CircleUp vs. Homeschool-Life
Homeschool-Life has run co-op websites for a long time and serves a very large number of families. If you are reading this, you are probably not looking for a website — you are looking at what registration day costs your board every term.
Here is an honest side-by-side, including the cases where we think you should stay put.
The short answer
Stay on Homeschool-Life if…
- Your needs are a public website, a calendar, and a member list.
- You have roughly 12–24 families, where their per-family rate undercuts our Starter plan. (Under 10 families we are free, so that band is narrower than it looks.)
- Nobody on your board is losing evenings to registration or fee collection.
Look at CircleUp if…
- Registration day is a spreadsheet-and-email scramble.
- Families pick individual classes, and you price each one yourself.
- You are tracking volunteer hours by hand — or not at all.
- Your treasurer is reconciling payments across two or three tools.
The difference is registration day
Most co-op software treats billing as dues: put each family on a plan, charge them monthly or by term. That works when everyone pays the same thing. It stops working the moment families pick different classes at different prices.
One program running on CircleUp offers roughly thirty courses priced individually — most at $425, elementary programs closer to $950, and study hall periods at $25–$50 — organised into day tracks families choose between. A parent with three children enrolls each of them in a different set of courses, in one pass, and pays once.
That is the case CircleUp is built around: multi-child, multi-class enrollment where the fee lives on the class rather than the family, with waitlists, drop dates, and discounts handled inside the same flow instead of as manual bookkeeping afterwards.
Side by side
Homeschool-Life details are from their published pricing and feature pages, checked August 2026. Where their site does not describe a capability we say so rather than assume it is missing — check with them directly if it matters to your decision.
| Capability | CircleUp | Homeschool-Life |
|---|---|---|
| Public group website | Starter and up | |
| Shared calendar & events | ||
| Member/family directory | Starter and up | |
| Mobile app | Installable web app | Included; branding $79/yr add-on |
| Class management & registration | All plans | Academy tier and up |
| Multi-child, multi-class registration in one pass | Built around it | Not described on their site |
| You set a different price for each class | Bills per family on a plan | |
| Automated waitlists & drop dates | Pro and up | Not described on their site |
| Volunteer hours: slot signup → attendance → auto-logged | Not described on their site | |
| Class grades & report cards | Starter and up | Not described on their site |
| Per-message charge to contact families | None | SMS $60–$325/yr add-on |
| Setup fee | None | Optional, $150–$250 one-time |
What each actually costs
Homeschool-Life charges per family per year: $9.95 on Connections and $11.95 on Academy, which is the cheapest tier that includes class management and ongoing registration. A co-op that runs classes is really pricing Academy. They also list a Business plan at $310.80 a year flat, and note that minimum and maximum fees apply without publishing the amounts.
CircleUp charges a flat plan price by group size: free up to 10 families, then $23, $60, or $100 a month billed annually for up to 50, 100, or 200 families.
A 40-family co-op that runs classes
- Homeschool-Life Academy — 40 × $11.95
- $478/yr
- CircleUp Starter — $23/mo billed annually
- $276/yr
The caveat we would want told to us
That comparison is subscription only. CircleUp also takes a platform fee on card payments — 2.6% on Free, 2.1% on Starter, 1.6% on Pro, 1.0% on Enterprise — and nothing at all on cash and check. Homeschool-Life does not publish its payment processing fees, so we cannot show you a like-for-like total. If you move significant tuition by card, ask both of us for an all-in number before you decide.
Where Homeschool-Life is genuinely strong
They have been serving homeschool groups for many years and support a very large number of families — that is real operating experience, and it is worth something when your board is volunteer-run and turns over every couple of years.
Their plans include training and support, which matters more than it sounds when the person administering your site changes every couple of years. And in the band where their per-family rate undercuts our Starter plan — roughly a dozen to two dozen families — they are simply cheaper, which is a perfectly good reason to stay put.
Questions co-ops ask us
Is CircleUp cheaper than Homeschool-Life?
On subscription, usually yes for a co-op that runs classes. Homeschool-Life's published rate for its Academy plan — the cheapest tier that includes class management and registration — is $11.95 per family per year, so a 40-family co-op pays about $478 a year. CircleUp's Starter plan covers up to 50 families for $23 a month billed annually, or $276 a year. The honest caveat: CircleUp also takes a platform fee on card payments (2.1% on Starter, less on higher plans, and nothing at all on cash and check), while Homeschool-Life does not publish its payment processing fees. If you move a lot of tuition by card, compare total cost, not just the subscription line.
What actually happens to our data if we switch?
You can import members by email or spreadsheet. Class history, balances, and documents are the parts worth planning for — most co-ops switch between terms, at the point where the old registration cycle has closed and the new one has not opened yet. That is the cleanest seam.
We only need a website and a calendar. Should we still switch?
There is no price reason not to: CircleUp is free for up to 10 families, so at that size you would be comparing free against a paid per-family rate. Between roughly a dozen and two dozen families their per-family rate does undercut our Starter plan, and that is a fair reason to stay. Above that the plan fee is lower, and CircleUp earns its place when registration day, pricing classes individually, or volunteer hour tracking are the things eating your board's time.
Does CircleUp handle a co-op where families pick individual classes?
Yes — that is the case it was built around. Families register multiple children for multiple classes in one pass, each class can carry its own fee, and waitlists, drop dates, and discounts are handled as part of the same flow rather than as separate manual bookkeeping.
Is there a free plan?
Yes. CircleUp is free for co-ops with up to 10 families, with no credit card required, and cash and check payments carry no platform fee on any plan.
Try it before you move anything
CircleUp is free for up to 10 families, with no credit card. Set up a term, add a few classes, and see whether registration day gets easier before you commit your whole co-op.