The 6 best FACTS (RenWeb) alternatives
For small private schools & microschools · pricing verified August 2026 · written by the Pearspark team — Pearspark is #1 on this list and we say so plainly (how we compare)
The alternatives, ranked
Pearspark
Pearspark is the opposite trade from FACTS: the whole price is published ($50/month including 20 students, then $2.50/student stepping down to $1.00), and everything — records, gradebook, transcripts, admissions, tuition billing, library, volunteers — is one plan rather than a quote of modules. Tuition doesn't get left behind in the move: plans bill weekly, every two weeks, monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or on your own academic calendar, with fixed plan terms, family autopay, one combined invoice per family, and payments landing in the school's own Stripe account — and a school that prefers a third-party tuition service can keep it and import the records into Pearspark. What Pearspark deliberately doesn't do is FACTS's deep end: need assessment from tax documents, and advancement. A school already using an outside assessor — Grant & Aid standalone, Clarity, or SSS — comes out ahead: its decisions import by CSV as awards, the assessor stays, and everything else runs in one published-price plan. Setup is self-serve, with a preview before anything is written and free email support when you're stuck.
- Met:Published pricing
- Met:One plan, not line items
- Met:Self-serve setup
- Met:Sized for 20–100 students
Why #1: Against the four reasons: the whole schedule is on the pricing page; everything is one plan with no module line items; setup is self-serve with importers that preview every row; and $50 a month including 20 students is built for exactly the 20-to-100 school FACTS is too much for. What it does not fix is need assessment from tax documents — that stays with an assessor like Clarity, whose decisions import by CSV.
Pricing: $50/mo including 20 students, then $2.50/student/mo stepping down to $1.00 at volume. No setup fees, month-to-month, 30-day free trial.
Setup is self-serve, with importers that preview every row before anything is written — no setup fees, and free email support when you're stuck.
Sycamore School
An all-in-one K-12 SIS priced per student, popular with independent schools.
Why it's on this list: All-in-one with integrated payments (Sycamore Pay) at a published $4/student/month and no monthly minimum — a rate card where FACTS has a quote form.
- Met:Published pricing
- Met:One plan, not line items
- Met with a qualification:Self-serve setup
- Met:Sized for 20–100 students
Why it sits here: Second, and first on the marks: one published number, one all-in-one plan with no module line items, and no minimum, so a 40-student school pays $160. The half-mark is the $1,500 standard setup fee — a setup charge rather than an implementation project, but not nothing.
Best for: Independent schools of 100–400 students that want per-student pricing and integrated payments.
At 25 students: $100/mo · at 100: $400/mo
Full comparison: Pearspark vs SycamoreGradelink
A well-established student information system popular with private and faith-based schools.
Why it's on this list: The most common landing spot for schools leaving FACTS: long-established with faith-based schools, strong academics and enrollment tools, published calculator pricing from $106/month at 25 students — plus a $275 setup fee.
- Met:Published pricing
- Met with a qualification:One plan, not line items
- Met with a qualification:Self-serve setup
- Met:Sized for 20–100 students
Why it sits here: Third: a published calculator and a small-school footprint, with two qualifications — online enrollment and messaging are add-ons with their own fees, which is a milder version of the line-item quote, and setup is a $275 fee with a ten-day implementation guarantee rather than self-serve. Above QuickSchools, which ties it, because the whole SIS sits in its base price where QuickSchools holds report cards for a tier.
Best for: Private schools of 75–400 students that want a mature, widely used SIS.
At 25 students: $106/mo + $275 setup · at 100: $175/mo + $275 setup
Full comparison: Pearspark vs GradelinkQuickSchools
A full K-12 SIS with the cheapest published per-student rate in this comparison — and a 30-student minimum underneath it.
Why it's on this list: A conventional full SIS at the lowest published per-student rate here — from $0.99/student with a 30-student minimum. The budget landing spot if the FACTS quote was the whole problem.
- Met:Published pricing
- Met with a qualification:One plan, not line items
- Met:Self-serve setup
- Met with a qualification:Sized for 20–100 students
Why it sits here: Fourth: published rates, a 30-day trial and no setup fee fix the quote and the implementation project. Three tiers plus modules sold onto them is line-item pricing in a friendlier shape, and the 30-student minimum means the smallest schools on this page pay for students they don't have.
