Quick verdict
- What it is
- Store information collected; an Apoku editorial summary is not yet published.
- At a glance
-
- Free to download
Categories and search queries
Official categories
- Education
- Productivity
Apoku categories
Key functions
| Function | Availability | Access | Scope | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free app | Yes | Free | Context-specific | Store published |
Screens
App Store
18 store screenshots
Pricing & paywalls
App Store
- Free to download
Ratings & reviews
App Store
-
2/5ISDs, please read. Not recommended
I’m writing this review to discourage school districts from choosing this app. Our district used to use Lunch Money Now. It was simple but much better than School Cafe, which they moved to this year. Here’s why. 1: The service fee is much higher per transaction. 2: They limit the amount of money per transaction to $100. This is a problem when you are putting money into the accounts of multiple teens and preteens who eat a lot every lunch! Not only am I going to have to take the time to make more frequent transactions instead of putting more money in all at once, I’m going to be paying that higher service fee every single time. (The previous app had no limit that I saw.) School Cafe’s app says if you want to put more money in than $100 at a time, call your ISD and see if you can drive over and write them a check. (Or, School Cafe, you could raise the max amount per transaction to $200 at least. You are supposed to make things more convenient for parents, right??) 3: the old app updated lunch balances every two hours. Why does it take 1-2 days or even longer for School Cafe?? To any ISDs, I recommend you not make your parents use this app for school lunches until School Cafe fixes these issues. Almost $3 fee per transaction is too much. (Guys. Come on.) I’ll be recommending to my ISD that they get rid of this app in the future and go back to the old one or find a new one. As it is, with multiple kids in school, I’ll be logging on here often and chucking my dollars into their service fee hole all year. Yes, it’s technically convenient to have a lunch app. But as it stands, this is Not the best one for parents. Frustrating.
J610 · 30 Sep 2026
-
2/5Great app, but those service fees!
The app is convenient and easy. Mine’s been glitching this year though, where the green bar at the top keeps moving all over when I scroll. It makes it to where I have to scroll up and down constantly to see what I need to see. Could be my phone, but maybe not. My biggest complaint, and the only reason why I could only give this app 2 stars, is the service fees! They have raised to to 5% this school year 🤯 I have 4 kids in school. I just paid over $7.00 to put some money in their account. I thought it was high last year, but this is crazy. If I want to put a greater amount of money in (to carry them a while), I will have to pay even more. This isn’t a real estate transaction. It’s parents trying to make sure our kids can eat, and we’re being charged a 5% fee for that. I understand it can’t be free, but there should be a cap to what they can charge you to make a payment, or just a flat fee of $1.00 or $2.00 per transaction.
Anorth1 · 30 Sep 2026
-
2/5Can’t do much, app issues also
It is really only good for adding funds to your child’s account and seeing what they buy each day. That’s pretty much it. It has the option to click on your child’s “menu” but you don’t get to see what is offered each day. Some items are marked only as “menu item” and they could be a bag of chips, another snack, or anything they don’t have labeled in the system. You can’t put restrictions on it, like no desserts or snack items, so your child is left to their own devices to choose their foods. There’s a convenience fee with every transaction to add funds to the account, which wouldn’t be so bad if you could manage your child’s food options more. I really don’t understand how this app has 4.9 star rating. It’s a 2 at best. One more thing to add, I haven’t found a “back button” so sometimes when you click on something that takes you to another screen, you can’t get back. You have to exit the app and restart it.
Sunnidays11 · 30 Sep 2026
-
4/5Frustrating
The tools and information available through the app are wonderful but the app itself is frustrating when viewed on any iPhone (versions 11, 13, and 15). When scrolling down the page, the title bar separates from the top of the page, pastes itself to the middle of the page, and skips down as you scroll. It effectively covers the page and prevents me from being able to view all 3 of my children’s profiles. This same bar then covers the Submit button on the payment page. I had to manipulate the location of the Submit button to finally get my payment accepted. Please fix how the page works on iPhones.
