Ad Astra vs SchoolGrid
Ad Astra
aais.com
SchoolGrid
schoolgrid.appSide by side
| Figure | Ad Astra | SchoolGrid |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | $8.25/mo |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 0 | 3 |
| Spec score · School Scheduling Software | 7.6 (#11) | 7.6 (#14) |
| Audience | The company describes its customers as colleges and universities and says it serves more than 550 institutional partners. | SchoolGrid is built for elementary principals, assistant principals, office managers, instructional coaches, and support staff leads. |
| Headquarters | The contact page lists Ad Astra at 6900 W. 80th St., Overland Park, KS 66204. | Snohomish, Washington, United States |
| Integrations | The company lists integrations with Jenzabar, Banner, Workday, Colleague, and Oracle PeopleSoft Campus Solutions. | Google Drive publishing uses the drive.file permission and OneDrive publishing uses the Files.ReadWrite.AppFolder permission. |
| Purpose | Ad Astra provides academic and room scheduling tools to help higher education institutions streamline planning, promote financial sustainability, and enhance student success. | SchoolGrid is a browser-based master-scheduling app for elementary schools that combines classrooms, specialists, interventions, lunch, recess, instructional minutes, and paraeducator coverage. |
| Security | Ad Astra's privacy notice says it uses encryption, secure servers, and monitoring to safeguard data. | Passwords use PBKDF2 one-way hashing, connections use HTTPS encryption, and payment details are handled by PCI-DSS-certified Stripe. |
| Support | Support includes ticket submission, a software knowledge base, and access to an expert; the company also describes onboarding, training, and consulting services. | Free users can use the contact form, while Pro includes priority email support and three hours of video onboarding. |
Plans
SchoolGrid
- SchoolGrid FreeFree
- SchoolGrid Plus$99 a year
- SchoolGrid Pro$499 a year
In their own words
Ad Astra
Ad Astra is academic planning and scheduling software for colleges and universities. Its suite handles course, room, and event scheduling, classroom optimization, registration monitoring, demand forecasting, and annual schedule planning. Real-time data and predictive analytics help institutions align schedules with student demand. Student Demand Forecasting uses pathway data and historical enrollment patterns to predict course demand. Conflict detection, teacher constraints, room constraints, and multi-campus support are listed capabilities. A report library helps institutions evaluate scheduling practices, while the Higher Education Scheduling Index provides benchmarking measures. The platform names certified, bi-directional SIS integrations with Ellucian Banner, Ellucian Colleague, Jenzabar, Oracle PeopleSoft Campus Solutions, and Workday, plus flexible APIs. Its smart scheduling platform is hosted on Amazon Web Services. Support includes tickets, a knowledge base, expert access, onboarding, training, and consulting. Pricing is paid and available on request. Ad Astra says it partners with more than 550 institutions.
SchoolGrid
SchoolGrid is a browser-based master-scheduling app for elementary schools. It brings classrooms, specialists, interventions, lunch, recess, instructional minutes, and paraeducator coverage into one scheduling workflow. Its auto-scheduler drafts schedules from configured school constraints, and users can review and revise them in Timeline, Agenda, and Calendar views. Schedules can be exported as PDF or CSV files or published to Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive. SchoolGrid says it does not request student names, rosters, grades, or student accounts and is not designed to store student records. The app requires no installation. The Free plan is free and offers a 30-day scheduling and publishing evaluation, with up to 15 drafts during that period. Plus costs $99 a year and includes para and student-support coverage, exports, publishing, and five monthly Schedule Transfer credits. Pro costs $499 a year and supports up to three schools or sites, unlimited drafts, 15 monthly setup credits, priority email support, and three hours of video onboarding.