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Pearspark vs CohortLedger

For small private schools and microschools. Pricing verified September 29, 2026. Written by the Pearspark team (how we compare).

The short answer

CohortLedger does one job: the money-and-paperwork side of running an ESA-funded microschool, for $39 to $179 a month flat. Its own features page says it is not a gradebook, a report-card system, a parent portal or your accounting software. Pearspark includes ESA invoices, settlement reconciliation and verification letters inside a full school system with gradebook, report cards, transcripts and a family app. The choice is whether ESA administration is the whole problem or one part of it.

Pearspark

All-in-one platform for small private schools: records, academics, admissions, library, volunteers, scheduling and the portal.

Pricing: $50 a month including 20 students, then $2.50 a student a month, stepping down to $1.00 at volume. No setup fees, month to month, 30-day free trial.

Setup is self-serve: the importers preview every row before anything is written, and email support is free when you're stuck.

CohortLedger

ESA invoicing and compliance for microschools — quarterly invoices shaped like the state pays, per-state vendor checklists, and a dated record for the reviewer. Not a gradebook, not a parent portal, by its own description.

Pricing: CohortLedger publishes four flat monthly plans by enrolled students: Community at $39/month for 1–15, Pro at $79/month for 16–50, Studio at $149/month for 51–100, and Campus at $179/month for 101–150. Every plan is flat within its band — its pricing page says "Flat monthly. Never per head." — staff seats are included, and annual billing costs ten times the monthly price, so two months are free. There is a 30-day free trial with no card required. Schools past 150 students or with more than one school are asked to write to CohortLedger. Pearspark charges $50/month including 20 students, then $2.50/student stepping down to $1.00 at volume, with a 30-day trial that takes a card at signup and charges nothing until day 31.

What each costs at small-school sizes

StudentsPearsparkCohortLedger
25 students$62.50/mo$79/mo Pro (16–50)
50 students$125/mo$79/mo Pro (16–50)
100 students$250/mo$149/mo Studio (51–100)
What the price includesEverything 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. No fundraising CRM, no subsidy billing, and no SMS broadcast — announcements reach families as push notifications and email instead.Family and student records tagged by ESA program, quarterly ESA-aware invoices, attendance, per-state compliance checklists with deadlines, one plain-text message thread per family, and a dated audit packet. Its own pages say it is not a gradebook, a report-card system, a parent portal or accounting software, and that it never moves the money.

CohortLedger pricing from its published list rates as of September 29, 2026. Sources are below. Always confirm current pricing with the vendor.

Feature comparison

FeaturePearsparkCohortLedger
Student records (SIS)Partial
Attendance
Gradebook & report cards
Standards-based grading & mastery
Records protected if the school closes
Transcripts & GPA
Missing-data reports & scheduled deliveryPartial
Admissions pipelinePartial
Class scheduling & rooms
Lending library & checkout
Equipment & room booking
Volunteer tracking & check-in
Parent & student portal
Messaging
Self-serve transcript & gradebook import
Tuition billing & paymentsPartial
Published pricing (no sales call)
Fundraising & donor CRM
SMS / text broadcast to families
Subsidy & agency billing

= varies by plan or not published; check with the vendor. We mark unknowns as unknowns rather than counting them against CohortLedger. The last three rows are jobs Pearspark does not do, listed for the same reason: a school that runs an annual fund, texts its families, or bills an agency should find that out here. Pearspark reaches families by push notification through the installable parent app, and by email, not by text. Underlined feature names open the Pearspark page for that capability, so you can check what our ✓ actually means.

Where CohortLedger shines

  • The cheapest published price at the very smallest sizes: $39/month flat for up to 15 students, against Pearspark's $50
  • Invoices built the way ESA programs actually pay — the quarter's share of each award, capped at what the family owes, with any uncovered tuition as a separate out-of-pocket line
  • Per-state vendor-registration checklists and recurring program deadlines for nine ESA states: Texas, Arizona, Florida, Utah, Louisiana, West Virginia, Iowa, Arkansas and Missouri
  • A dated, reviewer-ready audit packet — ESA and out-of-pocket totals, attendance counts and the compliance log for the quarter
  • Flat within each band, staff seats included, 30-day trial with no card, and it takes no cut of ESA funds

Worth knowing

  • Its own features page states: "It is not a gradebook, a report-card system, a parent portal, or your accounting software, and it does not file anything with the state on your behalf" — so the academic record lives somewhere else, and so does every family-facing job beyond messages
  • Its roadmap lists parent portals, transcripts and automatic ESA fund movement under "not building", so those gaps are by design rather than a matter of time
  • Families have no portal and no way to pay through it; the school marks ESA money received when it lands and chases any family-owed balance by other means
  • ClassWallet, Odyssey and Step Up appear on its pages as program tags and instructions, and its roadmap puts platform integrations under "exploratory"
  • Roster setup is manual entry — its own how-it-works page puts a 30-student school at about an hour — and multi-admin permissions are a roadmap item for Q3 2026
  • Bands step, so a school crossing from 15 to 16 students goes from $39 to $79 overnight — more than Pearspark charges at that size

