Hallwise VS Lacework

Hallwise's answer

Hallwise is the only digital hall pass system built and actively maintained by a working K-12 teacher — which shows in the details. Long passes auto-flag in red so teachers actually notice when a student has been gone too long. Students sign out by tapping a link on a Chromebook (no logins, no app installs, no FERPA paperwork to add 500 student accounts to a vendor). Google Classroom rosters sync automatically, so setup is under five minutes per teacher with no IT involvement. Pricing is also distinct: flat $599/year per school regardless of size, vs the $2.50–$5/student model used by SmartPass and e-hallpass — meaning a 1,000-student school saves $2,000–$5,000/year. Individual classroom teachers use the Solo plan free forever.

Hallwise's answer

Cost — flat $599/year regardless of enrollment vs SmartPass or e-hallpass at $2.50–$5/student plus typical $1,000+ setup fees. A 600-student school pays $1,500–$3,000 with the major competitors; Hallwise stays $599 even if the school grows.

Setup speed — Google Classroom rosters sync automatically when a teacher signs in. A teacher can be issuing real passes within five minutes — no IT ticket, no onboarding call, no per-student configuration spreadsheet to fill out.

Classroom fit — Hallwise is designed by a current middle-school math teacher, so the workflow reflects what happens during an actual class period. Students tap a link, type their name, pick a destination, and a timer starts. Teachers see who's out and for how long without leaving their lesson. No student accounts to manage, no training videos for the kids, no friction.

Hallwise's answer

K-12 public and private schools that want simple, affordable hall pass tracking without a multi-thousand-dollar enterprise contract. The strongest fit is middle and high schools (grades 5–12), where bathroom and hallway monitoring matters most for both student safety and protecting instructional time. Buyers are principals, assistant principals, deans of students, or building technology coordinators making purchasing decisions in the $500–$1,500 range — typically under most district approval thresholds, so the buying cycle is days instead of months. Hallwise also serves a free Solo tier for individual classroom teachers who want to track passes in their own room without needing admin approval first.

Hallwise's answer

I'm Peter, a middle-school math teacher in New Jersey. Last year my school started asking us to formally track student hall passes — bathroom passes had become 20-minute social hangouts, and one student was eventually found out for over 30 minutes after getting into a fight in the hallway. Our admin got a quote from one of the major systems; it came in at several thousand dollars per year. The school couldn't justify it, and we went back to paper passes. Predictably terrible.

Frustrated, I started building a simple web app for my own classroom on nights and weekends. Two other teachers in my building asked to try it. Then a friend at another school. About 30 teachers were using it before I realized it could be a real product. Hallwise is what that side project became — still built by someone teaching seventh-grade math every day, priced so any school can afford it, and designed around what actually works in a classroom rather than what looks good in a vendor demo.

Hallwise's answer

Frontend: Next.js 15 (App Router), TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, deployed on Vercel.

Backend: Supabase Postgres with Row-Level Security policies enforced at the database layer for FERPA-aligned tenant isolation between schools.

Authentication: NextAuth v5 with Google OAuth. Schools sign in with their existing Google for Education accounts; no passwords to manage.

Integrations: Google Classroom Roster API for automatic class sync. Stripe for billing and subscriptions. Resend for transactional emails and the weekly digest.

Mobile: Web Push API delivers native phone notifications. A service worker enables Progressive Web App install on iOS Safari and Android Chrome — the dashboard runs full-screen on a teacher's phone home screen, no app store required.

Hallwise's answer

We don't publish school district names on our website by policy — student data minimization is core to how we operate, and listing customer schools invites unwanted attention to those specific buildings. Hallwise is currently in use across K-12 schools in multiple US states, with active deployments ranging from individual classrooms on the Solo plan to full-school subscriptions on the School plan.