“Revenue from membership sales and renewals increased, and we save a significant amount of staff time and paperwork. The customer service is outstanding and the team at Communal continues to add helpful features.”
Day Camp Registration Software
For summer, holiday and sports day camps run by community associations, recreation departments and clubs. Parents register each child online, accept your waiver, and pay at checkout or on the weekly or monthly payment schedule you set. You get a roster with birthdates, medical notes and emergency contacts before the first drop-off.
- One checkout for every child in the family
- Waivers accepted before payment goes through
- A waitlist opens when a week fills
Three campers, one checkout
Member price from the family membership
Camp office work you stop doing by hand
Registration night without the phone ringing
Registration opens on the date you set. Parents choose a week, fill in camper details, and pay by card from home, so nobody is typing paper forms into a spreadsheet at 11pm.
Paid in full or in installments
Take the whole camp fee at checkout, or split it into weekly or monthly payments charged to the parent's saved card, starting on the date you choose.
Full weeks that refill
When a week hits its limit, the waitlist opens. Families are emailed when a spot frees up, so a late cancellation doesn't leave a spot empty.
Forms done before day one
Waivers, birthdates and emergency contacts are collected at signup, and families with an account add medical notes to each child's profile. The camper list you print on Monday morning already has them.
What is day camp registration software?
Day camp registration software moves camp signup online. Parents pick weeks or single days, enter each camper's details, accept the waiver and pay. Your staff get a roster per week and an attendance sheet per day instead of PDF forms and e-transfer notifications. What separates it from a form builder is that capacity, waitlists, payments and camper records work together, so a full week stops taking registrations on its own.
North Glenmore Park Community Association in Calgary used to spend more than 30 hours on each camp registration cycle, with downloadable PDF forms, card payments keyed into a POS terminal, and waitlists on printed lists. After moving camp registration to Communal, that work dropped to about 5 hours and they doubled the size of their summer camps. Read the North Glenmore Park case study.
How day camp registration works in Communal
- A session for every week: each week gets its own capacity, price, age range and registration dates.
- Single days and extended care: sell single days, before care and after care as their own sessions, each with its own limit and price.
- One checkout per family: parents add each child to the same cart and pay once. Every child gets a separate signup.
- Member and non-member rates: families with a membership see the member price at checkout. Sibling and early-bird offers run as promo codes with an expiry date.
- Payment plans: split a camp fee into weekly or monthly payments charged to the saved card.
- Waitlists: when a week fills, parents join the waitlist and are emailed when a spot opens.
- Waivers and medical details: the waiver is accepted before checkout completes, and medical notes, birthdates and emergency contacts come out in the signup export.
- Daily attendance: create an attendance sheet for one day or the whole week, and every registered camper is already on it.
- Reminders: families get an email a set number of hours before each session starts.
- Moving a camper: transfer a signup to another week instead of cancelling and rebooking.
Camp is often one of several things you run. If you also take signups for classes, leagues, and drop-ins, see our program registration software, which runs on the same setup.
Day camp management software for the whole season
Camp registration, payments, waivers, and parent emails live in the same system as your members and your other programs. The family that books three weeks of camp in March is already on file when they sign up for fall soccer.
Online Camp Registration
Set up each week with its own capacity, price, and age range. A date-of-birth check keeps a seven-year-old out of the teen week, and your own questions go on the form.
Learn more
Payments and Payment Plans
Card payments at checkout, weekly or monthly payment plans, member and non-member rates, and promo codes with an expiry date for early bird or sibling offers.
Learn more
Waivers and Medical Details
Upload your waiver PDF and require it before checkout. Birthdates, emergency contacts and, for families with an account, medical notes show up in the signup export. Add a medical question to your registration form to collect it from guest checkouts too.
Learn more
Parent Emails and Portal
Reminder emails go out a set number of hours before each session starts. Parents sign in to see what they registered for, and you can email one week or the whole camp at once.
Learn moreCamp registration guides
Longer reads for camp directors: how nine camp platforms compare, when free tools are enough, and running camp inside a nonprofit.
