Comparison · compiled August 2026
AltEd vs Homeschool-Life
Homeschool-Life has run US co-ops for years at a price nobody can undercut. AltEd is a different product for a different job — the individual child's record, modern payments, and evidence you can print. Here is where each one wins.
The short answer
Two tools, two different jobs
Both of these are real recommendations. If the right answer for you is on the right-hand side, take it.
Choose AltEd if the child's record is the point
AltEd is organised around each learner, not around the organisation. Curricula, marked assignments, hours logged, evidence gathered and a printable education record at the end of it — plus a real billing ledger with card payments for the tutors and providers a family works with. If you are in the UK and thinking about the Children Not in School register, that is the product you actually need.
- You want a per-child record — planning, marks, attendance, evidence — rather than a group directory.
- You are UK-based: GBP, UK English, and local-authority framing throughout.
- You want card payments that feel like 2026 rather than a bank transfer and a spreadsheet.
- You work with tutors as well as a group, and want their sessions and charges on the same record.
Stay with Homeschool-Life if your co-op runs on it
We are not going to pretend to beat this on price. At around $9.95 per family per year, Homeschool-Life costs a co-op family less in a year than AltEd's Family plan costs in a month, and it still does things AltEd does not: a group website, a members' forum, and co-op accounting as a group treasury. AltEd now has class registration with rosters, waitlists and volunteer hours — but a first version of it, against something with years of co-op workflow behind it and, per our analysis, over 135,000 families. If the group website and the forum are the job, stay.
- Roughly $9.95 per family per year — around a tenth of what AltEd's Family plan costs, and we do not expect to match that.
- A co-op website and members' forum in the same product — AltEd has neither, and neither is planned.
- Group accounting as a treasury; AltEd bills each family individually instead.
- Deeply entrenched, with years of co-op-specific workflow behind it and a large installed base.
Pricing
What each one costs
| AltEd | Homeschool-Life | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free for one learner — no card, no time limit | Around $9.95 per family per year, charged through the co-op (as of August 2026) |
| Family plan | £6/month, or £59/year — unlimited learners, evidence exports | Not tiered in the same way; the family fee is the co-op's subscription |
| Provider / tutor billing | £19/month flat for the provider↔family ledger and card payments | Co-op accounting is included; our analysis found no provider↔family session-billing ledger |
| Cost for a 40-family co-op | Depends entirely on how many families upgrade; the Free plan covers a single learner per family | Around $400 a year for the whole group — very hard to beat on price |
| Card processing | Stripe's standard fees, passed through with nothing added on top | Payment handling exists; our analysis describes the payments experience as dated |
On pure cost per family, Homeschool-Life wins and it is not close. We are asking to be judged on what the record does for an individual child, not on price.
Feature by feature
The honest matrix
Rows where AltEd loses are in here on purpose. So are the rows where we simply could not establish the answer.
