Why Classroom Token Hub was built
Classroom Token Hub was originally developed in 2024 as a personal project to manage a classroom economy. While other platforms exist, we could not find one that offered all the features we needed along with the transparency we wanted for our students. We also found that many platforms designed their interfaces to be either too childish or too sterile.
We started with a simple question: How can we design a classroom economy system that respects teacher agency, follows clear and explicit rules, provides meaningful guidance, and protects user privacy?
That question turned out to be more challenging to answer than we had anticipated. It continues to guide the development of Classroom Token Hub.
Design Principles
Our design is guided by three core principles that ensure a balance between educational value and operational reliability.
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Privacy First
If we don't need it, we don't ask for it. If we don't use it, we remove it. Classroom Token Hub is designed to operate with the least amount of personal data as possible while maintaining its usability.
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Teacher Agency
Teachers are the sole authority within a classroom. Classroom Token Hub is designed to support teachers' decision-making by providing recommended values and suggestions. However, it does not apply those decisions for the teachers, nor does it override their decisions.
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Clear, Traceable Records
Changes should never happen without a clear reason. When something changes, Classroom Token Hub records it so teachers can explain to students why an account balance changed.
Core Features
Just because a feature can exist does not mean it should exist. We designed Classroom Token Hub to be predictable and transparent so teachers can spend more time teaching and less time figuring out what went wrong.
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Attendance-Based Payroll System
Configure pay rate, frequency, and limits. Run payroll automatically or manually based on recorded active time.
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Economic Balance and Insight
Helpful metrics to understand the health of your classroom economy. Adjust economic pressure and rebalance pricing with one click.
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Obligations Management
Set up recurring rent and optional insurance products to bundle class perks, manage risks, and encourage prioritization.
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Classroom Stores
Create and manage different types of store items. Set expirations for limited-time offers and track all redemptions.
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Hall Pass Management
Assign starting hall passes, set limits on the queue and simultaneous passes, monitor student status and movements, and provide external verification.
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Banking and Transactions
Manage savings interest rates, set rules on fees and penalties, and examine and manage all transactions.
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Classroom Announcements
Post updates to your class with a priority flag, and show or hide them any time without losing the history.
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Roster Import and Export
Paste a roster straight from a spreadsheet to add students in bulk, and export your class list to CSV whenever you need it.
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Individual Bank Accounts
Receive payroll, transfer between accounts, earn interest, and examine transaction history. The savings account also acts as overdraft protection, if enabled.
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Work and Productivity
Clock in daily to receive classroom currency at an interval set by your teacher. You can also manage your hall-pass usage and request a hall pass.
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Classroom Store
Use your earned classroom currency to purchase items, pay for obligations, or even pitch in to unlock a collective goal item.
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Insurance & Claims
Learn real-world risk management by purchasing optional insurance policies to cover unexpected classroom fines.
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Mobile Friendly App
Installable directly on iOS and Android devices. Keep track of your finances on the go with a seamless mobile experience.
Under the Surface
Surprises are great for parties, but not for software that classrooms depend on. Born out of real-world classrooms with hundreds of curious minds, Classroom Token Hub is designed to handle the unexpected while remaining predictable. Every action has a clear source and purpose.
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Ledger-Based Records
Every transaction is recorded permanently and can be traced back to its source. Records are protected against accidental modification and unauthorized tampering.
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Strict Classroom Boundaries
When a teacher creates a class, the system gives it a unique identifier. That identifier keeps each classroom economy separate, so one class cannot see or affect another class.
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Capabilities-Based Access Control
Classroom Token Hub checks that a user has the right context before allowing an action. If that check fails, the action is rejected. We do not guess a user’s identity from unrelated information.
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Single-Session Enforcement
Classroom Token Hub is designed to allow only one active session at a time. When a student signs in on another device or window, the earlier session is automatically signed out.
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No Archival Records
When a teacher deletes their class, all data associated with that class is permanently deleted. We do not keep any records of past classes or transactions. Students will continue to have access in the app through other classes. If the student loses their last associated class, their account will be automatically deleted.
