Spot Offers: Fill a Spot with One Email

Today we're launching Spot Offers — the fastest way for a daycare director to fill a spot with exactly the family they have in mind.

The problem

Until now, everything on Hopping In started with the parent: a parent finds a spot, requests it, and the daycare approves. That works great for open availability — but directors told us they often already know who they want to offer a spot to. A family on their personal waitlist. A sibling of a current student. A parent who called that morning asking about Thursday.

There was no good way to say: "This spot is yours if you want it."

How Spot Offers work

For directors:

1. From your dashboard, create an offer: pick the room, date, and time slot, and enter the parent's email.
2. The parent gets an email with a secure link to view and accept the offer.
3. The moment they accept and pay, the booking is confirmed — no request, no approval step, no back-and-forth.

You can see all your offers at a glance on the new Spot Offers page, with status badges (open, accepted, declined, revoked, expired) and one-click revoke if plans change.

A few details we sweated so you don't have to:

• No double-booking. When you offer an open spot, it's reserved for that offer. It can't be grabbed by someone else while the parent decides — and it's automatically released if the offer is declined, revoked, or expires.
• Offers expire on their own. Stale offers are automatically expired, the spot is released, and you're notified — nothing lingers.
• Works for brand-new families too. If the parent isn't on Hopping In yet, the offer email doubles as an invitation. They sign up, their child's info is pre-filled from your offer, and they land directly on the acceptance page.

For parents:

You get an email saying a daycare has offered your child a spot. Click through, review the details, and accept — payment happens right there in one step. If you don't have a card on file yet, we walk you through adding one first. If the spot's not for you, decline with one click and the daycare is notified.

Why this matters

Spot Offers turn Hopping In into a two-way street. Parents can still find and request spots — and now directors can proactively place families, bring their existing waitlists onto the platform, and fill last-minute openings with a single email.

Try it from your daycare dashboard today. As always, tell us what you think.