Cccccvvvvjjb · 30 Sep 2026
-
5/5Fast, Easy & Secure
This app makes knowing your child will always have money on their account for breakfast or lunch a breeze, no more worry or hassle to ensure they are always fed, with the app feature to set low limit balance alerts at the dollar amount of your choice, with the selection of limiting which items they are allowed, allowed occasionally and are restricted from purchasing without you having to be there, you are also able to ensure healthy choices are being enforced even while not in your care, if you so choose to use these features it’s all an extra bonus to the ease of the app in adding funds to your child’s or children’s account lunch balances, snack balances and so forth, definitely worth downloading, no more sending your child with money to school for breakfast or lunch and no more wondering if they ate lunch or breakfast at all that day, with the app keeping record of where and what the money was spent on, water-drinks-food tray- chips- snacks, I love the app by far!
Dollface_SB · 30 Sep 2026
Privacy & accessibility
App Store
Privacy
- Data Not Linked to You — Analytics — Diagnostics — Crash Data Developer declared
- Data Not Linked to You — Analytics — Diagnostics — Performance Data Developer declared
- Data Not Linked to You — Analytics — Usage Data — Other Usage Data Developer declared
- Data Not Linked to You — Diagnostics Developer declared
- Data Not Linked to You — Usage Data Developer declared
Accessibility
No accessibility labels collected yet.
Versions
App Store
-
14.1.0
Bug fixes and performance improvements
-
14.2.0
Bug fixes and Performance improvements
-
14.3.0
Bug fixes and Performance Improvements.
-
14.4.0
Bug fixes and performance improvements
-
15.14.0
Bug fixes and Performance improvements.
-
15.4.0
Bug fixes and performance improvements
-
15.8.0
Bug Fixes and Performance Improvements.
-
15.8.1
Bug fixes and Performance improvements
-
16.2.0
· 24 Mar 2026
Bug Fixes and Performance Improvements.
-
16.4.1
· 4 Sep 2026
Bug fixes and Performance improvements
-
5.1
Bug fixes and performance improvements.
-
5.2
• Now, you can view a history of recent SchoolCafé emails sent to your email address (such as Low Balance Alerts, student balance transfers, and password resets) right from your SchoolCafé account! How: In SchoolCafé, go to your Inbox in the top-right of the screen, and select the new Email Log tab. Note: users must have verified their email address in order to use this feature. • Now, Student and Staff users have access to the Change My District functionality on their My Profile page, just like Parent users. (Same warnings apply) • The ‘Show Nutrients’ toggle on the Monthly view of the School Menus page has now been added to the Weekly view as well. • We fixed an issue on pages where data appearing in a table format could be exported. Before, the dates on the exported file were not being reset if the user changed dates without selecting the ‘apply’ button again. Now, the results are cleared whenever the date is changed by the user.
-
5.3
• The Allergens filter on the Daily view of the School Menus page has now been added to the Weekly and Monthly (desktop users only) views as well. • We’ve sped up the performance of the Email Log (found in the Inbox page) to load emails significantly faster. • We’ve fixed an issue where users who have changed their school district were still seeing their old school district when logging back in. • Now, Staff users (or Parents who have added themselves as Staff along with their children) will no longer see a grade displaying next to the staff patron(s) on the Dashboard.
-
5.4.1
Bug fixes and performance improvements
-
5.5
School Menus – Several strong improvements have been made to this feature, including: •Monthly View – Various usability improvements have been made to make it easier to view and print menus—including a new option, “List View”, which reduces the amount of content on the screen to a more compact size. Additionally, a slider has been added to adjust the size of the text on the screen so that even more content can be viewed/printed on fewer pages. Please note that in some cases, content may still not fit on one page. •Daily View – Now, users can see which items are only served with other items. A blue icon with the label, ‘Served only with…’ will display next to the item, and when selected it will open a pop-up showing the other associated items. This means that the items can only be purchased together. •Weekly View – We fixed an issue where *printed* menus were not correctly filtering out some allergens. •Nutrition facts have now been rounded more appropriately to make them easier to read together. For example, ‘28.00g’ now just shows as ‘28g’, while 28.10g would still show as 28.10g. •Menu Item details – Arrow buttons have been added to allow users to quickly move from one item to the next without having to close the pop-up. Other Enhancements: •Parent Dashboard – Now, when parents select the menus button for an individual student, the menus for that student will also show the menu items filtered out based on that student’s allergies. Please note that this information comes from the school district and may not always be up to date. Exercise caution and contact your district if anything seems incorrect. •Apply – When certifying the applicant’s address, if their state does not match the state to which the district belongs, a warning will now display. •Make Payments – All district payment guidelines have been updated to make them easier to follow. •Register/My Profile – Now, a user’s security questions have been translated into their preferred language, or when the site language has been changed using the icon at the top-right corner of the screen. •Bank Account Verification – For security purposes, all users who add a new bank account as a payment source must now verify ownership of that account before being able to make a payment with it. •Dashboard - View Recent Transfers – Now, all mobile users will be able to see whether a transfer has been successful or has failed. Previously, this column was only visible on the desktop website or for some tablet users. •System-Generated Emails – Some minor changes have been made to make the text easier to follow. •As always, various usability and performance improvements have been made. Thanks for helping make SchoolCafé the #1 app for child nutrition!
