Comparison · BrightStep and OpenApply
BrightStep or OpenApply: two admissions products, two schools in mind.
OpenApply has held international-school admissions since 2012, and holds them well: re-enrolment, a multi-child parent app, confidential references, branching email campaigns, multi-currency collection. On ten of the twenty-six rows below it is ahead of BrightStep; on ten others it is the other way round; on the last six the two are level. What this page argues is therefore not its quality but its fit: a Moroccan institution recruits on WhatsApp, collects in dirhams through a local rail, answers to the CNDP and works on Casablanca time. Here, line by line, is what each platform holds.
- of HEC Rabat’s admissions run online on BrightStep, from file to payment
- 100%of HEC Rabat’s admissions run online on BrightStep, from file to payment
- rows in the table, out of twenty-six, where OpenApply is ahead of BrightStep
- 10rows in the table, out of twenty-six, where OpenApply is ahead of BrightStep
- weeks for a typical OpenApply implementation, on its own FAQ
- 4–6weeks for a typical OpenApply implementation, on its own FAQ
- OpenApply prices published: the subscription is annual, per enrolled student, on quote
- 0OpenApply prices published: the subscription is annual, per enrolled student, on quote
Two origins
Where each product comes from
Both call themselves opinionated about admissions. The opinions differ because the schools that shaped them differ.
OpenApply
- Launched in 2012 by Faria Education Group, alongside ManageBac, for international and independent schools.
- Sold per enrolled student, as an annual subscription, on quote, with a minimum student count written into the contract.
- Hosted on Amazon Web Services in Montreal, and in Beijing for mainland China accounts.
- Its communication is built on email: automated campaigns, criteria-based subscriptions, exclusion rules, branching. The entrance test goes through the IDAT partner.
A complete, mature system, cut for the international-school model.
BrightStep
- Built by GEERD in Casablanca for admissions teams in Morocco, francophone Africa and France, in higher education and in schools alike.
- Sold without counting applicants: the number of files received is not part of the calculation, and no feature waits on a higher tier.
- Hosted in the European Union, on OVHcloud in France, under the GDPR and Law 09-08.
- Built around the conversation: a two-way WhatsApp inbox, calls and an agent on the applicant’s record, video interview and assessment inside the journey.
An admissions tool built for the conversation, open for the campaign already running.
Line by line
What each platform holds, and on what terms
Seven categories. Every cell says what it means: included, available with a limitation that matters, or absent. Ten rows go to OpenApply, ten to BrightStep, and six leave the two level; each is written as plainly as the next.
- Included
- Partial
- Not available
| Capability | BrightStep | OpenApply |
|---|---|---|
| The application journey | ||
| A separate journey per entry point | Included, Reusable journey templates | Included, Checklists by status and by programme |
| Typed stages: form, documents, payment, interview, test | Included | Partial, Forms, checklists and fees; the test goes through the IDAT partner |
| File review with rubrics and hand-off to the next reviewer | Partial, Scoring rubrics; the hand-off is done by hand | Included, Rubrics, bulk activation, the next reviewer notified |
| Confidential references requested from the platform | Not available | Included |
| Re-enrolment for families already enrolled | Not available | Included, In a few steps, pre-filled forms, several children at once |
| The family | ||
| A family portal in the institution’s colours | Included, On the web, in your colours | Included, On the web, and an iOS and Android application for parents |
| One guardian account for several children | Partial, One applicant per account today | Included, A multi-child dashboard |
| Family interface and notifications in French | Included, French and English | Partial, Parent dashboard in English, Arabic, Chinese, German and Spanish according to its product page; French is not among them |
| Registration for tours and open days, with calendar sync | Partial, Interview slots only | Included, Included; the admin calendar syncs with Google Calendar, iCal and Outlook |
| The conversation | ||
| WhatsApp connected to the platform | Included, A shared inbox, in both directions, with templates and bulk invitations | Included, WhatsApp is listed in the connector catalogue |
| Email campaigns with branching | Partial, Templates and sending on the institution’s letterhead; fixed reminders and notifications, no configurable automations | Included, Automated campaigns, criteria-based subscriptions, exclusion rules, branching |
| An agent that answers families | Included, Enro answers on WhatsApp from your own knowledge base, qualifies and creates tasks | Partial, A question box in the parent app, open to selected schools |
| Interviews and assessments | ||
| Interview slots booked by the family | Included, Included, on site or online | Included, Tours and interviews booked from the profile |
| A video interview room inside the platform | Included, Included, with a scoring rubric; recording if you turn it on | Not available, Interview scheduled from the checklist; a Zoom account to link to the profile, or the interview in person |
| An entrance test inside the application journey | Included, An assessment stage, auto-marked or hand-marked | Partial, The partner IDAT test, built into the checklist |
