Recently, we heard from some teachers that the communication app Remind announced new limits on their free accounts. Since then, we've had teachers and administrators interested in shopping for a new communication app ask about the main differences between the two. To make it easier, we've put together this comprehensive view, so you can make an informed decision, including outside and independent sources to make this transparent and as impartial as possible.

The first thing to notice is that Bloomz offers all the same core capabilities of Remind when it comes to messaging and texting, such as, sending messaging to just students, just parents or both of them or to any group of your choice. You can send to TEXT or email or a combination along with apps.

This is however where the similarities end. In addition to these messaging capabilities, Bloomz offers many other functions that Remind does not offer, making it a complete suite of tools that help teachers and administrators unify all communication in one app. In one view:

In more detail:

1. More than simple messaging - Alerts, Announcements & 2-way Messaging: One size does not fit all when it comes to school communications. Schools have URGENT communications that are different from REGULAR updates. To meet URGENT use cases, Bloomz offers ALERT feature that ensures that people are not desensitized to all communications. ALERT feature is for Emergency situations such as intruder alerts, Last minute schedule changes, weather-related situations, school closures, urgent bus route changes etc. Bloomz ALERTS notify users through all channels (email, TEXT and app) irrespective of their notification preferences + Bloomz automatically appends the word "Urgent communication from:" in these notifications so that your users pay immediate attention in contrast to regular updates from teachers.

2. Unlimited Message Length & Formatting: With Bloomz, you can send messages with as much length as you need and you are not limited by 140 characters. School communication should not be cryptic and so you have all the tools and unlimited length in Bloomz app to get it right. You can attach photos, videos, files and ensure your communication is complete and effective. Plus, you can also format the messages with bold, italic, underlines to get the right attention to the right words (formatted text can be sent from desktop). In addition, Bloomz offers albums option to attach multiple photos of an event or a field trip with parents.

3. True 2-way translation for seamless communication: With Remind, the burden to translate is on the sender - that means you! With Remind either you translate every message and send to all people with all languages; or, you separate each group and send messages for each audience separately. Either way, it's more work for you.

Plus, when you translate and it is inappropriately translated, parents put the liability on you since you are sending them the translated text. However, in Bloomz, you simply send once to all parents in English and let each parent pick their own preferred language to translate into. So, they know the tool is translating for them and they do not hold you accountable.

The best part is that if they have a question back and they are not comfortable in typing in English, they can enter in their own language and Bloomz translates it back to English. This allows for seamless and 2-way translation that gives equal access to all your community members to overcome the language barriers.

4. Complete Administrator Visibility for Compliance, Quality check: Bloomz ensures that School Administrator are in full control of school communications. As administrator, you can drill down into any classroom and view all the communication records including the private conversation threads between your teachers and students/parents. This includes deleted threads as well. This way you can protect your teachers, your school and administration if there is a reported issue or misuse.

5. Unify all communications at your school or even district: With Bloomz, you can unify many otherwise isolated tools into one beautiful app - Syncing existing calendars, Creating new calendars, Requesting RSVPs, Requesting Item Signups/volunteers, Scheduling Office Hours/Conferences, Capturing Student Portfolios, Behavior updates and more. Imagine having the whole school district community with all the necessary tools in one app. Your parents & students engage better, your teachers save time and you save money and ensure full security and compliance.

6. Bloomz adapts to your school's needs: If you want your school to get started messaging alone, we promise we'll match or beat whatever price you got from Remind. So, go ahead and negotiate the BEST deal with Remind and we'll beat it with our core Messaging module. Plus, you can add other modules on top using a-la-carte choices.

Interested? Let's schedule a call here to get your school/district up and running: 20-min Bloomz Consultation

In case you need independent proof points on why Bloomz is the BEST and MOST complete app for communication, take a look:

• Bloomz has won a Best App award for 3 years in a row: 2019 EdTech Digest Best App for Parent/Student Solution; also, 2018 as well as 2017 BEST App for Parent Communication from TechEdvocate.
• Bloomz is independently rated as #1 parent communications app by this teacher among 10+ apps including Remind, ClassDojo, Seesaw, ClassTag etc. Check out her crowdsourced up-to-date spreadsheet comparing all apps and why Bloomz is #1.
• WeAreTeachers blog raves about how Bloomz is the all-inclusive platform for educators: Bloomz vs. Remind: Which parent communication app should you choose?
• Bloomz is rated the best teacher-parent communication system by leading Tech Director, Vicki Davis of CoolCatTeacher
• Bloomz is now rated as one of the fastest growing apps ever with over 4M users in about 25,000 schools already and growing rapidly
• Bloomz tops TechEdvocates's list of 11 best school communication apps

Ready to discuss? Let's schedule a call here to get your school/district up and running: 20-min Bloomz Consultation