LessonUp

LessonUp is a platform for building and teaching interactive lessons, with activities and student learning insights. It is a strong fit for educators who want lesson creation and classroom participation in one workflow. The free account is a sensible starting point, while paid plans suit teachers or schools whose lesson, AI or administration needs exceed its limits.

Overview

Teachers can create lessons, draw on a library of educator- and partner-created material, or import PowerPoint presentations and add interactive elements. That breadth makes LessonUp useful beyond live presentations: it connects preparation, student responses and reports. Individual teachers can start without a subscription, but the free plan offers only some interactive features; schools seeking administration and collaboration tools need a school plan.

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in The Hague, LessonUp says it complies with GDPR, stores personal data on servers in Europe and uses technical and organisational safeguards, including 256-bit SSL for its website connection. For student learning data and results, the school or teacher is the controller, while LessonUp processes the data under their instructions.

Key features

Interactive lessons and reports

Activities include multiple-choice questions, polls, drag-and-drop tasks, word clouds, hotspots, spinners, fill-in-the-blanks and sorting. Live quizzes and audience reactions give teachers further ways to involve students. Reports and insights help review learning, and results are saved on the free account. This combination is useful for teachers who want student responses to form part of the lesson rather than sit in a separate polling tool.

Creation tools and integrations

AI can help produce lessons, quizzes, rubrics, assignments, images, summaries, glossaries and translations. PowerPoint import lets teachers add quizzes, polls, mind maps and open questions to existing presentations. The library can shorten preparation by offering lessons from other educators and content partners, though AI quotas vary by plan.

LessonUp lists integrations with Canvas, Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams for Education and itslearning. School plans add SURFconext SSO, school administration and collaboration. School subscriptions also include a dedicated contact, onboarding online or in person, and tailored webinars and CPD sessions, making them more relevant to institutions than solo teachers.

Pricing

LessonUp is freemium, with a 30-day trial and paid teacher plans billed per teacher per month on a yearly subscription; listed prices include VAT. The yearly commitment matters if a teacher only needs the product for a short course or term.

• Free — free: Some interactive features and saved lesson results. It is a low-risk way to try the workflow, but it does not match the full feature set of paid plans.
• Start — $7 a month: 10 lessons and 20 AI uses per month, interactive questions, lesson library, PowerPoint import and editing, reports and insights. This is the lower-cost paid choice for teachers with a modest lesson volume; the monthly caps can constrain frequent use.
• Pro — $7.99 a month: Unlimited lessons and 50 AI uses per month, plus interactive questions, library access, PowerPoint import and editing, reports and insights. The small increase over Start removes the lesson cap, but AI use remains limited.
• School Basic — $7.50 a month: Custom pricing, minimum 10 teachers, 75 AI uses per teacher per month, school administration, collaboration, SURFconext SSO, and Canvas and itslearning integrations.
• School Complete — $9.58 a month: Custom pricing, minimum 10 teachers, 150 AI uses per teacher per month, and the same listed school features.
• School Plus — $12.92 a month: Custom pricing, minimum 10 teachers, unlimited AI use per teacher, and the same listed school features.

The school tiers make sense when a group needs administration, collaboration or SSO, but their 10-teacher minimum rules them out for a lone educator. Basic and Complete trade higher AI quotas for lower per-teacher prices; Plus is the option for schools that need unlimited AI use.

Platforms

LessonUp is available on web, Android and iOS. Its terms name the web application and mobile apps Sidekick for LessonUp, LessonUp and Step-by-Step.

Who it's for

LessonUp serves individual teachers as well as teams, schools, colleges, multi-academy trusts and content partners. Solo teachers get the clearest fit from Start or Pro, depending on whether 10 lessons per month is enough. Institutions should consider school plans when shared administration, collaboration, SSO or included onboarding and training matter.

Pros and cons

• Pro: Lesson building, interactive activities and reports sit together, linking classroom participation with a record of student responses.
• Pro: PowerPoint import and a shared lesson library give teachers routes to adapt existing material instead of starting every lesson from scratch.
• Pro: School plans combine collaboration and administration with onboarding and tailored professional development.
• Con: Start caps use at 10 lessons and 20 AI actions per month, while even Pro allows only 50 AI uses.
• Con: School plans require at least 10 teachers and custom pricing, making them a poor fit for individual educators seeking institutional features.
• Con: The annual subscription basis on teacher plans is less flexible for educators who need the service only briefly.

Alternatives

Choose Annotate.net if a free account with one regular enrollment course for up to 50 students and 100MB storage better matches your needs. Poll Everywhere is worth comparing for live audience polling, with a free Intro plan capped at 40 participants. Pick Nearpod if its free Silver tier's 300MB storage and 40 student joins per lesson suit your classroom. Wayground (formerly Quizizz) offers a free Starter tier with a 20-activity limit and up to 100 participants per session.

Kahoot! is another freemium option. AhaSlides may suit teachers who want a free plan allowing up to 50 participants, five quiz questions and three poll questions. Socrative offers a free tier capped at five quizzes, one room and 50 students per activity. Choose ClassPoint if its PowerPoint-focused basic plan, with five questions per presentation and 25 participants, fits better.

For broader comparisons, browse Interactive Classroom Software, Interactive Presentation Software or Interactive Lesson Makers.

Verdict

LessonUp is a strong choice for teachers who want to build lessons, involve students and review learning in one platform, and for schools that need shared administration and support. Its main drawback is the gap between individual and school plans: solo users face lesson and AI quotas, while institutional features require at least 10 teachers and custom pricing. Choose it if that combined teaching workflow matters; look elsewhere if your priority is a high-volume AI allowance on a solo plan or school management without a group commitment.