Short version: Pressly is $15 a month for the 2026-2027 school year, billed November through July, and that rate is locked for the year. It’s free through October. If that’s all you came for, get in there!.
The longer version is about how the platform got cheaper in its second year, which is not usually how this goes. Especially these days 😅
Where $399 came from last year
Last year, Pressly was slated to be $399 per campus, based on the raw cost to build and host it for the year. I cut it in half for the launch year and paid the rest myself to pressure-test the concept. Charging full price for something that new just didn’t sit right with me.
That worked. It also isn’t a plan. Covering the gap out of my own pocket is something you can do once, in year one, to prove a concept. It’s not something you can build a platform on.
Wanting to charge less is the easy part
Every founder in this space will tell you they want to keep it affordable for teachers. I believe most of them mean it. The problem is that wanting a low price and being able to sustain one are two completely different problems, and only one of them is solved by good intentions.
If Pressly was going to be genuinely cheap, and stay cheap, the cost to run it had to actually come down. Not my margin obvi… but the actual cost to run it.
So… I rebuilt the whole thing. As one does. 🙃
Down to the studs
I rebuilt Pressly 2.0 from the ground up. New code, new database, new host, new everything. Of course, while I do have some very minimal experience with code, I am by no means a developer. So, with the help of Claude Code (I call her Claudette), I spent hours researching how to do this myself (without an app building platform), and even more hours actually building it.
Here is more info about AI + Pressly, in case you’re curious →
Without a doubt, it has been one of the most challenging and exhilarating experiences, and I am so freaking proud of the current version. And what’s so weird is that I know just one month from now it will already be so much better. (LMK if you want to hear more about the development process, because I learned a LOT.)
What that means for your budget
Pressly 2.0 is now self-hosted. 🎉
In plain terms, that means I run the servers and the database directly instead of “renting” the whole operation through an expensive middleman app-building platform. The monthly cost to keep Pressly running dropped significantly. So the savings are real, and passing them to you was the easy call.
And before anyone worries: self-hosted doesn’t mean scrappy, not secure, or unstable. Pressly runs on professional-grade infrastructure with automatic backups and a real database behind it. The only thing that changed is that I’m not paying a middleman for the privilege. Same platform, lower cost, and I’m shipping updates to it most weeks.
Pressly is just $15/month per campus.
There’s no discount code
Fair warning: there’s no promo code hiding in a conference tote bag. No adviser rate, no early bird, no “DM me and I’ll see what I can do.” $15 is the number for everybody, which felt more respectful than pretending it’s $29 and letting you feel clever for finding a coupon.
And that $15 covers your whole campus, not one seat. Your entire staff, unlimited students, unlimited assignments, unlimited publications. If you advise yearbook and newspaper, and the broadcast kids keep wandering in during fourth period, that’s all one account.
One thing I want to be straight about
$15/mo is still a reduced rate, and it may not be a permanent one. The development space is changing so rapidly, and I can’t tell you exactly where things will be a year from now.
There are two separate things happening here and I don’t want to blur them. Self-hosting is the reason Pressly can be priced low at all, and that part isn’t going anywhere. Cutting all the way down to $15/mo is a decision I’m making for this year, on purpose, while the platform is young. As Pressly grows, that number may move.
But my #1 goal for this year is to build something that genuinely helps you. And whatever happens down the road, $15/mo is the rate through July 2027.
