AI tools for school management in India that handle attendance, timetable and fees

Published 2026-11-03, Updated 2026-11-03, 21 min read

A school does not run on lesson plans alone. It runs on attendance taken every morning, a timetable that does not clash, fees collected on time, homework reaching parents, and report cards going out without a week of manual work. For a small or mid-size school in India, the question is rarely whether software exists. The question is what is actually free, what needs a technician to run, and what will quietly start charging once parents and teachers depend on it.

The short answer for India is this: start with OROO Campus Free if you want one full school ERP at no monthly cost, because its Campus Free plan is listed at 10,000 students for 0 rupees per month. Keep Teachmint free for teaching work, because its teacher app is free while its full school ERP is a paid product quoted per school. Use Fedena Open Source only if your school has someone who can install and maintain software, because it is free to download but supported by its community, not by a vendor team. Try EdProSys free to start if WhatsApp messages to parents matter most to you, because it is built WhatsApp-first for Indian schools. Consider LEAD School ERP only as a quoted, paid option for a larger school, and use GegoK12 if your biggest pain is the timetable itself, because its automatic timetable generator is free and open source.

This article is written for India on purpose: CBSE, ICSE, and state board schools, private schools and coaching institutes, Hindi and English communication with parents, a normal phone and laptop, UPI and online fee payment, and no assumption that you have an IT department, a US school account, or a large annual software budget. It also carries a warning that matters more for schools than for any other group in this series: a school ERP holds children’s names, attendance, fees, and marks. A free account does not settle that responsibility. Only a tool your school has checked for data access, export, and backup should ever hold student records, and no student’s work or personal details should ever be pasted into a free chatbot. For classroom prep tools, see our guides to AI tools for teachers in India and AI tools for study notes in India.

The short answer, in one table

OROO Campus: the full free ERP to try first

OROO Campus describes itself as a free school ERP for schools and coaching institutes, and it is the strongest free starting point in this list because it covers the whole daily workflow in one place. Its modules include student management, academics, classes, sections, subjects, homework, timetable, attendance, exams, marks, verification, publication, report cards, fee structures, invoices, payments, receipts, discounts, and concessions, plus communication with parents and staff. Its registration page lists a Campus Free plan at up to 10,000 students for 0 rupees per month, which is far above what most single schools need, so the student-count limit is unlikely to be the thing that stops you.

OROO also bundles AI features that go beyond administration. Its platform lists an AI search tool for students, an AI study companion that turns study material into notes, flashcards, quizzes, chat, and audio, and an AI coding environment for students in Classes 6 to 12. Those are learning tools, not management tools, so judge them separately from the ERP: the ERP question is whether attendance, timetable, fees, and homework run smoothly for your teachers, and the learning question is whether students actually use the AI study tools. Do not let a long feature list decide the purchase. Run one real week on it first: one class taking attendance on phones, one fee collection cycle, and one homework round to parents, and then decide.

The honest limits to check before you commit are the ones OROO does not put in a headline. A free plan this broad usually has paid add-ons, higher support tiers, or usage-based charges somewhere, for example for messaging volume or payment processing, so ask in writing what is inside Campus Free and what is charged separately. Also check data export: if you ever leave, can you take student records, fee history, and report cards out in a usable format? A free ERP that locks your data in is not free in the long run. And re-check the official pricing and help pages before you promise parents or staff a deadline, because free plans and their limits change.

Teachmint: free for teaching, paid for the full ERP

Teachmint is the most widely known name in this list, and the most misunderstood, because “Teachmint is free” and “Teachmint ERP is free” are two different claims, and only the first one is true. Its basic teaching app has been free, while its full school ERP is sold on tiered plans quoted per school, with prices not fully published. That split matters: a teacher can run classes on the free app without the school buying anything, but the moment the school wants centralised attendance, fees, transport, hostel, or advanced reports, it is negotiating a paid plan.

What drives the price, according to pricing guides that track Teachmint, is the number of students, the plan tier and which modules are included, any hardware or smart-classroom add-ons, and messaging and payment-gateway usage. The costs schools most often miss are the ones that do not appear in a headline price: whether transport, hostel, or advanced reports sit in higher tiers, whether parent messaging over SMS or WhatsApp is unlimited or credit-based, and what the payment gateway rate is and who keeps the margin. None of those are reasons to avoid Teachmint. They are reasons to get a written quote that lists the per-student price, the included modules, messaging costs, gateway rates, and contract length, line by line, before signing.

