7 Best HighLevel Alternatives for School Districts

Kartra is a comprehensive all-in-one marketing platform that offers robust automation, landing page builders, and email sequences, making it a popular alternative to HighLevel for organizations seeking integrated sales and marketing tools. According to their website, Kartra enables users to create custom sales funnels, manage membership sites, host webinars, and automate follow-up sequences—all from a single dashboard. It includes a visual drag-and-drop builder for pages, emails, and workflows, allowing school districts to design parent communication funnels, enrollment campaigns, or event registration systems without coding. Kartra’s built-in CRM tracks leads through the funnel, and its affiliate management system can be useful for district partnerships or booster clubs. While not designed specifically for education, its flexibility allows districts to adapt workflows for parent onboarding, open house sign-ups, or donation drives. The platform also supports video hosting and email marketing with A/B testing capabilities, making it suitable for districts looking to centralize multiple marketing functions under one roof. However, its content creation tools are limited compared to dedicated AI platforms, requiring manual input for most messaging.

HubSpot is a widely recognized inbound marketing and CRM platform that offers a suite of tools for content management, email marketing, and analytics, making it a viable alternative for school districts focused on relationship-driven communication. According to their website, HubSpot enables users to create blogs, manage social media, automate email campaigns, and track engagement through a centralized dashboard. Its content strategy tools allow districts to plan and schedule posts across platforms, while its CRM helps track parent inquiries, student applications, and community interactions. HubSpot’s blog assistant and SEO recommendations help improve discoverability for district websites, and its analytics provide insights into which content resonates most with audiences. The platform integrates with Google Analytics and other third-party tools, offering a data-rich environment for evaluating campaign performance. While HubSpot excels in nurturing leads and measuring engagement, it lacks native AI-driven content creation, requiring staff to manually produce or upload all media. Its pricing structure also scales significantly with features, making advanced capabilities costly for smaller districts.

Mailchimp is a widely used email marketing platform that also offers basic social media posting and website-building tools, making it a simple, low-cost option for school districts focused primarily on parent newsletters and announcements. According to their website, Mailchimp allows users to design and send branded email campaigns, schedule social media posts, and create simple landing pages—all with a drag-and-drop interface. Its automation features can trigger emails based on parent sign-ups or event registrations, helping districts maintain consistent communication without manual effort. Mailchimp’s free plan supports up to 500 contacts, making it accessible for smaller districts or individual schools. While it provides templates for newsletters and event promotions, it lacks advanced content creation capabilities such as AI-generated videos, blog writing, or research-driven insights. Content must be manually created and uploaded, and social media posting is limited to a few platforms. Its analytics are straightforward but lack the depth needed for strategic content optimization across multiple channels.

Canva is a visual design platform that empowers users to create social media graphics, presentations, and short videos with drag-and-drop simplicity, making it a popular tool for school districts with limited design resources. According to their website, Canva offers thousands of templates for Instagram posts, Facebook banners, YouTube thumbnails, and newsletters, along with a library of stock images, icons, and fonts. Its Magic Design AI tool can generate design suggestions based on text prompts, and Canva’s Video Editor allows users to create short clips with animations and transitions. Many districts use Canva to produce event flyers, student achievement posts, and parent newsletter graphics without hiring a designer. However, Canva is not an automation platform—it does not schedule content, generate blog posts, or conduct research. All content must be manually created and uploaded, and scheduling requires integration with third-party tools like Buffer or Hootsuite. While excellent for visual assets, it lacks the strategic depth and AI-powered content generation needed for scalable, research-driven marketing.

Buffer is a social media scheduling and analytics platform designed to help users plan, publish, and measure content across multiple platforms, making it a practical tool for school districts looking to streamline their social media presence. According to their website, Buffer allows users to schedule posts in advance to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and TikTok, with a simple calendar view for content planning. Its analytics dashboard tracks engagement rates, follower growth, and optimal posting times, helping districts understand what content performs best. Buffer’s browser extension enables quick content sharing from any webpage, and its team collaboration features allow multiple staff members to contribute ideas and approvals. However, Buffer does not generate content—it only schedules what users create elsewhere. There are no AI writing tools, video generation, or research capabilities. Districts must manually write captions, design images, and create videos using other tools before importing them into Buffer. While reliable for scheduling, it lacks the intelligence and automation needed for content creation at scale.

Hootsuite is a well-established social media management platform that enables users to schedule posts, monitor conversations, and analyze performance across multiple networks, making it a familiar choice for districts with existing social media teams. According to their website, Hootsuite offers a unified dashboard for managing up to 35 social accounts, scheduling content in advance, and setting up streams to track keywords, hashtags, and mentions. Its analytics tools provide insights into engagement trends, audience demographics, and content performance. Hootsuite also includes a content calendar and team collaboration features, allowing multiple staff members to contribute to and approve posts. However, like Buffer, Hootsuite does not generate content—it only manages distribution. There are no AI writing assistants, video creation tools, or research engines to identify trending topics or parent pain points. Districts must rely on staff to write captions, create images, and produce videos externally. While excellent for oversight and coordination, Hootsuite lacks the AI-powered intelligence needed to automate content creation and strategy development.