juggleHUB: Managing Coworking with Childcare on One Platform
juggleHUB is one of the few coworking spaces with on-site childcare in Berlin, and one of the originals. Founded in 2016 in Prenzlauer Berg, it serves working parents who need flexible, professional childcare alongside a coworking membership. That makes operations more complex than a typical coworking setup, especially when it comes to bookings, cancellations, and billing. Cobot keeps both sides running on one platform so they can focus on the community they've built around it.
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The Story Behind juggleHUB
juggleHUB is one of the few coworking spaces with childcare in Berlin – and one of the originals. Silvia Steude and Katja Thiede founded it in 2016 after noticing a gap that working parents knew well: coworking spaces simply didn't accommodate people who needed to bring their children along.
The space is in Prenzlauer Berg, a neighborhood with a high concentration of young families, and it's built around that reality. Members can book professional childcare for kids aged 6 months to 5 years, flexibly and as needed – no long-term contracts, no fixed schedules. The childcare team is consistent, the caregivers are committed, and the whole setup is designed so parents can actually focus while they work.
Beyond childcare, juggleHUB has grown into something closer to a community hub. There's a weekly community lunch, space for meetups and open workshops, and a front desk team that keeps things running. The membership includes freelancers, employees working remotely, founders on parental leave, and parents bridging Kita holidays or gaps in daycare coverage.
Childcare Booking Challenges for Coworking Spaces
As juggleHUB grew, the operational complexity of combining coworking and childcare became harder to manage manually.
Childcare isn't a resource you can run loosely. Staff need to be scheduled in advance, ratios need to be maintained, and last-minute cancellations have real costs. Without an automated system, members were booking informally and canceling without much thought for what that meant operationally. No-shows and late cancellations left the childcare team overstaffed for the session, with no way to recover the cost.
Invoicing added another layer. Tracking who had used childcare, for how many hours, and under which membership tier – across flexible single-hour rates, 20-hour packages, and 40-hour packages – made their spreadsheets increasingly difficult to maintain. Chasing payments manually took time that could go to the community instead.
"Childcare is a love project. It is definitely a challenge, in terms of staffing, it’s what costs us the most amount of money and coordination. But JuggleHUB wouldn’t be JuggleHUB without childcare, it is our reason for being."
How juggleHUB Uses Cobot to Run Coworking with Childcare
juggleHUB uses Cobot's Booking Deadlines feature to require that childcare slots are reserved at least 48 hours in advance. Members book through the Member Portal, and the minimum booking window is enforced automatically – no manual follow-up needed. The same setup applies to cancellations: members can manage their own bookings, but the rules are built in, so last-minute changes don't catch the team off guard.
For members who use childcare regularly, juggleHUB offers prepaid hour packages – 20-hour and 40-hour blocks at a reduced rate. These are handled through Cobot's Prepaid Booking Credits, which track usage automatically. Members see their balance in the portal; the team doesn't need to reconcile it manually.
Invoicing, which used to mean cross-referencing spreadsheets with booking records, now runs in the background. Cobot generates Automatic Invoices based on actual usage, accounts for the right membership tier, and handles the billing without manual input. As Silvia put it, what used to require active tracking became a process that just happens.
Results with Cobot:
- Childcare bookings now require 48 hours' advance notice, enforced automatically
- Prepaid hour packages are tracked without manual reconciliation
- Invoicing runs automatically across multiple membership tiers and childcare rates
Advice for Other Spaces Considering Cobot
"Set your cancellation rules before you need them. Members are reasonable – they just need the structure to be there."
