seesaw |   Lillio |   Ontario G1 Practice Test Genie |   Recycle Coach |   Stopfinder |   Ottawa Collection Calendar |   SpacesEDU |   PaySchools Central |   Edsby |   Kindertales for Parents | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating / 5 | 4.6 | 4.7 | 4.9 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.8 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.8 | 2.4 |
| Reviews | 4.7K | 174K | 69K | 49K | 44K | 14K | 8.2K | 2.5K | 591 | 540 | 152 |
| Released | 2015 | 2014 | 2016 | 2012 | 2016 | 2019 | 2017 | 2020 | 2022 | 2012 | 2017 |
| Monthly price | — | — | $2.99 | $22.99 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| One-time price | — | $12.99 | — | $22.99 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
The going rate for each plan in United States, in its own currency, shaded from the cheapest price on the row to the dearest. Plans fewer than four in ten of the priced apps sell are left out.
SchoolMessenger reviews
4.6 out of 5, based on 4,712 reviews.
What people like
- Great for quickly reporting absences to the school
- Keeps parents updated on important school news
- Easy to use and very convenient
What they complain about
- Messages stay marked as unread after you read them
- No option to report a child arriving late
- Hard to mark all messages as read at once
- App often fails to log in or recognize users
New user
So far so good
Not user friendly
Poor usability, needs better defaults, needs 1/2 day option, needs arrives late option, and when you choose the student and full/multiple day, the date is blank. Terrible app!!
Reporting and absence
The app will not let me report and absence
Not enough options
There’s no option for if my kid is at school, but arrived late. The only options I have are “full day”, “early departure”, “leave & return”, or “multiple day”.
It’s alright
Something’s the app won’t let me login even if I forcefully close it and when I try to go to their website’s, it doesn’t understand what I’m doing. Please fix this
Great
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Worse app ever
This app is the worse every time going to use I can’t but try everything I can’t login ! Fix this !
Great app but..
Great app. But can not print or save an attachment to a message
No late option
The app won’t let me mark my children as late, only absent. when I try to use leave and return as a last resort, it gives an error message stating that the school start time is two hours later than it is
Missing late arrival option
The app is alright. Mostly user friendly. There is no option for a late arrival though. It would be useful to add that.
5 star🤩🤩
Very helpful, sends messages at the right time! Very organized. The best! 5 star🤩
Embarrassing
Lots of bugs, unreliable absence messaging, 1980s design
Works well
The app works well for what it needs to do. It would be nice if we could mark all messages as read and/or delete without having to go into each message individually.
Not good communication
This app will notify me of a new message and it doesn’t matter if I click the notification or go into the app directly, there is never a new message
Useful but hard to read the tiny text of messages
The most useful aspect of this app - getting a direct notification instead of needing to listen to a call of unknown length - could be vastly improved if the message could be read in a user-friendly way. The tiny text is barely readable on even a large phone screen. I do appreciate getting the email and voice options in one place, and I’d really like to be able to quickly scan the text. Devs, please try reading a message in app - while it’s possible to zoom in, the usability for reading a whole page is atrocious. I usually give up a scrolling side to side and just leave the app to load the email. Supporting viewing in landscape mode would fix this easily! You could also support Dynamic Type. I see this has been reported to the developers for *years*, and it wouldn’t take a lot to make this much more user-friendly.
Busted!!
Lets me know if my kids tryin to skip! Keeps me up to date on all the things going on at the school. Easy to let the school know if your kid has to leave or come back to the school. Great app!!
Stupid and sucks
Can’t mark a child late, can’t give a reason for why, adding an absence is tedious and convoluted, and YOU CANT ADD A LATE ARRIVAL. I hate this app.
So many unread messages
Can we get an easier way to mark all the messages as read? I have 5 kids and get a lot of messages and it takes forever to go through them all and open and close them to mark them as read.
No easy way to get support
APP is ok. Lacks few options e.g. Leave and Return option add Dr. Appointment. Also add an option for support. Don’t make me search 30 min to find how to contact you.
Notification Crazy
I get about five push notifications for every actual message from my school district. A little ridiculous...
Great app
Very convenient app for reporting absent and receive other information.
Aweful
Nothing ever works properly. It’s incredibly frustrating
Multiple kids
Hey! Great app for school but you should have a feature where you can select all your kids if away or have an appointment and leaving early or will be late to submit. Wastes time in app having to do it for each kid if you have 3+ and have to do it individually for each child. Thanks!
