Prodigy Scales District-Wide Adoption Without Sacrificing Its Zero-Cost Teacher-First Model

Prodigy scaled to over 8,300 districts in one year—preserving its free, teacher-first model—by partnering with Clever to deepen district trust, streamline rostering, and drive both top-down adoption and daily engagement from first-time educators.

About Prodigy

Prodigy Education is a global leader in game-based learning. Its mission is to help every student in the world love learning, motivating more than 20 million students a year to practice standards-aligned math and English. Prodigy maximizes student engagement and is completely zero-cost for all educators. More than 800,000 teachers use Prodigy as a free instructional tool which adapts to individual student needs while supporting differentiated instruction. Fun, motivating, and research-based, Prodigy is the edtech platform students actually ask to use. Visit www.prodigygame.com to learn more.

Challenge

Navigating the Shift from Teacher Choice to Top-Down

Prodigy began by integrating with the Clever Library, quickly gaining traction classroom by classroom. But as post-COVID district priorities shifted toward privacy, rostering, and centralized control, that bottom-up model necessitated extra care.

“We’re not a typical B2B company. We don’t do long procurement cycles. We were loved by hundreds of thousands of teachers, but we still needed to make sure we were earning trust at the district level.”

Cara Yarzab, Director of Product at Prodigy

When considering bringing in new edtech offerings, district leaders now expected:

• Rostering access with secure, scalable integrations
• Privacy assurances and data governance
• District-level oversight for tool adoption
• Strategic partners, not just tools

Teacher-led momentum for Prodigy was no longer enough. The company needed a way to drive increased support at district level without losing what made its model work.

Automated rostering is critical to help make Prodigy adoption seamless at the district level.

Dr. Josh Prieur, Director of Educator Enablement at Prodigy

Solution

A Flexible Path to District-Wide Adoption with Clever

Rather than reinvent a product offering which had made it the leader in game-based learning with teachers and students alike, Prodigy deepened its partnership with Clever. The goal: Unlock district-wide adoption, preserving teacher engagement while enabling central IT buy-in.

Together, Clever and Prodigy launched a multi-pronged strategy:

• Secure Sync integration to support scalable rostering
• Joint webinars and PD sessions to onboard admins and teachers
• Conference co-marketing to increase visibility with district leaders
• Contests and campaigns to keep teachers excited and engaged

One standout tactic: Clever and Prodigy ran a targeted teacher campaign with built-in incentives—including raffle entries for completing a Prodigy training, favoriting the app, and sharing it with colleagues. By meeting teachers where they already are—in their Portal and inboxes—this campaign drove meaningful action.

The partnership went beyond just technology—it gave Prodigy a new way to reach users by aligning their approach with how users were already engaging within Clever.

Results

Trusted by Districts. Loved by Teachers.

With Clever as a strategic partner, Prodigy achieved a sustainable, district-aligned growth model — without compromising its core approach.

• 8,300+ Districts reached in Year 1
• 26% Above average approval rate by district admins
• 1,600+ Average daily logins for first-time teachers

To complement teacher-focused campaigns, Prodigy and Clever executed a strategic district outreach effort through bulk invitations. In its first year, the campaign reached over 8,300 districts.

What’s especially notable: the acceptance rate on those invites by district admins was 26% above the Clever average. The high acceptance rate also validates the success of Prodigy’s transition from a teacher-led model to a more district-focused approach.

What’s more, another campaign reached nearly 100,000 unique teachers who had never accessed Prodigy through Clever. After adding Prodigy as an app to their Portal pages, these teachers averaged 1,691 logins per day, peaking at over 8,000—showing sustained product engagement even months after the campaign ended.

About one in four children in America have used Prodigy. This growth so far wasn’t because we sold to districts. It was because teachers loved the fact it was both zero cost and that it motivated their students. Now, rostering with Clever has enabled us to deepen our relationships and trust at a district level.

Cara Yarzab, Director of Product at Prodigy

You don’t have to trade off control or educator trust to scale your product. Let’s accelerate your growth—together. Get in touch with a Clever representative to see a demo, find the right solution, or build a customized package.