How to Compare School Curriculum Resource Vendors

Someone has to actually build the comparison document. Maybe that's you: a business manager pulling together a spreadsheet for a purchasing decision, or a curriculum director trying to give a principal something concrete to sign off on. This is a template for doing that well, with criteria that hold up regardless of which vendors end up in your columns.

The Criteria That Actually Matter

A lot of comparison documents end up organized around whatever categories a vendor's own marketing uses, which quietly tilts the comparison in that vendor's favor. Start instead from five criteria that apply to any curriculum resource vendor, regardless of how they describe themselves:

1. Content. What's actually covered, at what depth, across which grades and subjects?
2. Standards alignment. Is the specific standard labeled on individual resources, or claimed generally?
3. Pricing model. Does it scale with staff size under one license, or require per-teacher accounts?
4. Support. What happens when a teacher needs something the catalog doesn't have?
5. IT lift. What has to be set up, by whom, before staff can actually use it?

A Simple Side-by-Side Comparison Template

Here's a template you can copy into a spreadsheet, with one row per criterion and one column per vendor:

| Criterion | Vendor A | Vendor B | ClassWeekly | |---|---|---|---| | Grade/subject coverage | | | Full K-5, Math/Reading/Grammar & Writing | | Standard labeled per resource? | | | Yes, CCSS standard on every worksheet | | Pricing model | | | Flat, staff-tiered ($79/yr to custom District quote) | | Whole-staff access included? | | | Yes, unlimited staff per license | | IT setup required? | | | None, no LMS integration | | Branding available? | | | Yes, school name/logo on worksheets and keys | | Support model | | | Small, teacher-run team; requests get built | | Billing options | | | Card (self-serve) or PO (District tier) |

Fill in the other columns as you research each vendor directly. Leave a cell blank rather than guessing if a vendor's site doesn't make the answer clear, and follow up with them directly. A blank cell is more honest than an assumed one.

How to Weight Criteria by Role

The same eight rows matter differently depending on who's reading the comparison:

• A business manager weighs pricing model, IT lift, and billing options most heavily, since those determine cost and procurement complexity.
• A curriculum director weighs standards alignment and content coverage most heavily, since those determine instructional fit.
• A principal often weighs support model and staff-access simplicity most heavily, since those determine how smoothly a rollout actually goes.

If you're building this comparison for a mixed audience (which is common), consider adding a simple weighting column, or preparing a one-paragraph summary for each role rather than expecting everyone to read the full table the same way.

Common Mistakes When Comparing Vendors

• Copying a vendor's own feature list as your comparison criteria. This tends to favor whichever vendor wrote the list you started from.
• Accepting general claims in place of specifics. "Standards aligned" isn't the same as a labeled standard on an actual resource. Ask to see it, not hear about it.
• Skipping the IT lift question entirely. A resource that looks great on price can quietly cost weeks of a technology coordinator's time to implement.
• Comparing sticker price without checking what's included at that price. A lower number that requires a separate purchase for answer keys, or gates content by tier, isn't actually a lower total cost.
• Not confirming who owns the final decision before finishing the document. A comparison built for a principal's sign-off looks different from one built for a school board vote.

A comparison document you can actually reuse next year, for the next resource decision, is worth more time upfront than a one-off pitch deck built around a single vendor.

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Ready to fill in ClassWeekly's column yourself? Get Started with a self-serve School Site License, or request a quote if you're comparing options at the District level.