Stellic Review: Overview, Features, Pricing & Alternatives in 2025

Degree planning confusion slowing your students down?

If you’re looking at academic planning software, you’re probably tired of students missing requirements and advisors bogged down in tedious admin tasks.

For most of us, the real problem is constant guesswork and students losing track of requirements every semester—that’s what keeps retention and graduation rates flat.

Stellic isn’t just another legacy tool. It’s designed to solve this with smart, student-centered planning, proactive advising views, and real-time analytics—all focused on getting students across the finish line, not just checking boxes for compliance.

In this review, I’ll walk you through how Stellic can deliver real operational clarity for your student success team and what makes their approach different from anything you’ve tried before.

Throughout this Stellic review, we’ll dig into features like degree audit, schedule management, reporting, pricing details, and who should consider Stellic as an alternative to DegreeWorks or legacy platforms.

You’ll walk away with the features you need to compare, plus real insights to drive your decision with confidence.

Let’s dive into the analysis.

Stellic Overview

Stellic has been around since 2016, founded by Carnegie Mellon grads from their San Francisco base. Their entire mission is to modernize academic planning for today’s students.

What truly sets them apart is a dedicated focus on student-centric academic planning for higher education. You won’t find a bloated ERP; they specialize in simplifying the core student and advisor experience, which makes a noticeable difference.

After a major 2022 funding round, you can see through this Stellic review how they’ve invested in product innovation and aggressively expanded their roster of university partnerships.

Unlike legacy degree audit systems that feel disconnected, Stellic was clearly built for students and advisors first. I find this translates into an intuitive, collaborative platform that actually reduces administrative friction for your teams.

They work with leading institutions like Columbia, Duke, and the University of Chicago, supporting a growing user base that is now approaching one million students across their partner schools.

From my analysis, their strategy centers on giving students self-service tools while equipping your advisors with proactive data. This directly addresses the market’s critical push to improve on-time graduation rates and student satisfaction.

Let’s examine their capabilities now.

Stellic Features

Drowning in academic planning complexities?

Stellic solutions can help you streamline the higher education journey for students, advisors, and administrators. These are the five core Stellic solutions that address common pain points in academic planning.

1. Pathways (Degree Planning)

Students lost navigating complex degree requirements?

Confusing academic roadmaps can lead to frustration and wasted credits, making the college journey unnecessarily stressful for your students.

Stellic’s Pathways feature empowers students to build comprehensive academic plans and perform “what-if” analyses to explore options. From my testing, the drag-and-drop course builder makes personalizing their degree path incredibly intuitive. This solution helps students clearly visualize their entire college journey.

This means your students can plan their future confidently, ensuring they select the right courses and stay on track for graduation.

2. Schedule (Interactive Course Scheduling)

Struggling with chaotic course registration?

Basic registration tools often make finding the right courses a guessing game. This can lead to scheduling conflicts and missed opportunities for students.

The Schedule builder allows students to easily discover and register for courses that align with their degree plan and personal schedule. What I found impressive is how it incorporates course offering likelihood, which really simplifies the process. This feature makes registration efficient and user-friendly.

So you can provide students with a seamless scheduling experience, drastically reducing their registration headaches and improving their satisfaction.

3. Advise (Proactive Advising Assistant)

Are your advisors overwhelmed with administrative tasks?

Advisors often spend too much time on paperwork instead of focusing on meaningful student support. This limits their ability to be truly proactive.

Advise significantly enhances the advising experience by providing a smart, proactive assistant. This is where Stellic shines, offering at-a-glance views and proactive alerts for at-risk students. Advisors can engage in real-time plan collaboration and use in-app messaging.

This means your advising team can scale meaningful support, focusing on holistic student development rather than just routine administrative duties.

4. Audit (Reimagined Degree Audit)

Is your degree audit system outdated and slow?

Traditional degree audits can be cumbersome and time-consuming, slowing down crucial administrative processes like graduation certifications.

Stellic’s Audit module modernizes this, displaying real-time progress toward degree requirements, even handling complex double-counting. From my evaluation, the ability for rapid audit changes is a huge time-saver for administrators. This feature transitions processes from weeks to hours, boosting efficiency.

What you get instead is a significantly streamlined administrative workflow, ensuring quicker certifications and reduced operational burdens for your staff.

5. Report (Actionable Insights and Analytics)

Making decisions without reliable, real-time data?

Lack of accessible insights on course demand or student progress can lead to inefficient resource allocation and missed opportunities to improve retention.

