Acadly

Acadly is a higher-education course platform that joins automated attendance with live participation tools. It is best for instructors who want polls, quizzes, discussion and attendance in one workflow, while institutions get a separate administration tier. The individual plans are practical for single courses, but important oversight and campus integrations sit behind institutional pricing.

Overview

Acadly centers the classroom rather than acting as a general learning-management system. Instructors can set up a roster, timetable and attendance rules, then run sessions with less manual intervention. Alongside attendance it provides live polls, word clouds, quizzes, Q&A, discussions and a monitored class backchannel. Acadly Here broadens the attendance use case to teams, bands, K-12 programs and congregations.

The service is offered on Android, iOS, macOS and the web. Mobile apps are distributed through the Apple App Store and Google Play, with browser access for users who prefer a web app.

Key features

Attendance and verification

Acadly’s most distinctive capability is attendance automation. Rules are configured once instead of recreated for every meeting. Its mesh-network approach is designed to verify physical presence without GPS or QR codes, and the company says it does not track geolocation. Suspicious-pattern fraud alerts are available to institutions, not individual course buyers, so instructors purchasing a personal plan get automation without that escalation layer.

Participation tools

Live polls, multiple-choice and true/false quizzes, word clouds, discussions and Q&A cover both quick checks and longer classroom conversation. Anonymous responses help students contribute sensitive questions, while a backchannel lets instructors and teaching assistants monitor ongoing comments. Pro adds sorting-type quizzes and anonymous Q&A, making it the stronger fit for richer interaction rather than basic response collection.

Slides and online teaching

The native PowerPoint add-in can launch attendance and polls directly from presentation slides and is described as working on Mac and PC. Pro includes Zoom integration and online attendance automation. Institutional deployments add LTI compatibility with Moodle, Brightspace, Blackboard and Canvas, plus roster syncing and automatic course provisioning.

Pricing

Individual course plans

Basic costs $3 a month, with the displayed billing choices of $5 per course under a student-pays model or $3 per course when the teacher pays. It includes in-person attendance automation, polls, word clouds, multiple-choice and true/false quizzes, backchannels, basic data exports and Q&A. It is the sensible low-cost choice for a conventional classroom that does not need scheduled or online attendance.

Pro costs $5 a month, shown as $10 per course student-pays or $5 per course teacher-pays. It retains Basic’s tools and adds scheduled automatic attendance, anonymous Q&A, sorting quizzes, Zoom and online attendance automation. Choose it when attendance must run on a timetable or over the internet; it still excludes institutional fraud alerts and LMS/SSO.

First Course Free is $0.00 USD for a first course for up to five months. It includes PowerPoint integration, scheduled attendance and web/app access, but excludes fraud alerts. It is a useful way to start a single class, not a substitute for institutional controls.

Acadly Basic Course is $3.00 USD once per course: students pay $3 or the instructor pays $1.50 per student. Attendance is instructor-initiated and app-only, names are supplied by CSV, and PowerPoint polling, Zoom, LMS and SSO are unavailable. Acadly Pro Course is $5.00 USD once per course, with students paying $5 or the instructor $2 per student. It adds scheduled attendance, PowerPoint, web and app attendance, PowerPoint polling, Zoom and CSV email fields, while fraud alerts and LMS/SSO remain excluded.

Institutional and group plans

Enterprise and Institutional use custom pricing. Enterprise lists LMS plugins for instructors and administrators, automatic provisioning, roster syncing, contact tracing and premium support. Institutional contracts may be annual or multi-year, have no hardware cost and no stated limit on courses or instructors, and include fraud alerts, LMS/SSO integration and done-for-you setup. Acadly Here uses in-app subscriptions from $15 to $75 per month, adjusted for group size and duration, with standalone attendance and CSV exports.

Platforms

Acadly runs on Android, iOS, macOS and the web. PowerPoint integration is described for Mac and PC, while Zoom and LMS connections depend on Pro or institutional deployment.

Who it's for

Choose Acadly for higher-education teaching teams that need attendance and live engagement together, especially when scheduled or online attendance matters. Institutions requiring LTI, SSO, roster synchronization, fraud alerts, compliance documentation or managed onboarding should budget for an institutional agreement. Groups outside higher education should examine Acadly Here instead of the course plans.

Pros and cons

• Pro: Attendance rules can run automatically, reducing repeated setup for scheduled classes.
• Pro: Polls, quizzes, Q&A, discussions and a backchannel provide several participation modes in one course.
• Pro: Mesh verification avoids GPS and QR-code attendance methods.
• Con: Fraud alerts, LMS/SSO and bulk course setup require institutional pricing.
• Con: The cheaper Basic Course is app-only and omits PowerPoint polling, Zoom and web attendance.
• Con: Plan names and billing models differ, so buyers must choose carefully between monthly displays, per-course charges and student- or teacher-paid terms.

Alternatives

For a broad directory of classroom response tools, browse Student Response Systems or Audience Response Systems.

• Poll Everywhere is the better pick when you want a freemium response platform with Windows support and a free audience limit of 40.
• iClicker suits buyers prioritizing attendance tracking, auto-run sessions and late-arrival tracking.
• Wayground (formerly Quizizz) is preferable for quiz-led activities, with a free tier allowing 100 participants per session.
• Kahoot! is a fit for familiar live quiz sessions, with a free tier for up to 40 participants.
• Open Response is the straightforward choice for free, open-source classroom polling.
• Particify is worth choosing for free rooms supporting up to 200 participants.
• AhaSlides fits presentation-focused polling with a free allowance of 50 participants.
• Plickers is suited to card-based questioning, with a free class limit of 63 students.

Verdict

Acadly is a strong choice for instructors who want automated attendance and substantial live participation in the same course platform. Pro is the most capable individual tier for scheduled or online attendance, anonymous Q&A, sorting quizzes and Zoom. Look elsewhere if your course needs LMS/SSO or fraud-alert controls without an institutional contract, or if the app-only limits of the cheaper course plan are restrictive.