Use Teachmint free where it is genuinely free: teacher-led classes, content, and classroom work, which pairs naturally with the prep tools in our AI tools for teachers in India guide. Use its ERP only after the quote test above. And never let a demo decide for you: a demo uses clean data, while your school has late admissions, mid-year section changes, fee concessions, and parents who pay in cash and then need a receipt. Test those four cases before you pay.

Fedena Open Source: free, but you are the IT team

Fedena Open Source is the honest free option for a school that has technical help. Fedena has two versions: Fedena Open Source, the community version available for free download under the Apache licence, and Fedena Pro, a different, paid product built on the same framework with 30 plus extra plugins. The open-source version covers the core of school management: courses and batches, human resources, student attendance, timetable, examination, multiple dashboards, student admission, news management, user management, academic calendar, finance, student information, event management, and separate logins for employees, teachers, students, and parents, plus remarks and batch summaries.

The paid Pro plugins are where the difference shows: hostel, online examination, library, poll, transportation, assignment, placement, gallery, task, discussion, instant fee, data management, inventory, online registration, and Moodle integration are listed as paid plugins, not as part of the free version. So a small school that needs attendance, timetable, exams, and basic finance can genuinely run on the free version, while a school that needs transport, hostel, or online exams will hit the paid wall quickly. Plan for that wall before you build your year around Fedena, not after.

There is also a freshness warning you must not ignore. The clearest official statement of the free version comes from Fedena’s own support pages, and that statement dates from 2015. The product, its download site, and its community have changed since then, and sources do not fully agree on the current state of the open-source project. That does not make Fedena a bad choice, but it does mean you must verify the current download, the current version, and whether anyone still answers community questions, before you put a school year on it. If you cannot find a current, working download and a living community, treat Fedena as a project to evaluate, not a platform to depend on. And budget for hosting and backups: “free software” still needs a server, updates, and someone who restores it when it breaks.

EdProSys: built WhatsApp-first for Indian schools

EdProSys is the most India-specific tool in this list, and it shows in its design: it describes itself as built for Indian schools, WhatsApp-first, mobile-first, and AI powered, with a free start, no credit card needed, and setup in five minutes. Its headline feature is a WhatsApp parent bot that sends automated attendance alerts, fee reminders, and homework updates to parents on WhatsApp, with no manual effort. For many Indian schools, that single feature is worth more than a dozen dashboard widgets, because parents read WhatsApp and ignore school apps and email.

EdProSys lists support for K-12 schools across CBSE, state board, and ICSE, government schools with DISE and UDISE reporting ready, coaching centres with batch management and test scores, and junior colleges for Classes 11 and 12. It also lists AI report cards and automated attendance alongside the WhatsApp bot. That combination fits a school whose real problem is parent communication and Indian board compliance, rather than a school that mainly needs a timetable engine or a finance suite.

The limit to watch is the one EdProSys does not publish: what happens after the free start. Its site says free to start, but it does not publish a full price list for what comes next, so the honest statement is that pricing beyond the free start is quote-based and must be confirmed before you scale. Test the WhatsApp flow with real parents before you commit, because WhatsApp delivery depends on templates, opt-ins, and message rules, not just on the software. Check whether attendance alerts, fee reminders, and homework updates all work on a parent’s normal phone, in Hindi or English as your parents prefer, and what happens when a parent changes their number mid-year. If those three flows work, EdProSys earns its place; if they do not, no dashboard will save it.

LEAD School ERP: the large paid option, judged on its quote

LEAD School ERP is the scale option in this list. Its own pages describe it as a cloud-based, all-in-one school management system covering attendance, fees, staff, communication, and reporting from a single dashboard, with role-based access, encrypted storage, and remote access from anywhere. LEAD reports that its ERP is used by more than 8,500 schools and 3.8 million students across more than 400 cities in India. Those are self-reported figures from the vendor’s own site, not independently audited numbers, so treat them as a sign of scale, not as proof that it fits your school.

There is no public free tier for LEAD ERP that this article could verify, and its pricing is quote-based: the vendor’s own pages say the cost of school management software varies with the school’s needs and the features required, and that providers have unique pricing structures. That is normal for enterprise school software, but it means LEAD cannot be compared on price from its website alone. If you are a larger school or a school group, LEAD is worth a quote, and the quote should be tested the same way as Teachmint’s: per-student price, included modules, messaging costs, gateway rates, data export, and contract length, all in writing. If you are a single small school looking for a free start, LEAD is not the first call; OROO Campus Free or EdProSys free to start will answer your question faster and cheaper.