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One Account, Multiple Classes
Students only need a single login account to join multiple classes with different teachers. Each class economy runs independently, but logging in is simple.
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Passwordless Teacher Login
Teachers sign in with an authenticator app or a registered passkey instead of a password. There is no email/password login to phish for a teacher account.
Yes, you too can troubleshoot.
Classroom Token Hub is designed to be easy to use and easy to understand. While we do not have a dedicated customer-support team, we provide tools and documentation to help you solve common problems quickly.
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Feature-Specific Help Drawer
All major feature pages have a Need Help button that opens a right drawer. This drawer is designed for quick reference and troubleshooting. A full guide for each feature is available and reachable via the link attached to the page.
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Complete User Documentation Site
In addition to help drawers, we maintain a comprehensive documentation site that covers every feature in detail. Because nothing is worse than a dead link when you are standing in front of a classroom, we have implemented regular checks to ensure all links are active and up-to-date.
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Teacher-Mediated Ticket Escalation
When students encounter an issue, they can file a support ticket. The ticket is routed to the teacher first. If the teacher cannot resolve it, they can escalate it to our support team. This keeps the teacher informed and helps protect student privacy.
We handle the economics, you bring the classroom
Operating a classroom economy system shouldn't require a degree in economics. We have designed a comprehensive economic engine that handles the complexities of classroom economics. It's like having a central bank in your classroom.
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Classroom Wage Index (CWI)TM
What is the maximum earning potential per week?
CWI is the economic reference point for your classroom economy. It measures the weekly earning potential of a student with perfect attendance and provides a consistent benchmark for pricing, rent, rewards, and financial planning.
It exists to answer the hardest question in running a classroom economy: how much do I charge for things, and what does a dollar actually represent here?
Because pricing is the last thing a teacher should have to worry about.
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Configurable Economic Policy
How much economic pressure should students feel?
Riding on the foundation of CWI, the Economic Policy tool allows teachers to set the macroeconomic pressure of the economy by adjusting the ratio of spending to CWI to create a comfortable, default, and tight economy.
Paired with it, the Balance Tool finds prices that have drifted out of line with the pressure you set, so the economy keeps behaving the way you configured it to.
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Interpretation Dashboard
Is my economy thriving, struggling, or stalling?
A classroom economy can be perfectly balanced while students are struggling to meet obligations. The Interpretation Dashboard provides insights into student behavior, helping teachers identify issues and make informed adjustments to the economy.
If CWI and Economic Policy set the terms of the economy, the Interpretation Dashboard shows how students are actually responding to them — participation, where income comes from, savings behavior, whether obligations are being met, and how much slack students have when something goes wrong. Each reading comes with what it means and what you might do about it.
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Economic Invariant Checker
Can we trace all the money in the economy?
Every cent within Classroom Token Hub has a traceable history, from its creation to its consumption. Some might call automated checking of that overkill for a classroom; we would rather find a discrepancy before a student does.
The ledger is append-only, and every protected record carries a tamper-evident audit chain, built so that quiet tampering leaves a trace rather than a clean history.
We are not an edtech company
The royal "We" is just convention.
You are looking at the work of a single full-time high school teacher.
Classroom Token Hub came into existence because a full-time high school teacher got annoyed with the existing classroom economy ecosystem and thought, "fine, I will build one myself."
During the first year of development, this platform was tested in real classrooms with real students. We encountered countless edge cases, failed assumptions, migration challenges, and more than a few bugs. Each one helped shape the system into what it is today. At the same time, our architectural sense got stronger, cleaner, and more refined. All the features you see today are the product of real-world student adversarial testing in a high school setting. In addition, we want to make this tool available for all teachers and students, free of charge. Because good ideas are worth sharing with everybody.
We hope you find this tool useful in your classroom. We built Classroom Token Hub to be your classroom economy system, reimagined.
Want the whole story, from the first classroom to v2.0? Read the project timeline.