The honest comparison.
What the big platforms genuinely do better than we do, what we built that they didn't, and how to tell which one you actually need.
Most comparison pages are a wall of green checkmarks for the company that wrote them. You've seen those pages. You didn't believe them, and you were right not to.
So here's the deal we'll make with you: we'll tell you plainly where the established platforms beat us — because in some places they do — and we'll tell you who shouldn't buy Lanterlink at all. In exchange, when we say we do something better, you'll have a reason to believe it.
Where you're standing right now
We built Lanterlink for the agency that's outgrown option three, is being ground down by option one or two, and does all of its work in California.
One incident. Two Mondays.
Software vendors compare feature lists. But you don't experience your software as a feature list — you experience it as a Tuesday. So instead of a checkmark table, here's the same real-world event walked through twice: a staff member witnesses a reportable incident at 7:40 on a Saturday evening. The state's 24-hour incident clock starts the moment it happens. Watch where the time goes.
The usual way
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Sat 7:40 pm
Staff member handles the situation, then hunts for the paper incident form in the site binder.
The binder is at the other house.
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Sat 9:15 pm
Form filled out by hand, left on the desk for the supervisor.
The 24-hour clock has been running for 95 minutes. Nobody who can file the report knows yet.
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Sun (sometime)
Supervisor sees a text about it. Can't file anything from home; the report template is on the office computer.
The clock runs all night.
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Mon 8:30 am
Administrator arrives, finds the form, retypes it into the state format, and calls the Regional Center to explain why it's late.
The deadline passed Sunday evening. This is now a conversation about your agency's reliability, at your next audit, in writing.
With Lanterlink
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Sat 7:42 pm
Staff member opens the incident report on her phone at the house. No signal in the back bedroom; the form works anyway and syncs when she reaches the driveway.
The report is written while she still remembers everything.
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Sat 7:58 pm
The supervisor's phone buzzes. The report is complete, categorized the way the state categorizes it, with the deadline countdown showing 23 hours 42 minutes.
Everyone who needs to know, knows, before bedtime.
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Sun 10:00 am
Supervisor reviews and submits from her kitchen table.
21 hours to spare.
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Mon 9:00 am
The administrator's Monday starts with coffee, not an apology call.
When the auditor asks for it in two years, it's one search away.
Payroll week: the usual way, someone reconciles paper timesheets against the schedule and hand-calculates California's daily overtime and the seventh-consecutive-day rule. With Lanterlink, the verified visits are the timesheet, and the overtime rules are already in the math.
Billing day: the usual way, service logs get retyped into the Regional Center's billing format and bounced back for code errors. With Lanterlink, verified visits roll up into the exact service-code format your Regional Center expects, checked before they leave the building.
Training season: the usual way, a spreadsheet tracks which staff have finished which of the nine required training domains, and the seventy-hour requirement sneaks up on somebody's two-year deadline. With Lanterlink, every DSP's clock is tracked from hire, and the people about to fall out of compliance surface before they do.
Where the established platforms beat us
We promised you this section, and it's real. Read it before anything else on this page.
The leading platforms have been running for twenty-plus years and serve thousands of agencies. Lanterlink is new. We can show you every feature working; we cannot show you a decade of history, because we don't have one yet. If "nobody ever got fired for buying the market leader" is how your board thinks, that logic favors them, and it isn't crazy.
They operate across dozens of states. We are California-only, on purpose, and have no timeline to change that. If expansion beyond California is in your five-year plan, buy from someone who's already there.
The big platforms have large support departments, formal training academies, user conferences, and certification programs. We have a small team that answers quickly and knows the product completely — which many agencies prefer — but if you want a classroom, a certification track, and a 300-page manual, they have those and we don't.
Some of the incumbent mobile apps are genuinely well-rated, and years of field feedback shows. Ours is built offline-first, which we think matters more in the houses where your staff actually work — but theirs have mileage ours hasn't accumulated yet.
Any vendor who tells you migration is painless is lying to you. Your staff have muscle memory in the old system; your data has to move; there will be a stretch where things feel slower before they feel faster. We've built the process to be measured in days rather than months, but "days" is not "zero," and you should budget attention for it.
If, after reading that, the established platforms sound like the right call for your agency — that's a reasonable conclusion, and we'd rather you reach it here than six months into a contract with us.
The bill should not be a negotiation
We won't quote other vendors' prices here, for a simple reason: most of them won't quote their prices either. Pricing in this industry is typically "contact us for a quote," and the quote depends on how the conversation goes. We think that alone tells you something.
Here's the structure you'll usually find behind the quote, whoever you ask: pricing per staff login, so hiring a new DSP raises your software bill; modules sold separately, so the billing tool, the visit-verification tool, and the training tracker each have their own line item; and the features you actually came for sitting in the top tier, which you discover during the sales call. None of this is a scandal — it's just a pricing model built for the vendor's growth, not yours. You end up doing arithmetic every time you hire someone or want a feature you assumed was included.