Stellic’s Report feature leverages institutional data to provide valuable, real-time analytics. Leaders can access insights on course demand, instructor load, and projected graduation bottlenecks. This data-backed approach enables proactive decision-making, something I find essential for modern institutions.

This means you can ensure appropriate courses and resources are available, directly supporting student success and improving overall retention and graduation rates.

You’ll appreciate how these Stellic features work together as an integrated suite for comprehensive academic management. This cohesive approach truly transforms the student success journey.

Stellic Pricing

What will Stellic pricing actually cost you?

Stellic pricing follows a custom quote model, which means you’ll need to contact sales but also get pricing tailored to your specific needs.

1. Pricing Model & Cost Factors

Understanding their pricing approach.

Stellic’s pricing model is not publicly disclosed, focusing on custom quotes based on your institution’s specific needs and student population. What I found regarding pricing is it’s typically “per student per year,” which makes sense for a higher education platform. Factors like student count, modules needed (Pathways, Advise, etc.), and integration complexity will drive your final cost.

From my cost analysis, this means your budget gets a personalized cost, directly tied to your operational scale.

2. Value Assessment & ROI

Is this investment worthwhile?

Stellic aims to improve student retention and graduation rates, which translates to significant ROI for your institution by maximizing tuition revenue and student success. Their value proposition includes replacing outdated legacy systems, leading to operational efficiency and better student outcomes. This strategic investment can yield substantial long-term benefits beyond just direct cost savings compared to traditional advising methods.

This means your finance team needs to consider the long-term gains for students and the institution.

3. Budget Planning & Implementation

Planning for total cost of ownership.

Since Stellic doesn’t publish pricing, you’ll need to engage their sales team for a detailed quote that includes all cost factors. Remember to inquire about implementation services, training, and ongoing support, as these contribute to the total cost of ownership. Budget-wise, what stood out is their focus on integration with existing SIS, which helps streamline deployment and minimize potential hidden costs from compatibility issues.

So for your business, expect a comprehensive consultation to align Stellic pricing with your specific strategic goals.

My Take: Stellic’s custom pricing is suitable for mid-to-large higher education institutions that value a tailored solution designed to improve student outcomes and streamline complex academic processes.

The overall Stellic pricing reflects customized value for higher education institutions.

Stellic Reviews

What do real customers actually think?

This customer reviews section analyzes real user feedback and experiences with Stellic, providing balanced insights to help you understand what actual customers think about the software from my review analysis.

1. Overall User Satisfaction

Users seem genuinely happy here.

From my review analysis, Stellic reviews highlight generally positive user sentiment, especially from students and advisors who find the platform highly beneficial. What I found in user feedback is that satisfaction stems from real-world improvements in academic planning and efficiency.

This means you can likely expect a positive impact on student and advisor experience.

2. Common Praise Points

Students and advisors love its clarity.

Users consistently praise Stellic for giving students “more control over their schedule” and providing a clear “map” of their academic journey. Review-wise, the interactive nature and visual planning tools are frequently highlighted for reducing academic anxiety and streamlining processes.

These features directly empower students and save advisors significant time.

3. Frequent Complaints

Some internal growing pains persist.

While external feedback is largely positive, a Reddit thread from February 2025 noted “the glassdoor reviews are not great.” What stood out in customer feedback is an acknowledgment of “growing pains” common in a scaling startup, including technical debt, but with strong external satisfaction.

These suggest internal challenges don’t significantly impact end-user experience.

The overall Stellic reviews reveal strong external satisfaction with practical value, despite some internal scaling challenges.

Best Stellic Alternatives

Considering your other options?

The best Stellic alternatives include several strong options, each better suited for different institutional sizes, existing technology ecosystems, and specific student success priorities.

1. Anthology

Does your institution need an all-encompassing ERP suite?

Anthology provides a much broader, integrated ERP-level suite that covers nearly all aspects of university operations, from SIS to LMS. From my competitive analysis, Anthology offers a more comprehensive institutional ecosystem for those seeking a single-vendor solution across campus operations rather than a specialized advising tool.

Choose Anthology if your university requires a truly integrated, enterprise-wide technology stack beyond just student planning.

2. Ellucian

Are you deeply embedded in a legacy SIS/ERP system?

Ellucian offers extensive ERP and SIS functionalities that underpin core institutional operations, providing deep integration if you’re already within their ecosystem. What I found comparing options is that Ellucian provides embedded advising within its core SIS, which might be appealing if you prioritize maintaining an existing vendor relationship.