Best for: Schools of 40 students and up that want a conventional SIS at the lowest published per-student rate and don't mind that report cards and the parent portal sit one tier up.
At 25 students: $29.70/mo Gaia · $44.70 Apollo (30-student minimum) · at 100: $99/mo Gaia · $149 Apollo
Full comparison: Pearspark vs QuickSchoolsSchoolCues
An all-in-one system for small schools with a wide module list and a published monthly floor rather than a rate card.
Why it's on this list: Aimed squarely at small schools with limited budget and staff, with unusually deep parent communication — newsletters, yearbooks, alumni, and unlimited texting inside the plan — from a published $75/month floor.
- Met with a qualification:Published pricing
- Not in what it publishes:One plan, not line items
- Met:Self-serve setup
- Met:Sized for 20–100 students
Why it sits here: Fifth: no setup or training fee and a product built for small schools fix the second half of the list, but it publishes a $75 floor and no rate, so the quote conversation is smaller rather than gone, and what sits behind the floor is not spelled out.
Best for: Small schools whose hardest job is reaching families — newsletters, yearbooks, alumni, conference scheduling, and texting they never have to count — and who don't mind asking for a quote rather than reading a rate off a page.
At 25 students: From $75/mo (no per-student rate published) · at 100: From $75/mo (no per-student rate published)
Full comparison: Pearspark vs SchoolCuesAlma SIS
A modern, well-reviewed K-12 SIS serving independent, charter, and district schools.
Why it's on this list: The modern-interface pick, well reviewed by teachers and scaling to charters and districts. Buying still starts with a demo and a quote, so it trades one procurement cycle for another.
- Not met:Published pricing
- Not in what it publishes:One plan, not line items
- Not in what it publishes:Self-serve setup
- Not met:Sized for 20–100 students
Why it sits here: Last: it is here for the school that wants a modern SIS and does not mind a quote, which is to say it fixes none of the reasons on this page. No published price, a demo before a number, and a footprint that runs to districts.
Best for: Independent and charter schools of 150+ students that want a modern SIS and don't mind quote-based buying.
At 25 students: Quote required · at 100: Quote required
Full comparison: Pearspark vs AlmaFACTS (formerly RenWeb) is the enterprise suite of private-school software — SIS, tuition management, need-assessed financial aid and advancement under one roof, sold by quote. Schools that go looking for an alternative are usually small ones for whom that is all too much: no published price, capabilities sold as separate line items, and implementation that is a project rather than a self-serve setup.
Every alternative ranked here publishes at least a starting rate — the thing FACTS doesn't — and the ranking is for small private schools rather than diocesan networks.
Why schools look for a FACTS alternative
- No published pricing — procurement means sales calls, quotes and contracts
- Modular pricing: capabilities are often separate line items on the quote
- Implementation and training are projects, not a self-serve setup
- Far more system than a school of 20–100 students needs
These reasons are the criteria. Every system above carries one mark per reason — does it fix that, or share it? — read from that vendor's own published materials through our sourced comparison pages. Alternatives are ordered by how many reasons they fix: a fixed one counts one, a fixed-with-a-qualification one counts half, and neither a shared problem nor an unpublished answer counts against a vendor. Where two tie, the “why it sits here” line says what broke the tie.
- met
- met with a qualification
- not met
- not in what it publishes
Each point is sourced on the full Pearspark vs FACTS comparison.
