Playground Authority exists because buying a commercial playground is confusing, expensive and rare, and nearly every guide a buyer finds online was written by a company that wants to sell the equipment. We publish the guidance a manufacturer cannot: what the grants actually require, what the project actually costs, how to run the purchase so the bid holds up, and which questions a supplier would rather you did not ask.
The person buying a playground is almost never a playground expert. A parks director places an order once every few years. A school principal, a PTA treasurer, a church trustee, a childcare center director or an HOA board member does it once in a career. Each of them is spending public money, donated money or assessment money, each of them is accountable for the result for twenty years, and each of them is reading advice written by the seller. The equipment catalogs are excellent. The funding guides published by manufacturers are real and often useful. What none of them can do is tell the buyer to spend less, buy a smaller structure, choose a competitor, or put the money into surfacing and shade instead of a taller tower. That is the gap this site fills.
The site is organized around the four decisions every buyer faces, in the order they usually arrive: how to pay for it, what it will cost, how to run the purchase, and whom to buy it from. Around those sit the pages written for each kind of buyer, because a school and a church fund and buy differently, and the state pages, because the grant programs, the procurement thresholds and the childcare licensing rules are set state by state. The guides take single questions, such as surfacing, shade, inspection and cooperative purchasing, and answer them in full.
Four commitments, and each one is checkable against the site.
Every grant amount, application window and match requirement on this site traces to the program's own published page, and we link that page so you can read the primary source yourself. When an agency has not published a figure, the page says what is known and links the agency's landing page rather than guessing. Cost ranges come from the estimator, which is built from installed project costs across buyer types and updated as the market moves; they are planning ranges, and the page you are reading says so. Safety and accessibility content is sourced to the documents an inspector would cite: the CPSC Public Playground Safety Handbook, the ASTM standards for equipment (F1487), surfacing (F1292 and F1951) and infant and toddler equipment (F2373), the 2010 ADA Standards, the Land and Water Conservation Fund pages at the National Park Service, and the child care standards in Caring for Our Children. Where a state rule matters, we point to the state agency that publishes it.
We would rather publish less than publish a number we cannot stand behind. If a page carries a figure with no link under it, treat that as our mistake and tell us.
Vetted suppliers pay us a referral fee when a buyer asks to be matched and we introduce a real project. That is the whole model. Buyers never pay anything, there is no premium tier, and there is no advertising on the site. The fee is paid per introduced project or as a flat territory arrangement, never as a share of the sale, so a supplier has no way to pay for a recommendation and we have no reason to steer a buyer toward the highest bid. Because the fee comes from the supplier, the incentive we do have is to send suppliers projects that are real, funded and well specified, which is why the guidance on this site keeps telling buyers to get a real number, write a scope and get three quotes. A buyer who has done that is a better client for everyone.
If a program or a product is not right for a project, the page says so, and the match will say so too. The supplier page explains the arrangement from the other side, in the same words.
A supplier in the network has shown us that its equipment is built to ASTM F1487 and carries third party IPEMA certification, that its surfacing is tested to ASTM F1292 for the fall heights it installs, that it carries liability insurance appropriate to public work, that its quotes itemize equipment, freight, installation, surfacing and site work separately so a buyer can compare them, and that it will bid to a written scope rather than substitute its own. We ask every matched buyer to tell us how the project went. A supplier whose quotes hide site work, whose installations fail an audit or whose buyers report being pushed past their budget is removed. We do not publish a ranking of suppliers, because a ranking would be the first thing a supplier tried to buy.
We do not write grant applications, act as a purchasing agent, sign contracts on a buyer's behalf, inspect playgrounds, or give legal advice on procurement law. Each state's procurement thresholds and childcare licensing rules are described on the state pages as a starting point; the agency that publishes the rule is the authority on it, and we say so on every page. We do not accept payment to list a grant program, and we do not accept equipment, travel or gifts from suppliers.
Grant programs close, deadlines move, and agencies rename things. If a page is out of date or wrong, tell us which page and what changed. The fastest route is the Get Matched form, which reaches a person, or a reply to any email we have sent you. Corrections that check out against the primary source are made on the page. We would rather hear about an error from a reader than from a buyer who acted on it.
No. We do not manufacture, stock, resell or install equipment, and we do not carry a house brand. We publish buying guidance and connect buyers with vetted suppliers on request.
Vetted suppliers pay a referral fee when a buyer asks to be matched and a real project is introduced. Buyers never pay, and the fee does not change the guidance on the site or the suppliers we recommend for a given project.
From the program's own published page, which we link. We do not publish a dollar figure or a deadline we cannot trace to an official source, and where a program has not published one we say so rather than guess.
Use the Get Matched form and describe the page and the error, or write to the address in the footer of any email from us. Corrections that check out are made on the page and noted.
Start with the grant database or get matched with a vetted supplier. Free, independent, no pressure.