Needs swipe option
Messages often stay unread status and don’t clear once message is in fact read. Should have option to swipe and get rid of old messages or at least mark as read to clear notifications.
Preferred communication source.
Top choice source, for prompt & reliable information regarding kids school & schoolboard.
Never works, no help.
I have three children, and multiple times two of them have become unavailable on the app. Multiple phone calls to their schools and no one can help. I have refreshed, I have logged out, I have deleted the app and reinstalled it. Nothing worked and don’t expect any help from the app managers. They make it pretty much impossible for you to contact them and when you are able to, they will not respond.
Easy to use but missing an option
I love this app. It is user friendly. However, there should be the option for “Late Arrival” ex: child has a doc appt at 9:30 am and no point in sending your child to school until after the appointment is over.
Confusing and
This appearance and navigation in this app are pretty bad for such limited functionality.
Prompt, informative and easily accessible
All the information needed for all my kids schools is easily accessible, prompt and informative. Doesn’t leave much to question or worry about
Latest update not working
I attempted to enter my child’s absence as I have always done. The app kept giving me an error message and would not let me submit it. I did some trouble shooting such as logging out and uninstalling the app and reinstalling when things got worse. It now tells me my information is not recognized and I have no children in my account. (I have 2 children with the board and have used this app for years) I then called the absence line and it also doesn’t recognize my number that I have had for years.
My ONLY complaint
There needs to be a “Mark all as read” button for the notifications. Other than that, this is a pretty great app!
Notification Barges stay
Major problems with notification badges not going away after reading messages.
Quick and easy
Quick and easy to use! It helps keep us in the loop!
Garbage
This app is absolute garbage. You can’t see clearly what messages were read or not and the new absence reporting system is ridiculous. You’re unable to edit or save properly or change anything. - absolute garbage!
Notifications
The app is great aside from the fact that when I read a message the notification is still there and won’t go away. So the notification bubble stays there and message count keeps going up even though I’ve read them all. Driving me crazy.
Excellent
Very helpful app.Thankyou
Reporting late time options not working.
This app is horrible. My child was last for his second period class at 9:50am. I get a notification at 5:05pm. I can’t put in the time he was actually late because it says it doesn’t match the recorded time of 5:05pm. Try to put the time in as 5:05pm even though school is done at 2:30pm and it gives an error message saying I can’t report a time that is after school has ended. This happens every single time. Needs major improvements!
Helpful, but needs an update!
The app is very useful, but the last few weeks, the push notification/badge won’t delete after a message has been read. Very annoying.
Excellent communication hub
For our children, it’s so important to have a place to be able to communicate absences and learn updates from the school. No complaints at all for this very helpful and useful app. Five stars across the board.
Not user friendly
If a child is marked absent by mistake there should be a way to correct that. Even going in to explain the “absence” the app won’t let you save the comment. So you end up getting phone calls and emails saying your child isn’t at school and asking for an explanation but you can’t do anything about it.
Poor sign up process
Who thought it was a good idea to have the password field on the iPhone use “scan” instead of “paste”? Terrible for people using password managers. And no 2nd password field to make sure you typed it right? Terrible for people NOT using password managers. And for some reason it doesn’t recognize the email address that the school uses to send me email every single day.
SchoolMessenger FAQ
- Is SchoolMessenger free?
- Yes. The app is free, in all 10 countries it sells in, and it sells nothing inside it.
- Does SchoolMessenger have a free trial?
- No. None of its offers (US) come with a free trial.
- What are the best alternatives to SchoolMessenger?
- Seesaw (4.7 from 173,850 reviews, premium from $12.99), Lillio (4.9 from 69,385 reviews, premium from $2.99) and Ontario G1 Practice Test Genie (4.7 from 49,051 reviews, premium from $9.99).
SchoolMessenger download
Last updated 9 months ago.
SchoolMessenger sells in 10 countries. It was released 11 years and 5 months ago, on 15 Apr 2015. It holds a 4.6 rating from 4,712 reviews.
Supports 3 languages: English, French, Spanish.
How much does SchoolMessenger make?
Third-party estimates for the last 30 days, worldwide — not the store's own figures, which Apple publishes for nobody.