Summer Camp Registration Software Compared
Nine platforms compared by fit, including CampDoc, Campminder, UltraCamp, Regpack and Communal, and the kind of camp each suits.
Read guide →Free Summer Camp Management Software and Registration Tools
When Google Forms, PayPal or Jotform is enough for camp signup, and the point where capacity, waitlists and waivers need a real system.
Read guide →Online Camp Registration Benefits
What changes when registration moves off paper, with North Glenmore Park's numbers.
Read guide →Camp Management Software for Nonprofits
Subsidized spots, member rates and board approval for camps run inside a nonprofit.
Read guide →Powering 500+ community organizations
Day camp registration software FAQ
Day camp registration software lets parents sign campers up for weeks or single days, accept the waiver and pay online, and gives your staff a roster and an attendance sheet for each day. It replaces PDF forms, e-transfers and waitlists kept in a spreadsheet.
Yes. Parents add each child to the same checkout and pay once, and every child gets their own signup with their own details. Sibling pricing works through a promo code you create; it isn't applied automatically.
Yes. Make each day its own session with its own capacity and price, and parents add the days they need to one checkout. Before care and after care work the same way.
When a week fills, parents can join its waitlist. By default everyone on the list is emailed when a spot opens, and the first family to register takes it. Turn on the priority waitlist and Communal emails families one at a time, in the order they joined, at an interval you set. A family that does not answer within your time limit comes off the list.
Yes. Turn on a payment schedule for a camp price and set the number of payments, weekly or monthly, and the date the first one comes out. Parents see the schedule at checkout, and each payment is charged to the card they saved.
Parents accept your waiver online for each child before checkout completes. Upload the waiver as a PDF and attach it to the camp. Each acceptance is recorded against the camper, and if your PDF has fill-in fields you can download the completed copy. It is an acceptance record, not an e-signature.
Yes. Add a date-of-birth range to any week or session, and registration checks each camper's birthdate against it before they can sign up.
Parents add each child to their account once, with a birthdate, medical notes and an emergency contact, and every registration after that uses the same record. Medical notes, birthdates and emergency contacts are in the signup export, so counsellors can have a printed list on the first morning. Ask families to list allergies in the medical notes, or add an allergies question to the registration form. For a doctor's form, turn on file uploads for the session and parents attach it at signup.
Yes. Turn on program reminders and each family gets an email a set number of hours before their camper's session starts, with the start and end times. For packing lists or schedule changes, email everyone registered in one week or across the whole camp.
Yes. A sports camp or a school-holiday camp is set up the same way: daily or weekly sessions with capacity, age limits by birthdate and a waiver. If your club also runs leagues and seasonal registration, see sports club membership software.
Not well. Communal has no camp health record or medication log, no cabin or bunk assignment, no authorized-pickup list, no staff hiring workflow and no parent photo app. It fits day camps that a community association, club or recreation department runs beside memberships and facility bookings. Overnight camps should compare CampDoc, Campminder, CampBrain and UltraCamp; our comparison of summer camp registration software covers all four.
Communal isn't free: camp registration starts at $125/month for up to 250 members with the Programs & events add-on, and you can start with a free trial. A free form builder can work for a small camp with one or two sessions. Our guide to free summer camp management software covers when it stops being enough. Full detail is on the pricing page.
Yes. Arts councils, galleries, and studios run youth art camps on Communal next to their classes, artist submissions, and studio rentals. See arts council and gallery software for how that fits together.
From teams who stopped taping tools together.
Community associations, rec centers, and member-based nonprofits across North America moved to Communal when their spreadsheet, booking calendar, and payment system stopped keeping up.
“My experience with the software and the team has been overwhelmingly positive. We switched from another provider and the difference was night-and-day!”
“We are finally able to communicate with our members, run booking software and a program payment platform all in one application. The cost to our Community is very reasonable and the team is fantastic to work with.”
Bring us your messiest workflow. We'll walk it with you.
How the hall gets booked, how program pricing works, how you chase renewals. No canned tour. We walk Communal through your real process so you can see the fit before you decide.