The questions we get most.
In plain language, straight from the founder — if yours isn't here, email me and I'll add it.
Jump to: We're small / private · Why a directory at all · What $2/family buys · Can sponsors cover it? · vs. DirectorySpot, Blackbaud, etc. · iOS & Android
We're a small school. We already know everyone. Why bother?
You don't — until you do. Three things change that pretty quickly.
New families joining mid-year.Your kid's new lunch buddy moved here in October. Their parents are strangers. The current playdate plan is “ask the room parent for their email” and wait for a forwarded reply.
Classroom shuffle every year.You knew the K class. Now your kid's in 1st and there are 14 new families you'd recognize on sight but couldn't text. The directory carries the recognition forward.
The room-parent chain you currently rely on.Tonight's “anybody know how to reach the Hendersons?” thread in your group chat. It works until the person with the answer is on vacation.
Privacy still matters in a small community. You probably don't want your home address on a Google sheet shared with every parent. Your PTO sets the starting default; every family sees the choice on their first sign-in and picks what's shared from there. The answer can be “nothing” if that's what's right for you, and you can change your mind anytime.
Why does a school need a parent directory at all?
Worth separating from a different question: “why should the school care?” The school already has every parent's email. This is about parents reaching parents, without the school as middleman.
A parent-to-parent directory lets you:
- Text the other parents in your kid's class when a snow day hits
- Find the family who lives two blocks over for a carpool
- Reach the room parent without digging through last September's school newsletter
- Organize a birthday-party invite list without copying from the class email list (which usually isn't allowed anyway)
The alternative is the chain you already know: kid forgets to bring home the field-trip form, you text the one parent whose number you have, they text three others, eventually the answer comes back. The directory shortens that chain to one tap.
Why pay for it? What does Roost actually cost?
The basic Roost subscription is $2.50 per family per year, less than $3. For a 250-family school that's $625 a year, about what the PTO spends on one bake sale. The Community tier adds Circles, Clubs, broadcasts, Trusted Help (sitters, tutors, coaches, mentors), and Sponsors (your PTO sells local-business cards inside the directory and keeps 100% of the revenue) for $4.50 per family per year. Most schools currently pay DirectorySpot $375 to $1,000 for just the directory part, or carry the implicit cost of a homemade Google Sheet that gets stale within a month.
What you get for the line item:
- A real product, actively developed. Roost ships changes weekly, not annually.
- Privacy enforced at the database, not in spreadsheet permissions.
- A native app on both the App Store and Google Play, plus a web version for any device.
- An app one parent can administer, not a Google form that has to be re-shared every time someone joins.
- A vendor you can actually email and get a human answer back.
The PTO's job is to spend money on what serves families. A directory is one of the small, durable things that serves every family.
Can sponsors cover the cost of Roost?
Probably yes — and then some. The Community tier includes a Sponsors tab where your PTO displays local-business cards (a pediatric office, a pizza place, a tutoring service) you've sold sponsorships to. Roost takes nothing. Your PTO sets the price, signs the agreement, collects payment, and keeps 100% of the revenue. We just provide the display surface.
A typical Community subscription for a 250-family school runs around $1,125 a year. PTOs we've talked to sell sponsorships in the $200 to $1,000 range per sponsor per year. Two or three sponsors covers the directory; the rest is fundraising upside that goes straight to whatever your PTO funds next.
The Sponsors tab only appears in the directory once you've added the first sponsor. No empty pages. No “coming soon.” The day your PTO closes the first deal of the school year, the tab shows up and the sponsor's card is live.
Why not use DirectorySpot, Blackbaud, or what the school already pays for?
DirectorySpot is the closest competitor, and it's a genuinely good product. The differences:
- Roost is parent-to-parent. DS does that too. Blackbaud, ParentSquare, and SchoolStatus mostly don't. They're school-to-parent communication tools. A directory is a different thing.
- Privacy is the brand. Most directory products treat sharing as binary: a family is either fully visible or fully hidden, no in-between. Roost gives every family real options on their own profile — Visible to other guardians (with school, grade, or class scope), Private (you can search the directory but no one can find you), or Opt out entirely. Your PTO sets the starting default — Visible or Private — and every family confirms or changes that choice on their first sign-in. A district that already collects parent sign-off can default new families to Visible; a more privacy-cautious community can default to Private. Either way, no family lands in the directory without seeing the choice and accepting our terms.
- Every kind of family. Stepparents, two moms, two dads, shared custody, grandparents raising grandkids. Our data model handles it. DS's family-and-two-guardian shape doesn't.
- Edit from anywhere. DS mobile is read-only. Every change has to go through their web interface. Roost works the same on phone, tablet, or laptop.
- Actually shipping. The directory you're switching from probably hasn't shipped a real update in a year. Roost ships weekly.
- No legal lift for the school. A PTO can buy Roost without district sign-off, because parents are the customer, not the school. Most enterprise tools the school pays for need a procurement process and a data-sharing agreement.
We're not trying to replace your school's communication platform. We're the missing piece that platform doesn't cover.
Is there a Roost app for my phone?
Yes — Roost is a native app on both the App Store and Google Play. Same directory, same account, whichever phone you carry. It launches full-screen from your home screen, like any app.
On iPhone you can also turn on push notifications with per-category controls — switch off the alerts you don't want and keep the ones you do, so families hear about what matters and nothing else — and lock the app behind Face ID.
Roost also works in any browser — iPhone, Android, iPad, or laptop — and it's always current: when we fix something, we deploy it, with no “update available” nag. The app is free to download, and billing stays on the web, so no app-store cut gets baked into your price.
If your school requires a native app for some workflow, Roost coexists fine. One tap to launch, either way.
I'm Jeremy. If your question isn't answered here, just ask.
Fifteen minutes, no pitch deck. We'll talk about your school, what you're using today, and whether Roost would help.
Or see pricing.