How pricing works
How Homeroom pricing works — for the whole media program, in one invoice.
Homeroom prices like the disruptor on the book (print-on-demand, no contract, a soft markup), like a fair partner on photography (the portrait package funds the book), and gives you the family-money margin — deadline pricing, financing, fundraising — that the incumbents already take and most tools leave on the table. The specific numbers are set for your program and shared in your proposal — this page explains the model.
No contract. No minimum order. No overprint. And a cost floor enforced in code — a price below print cost is rejected, so nothing can ever sell at a loss. Transparent, school-friendly pricing — shared during onboarding.
Our promise
We never charge extra for you to be accessible, multilingual, safe, or compliant.
Some things the law says a school must provide to every family — an accessible experience for people with disabilities, language access for families who speak another language, a way to report a safety concern, and a parent’s right to see their own child’s record. Those are not features we will ever sell you back. This is our promise: the lanes the law requires to be available will never sit behind a price, a higher tier, or an unpaid invoice.
We are building this into the product so it can’t be undone by accident — a setting marked always-on that a downgrade or a billing problem can’t switch off, with an automated test that fails our build if any required lane is ever placed behind a paid gate. That guardrail is being built now; today it is our commitment and the way we are engineering the platform. We would rather tell you exactly where the work stands than dress a promise up as a finished feature.
Accessible to people with disabilities
The accessible reader, screen-reader-friendly PDF export, keyboard control, and contrast checks are part of the product, not an add-on. (This answers the federal accessibility rule, ADA Title II.)
Language access for every family
Reaching families who speak another language is something we build in, never bill for. The per-school language setting works today; the private translation engine and translated notices are coming. (This answers the federal language-access rule, Title VI.)
A safe way to raise a concern
Safety reporting and emergency-only messaging are part of the platform’s core, not a paid tier. A non-emergency message can never ride the emergency lane.
A parent’s right to their child’s record
A parent can always see their own child’s record — it is free to inspect, by law (FERPA), and we will never put that behind a charge. Children’s data is protected by default (COPPA), with under-13 uses blocked unless permission says otherwise.
Start here
Free to start — turn on only the arms you want
A school can create an account and start with a single arm at no license fee — there is no upfront platform charge to unlock the door. From there a school turns on exactly the arms it wants, and only those. The money you make on books, portraits, ads, and fundraising rides the rails on this page; the software itself follows a simple ladder.
Start here
One free arm
Begin with a single arm — the yearbook, the news desk, or picture day — at no license fee. Run a real program on it before you decide to add anything. Free base shipped
Add as you grow
A suite of arms
Bring the rest onto the same student list, staff list, and invoice when you’re ready — yearbook, news, photography, records, commerce, communications — turned on one arm at a time.
For a whole district
A district plan
One agreement across every school in the district, with the same privacy wall keeping each school’s data to itself. District purchase orders and standard payment terms are being added for the buying motion schools already use. Net-terms billing coming.
We don’t publish per-arm prices here — they are set for your program and shared in your proposal. What never changes: the base is free, you only pay for the arms you turn on, and there is no multi-year contract, no minimum order, and no overprint.
Four revenue lines, one platform
A school makes money four ways with Homeroom — the book, picture-day portraits, recognition ads, and fundraising. The book, ad, and fundraising lanes are live today; on the photography lane the picture-day capture and consent gate are live, and the parent portrait store with its four-way split is in early access. The exact prices and splits are set by the owner for your program and shared in your proposal.
