FACTS SIS vs. Blackbaud SIS: Which One Actually Fits Your Private School?
The $150/mo price gap is the smallest number in this decision. Staff-count ceiling and integration reach move the real math more.
FACTS SIS ($350/mo, 5-200 staff) vs. Blackbaud SIS ($500/mo, 10-400 staff) — the split is about integration reach, not just price
Pricing and integration data from the StackMatch private-school dataset.
FACTS SIS and Blackbaud SIS look like a $150/mo price comparison until you check which other tools each one actually talks to. FACTS SIS lists a native connection to your admissions CRM, your e-signature tool, and its own tuition platform. Blackbaud SIS connects to your LMS and to Smart Tuition — full stop. That gap shows up as staff time re-keying data long before it shows up as a line item on an invoice.
Monthly cost comparison
Cost and reach
| Metric | FACTS SIS | Blackbaud SIS |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | $350 | $500 |
| Staff range | 5-200 | 10-400 |
| Syncs with Ravenna | ||
| Syncs with DocuSign | ||
| Syncs with Canvas LMS |
FACTS SIS: $350/mo — built for 5-200 staff
FACTS SIS handles enrollment records, gradebook, report cards, and attendance, and its real advantage isn't a feature — it's the ecosystem. It's the only SIS in this comparison that natively syncs with Ravenna (admissions), DocuSign (e-signed contracts), and FACTS Tuition Management (billing). For a school running all three, that's the difference between one enrolled-student record everyone works from and three separate systems someone has to reconcile by hand every week.
The FACTS-vs-Blackbaud decision weighs integration reach against staff-count headroom — not which platform has more features.
Blackbaud SIS: $500/mo — built for 10-400 staff
Blackbaud SIS covers the same core ground — academics, admissions data, school-wide reporting — at a $150/mo premium, and it earns that premium mainly through headroom: it's priced up to 400 staff, roughly double FACTS SIS's 200-staff ceiling. The tradeoff is integration reach. It connects to Canvas LMS and Smart Tuition; it doesn't list a connection to Ravenna or DocuSign. A school on Blackbaud SIS running Ravenna for admissions is relying on someone in the front office to manually enter every accepted application into the student record.
Running both platforms during a transition costs $850/mo combined — more than either platform costs alone, for zero added capability. If you're mid-migration, put a hard date on finishing it.
The actual decision rule
Where your staff count sits relative to each platform's ceiling matters more than a features list.
- Under 10 staff: FACTS SIS is the only one of the two actually priced for you — Blackbaud's tier starts at 10 staff.
- 10-200 staff: the real gray zone. If you already run Ravenna or DocuSign, FACTS SIS's native sync is worth more than Blackbaud's extra headroom. If you're near FACTS SIS's 200-staff ceiling and expect to cross it within a couple of years, Blackbaud's runway may be worth paying for now.
- Above 200 staff: Blackbaud SIS is the only one of the two still priced for a school your size — FACTS SIS tops out at 200.
Questions to ask before you sign with either platform
- What's the actual contract term, and what's the early-termination penalty if you migrate later?
- Does the price scale with enrolled-student count, or is it a flat rate within your staff-count tier?
- If you already run Ravenna for admissions, ask the rep directly how — or whether — enrolled-student data reaches the SIS automatically.
- How long does historical grade and attendance migration take if you switch platforms later, and who owns that data mid-transition?
- Is DocuSign e-signature support native, or do enrollment contracts still get uploaded and filed by hand?
Under ~200 staff with Ravenna or DocuSign already in your stack, FACTS SIS's native sync usually beats Blackbaud's extra headroom. Above 200 staff, Blackbaud is the only one of the two still priced for you at all.
It's worth naming directly: a lot of "best student information system" content online is written by, or paid by, whichever vendor has the bigger affiliate budget — which tends to be the pricier platform. That's exactly the incentive our engine is built to be blind to; it ranks purely on your staff-count and integration fit, not on which vendor pays the biggest bounty.
Run the free audit with your real staff count and current SIS spend to see which platform — plus the rest of your stack — actually fits.