- Yes — built and working
- Partial or unclear — partly there, or our research couldn't establish it
- No — not available
| Capability | AltEd | Homeschool-Life |
|---|---|---|
| Co-op class registration, rosters and waitlists | No. Shipped 2026-08-30: classes with capped places, automatic waitlists that promote on their own, rosters and volunteer hours. A first version — it has none of the years of co-op workflow the incumbents have. | Yes. Registration is one of its core functions and has been for years. |
| Co-op website and members' forum | No. AltEd is not a website builder and has no forum. | Yes. A group site plus a forum are part of the product. |
| Co-op accounting and fee collection | Partial or unclear. AltEd's ledger is provider↔family: one provider billing the families they teach, with charges, credits, prepaid packs and card payment. It is not a co-op treasury with group-wide fee collection. | Yes. Accounting for the co-op is part of what our analysis records. |
| Per-child planning record (curricula, lessons, assignments) | Yes. A curriculum per subject broken into lessons, assignments with marking and feedback, and a resource library — per learner. | Partial or unclear. Homeschool-Life is organised around the group rather than the individual learner. Our analysis found no per-child planning and marking record; check their site if you need one. |
| Attendance and hours logging per child | Yes. Days, hours and what was covered, logged per learner and totalled for you. | Partial or unclear. Attendance exists in a co-op context. We did not establish whether it produces a per-child hours record a family could show a local authority. |
| Portfolio evidence capture | Yes. Photo-and-note evidence entries tagged to subjects, gathered as you go. | Partial or unclear. Our August 2026 analysis did not establish evidence capture in Homeschool-Life either way. |
| Printable education record and transcript | Yes. Printable education record and transcript built from marks, hours and evidence. | Partial or unclear. Reporting exists; we did not establish the transcript output. Dedicated transcript tools exist in this market precisely because it is often a gap. |
| UK-native (GBP, local-authority framing) | Yes. Built in the UK for UK home education: pounds, UK English, and the Children Not in School register as a first-class concern. | No. Our analysis places Homeschool-Life squarely with established US co-ops. There is no UK compliance framing anywhere in this market. |
| Tutor and provider session billing | Yes. Two-sided sessions, absence approval, automatic charges, credits, prepaid packs and card payment. | No. Our analysis found co-op accounting, but no provider↔family session-billing ledger of this kind. |
| Modern interface | Yes. Built in 2026 — responsive, light and dark, and designed to be used on a phone at the kitchen table. | Partial or unclear. Our analysis describes the interface as notoriously dated. That is a judgement about look and feel drawn from public reviews, not a missing feature — plenty of co-ops are perfectly happy with it. |
| Maturity and user base | No. AltEd is young, with a small user base and features still landing. That is a real risk when a whole group depends on a tool. | Yes. Long-established, with over 135,000 families across its co-op sites according to the vendor's own claims recorded in our analysis. |
Reasons people switch
What tips the decision, when it tips
The co-op is one part of your week, not all of it
A group tool records what happens at co-op. It does not record the four other days, the tutor, the maths you did at home, or the hours that add up to a year's education.
You are in the UK and the register is coming
The Children Not in School register is expected around 2027, and no US co-op tool is going to frame anything around your local authority. AltEd does.
You want evidence you can print
Photos, notes, marked work, attendance and hours, gathered as you go and printable as an education record when someone asks.
Paying a tutor should not need a spreadsheet
If your family also uses tutors, AltEd puts their sessions, charges and card payments on the same record as everything else.
How to move across
Switching, without a leap of faith
Step 1
1. Don't switch — run alongside
This is the honest advice. If your co-op runs on Homeschool-Life for its website and forum, keep it there. Use AltEd for your own children's record, and try its class registration alongside if you want to. At £0 for a single learner there is no reason to force a choice.Step 2
2. Re-key what's live, not what's history
There is no automated importer today — we won't pretend otherwise. In practice you only need what's currently running: active students, the subjects they're studying, and your lesson prices. Past invoices are best left where they are, exported as PDFs for your records.Step 3
3. Connect the other side
Families invite providers (or providers invite families) and the other side consents. Consent is what grants access to a learner's records, and a family can withdraw it at any time — so nobody is handing over a child's data on trust.Step 4
4. Run one cycle on both
Schedule a fortnight of sessions in AltEd while your old tool still runs. Confirm sessions from both sides, watch the charges land in the ledger, and take one card payment. If the numbers agree, the switch is proven.Step 5
5. Close the old account — after you've exported
Download your invoices, client list and any reports from your existing tool before you cancel. Once you're on AltEd your records stay exportable too; leaving later should never cost you your history.
FAQ
Questions, answered
About this comparison
Everything on this page about Homeschool-Life was compiled in August 2026 from public pricing and product information and public review sources, as recorded in our internal market analysis. We have not tested it first-hand, and the 135,000-family figure is the vendor's own claim. Pricing and features change — please check homeschool-life.com before making a decision, and tell us if anything here has gone out of date.
Homeschool-Life is a trademark of its respective owner. AltEd is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by them.
Try it yourself
Try AltEd alongside Homeschool-Life
Running both for a fortnight tells you more than any comparison table — including this one. One learner costs nothing and needs no card.
Free plan · No card needed · Built for UK home education