Everything parents ask before signing up.

Khan Academy is excellent, but it's video-first and the pacing is identical for every kid. A 9-year-old who's secretly reading at a 7th-grade level watches the same K-1 video as a kid who's struggling. Cullinan Academy places your kid precisely with an adaptive intake conversation, then teaches in their voice — Bluey energy for a 5-year-old, smart-older-sibling for a 13-year-old. It verifies mastery with calibrated probes (not just watch-time), and schedules spaced-repetition review automatically. It's a full curriculum, not a free supplement.

IXL is drill-and-grade: questions, scores, no teaching. Kids who already understand the material get faster at drilling; kids who don't, just get faster at being wrong. Cullinan Academy actually teaches each concept first — worked examples, mini-explanations, a real tutoring conversation — then verifies understanding with mastery probes. It's the tutor-plus-practice loop IXL is missing.

Outschool is class-based and schedule-driven. You pay per class, per teacher, per kid — quality varies wildly depending on which teacher you draw. Cullinan Academy is 24/7, self-paced, with one consistent tutor at $20/kid/month. No scheduling, no waiting, no live-class anxiety for shy kids.

Time4Learning is a static curriculum — same lessons, same order, regardless of where your kid actually is or how they learn best. Cullinan Academy is adaptive at every layer: placement, pacing, lesson style (read passage vs hands-on lab vs narrated story vs boss-battle assessment vs AI chat tutor), and per-kid review schedule. The curriculum learns your kid.

A private tutor costs $40-100/hour per kid. Cullinan Academy is $20/month per kid, available 24/7, has infinite patience, never gets sick, and adapts mid-conversation to the kid in front of it. Even for a family of 3 kids at $60/month, that's less than ONE hour of tutoring at the cheapest rate. It won't replace a human tutor for everything, but for daily work across all subjects, it covers the 95% that doesn't need a human.

Boxed curricula are wonderful but they're static and one-size-fits-all per grade. If your 7-year-old is ahead in reading but behind in math, you're juggling two grade levels worth of books. Cullinan Academy places each subject independently — kid can be 5th-grade reader and 2nd-grade math, the system handles it automatically. Lessons regenerate each day based on actual progress, not a printed schedule.

Raw chatbots are powerful but they have no curriculum, no placement, no progress tracking, no mastery verification, no spaced repetition, no parental dashboard, no per-kid memory, no COPPA compliance, and no guardrails for kids. Cullinan Academy is what you'd build if you wrapped the model in everything a homeschool family actually needs.

K-12 across Math, Language Arts, Science, History, Bible, Italian, Russian, Mechanics & Repair, Speed Reading, Spelling Bee, plus drills for math facts and sight words. Subject library expands with parent-driven authoring requests.

Kindergarten through 12th grade, with some subjects extending into college-level content. The adaptive placement system runs across all grades — a 9-year-old who's already at 7th-grade math gets placed where they actually are, not where their birthday says they should be.

Three layers. (1) Initial placement: a chat-based conversation that probes the kid's actual mastery across the subject and slots them in at the right level. (2) Per-lesson adaptive: the tutor adjusts vocabulary, examples, and pacing mid-conversation based on what the kid says. (3) Daily plan: the next day's assignments are picked based on yesterday's mastery scores, not a fixed schedule.

Lessons are aligned to grade-level milestones (similar to Common Core for math/ELA and NGSS for science) but the kid's actual placement matters more than the label. If your state requires reporting against specific standards, the parent dashboard shows mastery records you can use as documentation.

Yes. Voice input is available in spelling bees (say letters out loud), drills, and several lesson types. Read-aloud TTS is available everywhere for pre-readers — kids under 7 get auto-play. Powered by ElevenLabs Scribe + Multilingual TTS.

It's a round-robin spelling bee — your kid plus three AI opponents (Robo-Speller, Word Wizard, Lex the Lion) take turns. You watch the opponents spell their words letter-by-letter (with believable mistakes calibrated to your kid's grade level), then it's your kid's turn. Voice or typed spelling. Real spelling-bee drama, infinitely repeatable.

Yes — $20 per kid per month, same as IXL. 1 kid = $20/mo, 3 kids = $60/mo, 5 kids = $100/mo. No paywalls on subjects, no "premium kid" tier. Built by a homeschool dad with 5 kids who wanted honest, simple pricing.

As many as you need — billing is just $20 per kid per month. Add or remove kids anytime from your account; billing adjusts on next renewal.

Yes. Each kid has their own profile, PIN, dashboard, and assignments — they can be on completely different subjects and grade levels simultaneously across phones, tablets, or laptops. Parent dashboard shows all of them.

Each child profile has a 4-digit PIN that the kid enters to access their own work. Parents see and reset PINs anytime from the dashboard.

Yes. Explicit verifiable parental consent is required at signup before any child profile can be created. We collect only the minimum needed to deliver lessons: first name, age, grade, and lesson answers. Parents can review, export (full JSON), or permanently delete any child's data from the account page. Full COPPA Direct Notice on our privacy page.

Never. We don't sell or share data with advertisers, data brokers, or anyone outside the vendors strictly required to operate the service (Anthropic for the AI, ElevenLabs for audio, Stripe for billing). None of those vendors use the data for ad targeting or model training.

No. Lessons are sent to Anthropic over the API, which is contractually prohibited from training on customer data. ElevenLabs discards audio after transcription. We do not use kid data for model training, ever.

You can delete your entire account from the account page anytime — every child profile, progress record, mastery record, and chat history is permanently removed within 30 days, including from backups.

$20 per kid per month, or $200/kid/year (save 17%). 1 kid = $20/mo, 3 kids = $60/mo, 5 kids = $100/mo. 14-day free trial, no credit card required. Cancel anytime from the Stripe customer portal.

Not currently — the 14-day free trial gives you full access to everything so you can decide before paying. A limited free tier may come later.

Same flat price. Build by a homeschool dad with 5 kids — multi-kid math has to work for big families too.

Yes, instantly, from the Stripe customer portal linked in your account page. No phone calls, no retention pitches, no contracts.

Any modern browser — phone, tablet, laptop, Chromebook, desktop. No app install required. Audio features need a working speaker; voice input needs a microphone (kids can always type instead).

No. The tutor handles teaching, grading, and pacing. Parents check the dashboard for progress reports but don't need to sit beside the kid. Some families do anyway — your call.

Both, depending on your family. Some use it as the full curriculum across all subjects. Some use it just for math + spelling and pair it with hands-on science kits and a literature reading list. Per-subject placement and tracking work either way.

The parent dashboard exports mastery records and lesson histories you can use as documentation for state homeschool reporting. Standardized test prep isn't a focus today — we're working on adding it.

Built by Chad Hackleman, a homeschool dad of 5 in Indianapolis. After trying every existing homeschool app and watching his kids hate them, he started building what he wished existed: a curriculum that learns the kid first, then teaches.