ParentPay Reviews 4,442

I have been unable to access my account and despite emailing 5 times. I have had no response. This is affecting my daughter’s education and she is doing GCSEs and has activities that she needs to go on and can’t because of this useless app/company.I would recommend everyone to stay away from this company. They do not respond to emails despite saying they will do. I wish the school my daughter goes to, never used this company.

I had a problem logging in as I hadn’t used the service for a few years and forgot the password, when I emailed them to tell them the problem they helped me sort it and now I can use it without any problems 👍🏻

One time payments means that they can take money out of your account with no prior warning for a trip your child has not been on. So they encourage you to set up a path for them to steal from you because you haven't paid for something you don't need to pay for. Disgraceful. Another middleman making money off something that doesn't need to exist.

Incredibly frustrating! The amount of times I go to top up my daughter’s account so she can buy lunch at school , to get an error message “ Sorry, something went wrong. We're working to fix it. Please try again later.” or “maintenance… as a busy working mum I do thus when I have the time, and then am unable to upload money on her account leaving her without access to food at school!!! It’s not acceptable! Her school is in the middle of nowhere, no local shops down the road, she relies on this stupid service as her school foolishly chose it! Your job is to ensure it works and provides the service advertised, which you regularly seem to fail at doing!

This company (School Gateway) has taken £702.85 from my account. Their system made a mistake and out hige sums of money in the app for me an many parents as if we made purchases of that amount and more. When I paid for the £2.90 for my daughter's lunch, the system has added 702.85, and since this wasn't showing on the actual lunch payment, when I accepted the £2.90, the whole of the amount came back.
They took this 2 days ago and they are saying that I manually typed the wrong amount, which is a lie as verified with many parents, we can't manually type any money.
My school has been middle guys with yourselves and me and you guys won't engage with parents directly.
You don't have any phone line for parents, you have taken this amount, the last amount from me, I have my bank involved and I will take it as far as I need to to solve this.
WORSE company for school meals.

Transferring Balances to my Daughter DOES NOT WORK PROPERLY ?
WHY DO I HAVE TO PAY FOR TEXT MESSAGE NOTIFICATIONS WHEN BALANCES ARE LOW ?
WHY DO YOU HAND OFF KEY QUERIES TO THE SCHOOL ?
THE LIST GOES ON AND ON.....
NO DOUBT YOU'LL GIVE ME THE SAME BRUSH OFF RESPONSE ABOUT CONTACTING SUPPORT - JUST REWRITE THE SYSTEM!!!!

Absolutely terrible site, no customer support that I can see and the site just does not work. Does not send emails when it says it will. Absolutely awful, worst site I’ve ever used.

Once again … unable to add money for child’s lunch due to error !! Why have parentpay been given total proxy over all the schools ?? Awful slow site . Parent pay should hand the reins to another provider

It just doesn't work properly, either very slow or often it won't let you log in at all, (even after clearing cookies) I have wasted far too much time on this site.

I have no idea why schools would choose it as it is not fit for purpose

I am extremely disappointed with ParentPay. Money is consistently deducted from my account but never reflects on my child’s account, leaving my child without lunch at school. Despite raising concerns several times, the issue remains unresolved. The customer service is absolutely frustrating, they offer no real solutions and seem more focused on defending their system rather than helping parents. The lack of transparency is unacceptable, and the entire system feels unreliable. This has happened more than once, and each time, I’m left having to pay extra just to ensure my child has food. Everything about ParentPay is useless, from the faulty payment system to the poor customer service. I would not recommend ParentPay to anyone. They need to seriously improve their system and customer support.

Most worst, confusing and frustrating site out there nothing is straight forward try login in doesn’t let you and the home page is so bad to navigate should be taken down immediately.

1) Payment made and acknowledged but did not go onto the account.
2) Funds 'went missing'.
3) Online it is not clear if and items has been paid or not without clicking through multiple pages, only to find it was paid after all!!!
4) Responses fro ParentPay say contact the school but nothing is ever resolved.
5) ParentPay web site is so confusing.
6) Those Parents who are not experiencing problems maybe because you are not checking your accounts properly.

School Comms customer service is outstanding. The system is very easy to use but if you ever need to contact for support, the response is always nearly instant and from a real person. There is never an auto response explaining that they are very busy and will answer in a few days, they come straight back to you. The advice given is always helpful and solves the problem every time. I can't rave enough about School Comms, they are brilliant, friendly and super helpful.

ParentPay is hands down the most useless and confusing payment platform I’ve ever had the misfortune of using. And trust me, I’ve dealt with hundreds of payment platforms—none as frustrating as this one.

As a parent, finding anything relevant is a nightmare. Your balance? Buried deep in settings. Topping up? Even worse. First, you have to add funds to your parent account, then transfer them to your child’s account—why the unnecessary steps? And if you need to pay for a school trip or anything else? That’s when the real chaos begins.

I honestly don’t know why I’m even wasting my time writing this review, because I doubt anyone from ParentPay will ever read, let alone act on it. But since my child's school forces me to use this outdated mess, I feel the need to vent. The fact that schools are relying on such a poorly designed platform says a lot.

ParentPay shouldn't even exist in 2025. Do better.

I have been unable to gain access to my parent pay account for well over a week now. When I try to login it just says error we are working to fix this. ParentPay sort this out, as people have urgent payments to make otherwise their children will miss out on things like leavers hoodies etc.

Useless, clunky, dated site that always seems to experience technical problems at peak times ie Monday mornings! Far too many screens to click through to make a simple credit card payment. Hire some developers and build a proper site and an app for goodness sake!

Parentpay has not been useful but rather taking so much without any explanation, meanwhile, our child is not having any meals. The schools should come up with other means and ways for the children to pay for their meals as there is always a minus

Awful site. Badly designed, badly laid out, nonsensical categorizing. One click payment? Oh, that takes 3 days to process, why is it not instant? I have the money to pay NOW, I might forget that it's coming out in 3 days time. Tried to pay the other way and it didn't recognise my card type (Mastercard!).

Here's what I'd like to see:

What I owe (item, date due)
What I've paid (item, date paid)
Instant payment

It really could be that simple.

Have found this a poor site to navigate and sometimes just comes up with a blank screen. Surely something needs to be done to improve the workings of this site. Its hitty missy at times.

In 7 days I have put £35 on parent pay. My son has free school meals. But at breakfast time I pay for toast and a drink which can be about £2 extra, in 7 days £35 has gone out of my account which would only add up to £14 for 7 days, in some of them days he hasn't eaten anything with him having Austim he has sensory issues to certain foods. The Start of the year I was paying for another child with the same surname. When I cal the school the don't care & to contact parent pay you were talking by email which they don't do anything. They have taken my son's dinner money & when I pay it's pending for 3 days or more before It goes into the account