What each costs at small-school sizes
| System | 25 students | 50 students | 100 students | What the price includes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pearspark (ours) | $62.50/mo | $125/mo | $250/mo | Everything in one plan: records, attendance, gradebook, standards-based grading, report cards, transcripts, admissions, scheduling, tuition billing with family autopay, lending library, equipment booking, volunteer check-in, messaging, and an installable parent app with push notifications. No setup fee, month-to-month. The one thing charged by use is text alerts to families (from 2.7¢ a text, prepaid), because it is the one thing that costs us by use. No fundraising CRM and no subsidy billing. |
| Sycamore | $100/mo | $200/mo | $400/mo | $4/student covers the all-in-one SIS with integrated payments (Sycamore Pay) and cafeteria and facility extras, with no monthly platform fee. Setup fees apply, and volume discounts don't start until 400 students. |
| Gradelink | $106/mo + $275 setup | $129/mo + $275 setup | $175/mo + $275 setup | The SIS: records, attendance, gradebook, standards-based and traditional grading, report cards, scheduling, tuition. Online enrollment (EnrollMe, $20.83/mo + $497 setup) and SmartSend Pro ($16.67/mo) are add-ons, over a $275 one-time setup fee. |
| QuickSchools | $29.70/mo Gaia · $44.70 Apollo (30-student minimum) | $49.50/mo Gaia · $74.50 Apollo | $99/mo Gaia · $149 Apollo | Gaia ($0.99): records, attendance, admissions, fee tracking, reports. Apollo ($1.49) adds report cards, gradebook, transcripts and the parent and student portals; scheduling and lesson plans are $2.99 Athena. 30-student minimum; text and voice carry telco charges. |
| SchoolCues | From $75/mo (no per-student rate published) | From $75/mo (no per-student rate published) | From $75/mo (no per-student rate published) | A published floor only, stated against a 12-month school year — no per-student rate, so the scope behind the number takes a conversation. No setup, training or support fee. |
| Alma | Quote required | Quote required | Quote required | Quoted per school or district as a customized package, so what a given quote covers is set in that conversation. Library management is not in it: Alma lists it as an integration with Follett Destiny, a separate system the school buys and runs. |
| Staying with FACTS | Quote required | Quote required | Quote required | Quoted per school by module — SIS, tuition management, financial-aid assessment and advancement are separate line items — plus implementation and training. Third-party integrations note their own fees, such as $500/year for an API connection. |
Vendor list pricing as of August 2026 — see sources below. Always confirm current pricing with the vendor.
When staying with FACTS is the right call
FACTS earns its place when a school values the whole relationship: enterprise tuition finance and advancement, where FACTS is a payments company at its core and goes far deeper, with need assessment folded into it — an expected family contribution calculated from tax documents FACTS collects and verifies. A diocese or network standardized on FACTS is the same case. Pearspark administers aid but assesses none of it: sliding-scale bands a family picks from, automatic sibling discounts, percent or per-bill awards applied during billing, and ESA and SGO money tracked as third-party funding. Assessment on its own, though, won't hold a school here — standalone services like Clarity or SSS do the assessing, and their decisions import into Pearspark by CSV. For a 15-student microschool, FACTS is more system, and more procurement, than the job needs.
The ranking above is for the schools that answer does not cover.
Common questions
What is the best FACTS (RenWeb) alternative for a small private school?
It depends what you're keeping FACTS for. If it's the SIS and billing, Pearspark ($50/month including 20 students, everything bundled), Gradelink (from $106/month at 25 students on its calculator) and Sycamore ($4/student) all publish their rates and set up in days rather than a project. If it's need-assessed financial aid, no system on this list replicates FACTS Grant & Aid — and that split works in your favor: keep the assessment service, import its decisions into Pearspark by CSV as awards, and run the rest of the school at a published price.
Is there a FACTS alternative with published pricing?
That's most of this list. Pearspark publishes its full schedule ($50/month + $2.50/student after 20, stepping down to $1.00), Sycamore lists $4/student/month, Gradelink lists its tiers, QuickSchools lists $0.99–$2.99/student, and ThinkWave tiers from about $17/month. Alma, like FACTS, requires a quote.
Can I migrate from FACTS/RenWeb without losing records?
Yes — students, transcripts and gradebooks export from FACTS as CSV files. Pearspark imports each with a dry-run preview (what will be created, what didn't match) before writing anything, so the permanent record moves intact. Stuck on an export? support@pearspark.com will help, free.
See Pearspark for yourself
Every task is on video — one minute each — and your first 30 days are free. No sales call.
Support: email support answered by a person is included with every plan, along with how-to videos and guides — there are no paid support tiers.
Sources
- FACTS (factsmgt.com)
- Capterra: FACTS SIS
- Sycamore School product page
- Capterra: Sycamore School
- Gradelink pricing plans
- Capterra: Gradelink pricing
- Gradelink features (module list)
- Gradelink reports list (140+)
- Gradelink: Service Hours Reporting
- QuickSchools pricing
- QuickSchools Report Creator
- SchoolCues homepage (pricing section)
- GetApp: SchoolCues pricing
- SoftwareAdvice: SchoolCues profile
- Alma (getalma.com)
- Capterra: Alma SIS
- Alma solutions (102-feature list)
- Alma integrations (library = Follett Destiny)
- Alma school features (validations, custom reporting)
Last reviewed August 2026. Spotted something out of date? Email us and we'll fix it.