Creating Your KinderStart Account

Everything else in KinderStart — your registration tracker, your first invoice, every child's daily diary — sits on top of one account. Creating it takes about a minute, and at this stage KinderStart doesn't ask you for any business details yet: just an email address and a password. Everything about your setting comes later, once you're logged in.

If you've been exploring in guest mode and want to keep what you've seen, or you're coming straight from the website ready to get started, this is the first real step.

Step 2: Enter Your Email and Password

Two fields, both required:

Email — this becomes your username for logging in, and it's where KinderStart sends anything account-related: your email verification code, receipts, and any notices about your subscription. Use one you check regularly, not a shared or work address someone else might read.
Password — as you type, KinderStart checks it live against five requirements and ticks each one off as you meet it: at least 8 characters, one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, one number, and one special character (like !, ?, or #). The Sign Up button stays greyed out until your password meets every one of them and you've agreed to the terms below — so if it won't tap, that's the first place to check.

💡Why the strict password rules?

It can feel like overkill for a childcare app, but your account will hold real children's records — safeguarding notes, medical information, home addresses, emergency contacts. The password rules exist to protect that data, and following them properly now means one less thing to worry about later.

A password manager (built into your phone, or an app like 1Password) will happily generate and remember a password that meets all five rules for you — you never have to actually memorise it.

Step 3: Agree to the Legal Basics

Before Sign Up will do anything, tick the checkbox agreeing to the Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, and Data Processing Agreement. Each one is a tappable link that opens the full document in the app if you want to read it properly — you don't have to take it on faith. The Data Processing Agreement in particular is the one that matters most for childminding specifically: it's the legal document covering how KinderStart handles the children's personal data you'll be entering.

Step 4: Verify Your Email

Tap Sign Up and KinderStart creates your account, then immediately sends a 6-digit code to the email address you entered. The screen changes to Verify Email — type the code in and tap Verify Account.

This step exists to prove the email address is really yours, since it's how you'll log back in and how you'd reset your password if you ever forget it.

Code not arriving?

Check your spam or junk folder first — verification emails occasionally land there, especially the first one from a new sender. If it still hasn't turned up after a minute or two, tap Resend Code on the same screen rather than restarting the whole sign-up process; your email and password are still saved.

If you typed your email address wrong at Step 2, no code will ever arrive — tap Back to Sign Up on the verification screen to go back and correct it, rather than waiting.

Step 5: Log In

Once your code is accepted, you'll see a Welcome! confirmation. Tap Back to Login and sign in with the email and password you just created — verifying your account doesn't log you in automatically, so this last tap is easy to miss.

💡What's next?

A brand-new account has no business details attached to it yet — no setting name, no children, nothing to invoice. The natural next steps are Starting a Subscription (if you're ready to unlock the full toolkit) and Business Settings, where you'll tell KinderStart about your setting for the first time.

Creating Your KinderStart Account