Software as a service
For edtech platforms: which subjects and seasons bring families and schools that renew.
Edtech platforms sell to parents and learners by subscription and to teachers and schools by licence, in a year shaped by terms, exams and the back-to-school rush. Tally links each subscription to the visit that won it and shows when families buy, while the student-facing app stays out of the count.
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01How they sell
- SubscriptionMonthly or yearly family and learner plans; yearly plans bought at the start of a school year renew at the same point.
- FreemiumFree practice or a free teacher account, upgraded for more content, progress reports or a whole class.
- One-offExam-season passes or course bundles bought once for a test date.
02Payments it reads
- StripeFamily plans, teacher upgrades and school invoices through Stripe; renewals and refunds are read.
- PaddleLearning platforms selling to families in many countries use Paddle for VAT; transactions and adjustments are read.
What Tally can't read
- Subscriptions in the learner app bought through the App Store or Google Play aren't read.
- School or district purchase orders paid by bank transfer outside Stripe aren't counted.
- Learners' progress and activity inside the platform aren't read, and the tag doesn't belong on student-facing pages.
- Grant or government money paid to schools for your licence isn't read unless the payment itself goes through Stripe.
03Where buyers come from
- Back-to-school searchSearches for a subject, a grade level or an exam rise at the start of each term and bring parents looking for help.
- Teacher communitiesTeachers share tools in groups and newsletters; one teacher's free account can lead to a school licence.
- Parent groupsParents recommend what helped their children, often by link in chats.
- YouTube study channelsStudy and exam-prep videos send learners who want practice.
- AI assistantsParents and learners ask an assistant for help with a subject and get pointed at platforms.
04What Tally answers
When do parents buy?
Peak hours by weekday and hour, on sales, shows when families pay; evenings after homework and weekends may stand out, and the view names the top three hours only when sales support it.
Peak hoursDid a teacher's free account lead to the school's licence?
If the school's invoice is paid in Stripe with an email your site identified, the receipt shows an email match with medium confidence and the visits of whoever was identified with that email.
ReceiptsWhich subject page brings subscribers?
The page breakdown gives each subject and grade page its visitors and the revenue credited to them.
Sources with revenueDo families who join at the start of term renew next year?
Lifetime value by first source counts renewals and repeat rate, so the back-to-school campaign can be checked against the year's other channels once a full year has passed.
Lifetime valueHow long do parents compare before paying?
Path to purchase gives the median time and visits to purchase, with the pages buyers saw, such as a subject page, pricing and a sample lesson.
Path to purchase
05Numbers worth watching
- Renewals
- Renewals by first source, which arrive a year after the back-to-school rush and say who stayed.
- Conversion
- Paying visitors over all visitors, to compare term start with the quiet weeks.
- Median time to buy
- The median time from first visit to payment, short before an exam and longer the rest of the year.
- Revenue by source
- Revenue by subject page and channel, for deciding which subjects to build out.
06An example
Busiest on Mondays, 14:00–17:00
2.1× the visits of an average three hours. Post around Mon 13:00 to be there as they arrive.
Shades are each hour's average over the times this period holds it, so a weekday that comes round five times doesn't outshine one that comes round four. The totals beside and below are the period's actual sums, not averages.
07Setting up
- Any HTML siteAdd the tag to the marketing site, subject pages and pricing, and keep it out of the pages learners use.
- StripeFor family plans, include tally_visitor_id in the Checkout Session's metadata and in subscription_data, so next year's renewal keeps the source.
- Call tally('identify', { email }) when a teacher creates a free account, so a school invoice paid later with that email can link.
08Questions
Do learners using the platform count as visitors?
Only on pages that carry the tag. Keep it to your marketing pages and learners' sessions stay out of your numbers.
Schools pay by invoice. Is that read?
When the invoice is a Stripe one, yes. A purchase order paid by bank transfer outside Stripe isn't.
Our yearly plans are mostly bought in one month. Does that distort anything?
Revenue lands on the days it's paid, so that month stands out; renewals arrive a year later on the same dates, credited to the visits that won them.