Nobody writes this article plainly, so here it is.
The three models you will be quoted
Per student, per month. Usually PKR 30–150. It sounds small and scales badly: a 900-student school on PKR 80 is paying PKR 72,000 a month, which is a teacher’s salary. Ask what happens in the months when your roll peaks.
A one-off licence. A large number up front — often PKR 150,000 to 500,000 — and then, quietly, an annual “maintenance” figure that is 15–20% of it. The danger here is not the price. It is that once the licence is paid, the vendor’s incentive to keep improving the software disappears.
Free, with paid modules. The free tier holds students and attendance. Fees, results and the parent portal — the three things you actually wanted — are paid. Work out the real total before you migrate your data into it.
What a 400-student school actually spends
Over three years, most quotes we have seen land between PKR 300,000 and PKR 900,000 all-in. The spread is enormous and it correlates poorly with quality.
The number that matters is not the monthly figure. It is:
- Setup. Is your existing student data imported, or do you type it in? Typing in 400 students with guardians and balances is roughly two weeks of a clerk’s time.
- Training. One session, or as many as your staff need?
- The exit. Can you export students, fees, attendance and results if you leave? Ask this before you sign, not after.
Questions worth asking on the call
- Who can see teacher salaries? If the answer is “the admin”, walk away.
- What happens to a student’s fee history when they leave?
- Is the parent portal an app, or a link? An app your parents will not install is worth nothing.
- What is not built yet? A vendor who says “everything” is selling you a demo.
- If we stop paying, do we get our data out, and in what format?
What we do
Our pricing is a flat monthly price set by your roll, and every plan includes every module. We do not charge per student, because a single rate overcharges either the 200-student school or the 900-student one.
The 400-student school above would be on our Growing School plan: Rs 2,000 a month, or Rs 20,000 a year if paid yearly — Rs 60,000 over three years, with no licence fee and nothing extra for exams, payroll or the parent portal. A school of up to 100 students pays nothing at all.