The book
Cost-per-page, then a soft markup
You set the retail price; we suggest one from the live print quote. A modest, transparent platform share keeps the lights on. Builder & checkout shipped
Photography
The portrait package
Picture-day sales fund the book on a revenue-share that funds your program — the studio keeps the largest leg, the school keeps a fundraising leg, and when the school shoots the photos itself it keeps the studio leg too. Parent portrait store in early access
Ads & recognition
Senior tributes & business ads
No photographer split — the highest-margin line, with the proceeds going to your program (minus card fees). The #1 non-book line. Ad engine shipped
Fundraising
Any-amount-per-book
The gift goes to the school — Homeroom adds no platform fee on top (card-processing fees still apply). We make our money on the relationship, not the gift. Donation lane shipped
Book pricing — cost-per-page, then a soft markup
Your retail book price is your print cost times a markup you choose — the markup is yours to set at or above the cost floor. The print cost basis is a real wholesale print grid — the same whether you build in Homeroom or upload a PDF. Because we are print-on-demand, there is no overprint and no leftover-inventory risk: the late book simply prints later at the late price. The exact markup, defaults, and any caps are owner-configured for your program.
| Element | How it works |
|---|---|
| Print cost basis | A live wholesale quote against your trim, page count, cover, and copy count — never a padded list price. |
| Your markup | A soft multiplier you set, at or above the code-enforced cost floor. You choose where it lands. |
| Cover & add-ons | Personalized covers and upgrades are optional add-ons, priced from the same wholesale basis. |
| Cost floor | Enforced in code: a price below live print cost is rejected, so a book can never sell at a loss. |
The price steps up as deadlines pass
Book price escalates by deadline tier — resolved server-side at checkout. The storefront always shows the current tier and a “price goes up on <date>” countdown. Under print-on-demand the terminal “Late Order” tier never closes: zero inventory risk, pure margin. The tier dates and the step-up at each one are owner-configured for your program.
| Tier | What it means |
|---|---|
| Early Bird | Your base price, for families who order early. |
| Regular | A step up once the early window closes. |
| Final Call | A further step up as the print deadline approaches. |
| Late Order (terminal) | Always open — prints on demand and never closes, so no family is ever locked out. |
A promo code can still discount on top (with an owner-set cap), and the cost floor always holds underneath it. District pricing is enrollment-tiered (a larger unit discount as enrollment grows), most-specific-price-wins, and never carries a minimum-order commitment. The specific discounts and tiers are set for your district and shared in your proposal.
Photography — how picture-day sales fund the book
This is the established national-portrait model — portrait revenue lowers what families pay for the book. Homeroom matches the economics while beating that model on privacy: “find my child” is a student-list lookup, not a face match, facial recognition is off unless a parent turns it on, and a portrait is sellable only when permission allows. The portrait line is the highest-margin recurring revenue in the platform.
Picture-day pipeline shipped Parent portrait store & four-way split in early access
| Package | What's included |
|---|---|
| Digital-Only | Hi-res images plus a print release — the highest-margin entry, with near-zero lab cost. |
| Basic | A classic print sheet set (an 8×10, 5×7s, and wallets). |
| Deluxe | The Basic sheets plus digital images and a retouch — priced below the sum of the parts. |
| Deluxe + Memory Mate | The Deluxe bundle plus a memory mate — the top tier, where most family spend lands. |
| Sports / club composites | Memory mates, team photos, and poster prints for sports and clubs. |
The four-way split, in plain terms
A portrait sale settles on net (gross minus lab cost and card fee), then splits four ways — studio, photographer, school, and platform. The studio that runs picture day keeps the largest leg by design; the school keeps a fundraising leg; the platform keeps a modest residual. That school leg is exactly the subsidy that lets a school lower the price families pay for the book. The exact percentages are a revenue-share model that funds your program, owner-configured and shared in your proposal.
| Leg | Who & why |
|---|---|
| Studio (shot picture day) | The largest leg, by design — the reseller incentive that recruits the studio. |
| School | A fundraising leg — the subsidy that lowers what families pay for the book. |
| Platform (Homeroom) | A modest residual — we keep a deliberately small platform share. |
| Individual photographer | Only if you pay one separately — it comes out of the studio leg, never added on top. |
Run your own picture day? When your own school staff capture and upload picture day directly — so the photos go straight into your school’s own system — the school keeps the studio’s leg too, so the split collapses and the school keeps the lion’s share while the platform keeps its modest residual. For many schools that is enough to cover the cost of the books outright.
