Who is building Kastr, and why
Kastr builds one focused product: clear family communication for schools, at a published price protected by straightforward contract terms.
| Not this | Decision | Why, and who to use instead |
|---|---|---|
| A tool for individual teachers | Permanent | Classroom-first platforms already own that audience and do it well. We sell to districts, and the buyer is a CTO or a communications director. |
| A fit for schools under about 500 students | Permanent | Wrong unit economics for both sides. A single small private school will get more from a free classroom tool than from a district contract. |
| A student information system | Permanent | We integrate with yours. PowerSchool, Infinite Campus, Skyward, Aeries and Synergy are the systems of record; roster data can be read through the OneRoster REST connector, uploaded as a OneRoster ZIP or typed roster CSV, or POSTed to the custom roster API. |
| A learning management system | Permanent | Canvas, Schoology and Google Classroom own that ground. |
| A district website CMS | Permanent | Apptegy and Finalsite compete there. Bundling a CMS into a comms contract is how the renewal number gets hard to read. |
| A payment processor | v2 at the earliest | Specialist vendors are cheaper per transaction, and taking payment from families sits awkwardly beside §9.4. |
| An AI product | Permanent | Machine translation is a model call, and that is one of two narrow places any model appears. The brand is reliability, not AI. |
Six of these seven are permanent and the seventh has a date on it. We publish the list because a scope decision a vendor will not write down is a scope decision that gets sold to you anyway.
The short version
Every spring, K-12 directors of technology open a renewal email. The line item that goes up the most is parent communications. Talk to enough of them and the same shrug comes back: we do not like the vendor, and we cannot switch.
Both halves of that sentence matter. The dislike is ordinary software dissatisfaction and it is survivable. The second half is the problem, switching costs are high enough, and family re-onboarding painful enough, that a district will absorb an unpleasant increase rather than move. Once a vendor knows that, the increase is not a pricing decision, it is a collection mechanism.
That is the gap Kastr is built for. Not "the AI-native operating system for schools", there are already two of those and CTOs are tired of the demo. Something more boring: a comms tool that does the daily work, does not escalate, does not sell to your families, and lets you leave with your data.
So the price is published on the site, fixed for 36 months in clause §3.2 and capped afterwards at the lesser of CPI-U or 5%. The export right is §7.1 rather than a support policy. The promise never to monetise your families is §9.4. If we are acquired, §11.2 gives every district 90 days to leave with a full export, a prorated refund and no penalty. Those four clauses are the product as much as the software is, because they are the parts a future owner of this company cannot quietly renegotiate.
Ross, founder
Focused by design
Kastr is small on purpose and built around one job: helping schools communicate clearly with families. Software handles routine setup, delivery checks and support triage so a compact team can spend its time on judgement, relationships and the problems that deserve a person.
The product is backed by a 28-endpoint REST API, an MIT-licensed CLI and MCP server, and a signed-receipt migration importer that schools can run without our involvement. The security model is documented control by control on the trust page, and the dated changelog records material product and compliance changes.
We are building a focused service with no staffing layers between a school and an answer. It is easy to migrate into, easy to connect to the systems you already use, and easy to leave with your data.
Efficiency belongs in the service and the price. We measure success in fewer missed actions, less duplicated work for staff and a product schools can keep using without fear of aggressive renewal pricing.
What we will not sell to a future buyer
This category consolidates constantly. ParentSquare acquired Remind. PowerSchool acquired SchoolMessenger and was then taken private itself. The pattern that follows an acquisition is familiar: the price moves, the roadmap changes owners, and the data terms get revised in a version of the agreement nobody in the district reads because the contract auto-renewed.
So the exit right is written into the agreement rather than promised in a blog post. §11.2 triggers on a change of control or a material change to data terms, and gives you 90 days to terminate with a full export, a prorated refund and no penalty. The migration importer is MIT-licensed and runs without us, so the tool you would need on the way out is not one we control. And §9.4 forecloses family monetisation permanently, which is the specific thing a new owner would most likely want to switch on.
None of that makes an acquisition impossible. It makes the terms of one already agreed, in your favour, before there is any pressure to agree them.
How this shows up in the way we work
The price is on the website. $3.50 per student per year under 5,000 students, $3.25 to 14,999, $3.00 above that. One tier and every feature included. Normal messaging is covered by a published fair-use allowance, with cost recovery only above it.
Support stays direct. Schools get a person who understands the product, the agreement and the migration, without being passed through layers of account management.
Releases follow the school calendar. Major work lands in May with PD materials attached so staff learn it over the summer, and September to May is polish only. A district's capacity to absorb change during a term is close to zero, and shipping into that window is a way of pretending to deliver.
The interesting parts are open source. The importer, the CLI and the MCP server are MIT licensed. If we disappear tomorrow, the tool that gets your data out still runs.
Questions people actually ask
Who is behind Kastr?
A small, self-funded, independent company. Ross is the founder and is the person who answers ross@getkastr.com. We do not publish a team size, a funding figure or a customer count, because the honest versions are unremarkable and inflating them would contradict everything else on this site.
How do we start a conversation with Kastr?
Email your approximate enrolment, current provider, renewal month and the communication problem you want to solve. You will get a direct answer about fit and a practical next step.
What happens to our contract if Kastr is acquired?
§11.2 gives every district 90 days from a change of control, or from any material change to data terms, to terminate with a full export, a prorated refund and no penalty. The importer is MIT-licensed and runs without us, so the tooling you would need on the way out is not under our control either.
Why does Kastr not build a website CMS or payments?
Deliberate scope decisions, listed on this page with the reasoning. Bundling a CMS and payments into a comms contract is how a renewal number becomes hard to read, and specialist vendors are better and usually cheaper at both. Payments is the only item on that list with a date attached, and it is v2 at the earliest.
Is Kastr an AI product?
No. Machine translation is a model call and is one of two narrow places any model appears. There is no AI draft assistant and no translation glossary in the product. The brand is reliability; a district comms tool that behaves unpredictably is worse than one that does less.
One price. Every feature. Locked for three years.
$3.50 per student per year under 5,000 students. No tiers or add-on modules. Normal messaging is included under a published fair-use allowance, with transparent cost recovery only above it.