Lesson Maker Pro vs Planbook

We planned the same week in both

One class, one week, on October 7, 2026: write Monday’s lesson, then lose Monday to a day off. Every image is a real screenshot, cropped but not retouched; click one to see it full size.

1. 01Monday’s lesson

   

   Generated from our 3-PS2-1 guide: a 50-minute investigation with a timed sequence, its slides, printables, and teacher guide. Then placed on Monday from the lesson page.

   

   Planbook’s lesson editor, on the Instructional layout we chose at signup: a section per tab (objective, direct instruction, guided and independent practice, homework, notes, standards, attachments). We typed a title and an objective; the rest is yours to write.

   This is the whole difference between the two. Planbook is where a lesson you write lives; Lesson Maker Pro writes it with you.

2. 02Losing a day

   

   Marking Monday No school asks whether to push the day’s lessons forward, leave them, or unplace them. Nothing moves past the next open spot, and one Undo puts it all back.

   

   Adding a No School day asks whether to shift your lessons. If you don’t, the lessons on that day are deleted. Bump, extend, and lock are also on every lesson.

   Both handle a lost day in one step. Planbook has more ways to move lessons around a year; ours never deletes a lesson you chose not to move.

3. 03The week after

   

   The lesson moved to Tuesday’s Period 2, the next meeting of that class, with prep periods and bell times on the board.

   

   The lesson moved to Tuesday. Planbook had already put Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day on the calendar.

   A wash. Both weeks end up in the same place.

Feature by feature

Shaded cell: the stronger offering, in our judgment. Unshaded rows are a wash or a different kind of thing.

		Planbook
Lesson plan	A timed, ready-to-teach plan aligned to your standard	You write it, section by section, in its lesson editor †
Slide decks	Generated with every lesson, with images and speaker notes; PowerPoint, PDF, or Google Slides	Attach slides you made yourself
Printable materials	Generated with every lesson: the worksheets, handouts, and assessments it calls for, plus a teacher guide	Attach files you made yourself
Materials match the lesson	Same scenario, vocabulary, and numbers across the plan, slides, and printables, because they come from one request	Not applicable: the materials are the ones you bring
AI assistant	One assistant that keeps your lesson in context, remembers past work, learns how you teach, and edits the lesson and its materials
Weekly planner	A planning board on your bell schedule; push lessons forward when a day is lost	Day, week, and month views; weekly, two-week, cycle, and alternate-day schedules
Standards	420,000+ browsable, 6,600+ plain-language guides; official text in context when the lesson is written	Every state's standards plus district frameworks, attached by hand, with coverage reports
Student-facing activities	Gamified lesson worlds and escape rooms; join code, no accounts, no student data stored	A student view of plans and assignments
Exports	PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Google Docs, Google Slides, Classroom, Forms	PDF, Word, Google Docs, and Google Calendar; Google Classroom integration
When a day is lost	Push lessons forward, with pins for lessons that stay put, and one-click undo	Bump, extend, lock, and swap lessons, for one class or a whole day; a No School day deletes lessons you don't shift †
Sub plans	Make sub plans from the day on your board: a self-contained lesson and notes written for the sub	A Substitute Day with notes you write, printed with your plans
Admin review of plans		Teachers submit a week, admins review and comment; school lesson banks and required templates
Views for others	A view-only link to your week for a co-teacher or sub	Custom views for students, parents, subs, teams, and admins
Phone apps	Works in the phone's browser	iOS and Android apps
District SSO and rostering (Clever, ClassLink)

Pricing

Free: 5 lesson plans, 1 unit plan, 10 materials, and 25 assistant messages every month. Your first lesson needs no account and no credit card.

Pro, $9.99/month: everything included, no locked tools. School and district plans available.

Planbook

Individual: $20 a year, or less per year on 2- and 3-year plans, after a 90-day free trial with every feature. There is no ongoing free plan for teachers.

Schools: $14 to $18 per teacher per year, depending on school size.

Common questions

Does Planbook use AI?

As of October 2026 we found no AI lesson writing on Planbook's site, in its help center, or in its apps. It is a planner you write your own lessons into, and a very complete one. Lesson Maker Pro writes the lesson with you and puts it on your week.

Is Lesson Maker Pro a good Planbook alternative?

If you want help writing lessons, yes: each one arrives timed and ready to teach, with its slides, printables, assessment, and teacher guide, on a weekly board you can push forward when a day is lost. If you write your own plans and your school reviews them, Planbook is the more complete planner, with cycle schedules, admin review, a gradebook, and phone apps.

Can I use Lesson Maker Pro with Planbook?

Yes. Lessons export to PDF, Word, and Google Docs, and decks to PowerPoint and Google Slides, so a lesson made here can be attached to the day in your Planbook.

Which costs less?

Planbook: $20 a year for an individual teacher after a 90-day free trial, with no ongoing free plan. Lesson Maker Pro has a free plan with 5 full lessons a month and the weekly planner, and Pro is $9.99 a month.