-
5.5.1
Purchase History – Now, transactions that were reversed display more clearly. As always, we’ve made various performance enhancements under the hood. Thanks again for using SchoolCafé!
-
6.0
• Accessibility: We’ve added full screen reader support throughout SchoolCafé. • Eligibility - Apply: We've fixed an issue where the application acceptance date was showing as invalid in some cases. • Eligibility - Apply: Now, all students entered on the “Students” step of a parent’s application will display in the “Household” and “Review” steps of the application as well. This will make it easier to make sure that all students are accounted for without duplicating them. • Parent Dashboard: We’ve fixed an issue where using the ‘Shop Campus Store’ shortcut resulted in not getting a confirmation after submitting a payment. • Payment Info - Validate Bank Account: We’ve added a ’Remove’ button to allow users to remove a bank account that has not yet been validated. Also, the word ’deposit’ has been corrected to say ’debit’ instead. • Make a Payment: For security reasons, CVV may sometimes be required when attempting to make payments via a card. • As always, several other enhancements, bug fixes, and overall quality-of-life improvements have been made. Thank you again for all your support! We wish you the best in the current trials we are facing nationwide. Please reach out to us through your Support page if you need any assistance.
-
6.1
Bug fixes, several design enhancements and overall quality-of-life improvements
-
6.3
Bug fixes, several design enhancements and overall quality-of-life improvements
-
7.1
• A date range selection has been added to meal ordering to allow quicker ordering with less duplication of effort. • When viewing a bundle the user can remove an order from the bundle so it can be included in a different bundle or canceled. • When selected for Verification, the user can now select their application from a dropdown list if they have multiple applications. • SchoolCafé emails have been updated to reflect the correct address of the sender. • The ‘as of’ date for cafeteria account balances will now be correctly displayed on the dashboard. • A few other bug fixes and performance enhancements have been made. Thanks for using schoolcafé!
-
7.3
Refreshed new marketing images
-
7.3.1
Updated marketing images
-
8.1.0
School Menus: Now, you can see any menus that your district publishes on Saturdays or Sundays (if applicable). Dashboard: Now, Staff users can request refunds if they have unused funds in their personal account. Benefits – Apply: You will now see a confirmation prompt when trying to submit an application for yourself personally. Bug fixes, several design enhancements and overall quality-of-life improvements were made. Thanks for making SchoolCafé the #1 platform for connecting families to school nutrition!
-
8.2.0
When displaying the list of menu items we show Entrees first. This is the most common item people are wanting to see the menu for. Then list Fruit, Vegetables, Grains, Milk. Bug fixes, several design enhancements and overall quality-of-life improvements were made. Thanks for making SchoolCafé the #1 platform for connecting families to school nutrition!
-
9.2.0
Entering Household size is now required to move forward when applying for benefits. Additional Allergens info will now display on Daily View of School Menus. Additional Allergens info will now display on the "Make a Tray" feature of School Menus. Parents can view Menus If the parent is associated with the staff account. Allergens can’t be duplicated anymore. Bug fixes, several design enhancements and overall quality-of-life improvements were made. Thanks for making SchoolCafé the #1 platform for connecting families to school nutrition!
-
9.3.0
Bug fixes
Alternatives
- SMART tag™ Parent App — Same category + similar ratings
- Skyward Mobile Access — Same category + similar ratings
- Stopfinder — Same category + similar ratings
- ParentVUE (New) — Same category + similar ratings
- My Ride K-12 — Same category + similar ratings
- Canvas Parent — Same category + similar ratings
Availability by market
- US
Data quality & evidence
- Page completeness
- Live store listing
- Last verified
- 30 Sep 2026
- Sources
- App Store
- Apoku editorial summary has not been published yet.