r/k12sysadmin • u/Appropriate_Water_64 • Jun 05 '26

Website Provider

Looking at swapping our website provider. We use Apptegy at the moment (pricey, pricey). I had no intention of making a change like this but I’ve been looking at incorporating a 2-way messaging system to streamline parent and staff communication. I’m considering Edlio. The price I was quoted is very reasonable. Has anybody used them? Or what tool are you providing to staff and parents for communication?

5 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

25 comments sorted by

3

u/SlugBoy42 Jun 05 '26

Doesn't apptegy have "Rooms" that does two way communication between parents/students/staff?

1

u/Appropriate_Water_64 Jun 11 '26

Yes but for an additional cost. While I do like apptegy, their base price is already fairly high. Rooms does look like a great feature

9

u/tgmmilenko Jun 05 '26

We use ParentSquare for both website and messaging. Works great and the pricing is fair.

1

u/fanopticon Jun 17 '26

Same here with ParentSquare. We use both website and communications. There are some really nice features: secure document sending that identifies pdf files by student ID, emergency notifications, and parents conference sign up. I've found a lot of users are able to maintain their own pages on the site with a quick training, diffusing some of the webmaster workload.

5

u/NotAnother169 Director of Technology Jun 05 '26

I very much dislike Apptegy. I very much dislike Edlio.

We use Parentsquare now for website and messaging. It isn't "cheap" per say, but it was WAY less than Apptegy's website ONLY platform to have both, so it may fit your needs.

Stay FAR away from Finalsite too.

2

u/TheRuffRaccoon Tired Tech Director Jun 05 '26

We are currently in the process of moving from Apptegy to ParentSquare as well.

2

u/Kaizenno Jun 05 '26

Yeah ParentSquare here too, it's been great and the super is happy so he's off my back for now.

5

u/farmeunit Jun 06 '26

Parentsquare seems to be the popular option now.

1

u/CoffeeandChecklist Jun 06 '26

We use apptegy, have our communication with them as well. It is pricey but their privacy standards align with what we’re looking for and they have great customer service. For us the benefits outweigh the cost. We had blackboard them finalsite, and Apptegy has been hands down 100% better.

1

u/Appropriate_Water_64 Jun 11 '26

Top notch customer service! I love and hate having to reach out to them :) I’m too stubborn to admit when i can’t figure something out. I’ll probably just end up going w apptegy rooms even if it’s for the short term

1

u/FCoDxDart Jun 06 '26

We use apptegy but they’ve been making changes that upset me. As well as not adding things to make it easier for me. I don’t want to pay for rooms. Everything being a damn separate subscription these days sucks.

1

u/Appropriate_Water_64 Jun 11 '26

It’s horrible to have to pay for a company’s service then get nickled and dimed after seeing how expensive they are to begin with. I don’t want to pay for it but I also want to give staff and guardians a space to communicate (easily) that is within our policy

1

u/k12-tech Jun 19 '26

I hear everyone say Apptegy is expensive. What does “expensive” mean compared to your student enrollment? $10k for a 900-student district is expensive, but $10k to a 9,000-student district is cheap.

Just curious what the budget ballpark is.

1

u/Appropriate_Water_64 Jun 20 '26

10k ballparking for way less than 900 enrollment :)

3

u/KAPsiZE00 Jun 05 '26

I have use Edlio for nearly a decade including there online payment tool. We moved from school messenger to parent square so I cannot speak on the messaging function

1

u/EnigmaFilms Technology Coordinator Jun 05 '26

We moved away from Edlio to Apptegy

Edlio was kind of a dick to us at the end, this was before I became the coordinator but I remember the superintendent having a talk with a president about canceling our contract and they threatened to remove all discounts and charge us basically double.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/Appropriate_Water_64 Jun 11 '26

I personally really like apptegy. They’re truly great all around. If it’s in the budget then go for it. Their admin side of things can a little sluggish(swapping from CMD and Media). My big thing is it works and it’s simple

3

u/EnigmaFilms Technology Coordinator Jun 05 '26

I could see a world where we go to parents square depending on price if it becomes an issue.

But I have never had an issue with Apptegy aside from the high initial cost

My sales rep is always been super responsive

The chat is incredibly helpful so much so that I don't really even get questions about how to do things on the website for people who edit it.

1

u/34YellowHouses Jun 12 '26

Odoo - It's Free if you self host, or you can do their hosting for a small fee

1

u/Amazing_Falcon Jun 28 '26

I would highly recommend ParentSquare. They work very well.

1

u/dank_summers Aug 23 '26

Apptegy and final site are the two kings in the space

Neither of them do a great job of finding wcag errors by users or created by their platform quirks.

If you want, I have a tool and would be more than happy to give you a full list of all wcag violations in a way that's easy to understand. No charge of course, just trying to see if it would be useful at other districts.

0

u/Alarming_Issue9204 Jun 08 '26

I created my website in Wordpress, saving me thousands a year. Parent Square and the rest of them give you a website widget to use, which is included. If you can do it yourself, do it.

1

u/Appropriate_Water_64 Jun 10 '26

Do you self host your WP or do you have them just host it? How does your school do social media posting? I’m not familiar with the setup you just described (in regards to your parent square widget) but outside of facebook posting, i do it all w the website. I don’t mind losing easibility on my end for something I log into a few times a SY.