For studios — the software is free, the portrait revenue is yours
If you own picture day, Homeroom is your professional-grade picture-day software at no cost, and you keep the largest portrait share by design. That is how we scale without a legacy rep army — the same free-to-the-studio model the modern challengers use — and it’s correct: the studio brings the schools and runs the shoot, so the studio earns the most.
- You keep the largest portrait leg on every package — the biggest single share, by design.
- A privacy edge you can take to procurement: facial recognition off unless a parent turns it on, photos never sold without permission, parent-consented galleries. No big combined-package company can match it.
- Commission rides your payouts on an add-only ledger when a rep signs you — no new money machinery.
- It compounds with the book: you sell picture day, which funds the book, which Homeroom prints. Everyone is aligned.
A studio running picture day earns recurring portrait revenue on every school it brings — on software that costs nothing. We’ll model your specific numbers with you when we talk.
Ads & recognition — the highest-margin line
Recognition and business ads carry no photographer split, so nearly all of it funds your program (minus card fees). The senior-recognition ad is the #1 non-book line — an emotional parent purchase — and pricing escalates by selling window, not page count. You set the ad prices in the platform; the storefront shows them to families.
| Ad size | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Full page | The flagship senior tribute. |
| Half / quarter page | Family tributes at a smaller footprint. |
| Eighth (“business card”) | A compact tribute or a local business ad. |
| Loveline (1/16) | Short, bulk recognition lines. |
| Booster / patron strips | Name strips packed many to a page — a high-yield recognition line. |
Fundraising & family financing
Fundraising — the gift goes to the school
Add any amount per book as a fundraiser, a donate-a-book item, or a campaign with a goal and a donor wall. Homeroom adds no platform fee on top of a donation — we take none of the gift (card-processing fees still apply). We make our money on the relationship, not on the gift. Card details never touch our servers — the payment provider holds them.
Donation lane shipped
Pay over time
Pay-over-time options are planned, so a family can split a larger order (a deluxe package, a full-page ad, and the book) into smaller payments. The school is paid in full, upfront — no school debt and nothing to collect later. It lifts how many families complete a purchase across books, ads, and portraits at once.
Pay-over-time options in early access
How this compares to the incumbents
We keep a deliberately small slice of each portrait — because the studio (our distribution), not us, keeps the larger leg. We win on no-contract on the book, a privacy story the big combined-package companies do not offer, and earning across the whole program in one invoice.
| Dimension | The incumbents | Homeroom |
|---|---|---|
| Book contract | Multi-year exclusive “Term”; overprint / minimums → leftover-inventory risk | No contract, no minimum, no overprint (print-on-demand) |
| Book pricing | Padded to cover overprint; subsidized by photo extraction | Cost-per-page with a soft markup you set and a code-enforced cost floor |
| Photography take | Vendor captures the whole portrait pool through a face-matching cloud (faces sent to an outside AI) | A revenue-share where the studio keeps the largest leg and the school keeps a fundraising leg — facial recognition off unless a parent turns it on, and a portrait is sellable only when permission allows |
| Who’s the salesforce | A legacy field rep org embedded in the relationship | The studio (free-to-studio plan) — scale without a rep army |
| Family money | Escalating pricing and financing already harvested | Matched: deadline price tiers, pay-over-time installments, and fundraising — the margin most tools leave on the table |
Our platform take is deliberately modest — the studio keeps the largest portrait leg, the school keeps a fundraising leg, and ad proceeds fund your program. We win on breadth, volume, and the studio channel, not on a big take-rate. The exact figures are owner-configured and shared during onboarding.
Get a real quote — grounded in your page count and enrollment
We don’t publish specific prices or splits here — they’re owner-configured in the platform and set for your program. Your actual book price comes straight from a live print quote against your trim, page count, and copy count — with the cost floor enforced so it’s never wrong. Tell us about your program and we’ll model the full pricing with you — or set up an account now and start with one module.