We priced Lanterlink the other way, and we publish it:
How is Lanterlink priced?
$399/mo
up to 10 clients
$799/mo
11–25 clients
$1,499/mo
26–60 clients
60+
let's talk
Every feature, in every tier. Unlimited staff logins — hire freely; your bill doesn't move. The price changes only when your agency grows, and you can see the next number from here. Month to month, pay by card or bank transfer, and your data exports any time you want it.
One honest caveat, since this is that kind of page: flat pricing means a 9-client agency pays the same $399 as a 4-client agency. If you're very small, do that math against your budget. (And if you're brand new with three clients, re-read the spreadsheet card above — we meant it.)
Full detail on the pricing page →What switching actually involves
The biggest reason agencies stay on software they complain about isn't loyalty — it's dread. Fair enough. Here is the whole process, unvarnished:
How long does setup take?
Your data comes in during week one. Client records, staff records, schedules, training histories. You send us what you have — exports, spreadsheets, even scans — and we do the entry and mapping, then you check it. You do not spend your evenings retyping client files.
Setup is measured in days, not months. The multi-month implementations this industry is famous for exist because those platforms must be configured for any state and any program type. Lanterlink only does California supported living and independent living, so the California rules aren't a configuration project — they're the factory settings.
Run both systems in parallel for a payroll cycle if you want. We'd actually encourage it. Confidence beats promises.
You are never locked in. Month to month means the contract can't hold you — only the product can. Your data exports completely, any time, in formats a human can open. If we ever stop being the right answer, leaving us is a settings page, not a legal matter.
What we ask of you: one point person, a few hours across the first week, and honest feedback when something feels wrong. That's the real cost. It isn't nothing, but it's a very different thing from the implementation project you may have survived before.
The same page, in one table.
Nine rows. Where they win, we say so plainly.
| The established national platforms | Lanterlink | |
|---|---|---|
| Years of track record | 20+ years, thousands of agencies. They win this row, full stop. | New. We're earning this one agency at a time. |
| States covered | Dozens. If you'll ever operate outside California, choose them. | California only, by design. |
| Support organization | Large departments, formal training academies, user conferences. | A small team that knows the whole product and answers fast. Different, not bigger. |
| Mobile app maturity | Some of their apps are genuinely well-rated, with years of field polish. | Newer, but built offline-first — it works where there's no signal and syncs later. |
| California compliance (training hours, incident clock, quarterly contacts) | General-purpose modules; the California specifics are your configuration work. | Built in as the default. This is the reason we exist. |
| Regional Center billing & visit-verification formats | Usually possible, usually via setup, add-ons, or workarounds. | Native: your Regional Center's service-code formats and Sandata-format export, out of the box. |
| Pricing structure | Typically quote-only, per staff login, features tiered by plan. | Published flat rate by agency size. Every feature in every tier. Hiring never raises your bill. |
| Time to go live | Typically a multi-month implementation project. | Days. California is the factory setting, not a configuration. |
| Contract | Commonly annual or multi-year terms. | Month to month. Your data exports any time. |
We haven't named the other platforms in this table because their pricing and terms vary by negotiation, and we'd rather understate our case than misstate theirs.
Who shouldn't buy Lanterlink
Most software pages tell you who their product is for. Here's the list we'd rather you read — the agencies we'd honestly turn away, because a bad-fit customer is bad for both of us.
Who should not use Lanterlink?
We are California-native to the bone. That's the whole advantage, and it's also the whole limitation. If Nevada or Arizona is in your plan, the national platforms are the right call, and no feature of ours changes that.
Lanterlink is built for supported living and independent living. If that work is a side program next to a large day program, you'd be buying a system that's excellent at the smaller half of your operation. Wait for us, or don't — but don't buy us for a job we didn't build for.
Some boards, funders, and county partners want to see a decade of references before signing. We can't manufacture years. If that's a hard requirement in your procurement, we don't clear it yet, and pretending otherwise would waste your time.
Our product is built to not need one — most of your staff learn it in an afternoon — but "we'll fly in for a three-day on-site training" is a service the big platforms offer and we don't.
We do work with larger agencies, but as a custom conversation, not an off-the-shelf signup — and we'll tell you honestly in that conversation if we're not ready for your scale yet.
If your audits come back clean, payroll doesn't eat your weekends, and your staff aren't fighting the software — keep it. Switching costs attention, and attention is the scarcest thing you have. Bookmark us for the day one of those sentences stops being true.
See it for yourself
See it against your own Tuesday.
The fastest way to test everything on this page is to watch the system do the work. Tell us where to send it and we'll email you a full walkthrough — scheduling, visit verification, billing, payroll, the whole thing. No sales call, no scheduling link. Just the video.