| Application fees | ||
| Fees collected inside the journey | Included, Included, as an option, with a letterhead receipt | Included, Invoicing from the roster, fees attached to the checklist, discounts and taxes |
| Collection in dirhams through a Moroccan provider | Included, Included, by card to banking-industry standards | Partial, International providers; no Moroccan gateway announced |
| Multi-currency and cross-border collection | Not available, Dirham only today | Included, Several international providers, Stripe and Flywire among them |
| Itemised fees and a reconciliation export | Included, A collections dashboard, exported by period | Included, A transactions dashboard, Excel export |
| Data, hosting and connections | ||
| Data hosted in the European Union | Included, OVHcloud, Gravelines and Roubaix, France | Not available, Amazon Web Services in Montreal; Beijing for mainland China accounts |
| A security certification audited by a third party | Partial, Measures and subprocessors published on our Trust page, a processing agreement on request; no certification | Included, ISO 27001, as Faria announces |
| Public API | Partial, A documented contacts API (OpenAPI) with quota-bound keys, to connect your website or your automations | Included, REST, with OAuth2; students, payments and fields read and written |
| Connectors to school management systems | Not available, No connector; the hand-off to EasyClass or to your system is organised by GEERD at set-up | Included, ManageBac, iSAMS, PowerSchool, Finalsite, Engage |
| Getting started and support | ||
| Ready for the campaign already open | Included, In a few days | Partial, A typical implementation of four to six weeks, training included |
| Support by telephone | Included, A team in Casablanca | Partial, Normally unavailable, its FAQ says; the FariaSupport Standard and Premium plans add 24/5 telephone support |
| Support in French, in your time zone | Included, French and English, from Casablanca | Partial, By email, Monday to Friday |
The scores given to OpenApply are for what Faria publicly describes of its product, without a module from another brand in the group. “Partial” means the capability exists with a limitation that matters to a Moroccan institution, not that it is weak.
What it costs
A price that follows the school’s enrolment, not the admissions work.
OpenApply publishes no price, and that is not a reproach: neither do we. What it does publish is its billing rules, and they are worth reading before signing.
OpenApply
- OpenApply is free for families and sold to institutions as an annual subscription, on quote: no price appears on its site.
- The invoice is drawn on the number of enrolled students and cannot fall below the minimum student count written into the contract, even when your actual numbers do.
- Multi-year discounts exist, but they are paid up front: five per cent for two years settled at signature, ten per cent for three.
- Sums paid are non-refundable if you cancel before term, and an invoice more than thirty days late carries two per cent interest a month.
- A typical implementation takes four to six weeks, online training included.
These rules are the ones Faria publishes in OpenApply’s frequently asked questions. The amount is not there: it depends on the quote, on enrolled numbers and on the minimum negotiated, and we do not know it.
BrightStep
We publish no prices on this site, because a price shown out of context reads badly and ages worse. What we publish is the rule.
BrightStep is sized on three things: your team’s seats, the modules you switch on and the communications actually sent. Set-up is invoiced once. The number of pupils enrolled in your institution is not part of the BrightStep bill: a school that grows does not see its admissions bill grow with it. What follows volume is what goes out.
No feature is held back behind a higher tier, and no contractual minimum holds the admissions bill up. Communications follow your usage; a monthly credit cap bounds the agent, which stops when it is reached. The quote is drawn up after the diagnostic, on your actual campaigns.
How we charge →Why BrightStep
What a Moroccan institution gets here and not there
Six differences, all of them drawn from the table above. None of them says OpenApply is badly made: they say where it was made.
WhatsApp in both directions
A shared inbox on the institution’s number, approved templates, bulk invitations, and every exchange filed on the family’s record. OpenApply lists WhatsApp among its connectors too; what its own one does is not documented on its public pages, and we would rather leave you to ask than describe it on its behalf.
The call from the record
A one-click call from the applicant’s record, logged with its duration, recorded with the family’s explicit consent. OpenApply’s public pages describe no calling feature; its own telephone support, for its part, sits in its FariaSupport Standard and Premium plans.
The interview and the test, with no other tool
The video room opens inside BrightStep, the rubric is filled in during the interview, and the assessment stage marks automatically what can be marked automatically. No Zoom link to send, no partner’s test to connect.
The dirham and the Moroccan rail
Application fees are collected by card, on a payment page secured to banking-industry standards, the receipt goes out on the institution’s letterhead, and finance gets the period’s export. OpenApply collects worldwide; the Moroccan gateway is not in its catalogue.