When CohortLedger is the better choice

CohortLedger wins when the ESA cycle is the whole problem: a pod or microschool that already keeps grades on paper or in another tool, sits in one of its nine states, and needs the quarterly invoices, the vendor checklist and the audit packet done right for $39 to $179 flat. It is also the cheaper choice at 15 students or fewer, and again from about 32 students up, where its $79, $149 and $179 bands sit under Pearspark's per-student schedule. What it does not do is keep the school: no gradebook, no report cards, no transcripts, no parent portal, and no way for a family to pay a balance through it, all by its own description. Pearspark includes the ESA jobs — per-student ESA invoices with grade level and dates of service, settlement reports from ClassWallet, Odyssey or Step Up matched to invoices, printable verification letters, and its own program registry with filing deadlines and family application windows — inside one system that also does the rest. A school that would keep CohortLedger for the ledger and something else for the classroom is running two systems where one would do.

When Pearspark is the better choice

Pearspark is built for small private schools of a couple of students to a few hundred: microschools, classical schools, Montessori programs, hybrid schools and homeschool co-ops. One published price includes student records, a spreadsheet-style gradebook with student analytics (trends, score distributions, missing-work tracking), report cards, printable transcripts with GPA, school-year attendance calendars, admissions, class scheduling, tuition billing with online payments, a lending library with barcode checkout, equipment booking, volunteer check-in, messaging and a parent and student portal. Setup is self-serve, and the built-in migration tools import your rosters, transcripts and gradebooks by CSV from wherever you keep them today with a dry-run preview.

The parts this comparison turns on

Common questions

Is CohortLedger cheaper than Pearspark?
At the smallest sizes, yes. CohortLedger is $39/month flat for 1–15 students; Pearspark is $50 for anything up to 20. From 16 students CohortLedger steps to $79, which is more than Pearspark charges until about 32 students ($80). From there its $79 band, its $149 band for 51–100 and its $179 Campus band for 101–150 sit under Pearspark's schedule: at 50 students it is $79 against $125, at 100 it is $149 against $250, at 150 it is $179 against $350. Past 150 students CohortLedger asks you to write to it. The price buys different things, though — see the next question.
Does CohortLedger do grades, report cards or a parent portal?
No, and it says so itself. Its features page reads: "It is not a gradebook, a report-card system, a parent portal, or your accounting software, and it does not file anything with the state on your behalf." Its roadmap lists parent portals and transcripts under "not building". So a school on CohortLedger keeps its academic record in another tool or on paper, and families get plain-text messages rather than a portal. Pearspark's gradebook, standards-based grading, report cards, transcripts and installable family app are all inside its one price.
How does Pearspark handle ESA money compared with CohortLedger?
Both keep the invoice honest about who pays what, and neither touches the money. CohortLedger builds a quarterly invoice from the quarter's share of the award and shows the family's uncovered portion as its own line. Pearspark records the award as third-party funding so the invoice total stays whole, prints a per-student ESA invoice with grade level and dates of service, and shows the family the pay-vendor steps in the portal using your registered vendor name. When the program settles, Pearspark imports the payment report from ClassWallet, Odyssey or Step Up and matches it to students and invoices with a dry-run preview; CohortLedger has you mark ESA received and flags short or partial payments. Pearspark also gives families a way to pay any remaining balance online through the school's own Stripe account, which CohortLedger does not offer.
Which one helps with ESA compliance and audits?
Both do, in different shapes. CohortLedger's compliance module is per-state vendor-registration checklists with recurring deadlines for its nine states, plus a dated audit packet: ESA and out-of-pocket totals, attendance counts and the compliance log for the quarter. Pearspark's compliance page counts down to the filings a school owes and to each program's family application window, and its verification report gives you a CSV plus printable per-student letters — enrollment standing and attendance for the period, on your letterhead, ready to sign. Neither product files anything with the state for you.
We're an ESA-funded pod with 12 students. Which should we choose?
If the pod keeps grades elsewhere and the whole job is the quarterly money cycle, CohortLedger at $39 is the cheaper, narrower tool and it fits. If the pod also has to hand a family a report card, keep an attendance and grade record a receiving school will accept, or let families see and pay their balance, Pearspark at $50 does the ESA invoicing and all of that in one place. The question to settle first is where the academic record will live, because CohortLedger tells you plainly it won't be there.

Sources

Last reviewed September 29, 2026. Spotted something out of date? Email us and we'll fix it.

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