One more honest note: LEAD is also a curriculum and teaching company, not only an ERP vendor, so its ERP sales conversation may bundle academic content and services with the software. That bundle may be genuinely useful, or it may be more than you asked for. Ask for the ERP-only price separately, so you can compare it fairly with the free and open-source options in this article.

GegoK12: when the timetable is the real problem

GegoK12 solves a narrower problem than the others, and solves it well. It is a free and open-source school management system, MIT licensed, built for K-12 schools, and its automatic timetable generator is a core module inside that complete platform, not a standalone scheduling app. The generator produces a conflict-free timetable in minutes, balancing teacher availability, subject-period requirements per week for each class, classroom and resource allocation, and teacher specialisation, and it checks for clashes so the same teacher, room, or class is not double-booked.

The reason the timetable belongs inside the ERP, rather than in a spreadsheet, is that a timetable touches everything else. In GegoK12, subject-wise attendance is tracked against the period and subject defined by the generated timetable, and a timetable change flows through to teachers, students, and parents through role-based dashboards, instead of living in a separate file that drifts from reality within days. If your school’s yearly pain is the timetable, with teachers overloaded in one term and idle in another, or rooms double-booked every Monday, this is the tool to evaluate first, even if you run the rest of the school on something else.

The cost of GegoK12 is not money but ownership. It is free to deploy, customise, and scale, and the complete platform is open source, but your school still needs someone to install it, update it, and back it up. That is the same trade as Fedena: free software, real responsibility. If you have that person, GegoK12 is an excellent free answer to the timetable problem. If you do not, prefer a hosted free plan like OROO Campus Free, where the vendor carries the servers, and keep GegoK12 in mind for the year you hire or train that person.

Using school AI in India: language, payment, and no VPN

Every tool in this article is built to work in India without a VPN, because every one of them is a web platform or an app sold to Indian schools, not a region-locked consumer product. That is the good news. The harder India questions are language, payment, and parent access, and they decide whether a tool works in your school or only in its demo.

On language, check two things separately: the language teachers see, and the language parents see. A dashboard in English is fine for most school offices, but a fee reminder or homework alert that a parent cannot read in Hindi or their state language will be ignored, and an ignored fee reminder is the same as no reminder. EdProSys leads here because it is WhatsApp-first, and WhatsApp is where parents already read messages, but you must still test the actual message text in your parents’ language before you rely on it. For language learning tools that sit alongside school software, see our guide to AI tools for learning English in India.

On payment, the question is never only “does it accept online fees?” Every ERP in this list handles fee structures, receipts, and online payment in some form. The real questions are the gateway rate, who bears it, how cash payments and concessions are recorded, and how a parent gets a receipt they trust. A school that collects fees in cash, by UPI, and by bank transfer needs all three recorded cleanly, with discounts and concessions visible, or the office will keep a parallel register and the software will become decoration. Ask for a fee demo using your real fee structure, including one concession case and one late-payment case, before you sign anything.

On parent access, assume the parent’s phone is a low-cost Android phone on mobile data, not a laptop on broadband. Every tool here offers mobile apps or mobile web, but test the parent’s actual journey: attendance alert received, homework seen, fee paid, receipt downloaded, all on one phone, on mobile data, without the school office helping. If any step needs a desktop, a second app, or an English-only screen your parents cannot read, that step will fail at scale. And on data, remember the rule from the start of this article: student records belong under a school agreement, with export and backup you control. For the wider safety habits around free tools, see our guide to AI privacy and safety tools in India.

What to avoid

First, do not buy on a feature list. Every ERP in this list claims attendance, timetable, fees, and communication, and those words hide very different realities. A timetable generator is not the same as a timetable editor, a fee module is not the same as a gateway with a fair rate, and a WhatsApp feature is not the same as a WhatsApp message your parents actually receive. Test one real week of your school’s actual work on any tool before you pay for it or move parents onto it.

Second, do not let a free plan make promises for you. Prices and limits change, and the official pricing and help pages must be re-checked before you pay or before you promise parents or staff a deadline. OROO Campus Free is generous today at up to 10,000 students for 0 rupees per month, but its paid add-ons are not spelled out in a headline, and EdProSys is free to start without publishing what comes next. Neither fact is a criticism; both are reasons to get the current terms in writing. The same applies to Fedena, where the clearest free-version statement dates from 2015 and must be verified against the current project before you depend on it.