Data in Europe, the regulator in Morocco
OVHcloud in France, under the GDPR, with processing declared under Law 09-08 and the processing agreement signed. OpenApply’s data lives in Montreal, which is a transfer question to work through rather than a fault.
An admissions bill that does not follow your enrolment
The institution’s pupil count is not part of the BrightStep bill, and no contractual minimum holds the admissions bill up when the school itself comes back down. That is an admissions billing rule rather than a position across our platforms: EasyClass, which runs academic administration, is sized on student numbers.
In fairness
When OpenApply is the right choice
If your institution runs on ManageBac and wants one Faria login for families (from admissions through learning and activities), OpenApply is the natural fit, and the IDAT test drops straight into its checklist. No integration replaces being the same vendor.
If you need re-enrolment today, a guardian account covering several children, a mobile app for parents, confidential references, branching email campaigns, interfaces in languages we do not offer, or collection in many currencies, OpenApply holds them and BrightStep does not. These are not second-order gaps: re-enrolment and the multi-child account are daily life in a school, and they sit on our roadmap rather than in the product.
BrightStep is for institutions whose recruitment lives in conversations (WhatsApp, calls, interviews) and who would rather have a French-speaking counterpart in their time zone, collection in dirhams and data in Europe than the longest feature list. If your school does not recognise its own day in that sentence, OpenApply is probably the better tool for it, and we will tell you so at the diagnostic.
Changing platform
Moving from OpenApply to BrightStep
What transfers. OpenApply exports applicants and families to PDF or Excel (its own frequently asked questions say so) and exposes a REST API. GEERD brings those contacts and applications into BrightStep at set-up, from that export; from then on, BrightStep exposes a documented contacts API with quota-bound keys, for your website or your automations. Documents already uploaded arrive as files, attached to the record.
What is rebuilt. Your forms and checklists become BrightStep journey templates, one per entry point, with their required documents, their assessment, their interviewers, their decision and their fee. That is work, and it is where most of the set-up goes; most institutions switch between two campaigns rather than in the middle of one.
What does not move. Your school management system remains the pupil record. The hand-off of enrolled pupils to that system (EasyClass or another) is organised by GEERD at set-up, by file, from BrightStep’s exports.
Frequently asked
What leadership teams ask us
- Is BrightStep an alternative to OpenApply for an international school?
- For admissions themselves, yes: enquiries, applications by year group, required documents, assessments, interviews, decision and application fees, with WhatsApp, calling and an agent. For re-enrolment and the parent mobile app, no: OpenApply offers them and we do not yet. An international school that re-enrols several hundred families a year should start with that question.
- How do the two bill?
- Neither publishes a price. The difference is the base: OpenApply bills each year on the number of enrolled students, with a contractual minimum below which the invoice does not fall; the BrightStep bill counts neither the institution’s pupils nor the applications received, and what follows volume is the communications sent.
- Does OpenApply do WhatsApp the way BrightStep does?
- We do not know, so we will not say. WhatsApp appears in OpenApply’s connector catalogue, but its public pages do not describe what that connector does, and its help documentation is not reachable by us. Ask them directly. What BrightStep does, on the other hand: a shared two-way inbox on the institution’s number, approved templates, bulk invitations and an agent that answers families, all logged on the applicant’s record.
- What language will we be supported in?
- OpenApply offers its parent dashboard in English, Arabic, Chinese, German and Spanish, according to its product page; French is not among them. Its support runs by email, Monday to Friday, with the telephone sitting in its FariaSupport Standard and Premium plans. BrightStep’s interfaces, its notifications, its documentation and the team that picks up the phone exist in French and English, from Casablanca. The question to ask is not only what language the software is in, but what language and what hour the person answering is on.
- Where is the data hosted?
- OpenApply hosts on Amazon Web Services in Montreal, Canada, and in Beijing for mainland China accounts; Faria announces an ISO 27001 certification, which we do not hold. BrightStep hosts on OVHcloud in France, inside the European Union, under the GDPR and Law 09-08, with a signed data processing agreement.
- Can entrance tests and interviews be run without another tool?
- With BrightStep, yes: an assessment stage whose questions are marked automatically or by hand, and a video interview room with recording and a rubric, both inside the application journey. OpenApply schedules the interview from the checklist and integrates its partner’s IDAT test; the interview itself happens on Zoom, whose account is linked to the user’s profile, or in person.
On this site
The pages this comparison is about.
See BrightStep on your own campaign.
A thirty-minute demo, prepared with your entry points and your last intake’s numbers, in French or English. If you would rather start with the circuit than the tool, ask for a diagnostic.