List your daycare on FirstNest — and stop drowning in waitlist admin.
A modern, honest directory and waitlist platform built specifically for licensed centres in Canada. No lead-selling, no algorithmic ranking games. The first 30 days on the full platform are free.
30-day free trial. Plans start at $109.99/month CAD.
What you actually get
A directory listing that ranks in Google
FirstNest pages are server-rendered, fully SEO-indexed, and structured for parent-search intent in your city. Most centres see their FirstNest profile in the top 3-5 results for "[centre name] daycare" within 2-3 weeks.
Parents apply in 3 minutes — to multiple daycares
One parent profile, one application, sent to as many daycares as the parent chooses. You get a clean, structured application with the data you actually need, not a forwarded email thread or a half-filled paper form.
Waitlist tools that respect your time
Manage your list with sibling priority, age-group rooms, start-date matching, and one-click offer/decline. Full CSV export anytime. No "AI matching" gimmicks — just the boring, reliable workflows you actually use.
How it works
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1
Claim your listing
Sign up with your daycare's official email. We auto-match against existing public registries (e.g. NB EECD's licensed-facility list) so you don't end up with a duplicate profile.
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2
Fill out your profile
Age groups served, hours, programs, photos, fees if you want to share them. Plain-language fields, no marketing-survey nonsense. Takes about 20 minutes.
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3
Start receiving applications
Parents in your area find you in search and apply directly. You manage the waitlist, send offers, and respond to inquiries from one screen. We never charge per lead.
Pricing — clearly
- Full access to the Compliance plan
- Waitlist management & applications
- Sibling priority logic
- Enrollment offers & tracking
- Email notifications to families
- Automatically upgrades after 30 days
- Everything in Director, plus:
- Age-group forecasting
- Compliance dashboard (red / amber / green)
- Audit logs for inspectors
- Custom staff-to-child ratio reporting
- Priority support
- Everything in Compliance, plus:
- Up to 3 locations
- Centralized compliance overview
- Custom reporting
- Onboarding call with the FirstNest team
- Priority support
Parents always use FirstNest free. Providers get 30 days free, then need an active plan to stay listed and keep using the platform. Cancel any time and export everything as CSV.
Honest questions, honest answers
Is FirstNest free for daycares?
Parents always use FirstNest for free. For daycares, the first 30 days on the full platform are free — including your directory listing, waitlist management, online applications, parent communications, and the offer/decline workflow. After the trial, staying listed and using the platform requires an active plan; our Compliance plan is $109.99/month CAD. If you cancel, your public listing comes down, but you can export all of your data as CSV at any time.
Who actually qualifies to list?
Any provincially-licensed Canadian daycare. Listings are drawn from and matched against public provincial registries (e.g. NB EECD's licensed-facility list), and you claim yours by signing in with your daycare's official email. Unlicensed home child-care is not eligible.
What about my existing scraped listing in New Brunswick?
Your daycare may already appear on FirstNest if it's listed in a public provincial registry like NB EECD's licensed-facility list. Sign in with your daycare email and we'll match it to your existing listing automatically — no duplicate profile, no lost SEO equity. If we can't auto-match, you can claim it from the Directory page.
What data is shown publicly on my listing?
Only what you choose: your daycare name, address, contact info, age groups served, and a brief description. Your waitlist depth, individual parent emails, internal notes, and operational data are never shown publicly. Parents see an honest wait-time estimate based on aggregate movement, but never a specific position or another family's details.
How is this different from Brightwheel or Lillio?
Brightwheel and Lillio are excellent operations platforms once a child is enrolled — daily reports, billing, attendance. FirstNest does the part that comes before enrollment: getting you discovered by parents in your area, managing your waitlist, and routing online applications. We don't compete with your operations software; we feed parents into it.
Do you sell parent leads or share data with other providers?
No. Ever. We don't sell leads, we don't share parent contact info with other daycares, and we don't run third-party advertising on the parent surface. Every parent application goes only to the daycare(s) the parent specifically applied to. This is a hard line — it's why we built the company.
What happens to applications and waitlist data if I leave?
It's yours. We provide one-click CSV export of your full waitlist and application history at any time, free of charge, including after you've cancelled. Your data is your data; you should never feel locked in by what we hold.
Ready to claim your listing?
Sign up with your daycare email — claim your listing in minutes, and start your 30-day free trial of the full platform.