Overview

OpenCurriculum covers both classroom planning and the structures schools use to coordinate it. Teachers can build lessons and units with an editor, while leaders can set custom templates, school-wide learning outcomes, course catalogs and activity templates around a school’s learning model. That breadth makes it more relevant to departments and institutions than a tool focused only on lesson authoring.

The organization describes itself as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Schools serving students affected by conflict, disaster or extreme poverty who would otherwise go unserved can receive all paid features for free.

Key features

Planning and resources

Planner, calendar and semester or academic-term views let educators move between individual lessons and broader course schedules. The library contains hundreds of lessons, strategies, activities, formative assessments, discussion questions and worksheets from teachers, researchers and publishers. It offers a useful starting point for planning, while the editor lets teachers build their own units rather than relying solely on existing material.

Standards, collaboration and reporting

A standards picker supports national and state standards as well as school-created learning targets. Departments can share work through permissions, PLC or department Groups, and Libraries for cataloging materials; school-wide search helps staff find what colleagues have created. Reporting tracks standards, planning processes, vocabulary, learning objectives and assessments across plans, which gives leaders a way to see patterns beyond a single course. Google Drive and Google Calendar integration, PDF curriculum exports and LMS integrations support moving plans into other parts of a school’s workflow.

Pricing

The free Teacher plan includes one user, a 10-course limit and 200 MB of file storage. It suits an individual educator or curriculum designer, but the course cap may constrain someone organizing a broad catalog. The free Team plan allows up to 10 users, 50 courses and 1.5 GB total storage, making it a practical starting point for a small department that needs shared planning without a subscription.

School costs $5.00 USD per month, billed at $5 per user per month, with a minimum of 10 users and a maximum of 200. It includes unlimited courses and 1 GB of file storage per user, so it removes the free plans’ course ceilings but requires a 10-seat commitment. School also includes three-day business email support, compared with general inquiries support on Teacher and Team.

Network uses custom pricing based on needs for more than 200 users. It includes unlimited courses, 1 GB of storage per user, discounted bulk pricing and priority support, positioning it for larger districts or university clusters. Schools meeting the stated conflict-, disaster- or extreme-poverty eligibility can receive all paid features free.

Platforms

OpenCurriculum runs on the web, making it accessible through a browser. Its curriculum exports are PDF, and LMS integrations are supported.

Who it's for

Individual teachers and curriculum designers can start without cost, while small schools and departments can share plans on the free Team tier. Schools and colleges that need unlimited courses, shared standards alignment and leadership templates are better candidates for School if at least 10 seats make sense. Larger districts and university clusters can consider Network. It is less compelling for a solo user who needs more than 10 courses but does not need a team: the paid School minimum is substantially larger than one seat.

Pros and cons

Pros: Free plans cover both an individual and a team, with the Team tier supporting up to 10 users.
Pros: Planning, standards alignment, collaboration, reporting and school-level templates span classroom and institutional needs.
Pros: The School tier removes course limits, and eligible underserved schools can access paid features for free.
Cons: Teacher is capped at 10 courses and Team at 50, which may limit larger curriculum catalogs.
Cons: School requires at least 10 paid users, a poor fit for a small group that has outgrown the free course cap but cannot use that many seats.
Cons: Network pricing is custom, so larger organizations need to establish their costs directly.

Alternatives

Compare the Curriculum Management Software category if you want to review more options. Consider Atlas if a paid curriculum-management product with a free standards library and annual-fee public Atlas site better fits your needs. mapEDU is another web-based freemium option with a free trial and paid tiers. Choose Toddle if you need a planning platform that also runs on Android and iOS. Outcomap is a freemium web option whose free plan is limited to one map and five AI map generations and edits per month. ExamSoft is a paid option spanning web, desktop and iOS platforms. Modern Campus CMS is a paid alternative. CourseLoop is a paid alternative. Consider Ilios if open-source, community-based software is a priority.

Verdict

OpenCurriculum is a strong fit for educators and school teams that want lesson planning, standards alignment and shared curriculum resources in one web workspace. Its free individual and team tiers make it possible to start without a budget, and School adds unlimited courses for institutions ready to commit to at least 10 seats. Look elsewhere if you need more than the free course limits but cannot justify that minimum, or if custom Network pricing makes budgeting difficult.

	Curriculum Planner	OpenCurriculum
Free plan		Yes
Paid from		$5/mo
Platforms	Web	Web
Free plan	No	Yes
Standards library	built-in	both
Curriculum levels	lesson	all
LMS integrations		Yes
Curriculum exports		pdf

Curriculum Planner vs OpenCurriculum

Curriculum Planner

OpenCurriculum