A RunPTO alternative built around the calendar
RunPTO: RunPTO is an all-in-one PTO management system: a group website, membership records, a store, and treasurer tools in one subscription.
Most boards looking for something else are not looking for more features. They are looking for the parts they use every week to be quicker and to look like something they are happy to send out.
TangoHive is deliberately narrower. It does four things for a group: the calendar, the member list, the posts you send, and the public page families land on. It is free to start, and you can be running in an evening.
Where TangoHive is strong
The calendar ends up on parents' phones, not just on a page
Every calendar has a subscribe link. A parent taps it once and school events appear in the calendar app they already check. Move the book fair and it moves on every phone, with nobody re-checking a website.
Paste the year, approve the events
Paste the school's calendar text or an existing feed link and TangoHive proposes the events for you to approve. The August evening where someone retypes the whole year is the thing this removes.
A page you are happy to put on the newsletter
Your group gets a public page with your logo, your accent colour, the links you already use, and the calendar. Fixed template, deliberately not a website builder, so it looks right without anyone designing it.
Handing off in June is a role change, not a migration
The group owns the calendars, the contacts and the site. Next year's board gets added to the group; nothing has to move out of an outgoing officer's account.
When RunPTO is the better choice
Genuinely. If any of these describe you, TangoHive is not the right tool and we would rather you knew now.
- You collect membership dues and run a store, and you want that in the same system as everything else. TangoHive does not handle payments, dues, or inventory.
- Your treasurer needs budget and financial reporting built in.
- You need volunteer slot signups as a core workflow. TangoHive can link out to a signup tool, but it does not run signups itself.
The jobs TangoHive does not do, done by the same team
TangoHive stays narrow on purpose: the calendar, the list, the posts, and your public page. Signups and paid registration are handled by GrasshopperSignup and JupiterSignup, built by the same people and integrated with TangoHive. An all-in-one gives you six average tools on one invoice. This is the good version of each, made to work together.
GrasshopperSignup
Signup sheets and volunteer slots, for when you need people to claim a shift or bring something.
JupiterSignup
Registration and paid signups: describe the event, it builds the page, takes payment, and tracks who is coming.
What you get with TangoHive
A calendar that lands on parents' phones
Not a list on a website someone has to remember to check. People subscribe once and a moved practice updates itself in the calendar app they already use.
Turning a schedule someone sent you into events
Paste the season schedule, the school newsletter, or a link. TangoHive proposes the events and you approve them, instead of typing 40 dates.
One member list the whole board shares
Not a spreadsheet emailed between officers each August. Tag people by grade, room, or role, and every message knows who it reaches.
Telling everyone something, reliably
Write it once. It lives at a permanent link, and the email carries a short announcement plus that link, so it renders properly in every inbox.
A public page for the group
One address to put on the newsletter and the fridge magnet: your logo, your links, your calendar. No website builder, no separate hosting.
Working for people who install nothing
Grandparents, new families, the sitter. Reading is never behind a login or an app download.
Common questions
- Can we move our existing calendar over?
- Yes. Paste a schedule as text, or point TangoHive at an existing ICS or webcal feed link and it imports the events. You review everything before it lands.
- What does TangoHive cost?
- It is free while we are in early access. There is no card required to start and no cap on how many groups you run.
- Do parents have to create an account?
- No. Reading the calendar, the public page, and posts sent to them never requires a login or an app.
- Can more than one board member run it?
- Yes. Invite the board by email and give people roles, so the president, the secretary, and whoever writes the newsletter can all work without sharing one password.
See a real group before you move anything
Maple Hill PTA is a fictional school running on the actual product: the page families see, the posts they read, and the calendar that lands on their phones.