PlanbookEdu

PlanbookEdu is an online lesson planner for teachers to create weekly plans, attach files and standards, and share plans with colleagues. Its Free plan includes unlimited weekly plans, A/B day schedules, rotation schedules, and word-processor editing. Lessons can be tagged with Common Core, state, and custom standards, then printed from a browser or exported to Word and PDF. Premium adds file attachments, collaboration, search, and spell check. School and district administrators can manage teacher accounts centrally, review submitted plans, and leave comments; school accounts can use Google Workspace for Education single sign-on. The service is available on the web, Android, and iOS, though mobile access is listed as web-only. The Free plan is free, billed free forever, and Premium is $30 a year. A 14-day trial is listed. The company says it started in 2004 and was built by a teacher and a developer. Its terms state that the website is for people at least 13 years old and accounts are for individual subscriber use.

PlanbookEdu pairs lesson planning and standards tags with printing, exports, and school-level administration tools. Its free plan covers weekly planning; Premium is $30 a year and a 14-day trial is listed.

PlanbookEdu suits teachers who want to prepare and organize lessons, tag standards, and share plans with colleagues. Its school and district tools also suit administrators managing teacher accounts and reviewing plans.

PlanbookEdu is a lesson-planning service for teachers who need structured schedules, standards alignment, and a way to share plans with colleagues. It suits individual educators as well as schools that want administrators involved in plan review. Its strongest case is flexible, school-aware planning; teachers who only need a private notebook may find Premium’s extras unnecessary.

Overview

Founded in 2004 by a teacher and a developer, PlanbookEdu is built around browser-based lesson creation, with file attachments, standards tags, calendar organization, and collaboration. The free tier is unusually open on planning volume: weekly plans are unlimited, so a teacher can map an entire year without rationing entries. A/B-day and rotation schedules also accommodate timetables that do not fit a basic Monday-to-Friday pattern.

The service is available on Android, iOS, and the web, although mobile access is delivered through the web experience. School and district accounts add central administration: administrators can manage teacher accounts, inspect submitted plans, and comment on them. Google Workspace for Education single sign-on is supported for school accounts, which can reduce account friction in institutions already using Google identities.

Key features

Free includes a word-processor-style editor, unlimited weekly plans, and A/B-day or rotation scheduling. That is enough for teachers who primarily need a dependable place to write and sequence lessons. Calendar view offers a second way to scan the teaching schedule, useful when moving between individual lesson entries and a broader week-by-week picture.

Premium is the tier for plans that carry supporting material or must move beyond the author. It adds file attachments, Common Core and state standards, sharing and collaboration, printing, Word and PDF export, search, and spell check. Standards tagging gives teachers a practical way to connect lessons with required frameworks; export creates copies suitable for submission, archiving, or editing elsewhere. Those benefits matter most when colleagues, coordinators, or administrators need to read the same plan.

Administrators can review submitted work and leave comments rather than merely holding accounts centrally. That makes PlanbookEdu more capable for school processes than a planner designed only for personal organization. Individual subscriber accounts are for one person and cannot be shared, so schools should use the appropriate school-level setup rather than passing around a teacher login.

Support is reachable by email, with the Help Center saying replies usually arrive during the same school day. The privacy policy says personally identifying information is not rented or sold and that access is limited to service providers who need it and agree not to disclose it. The website is restricted to people aged 13 and over.

Pricing

Free — free, billed free forever. This plan includes unlimited weekly plans, A/B-day and rotation schedules, word-processor editing, and use on iPad and phone. It is the right choice for teachers who need planning and scheduling but can work without attachments, standards libraries, collaboration, or document export.

Premium — $30 a year, billed $30/year. Premium includes everything in Free plus attachments, Common Core and state standards, sharing and collaboration, print output, Word and PDF export, search, and spell check. The 14-day trial gives a teacher or school a short period to judge those workflow additions before paying. Choose it when plans are shared, formally reviewed, aligned to standards, or retained as portable documents; otherwise the free plan covers the core job.

Platforms

PlanbookEdu runs on Android, iOS, and the web. Its mobile access is web-only, while the service supports printing and Word or PDF export from the planning workflow.

Who it's for

Individual teachers benefit from unlimited weekly planning and nonstandard schedule support, especially across a full academic year. Premium is aimed at educators who attach resources, tag Common Core or state requirements, or exchange plans with colleagues. Schools and districts are the best fit for the administrative controls, review comments, and Google Workspace for Education sign-on. It is less compelling for users seeking a simple private notes app or native mobile planning experience.

Pros and cons

Pros

• Unlimited free planning: there is no weekly-plan quota, making the no-cost tier viable for year-round use.
• Flexible schedules: A/B-day and rotation support handles complex school calendars.
• Useful Premium workflow: standards, attachments, collaboration, search, spell check, and exports address real submission and coordination needs.
• School oversight: centralized accounts, plan review, and comments support organized instructional administration.
• Clear support and privacy commitments: email help generally answers the same school day, and personally identifying information is not sold or rented.

Cons

• Key sharing tools are paywalled: attachments, standards libraries, collaboration, and Word/PDF export are unavailable on Free.
• Mobile is web-only: Android and iOS users do not get a separately identified native planning platform.
• Individual accounts cannot be shared: schools must use suitable account administration instead of a common login.

Alternatives

For a broader comparison, see Lesson Planning Software.

• SchEDU is a better fit for users prioritizing automated term planning, though its free plan allows only two lifetime lesson plans and two subjects.
• LessonApp suits teachers who want a library of 50-plus teaching methods, draft limits, and browsing other users’ plans.
• Planboard is an alternative for straightforward digital lesson planning on Android, iOS, and the web.
• Planbook is worth considering when a three-year individual license or large school licensing better matches your purchasing model.
• Daytical targets teachers wanting unlimited courses, students, and plans with included AI credits under a paid annual plan.
• GoPlans is a paid option with pricing that varies by user count.
• OnCourse Lesson Planner is for schools seeking teacher websites, nationwide state standards, and a curriculum portal.
• Daybook offers all features on iOS and web after a 14-day trial for $1.99 a month.

Verdict

Choose PlanbookEdu if you want unlimited basic planning now and a clear upgrade path to standards, attachments, exports, collaboration, and school-level review. Its main reason to look elsewhere is the web-only mobile experience and the fact that the most collaborative, submission-ready tools require Premium.