Pearspark - 2026 Pricing, Features, Reviews & Alternatives

Pearspark is a cloud school management platform for small private schools (roughly 10-200 students): micro schools, classical and faith-based schools, Montessori schools, hybrid academies, and homeschool co-ops. One subscription, one database, every module included — no per-module pricing, no add-on marketplace to assemble.

Platform and specs. Fully web-based SaaS on modern serverless infrastructure with a PostgreSQL backend. No installation, no on-premise components, no browser plugins. The parent portal and the staff app are installable progressive web apps (PWAs): families and teachers add them to an iPhone or Android home screen directly from the browser — no app store listing, no forced updates, and one codebase, so mobile is never behind the web version. Web push notifications (grades, messages, invoices, same-day absence alerts) work on both platforms, with per-user, per-category notification muting. Responsive layouts run on anything from a phone to a projector.

Core modules. Student information (records, guardians, custom fields, photos, ID card design), attendance with year-view calendars, a keyboard-first gradebook with weighted categories, drop-lowest, and autosave that feeds report cards and printable transcripts with GPA; standards-based grading with mastery tracking; admissions pipeline with embeddable application and interest forms; class scheduling with conflict detection; lesson planning with family-facing publishing; health records with immunization tracking, allergy flags, and medication dose logs; behavior tracking; a barcode lending library (camera scanning, no hardware needed); volunteer scheduling with recurring events; multi-campus support; and a reports hub with compliance CSV extracts, including ESA/scholarship verification reports for state programs.

Integrations and data portability. Payments run on Stripe through the school's own Stripe account — Pearspark never holds funds, and card data never touches our servers (PCI handled by Stripe; ACH and card supported, with autopay). Admissions forms embed in any website via a script tag, themed to the school's branding. Data comes in through CSV importers (rosters, guardians, historical transcripts, assignment-level gradebooks) with a dry-run preview before any write and a 24-hour undo after; data goes out through CSV exports and an accounting export for the school's bookkeeping tool. Transactional email delivers messages, invoices, and notifications. There is no proprietary lock-in format: what you can see, you can export.

Security and privacy. Role-based access control with fully custom roles and granular permissions, plus caseload-level scoping so staff see only their assigned students. Every access to a student record lands in an activity log that answers "who viewed this record and when" — FERPA-conscious by design. Financial aid income verification purges the underlying documents once a decision is made, keeping only the outcome. Marketing and product analytics are first-party only: no third-party ad pixels or trackers anywhere in the product. Records escrow guarantees the school's data remains retrievable even after cancellation. All traffic is TLS-encrypted; each school's data is isolated by tenant-scoped access guards.

Pricing and evaluation. Published openly at pearspark.com: $50/month includes the first 20 students, then $2.50/student down to $1.00/student in volume bands. Unlimited staff and family accounts. No setup fee, no contract, no per-module upsells. 30-day free trial (card required, nothing charged until day 31) — import your real roster with the dry-run tools and evaluate against production workflows, not demo data. Support: email plus a library of 100+ one-minute how-to videos and printable per-role quick-start guides.