Overview

The Business School turns a business lesson into a live competition: student teams run rival firms in a shared market and see the effects of their decisions. It is best suited to teachers planning a structured, curriculum-linked class exercise, rather than students looking for self-paced study. Its classroom controls and reporting are useful strengths, but the full pilot cohort and quote-based licences make it a waitlist proposition for now.

Key features

Teams make decisions about pricing, hiring, loans, VAT, crises and deals, with consequences appearing in the simulation. That interconnected format gives teachers a way to discuss how business choices affect one another. Sessions support 6 to 32 students, divided among up to eight firms of three or four; it is a class activity with a defined group size, not an open-ended course platform.

Teachers can pause or resume phases, trigger a crisis, inspect firm activity and project a live leaderboard. These controls let an instructor shape the pace and introduce a disruption during the lesson. Students can download private reports, while teachers receive a curriculum-mapped class report by email within 48 hours. Knowledge Check questions are written for 23 business courses, spanning AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR, Eduqas, WJEC, Cambridge, BTEC and IB.

Students join in a browser using a six-digit PIN and a team label or first name, without individual accounts or email addresses. That reduces setup requirements for a classroom session. The company says session data is stored in an EU database in Frankfurt, is not sold or used for advertising, and can be ended by the teacher at any time. TBS Education Ltd Oy states that it is registered with the UK Information Commissioner's Office under ZC133810. Its about page says support is answered within 24 hours by someone familiar with the material.

Pricing

The Teacher demo is free at no cost, with no credit card required. It offers a six-step demo but no PIN and no licence, so it can show the experience without running a licensed classroom session.

The School licence uses one annual fee, quoted after the pilot. It covers unlimited sessions and classes, up to 32 students per session, and is priced per school rather than per seat. That structure suits schools expecting repeated use, though the eventual cost cannot be weighed against a budget until a quote is available.

The MAT licence is also quoted after the pilot and provides one agreement across trust schools with a single point of contact. It is the relevant option for multi-school trusts; a single school should consider the School licence instead. The Autumn 2026 pilot cohort is full at 30 of 30 schools, with a waitlist open, so neither licence is an immediate route to launch.

Platforms

The simulation runs on the web, and students join through a browser. Teachers can also download class data as CSV. The described workflow does not name third-party product integrations, so schools should not assume a connection to other classroom systems.

Who it's for

The Business School fits teachers who want teams to apply business concepts in a time-bounded lesson, with teacher intervention and follow-up reports. Its course-specific Knowledge Check coverage may help align the activity with business curricula. It is less suitable for individual learners, groups larger than 32 in one session, or schools that need a confirmed licence price and immediate access.

Pros and cons

Pros: Teacher controls, live firm activity and a projected leaderboard give instructors ways to manage the competition and its pace.
Pros: Private student reports and a curriculum-mapped class report provide separate outputs for learners and teachers.
Pros: PIN-based browser access requires no student accounts or email addresses.
Cons: A session is capped at 32 students and depends on teams of three or four, limiting its fit for larger groups or individual work.
Cons: School and trust licences are quote-based after the pilot, and the current cohort is full, making cost and timing barriers to adoption.

Alternatives

For a broader directory of options, see Business Simulation Software.

Forio is worth considering for builders seeking a freemium, web, API or self-hosted platform; its free Epicenter Personal plan allows unlimited public and private projects but includes no end-user authentication or authenticated projects.
Cesim Business Simulations is another paid, web-based option with a free trial.
GoVenture may suit schools seeking a freemium simulation across web and desktop platforms; its trial is free, and it is published by Canada-based MediaSpark, founded in 1994.
MonsoonSIM is an alternative for schools considering mobile as well as web access. Its Education Single Course Subscription costs 20.00 USD per once, billed at USD 20 per learner for six-month access, with fixed class size.
OrgSimulator is another web-based option; its free Professor Access includes unlimited platform usage, teaching materials and course management tools.
Revas Business Simulation Games is a paid web-based alternative with a free trial.
Marketplace Simulations offers a free plan and a $8 per student individual microsimulation billed once, with 10–25 minute exercises students can replay.
GLO-BUS may suit instructors seeking a simulation with desktop as well as web support; its Simulation-Only Option costs 44.95 USD per once per student, with instructor materials included and registration valid until the course ends.

Verdict

Choose The Business School if you are a teacher planning a team-based business lesson and value instructor controls, curriculum alignment and separate student and class reports. Its main advantage is a managed classroom simulation with low-friction student access; its main drawback is that a full pilot and quote-based annual licensing leave both availability and cost unresolved until the waitlist and post-pilot process move forward.

	The Business School	TOPSIM
Free plan	Yes
Free trial	Yes
Paid from	Free
Platforms	Web	Web
Free plan	No	No
Scenario focus	strategy
Learner capacity	32 learners
Multiplayer mode	Yes	Yes
Instructor dashboard	Yes	Yes
Assessment tools	Yes	Yes
Deployment	web	web
Scenario customization		advanced

The Business School vs TOPSIM

The Business School

TOPSIM