When we pulled our son out of school, the first sticker shock wasn't the curriculum itself. It was discovering how many different ways this industry has invented to charge a family. Here is what things actually cost in 2026, so you can budget with real numbers instead of guesses.
The four price tiers
| OPTION | TYPICAL COST | THE CATCH |
|---|---|---|
| Big boxed programs | $500–$800 per child, per year | Repurchase every year, for every child. Shipping on forty pounds of books. |
| Online subscriptions | $20–$40 per month, per child | Never stops billing, and your child is on a screen for school. |
| Piecemeal printables | $5–$12 per unit | No plan connecting them, and answer keys often sold separately or missing. |
| The Grizzly Academy | $49, once | You do the printing. That's the whole catch. |
For context: the average American family now pays about $1,200 a month for child care. A complete curriculum at $49 costs less than a single day of daycare.
The hidden costs nobody puts on the pricing page
- Per-child licensing. Many programs charge again for each sibling. Look for a household license instead. (Ours covers every child you have, every year, including reprinting workbook pages.)
- Answer keys sold separately. A curriculum without answer keys is a stack of homework you have to grade from scratch. The teacher's materials should be included, not an upsell.
- Annual repurchase. If the program expires or "levels up" every twelve months, multiply the price by the years you plan to homeschool before comparing.
- Printing. Printable curricula shift printing costs to you. Done wrong that's $100+ a year in ink; done right it's a fraction of that. We wrote a whole guide: what it really costs to print a homeschool curriculum.
The rule we price by: a family should pay once, own it forever, print for every child in the house, and get every answer key with it. If a program doesn't offer that, ask why.
What $49 buys here, specifically
All 10 subjects for Grades 1–2 (600+ pages): scripted lessons, workbooks, and unit tests for each, the Teacher's Binder with every answer key, the Field Challenges real-world companion, and the START HERE guide with a schedule you set to your own family's rhythm. One payment, one household, forever — with a 30-day money-back guarantee. See everything inside, or start with the free week and spend nothing at all.
Choosing for a specific grade? Read the guides for 1st grade and 2nd grade.