The right online childcare training provider is the one whose courses your state's child care licensing agency or registry accepts for the hours you need — sold at a price model that fits how often you train.
This guide compares the providers our research covered — CCEI, ProSolutions, ChildCareEd, Care Courses, Better Kid Care and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension — on catalogs, CEUs, CDA packages, Spanish availability and subscription versus per-course pricing.
What to look for in an online childcare training provider
Filter on acceptance before the catalog.
Your state's child care licensing agency — and its workforce registry, where one exists — decides whether a provider's hours count toward the training you need.
Some vendors, Care Courses and ProSolutions among them, market their courses as accepted in every state on their own sites; that wording is the vendor's marketing, not an agency's confirmation.
How to run the check is its own topic: which online childcare training counts for licensing walks through it.
- Hours documented as CEUs. The federal CCDF training rules say ongoing training should, to the extent practicable, award continuing education units or be credit-bearing — portable documentation worth preferring. For CDA purposes, 1 CEU equals 10 clock hours.
- An IACET claim you can check. CCEI's site, for example, displays an IACET logo; our research did not verify its Authorized Provider status with IACET itself. If your state counts CEUs, confirm the provider's current IACET standing directly.
- The right kind of organization if the hours are for the CDA. The Council for Professional Recognition accepts training from an organization with early childhood teacher-preparation expertise — not from individual consultants or conferences.
- A price model that matches how often you train — the subscription-versus-per-course decision is its own section below.
Confirm acceptance with your state before you pay
Online childcare training providers compared
The table gathers what our research could confirm from each provider's own pages, with the gaps marked.
Providers write their own catalog descriptions, so treat every self-described row as the company's wording rather than an agency's confirmation.
| Provider | Format and catalog | CDA training | Price our research could confirm |
|---|---|---|---|
| CCEI (ChildCare Education Institute) | 45 certificate programs | CDA training among its certificate programs; its 155-hour Online College Credit Eligible CDA Certificate carries an NCCRS credit recommendation of 10 lower-division semester hours | $99/year individual subscription; center subscriptions at $499/year (20 users) and $999/year (50 users) — vendor list prices as of 2026-10-05 |
| ChildCareEd | Online and live instructor-led training; some free courses (self-described) | Full CDA training for the Preschool, Infant-Toddler and Family Child Care settings, plus CDA renewal training (self-described) | Not confirmed in our research |
| Better Kid Care (Penn State Extension) | More than 300 on-demand courses, including a Spanish-language course section and a set of required health and safety courses | Not stated in the pages we read | Price per lesson not listed on the pages we read |
| Texas A&M AgriLife Extension | Online child care courses with certificates | CDA renewal training | Course prices and Texas acceptance not verified in our research |
| Care Courses and ProSolutions | Not verified in our research; both sites market their courses as accepted in every state — a vendor claim each state decides for itself | Not verified in our research | Not confirmed in our research |
Two caveats sit behind that table.
The NCCRS credit recommendation is a recommendation: each college decides whether to accept it.
And the table does not settle cost — our research did not confirm Better Kid Care's or AgriLife's prices, so check each course page.
If cost is the constraint, start with our guide to free online childcare training with certificates.
Subscription vs per-course pricing
The pricing decision is subscription versus per-course.
The subscription model bundles a year of access: CCEI lists an individual annual professional development subscription at $99/year, with center subscriptions at $499/year for 20 users and $999/year for 50 users — vendor list prices as of 2026-10-05 that promotions can change.
A director training a roster is who the center tiers are built for; one teacher keeping up annual hours compares against the individual tier instead.
The per-course model charges as you go, which suits a single topic or a few hours.
On this side our research is thinner than we would like: Better Kid Care's price per lesson was not listed on the pages we read, AgriLife's course prices were not verified, and ProSolutions and Care Courses pricing was not verified either.
Ask each provider for current per-course prices, then hold them against the subscription math for the number of hours you actually need in a year.
The best providers for CDA hours
The CDA sets the test any provider has to pass.
Candidates need 120 hours of formal early childhood education training, with no fewer than 10 hours in each of the eight CDA subject areas, and those hours can be completed any time before applying.
The credential is awarded by the Council for Professional Recognition, which provides no training and endorses none — a provider's "CDA package" is the training side only.
The Council accepts training from an organization with early childhood teacher-preparation expertise and does not accept training from individual consultants or conferences toward the 120 hours.
Among the providers here: CCEI lists 45 certificate programs including CDA training, and its 155-hour Online College Credit Eligible CDA Certificate carries the NCCRS recommendation noted above — a recommendation, not automatic credit, since each college decides.
ChildCareEd's own site describes full CDA training for the Preschool, Infant-Toddler and Family Child Care settings plus CDA renewal training; that is a self-description our research did not verify with any agency.
If the budget is the constraint, the free federal iCDA series covers 80 of the 120 hours, and candidates can add other courses on the same free federal platform, Early Education Pathways (EEP), to reach the full 120.
For the full menu — online, in person and free — see our guide to CDA classes for the 120 training hours.
The best providers for annual training hours
Annual hours are a different purchase.
States set a minimum number of training or professional development hours per year for caregivers, teachers and directors, and the federal rule sets no number — so your target comes from your state.
For what that training has to cover, see our guide to required childcare training.
Once you know the target, match the model to it.
A teacher who trains every year suits an individual subscription — CCEI's individual subscription lists at $99/year — while a one-topic gap is a per-course purchase.
Better Kid Care's catalog of more than 300 on-demand courses, with a Spanish-language section and a set of required health and safety courses, fits this steady-topic use.
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension offers online courses with certificates for state-mandated training, professional development and CDA renewal; its course prices and Texas acceptance were not verified in our research, so confirm with the Texas child care licensing agency before you buy.
Directors doing this for a whole staff face the same two questions per seat: does the state accept the hours, and does the price model beat buying course by course — the center subscription tiers exist for exactly that decision.
This page is career information, not licensing or legal advice. Confirm training requirements with your state's child care licensing agency, and CDA rules with the Council for Professional Recognition.