Third, do not move student data without an exit plan. Before any tool holds attendance, fees, and marks, confirm three things: who can access the data, how you export it in a usable format, and how backups work. If the vendor cannot answer all three clearly, the tool is not ready for your school, however good its demo looks. And never paste student names, work, or scores into a free chatbot for grading or feedback, even when it is convenient, because that data leaves your control.

Fourth, do not pay for two tools that do the same job. A school that buys a full ERP and then keeps a separate attendance app, a separate fee app, and a separate homework group is paying three times for one workflow and confusing parents three times over. Pick one system of record for each job: one place for attendance, one place for fees, one place for homework communication. If a tool cannot be that place, it is an extra, not a system, and extras should be free or they should go.

Finally, do not ignore the paid-only options entirely, but do not let them set your budget either. MyClassboard, for example, is a well-known Indian school ERP that describes itself as all-in-one and affordable, with academics, finance, transport, messaging, and admissions, but this article found no public free tier for it, so it belongs in the quote pile with LEAD and Teachmint ERP, not in the free pile. Get its quote if you are comparing paid systems, and compare it line by line with the free options above, not against a headline price.

Frequently asked questions

Which school management tool is actually free in India? OROO Campus Free is the clearest free full ERP in this list, listed at up to 10,000 students for 0 rupees per month. Fedena Open Source and GegoK12 are also free, but you host and maintain them yourself. Teachmint’s teacher app is free while its ERP is paid, and EdProSys is free to start without a published full price list.

Can a small school run on a free ERP without an IT person? Yes, if you pick a hosted free plan rather than open-source software you install yourself. OROO Campus Free and EdProSys free to start are hosted, so the vendor runs the servers. Fedena Open Source and GegoK12 need someone technical for installation, updates, and backups, so they suit schools that already have that person.

Does Teachmint charge schools, or is it free? Both, for different products. The basic teaching app has been free, while the full school ERP is sold on tiered plans quoted per school, with prices not fully published. Confirm exactly which modules a free account includes before you assume the ERP is free.

How do parents get attendance and fee alerts without a school app? Through WhatsApp, in practice. EdProSys is built around a WhatsApp parent bot for attendance alerts, fee reminders, and homework updates, and OROO Campus and other ERPs include parent communication modules. Test the real message on a parent’s phone, in their language, before you depend on it.

What should a school check before paying for an ERP? Five things in writing: the per-student price, the included modules, messaging costs, payment gateway rates, and data export plus backup. Then test one real week: attendance on phones, one fee cycle including a concession case, and one homework round to parents. If any of those fail, do not pay yet.

Is student data safe on a free school ERP? A free plan does not answer that question by itself. Check who can access the data, whether access is role-based, how data is stored, and how you export it. Only a tool your school has checked should hold children’s names, attendance, fees, and marks, and student work should never be pasted into a free chatbot.

What if our school needs transport or hostel management too? Then the free tier may not be enough. In Fedena, transport and hostel are paid Pro plugins, and in Teachmint, transport, hostel, or advanced reports may sit in higher paid tiers. Check that specific module’s tier before you commit, because a free core with a paid transport module is a paid system for your school.

The final verdict, and a checklist before you pay

Start with OROO Campus Free for a full ERP, and keep Teachmint free for teaching. Check fee and messaging charges in writing before you switch. That is the whole decision in one line, and everything else in this article is the evidence for it.

Before you move a school year onto any tool, run this checklist. First, run one real week on the free plan with real classes, real fees, and real parents. Second, get the quote in writing with modules, messaging costs, gateway rates, and contract length as separate lines. Third, confirm data export and backup in a format you can actually use. Fourth, test the parent’s journey on a low-cost phone on mobile data, in the language your parents read. Fifth, re-check the official pricing and help pages before you pay or promise a deadline, because prices and limits change. A school that does those five things will pick well, whether it ends on OROO, EdProSys, Teachmint, Fedena, LEAD, or GegoK12, and a school that skips them will pay for a demo instead of a system.

Image credits:

• A teacher with students in a classroom — Pexels, photo by RDNE Stock project, Pexels License (free to use).
• Students raising their hands in a classroom — Pexels, photo by Max Fischer, Pexels License (free to use).
• Students walking together in a school hallway — Pexels, photo by cottonbro studio, Pexels License (free to use).