Kid Pickup vs Carpool Kids vs GoKid
Carpool Kids and GoKid are built for carpools: families taking turns driving. Kid Pickup is built for your own circle: partners, grandparents, sitters and neighbors taking on pickups.
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Carpool Kids
A carpool and family calendar app for driving rotations.
What it does well
- Built for carpools: any number of drivers and riders per carpool.
- Well rated: 4.8 on 9,000+ App Store ratings.
- Inexpensive: yearly Pro plans at $14.99 or $24.99.
Where it stops
- It’s organized around carpools between families. If most of your help is your own circle (grandparents, a sitter, a neighbor), that’s a different job.
GoKid
A carpool organizer, with a school carpool program called GoKid Connect.
What it does well
- A school-wide carpool program that a school can run for every family.
- Carpool scheduling between families.
Where it stops
- Its school program is priced for schools, from $1,999 a year for a small school.
What Kid Pickup does instead
- Built around your circle rather than a carpool group.
- Open pickups are marked, and parents hear 24 hours, 3 hours and 2 hours ahead if nobody has one.
- Request Help sends everyone a “Can you help?” with your note.
- Works at every school, rink and studio, with no school sign-up.
Who should pick which
Choose Carpool Kids for a driving rotation between families. Look at GoKid if your school wants to run a carpool program.
Choose Kid Pickup if your pickups are mostly covered by your own people and you want to know someone’s said yes.
Pricing side by side
| App | Price | App Store rating |
|---|---|---|
| Carpool Kids | Pro Individual $14.99/yr or $2.99/mo; Pro Family $24.99/yr or $4.99/mo. | 4.8 on 9,000+ ratings |
| GoKid | School program (GoKid Connect) from $1,999 a year for schools under 200 students. | 4.3 on 608 ratings |
| Kid Pickup | Family $59.99/yr or $5.99/mo. Premium $109.99/yr or $11.99/mo. US dollars. One price per family. Two-week free trial for new subscribers; Apple charges when it ends unless you cancel 24 hours before. | No US ratings yet; 5.0 on 4 ratings in Canada |
Prices in US dollars, as of September 2026. App Store prices are shown in your local currency.
Sources
Every fact about another app on this page comes from these pages, checked September 2026. If something’s changed, tell us through the contact form and we’ll fix it.
Carpool or circle?
A carpool is families taking turns: four households, one car a day. A circle is your own people: the other parent, Grandma, the sitter, a neighbour who’s home at 3. Carpool apps are organised around the first. Kid Pickup is organised around the second, though nothing stops you inviting the other carpool parents into your circle.
Activities, not only school
Most carpools start at school and fall apart at activities: hockey at 6 a.m., swim on Tuesdays, a tournament two towns over. In Kid Pickup each of those is a pickup or drop-off on the family calendar, with its own person. A team’s schedule can come in from a TeamSnap, GameChanger or school calendar link, which Kid Pickup keeps in step as the team changes it, or from a photo of the season sheet.
Questions to ask before you pick one
- Who drives? Other families taking turns points to a carpool app. Your own people points to Kid Pickup.
- Who pays? Carpool Kids is per user or family. GoKid’s program is paid by the school. Kid Pickup is one family subscription; helpers don’t pay.
- What happens when someone drops out? Look for a way to say “can’t make it” that tells everyone, and a way to see which days still have nobody.
- Does everyone have an iPhone? Kid Pickup is iPhone only for now.
Setting up a rotation
If you need a fair rotation worked out, our free carpool schedule generator does it without an app: enter the families and the days, and it balances the turns and prints the result. There’s also a step-by-step guide to setting up a carpool schedule with a template for Google Sheets.
When a driver can’t make it
This is where carpools break. In Kid Pickup, the driver taps Can’t make it and the pickup is open again, marked on everyone’s calendar, with the app nudging parents if nobody takes it. Request Help sends the whole circle a “Can you help?” with your note.
What a school carpool program costs
GoKid’s school program, GoKid Connect, is priced for schools: from $1,999 a year for a school under 200 students, by GoKid’s own figures. Carpool Kids is priced per user or family: Pro plans at $14.99 or $24.99 a year. Kid Pickup is one subscription per family, with everyone you invite free.
Questions parents ask
Is Kid Pickup a carpool app?
Not really. It doesn’t plan driving rotations between families. It makes sure each of your pickups has someone from your circle who said yes.