Pearspark vs FACTS SIS (formerly RenWeb)
For small private schools & micro schools · pricing verified July 2026 · written by the Pearspark team (how we compare)
The short answer
FACTS (formerly RenWeb) is the enterprise choice: deep modules for tuition, financial aid, and advancement, sold by quote with implementation and training. Pearspark is the opposite trade — $50/month plus per-student volume bands ($2.50 down to $1.00), published pricing, self-serve setup in an afternoon, built for small private schools.
Pearspark
All-in-one platform for small private schools — records, academics, admissions, library, volunteers, scheduling, portal.
Pricing: $50/mo including 20 students, then $2.50/student/mo stepping down to $1.00 at volume. No setup fees, no contract, 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.
FACTS SIS (formerly RenWeb)
The enterprise suite for private K-12 — SIS, tuition management, and financial aid under one roof.
Pricing: FACTS doesn't publish pricing — quotes vary by school size, modules, and contract (as of July 2026). Reviewers commonly note module-based extra costs; third-party integrations note fees like a $500/year API connection.
What each costs at small-school sizes
| Students | Pearspark | FACTS |
|---|---|---|
| 25 students | $62.50/mo | Quote required |
| 50 students | $125/mo | Quote required |
| 100 students | $250/mo | Quote required |
| What the price includes | 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, no contract. No fundraising CRM, no subsidy billing, and no SMS broadcast — announcements reach families as push notifications and email instead. | 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. |
FACTS does not publish pricing; figures shown are the best public information we could verify as of July 2026 — see sources below. Always confirm current pricing with the vendor.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Pearspark | FACTS |
|---|---|---|
| Student records (SIS) | ||
| Attendance | ||
| Gradebook & report cards | ||
| Standards-based grading & mastery | ||
| Records protected if the school closes | ||
| Transcripts & GPA | ||
| Missing-data reports & scheduled delivery | ||
| Admissions pipeline | ||
| Class scheduling & rooms | ||
| Lending library & checkout | ||
| Equipment & room booking | ||
| Volunteer tracking & check-in | ||
| Parent & student portal | ||
| Messaging | ||
| Self-serve transcript & gradebook import | ||
| Tuition billing & payments | ||
| 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 FACTS. 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. On texting: Pearspark reaches families as push notifications through the installable parent app, plus email — not SMS. Underlined feature names open the Pearspark page for that capability, so you can check what our ✓ actually means.
Where FACTS shines
- Full enterprise suite: SIS, tuition management, financial-aid assessment, advancement
- Serves thousands of private schools; familiar to many teachers and admins
- Handles complex multi-campus and diocesan structures
Worth knowing
- No published pricing — procurement means sales calls, quotes, and contracts
- Modular pricing: capabilities are often separate line items
- Implementation and training are projects, not an afternoon
When FACTS is the better choice
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 micro school, FACTS is more system, and more procurement, than the job needs.
When Pearspark is the better choice
Pearspark is built for small private schools — from a dozen students to several hundred: micro schools, classical schools, Montessori programs, hybrid academies, and homeschool co-ops. Everything is included at one published price: student records, a spreadsheet-style gradebook with built-in 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/student portal. Setup is self-serve, and built-in migration tools import your rosters, transcripts, and gradebooks from FACTS CSV exports with a dry-run preview.
The parts this comparison turns on
Common questions
How much does FACTS SIS cost compared to Pearspark?
FACTS doesn't publish pricing — you request a quote, and cost depends on modules and school size. Pearspark publishes its full price: $50/month including 20 students, then $2.50/month per additional student (stepping down to $1.00 at volume), with no setup fees or contracts. A 30-student school pays exactly $75/month.
Can a small school migrate from FACTS/RenWeb to Pearspark?
Yes. Export your students, transcripts, and gradebooks from FACTS as CSV files and import them with Pearspark's built-in migration tools — each import shows a dry-run preview (what will be created, what doesn't match) before writing anything.
What does FACTS have that Pearspark doesn't?
Need assessment, enterprise tuition finance, and advancement. FACTS Grant & Aid calculates an expected family contribution from tax documents it collects and verifies; Pearspark deliberately does neither, and does no fundraising at all. What Pearspark does include, at no extra charge, is aid administration: family applications behind a separate review permission, sliding-scale income bands, automatic sibling discounts, percent or per-bill awards that come off the invoice during billing, an annual aid budget with applied-to-date, and ESA, voucher and SGO money tracked as third-party funding — per-student ESA invoices, CSV settlement reconciliation, and printable verification letters. And if your school already uses a third-party assessment service — FACTS Grant & Aid, Clarity, or SSS — you come out ahead: export its decisions and import them into Pearspark by CSV as percent, per-bill, or annual awards, keep the assessor you trust, and run everything else in one flat-priced system instead of a quoted module stack. On tuition itself, Pearspark's billing is included in the flat price: plans that 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. A school that would rather keep a third-party tuition service can do that and import the records into Pearspark.
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
Last reviewed July 2026. Spotted something out of date? Email us and we'll fix it.