Consider this alternative if you’re an existing Ellucian client seeking to expand within their familiar, deeply integrated suite.

3. EAB Navigate

Is proactive student risk identification your top priority?

EAB Navigate excels with advanced predictive analytics and machine learning to identify and intervene with at-risk students, focusing heavily on retention based on historical data. From my analysis, EAB Navigate offers superior predictive analytics for retention, which focuses on flagging students rather than just empowering their self-planning.

Choose EAB if your primary goal is leveraging sophisticated data for early intervention and targeted retention strategies for at-risk students.

The best Stellic alternatives depend on your institutional scope and core student success strategy rather than just features.

Stellic Setup

How complex is implementing new academic software?

The Stellic review reveals a structured, phased deployment approach designed to manage complexity, especially when replacing legacy systems. This section sets realistic expectations for your Stellic setup and adoption journey.

1. Setup Complexity & Timeline

This isn’t an instant switch-over.

Stellic implementation often involves phased rollouts, like starting with planning features before full registration integration. What I found about deployment is that timelines depend on your institution’s readiness and the scope of integration, requiring careful planning to manage expectations.

You’ll need a clear project plan and internal champions to navigate the transition effectively and efficiently.

2. Technical Requirements & Integration

Expect some IT involvement for system connections.

Stellic is cloud-based and integrates with your existing Student Information Systems (SIS). From my implementation analysis, seamless data flow requires careful SIS mapping, especially if your current system is highly customized or outdated, which can impact the overall Stellic setup.

Prepare your IT team to collaborate on data migration and API integrations for a smooth technical transition.

3. Training & Change Management

User adoption is key, requiring thoughtful support.

Stellic’s intuitive interface eases the learning curve, but training is still essential for students and advisors to maximize its benefits. What I found about deployment is that effective communication strategies prevent user resistance, especially when shifting from established legacy systems and workflows.

Invest in comprehensive training materials and ongoing support to empower users and drive widespread platform adoption.

4. Support & Success Factors

Vendor support significantly impacts implementation success.

Stellic’s founders are actively involved in delivery, ensuring strong commitment to successful partnerships and implementation. From my analysis, their proactive approach helps mitigate potential issues, as they carefully assess institutional readiness and fit, even declining misaligned projects.

You’ll want to partner with a vendor committed to your success, ensuring they understand your specific institutional needs and challenges.

Overall, the Stellic setup emphasizes structured phases and strong vendor partnership for a successful transition, especially for institutions modernizing legacy systems.

Bottom Line

Should you invest in Stellic for your institution?

My Stellic review provides a clear final assessment of this academic planning software, helping you understand its overall value proposition and fit for your specific needs.

1. Who This Works Best For

Higher education institutions prioritizing student success.

Stellic is ideal for universities and colleges aiming to modernize degree planning and advising, particularly those looking to replace outdated systems like DegreeWorks. From my user analysis, institutions seeking to enhance student engagement and improve retention rates through intuitive, self-service academic tools will find significant value here.

You’ll succeed if your institution wants to empower students with clear academic roadmaps and advisors with proactive insights.

2. Overall Strengths

Student-centric design truly sets Stellic apart.

The software excels through its intuitive visual planning, “what-if” scenarios, and comprehensive progress tracking, making complex academic journeys clear for students. From my comprehensive analysis, the platform significantly boosts student engagement and advisor efficiency, streamlining administrative tasks like exceptions and graduation certifications from weeks to hours.

These strengths directly translate into improved student satisfaction, higher retention rates, and more effective resource allocation for your institution.

3. Key Limitations

Transparent pricing remains a notable concern.

While powerful, Stellic lacks publicly available pricing information, which necessitates direct contact for quotes and may complicate budget planning. Based on this review, it also focuses primarily on degree management, often requiring integration with existing SIS/ERP systems rather than replacing the entire core infrastructure.

I’d say these limitations are manageable trade-offs for a modern, unified student success platform, not deal-breakers if student engagement is your priority.

4. Final Recommendation

Stellic comes highly recommended for specific institutions.

You should choose this software if your higher education institution seeks a modern, student-centric academic planning and advising solution to drive retention and on-time graduation. From my analysis, your institution will benefit most from its focus on engagement and data-driven insights, making it a compelling alternative to traditional systems.

My confidence is high for institutions prioritizing student empowerment and administrative streamlining in academic affairs.

This Stellic review provides strong value for higher education institutions, highlighting key strengths and fit scenarios to help you make an informed decision with confidence.