What Does Carpool.School Cost? Our Pricing Plans and the Philosophy Behind Them

June 6, 2025 By Krishnanand Kamath

We believe in clear, flexible pricing that helps you build a successful carpooling community. Here’s how our school plans work.

Monthly Option: We charge $2 per user per month, with a 100-user minimum. You are only charged for families who actually register, so your cost scales perfectly with your engaged community. This minimum is waived for district or city-wide partnerships.
Annual Plan: Schools can save over 50% with our tiered Annual Plan. Starting at 100 users for $1,000, each additional block of 100 users adds $1,000 (i.e., 1-100 users is $1,000, 101-200 users is $2,000, and so on). Our tiered plan ensures you only move to the next pricing level when your number of registered families crosses that threshold. Custom quotes are available for larger communities.
Billing Structure: Subscription fees are billed directly to our partner organizations (Schools, PTSAs, Districts, or Cities), not individual families. This approach aims to foster strong local support in building a successful carpooling community.

A Fair Pricing Promise: Whether you’re on a monthly or annual plan, you only pay for families who actually register. Your cost is always tied to real engagement, not potential.

Our Pricing Philosophy

1. A Model Built on Trust & Privacy

We have a simple, transparent promise: We charge a subscription fee because we will never sell your family’s data or run third-party advertisements.

This direct model ensures our sole focus remains on building the most private and effective carpooling system for your community. It’s how we help you build a network of parents you can trust.

2. A Platform Custom-Built for School Transportation

Carpool.School replaces carpool chaos with a single, powerful platform designed to manage all your carpooling and carpool lane logistics securely and efficiently. Our platform includes essential, integrated features to make this possible:

Secure In-App Messaging: Connect with other families specifically for carpool and school activity coordination.
Flexible Scheduling: Easily set up, manage, and adapt recurring or one-time carpools.
Automated Notifications: Get timely reminders and updates for pickups and drop-offs.
Real-Time Analytics (for Admins): See valuable insights into your program’s engagement and success.
Dismissal Management and Community Announcement features coming soon.

Your $2 per user supports the custom development and maintenance of these essential tools, and much more. It directly funds our team, operational costs, and new feature development. This ensures the platform continuously evolves, bringing new capabilities to benefit your school and families without unexpected tiered paywalls.

3. Launch for Free

We know school administrators must prioritize time and resources towards education, and that administrative tools must prove they have critical value to your school’s function. That’s why Carpool.School is free to launch, so schools can assess family interests before making any financial or operational commitments. Administrators can set up their portal, invite and register families, and gauge interest in the app without any cost and very limited effort. This onboarding model allows you to build early momentum and assess engagement. When you move forward with your subscription, we only charge when your school has built a viable carpooling network.

4. Fair Pricing that Scales with You

Our per-user model ensures that you only pay for families actively using the platform. This means that whether it’s 100 early adopters or a school system of 1000, your costs scale directly with the positive impact generated within your community. We don’t believe in flat fees that penalize smaller schools or communities with lower initial adoption. We manage to do this by maintaining low overheads, and using technology to automate all phases from announcement and enrollment to continual usage and its monitoring.

Carpooling thrives on network effect: the more families who participate meaningfully, the more efficient the system becomes for everyone. Our 100 user minimum and per-user charge encourage intentional, active communities by discouraging dormant accounts and prompting administrators to remove or follow up with inactive users. This ensures that carpool and matches are formed around families who are truly committed to communicating and contributing to their carpool community, so that our platform can deliver on its promise of safer, sustainable, and community-driven commutes.

5. Stay Because it Works

Carpool.School was designed around finding long-term solutions. That’s why if families find their carpool matches early on, choose to take their communication outside the app, and no longer require our services, we support that transition. For ongoing flexibility, we offer self-service billing for schools, powered by Stripe, enabling you to start and end subscriptions on your terms. The monthly subscription option explicitly allows schools to cancel, start or even restart subscription anytime via our self-serve portal. Stay only if it works for your community. Our platform is here for as long as it adds value (but with many new features like dismissal management, real-time tracking, and community notifications coming soon, we think it’s worth sticking around!)

Conclusion

For just $2 per user per month, Carpool.School provides a powerful system that directly saves families time, money, and stress in their daily commutes. It also enables schools to ease traffic congestion, reduce their carbon footprint, and strengthen parent-to-parent connections, fostering a more collaborative and engaged school community. It’s a small investment for a significant return, transforming chaotic carpool lanes into calm, coordinated routines.