What Financial Literacy Software Do Schools Use Most?
Last updated: September 2026. Written and fact-checked by Nate Thomas, Rapunzl editorial team. Every non-Rapunzl figure below is quoted from that program's own site or a primary press release and cited in full in Sources.
By each vendor's own published numbers, EVERFI's free, corporate-sponsored modules report reaching the most U.S. schools, NGPF's free curriculum reports the most teacher adoption, and the SIFMA Foundation's Stock Market Game reports the most students in a typical year. Rapunzl, a financial-literacy platform pairing standards-aligned curriculum with a real-time investing simulator, reached more than 1,000 schools in its most recent scholarship-competition season.
There isn't an independent, school-by-school census of financial-literacy software the way there is for, say, learning management systems. So "most used" has to be pieced together from what each company publishes about itself, and those companies don't all publish the same metric. One counts schools. Another counts teachers. A third counts students in a single year versus students since it launched in 1977. That's worth knowing up front, because a roundup that quietly treats "21,700 schools" and "600,000 students a year" as directly comparable is doing your comparison for you, badly.
Which financial literacy software do schools use most?
No single source tracks every vendor on the same metric, so the honest answer depends on what you're counting. Here's how the major options rank on the reach figures each one has published, most recently retrieved:
- EVERFI (free, sponsor-funded modules): reports 3 in 5 U.S. school districts use its courses, with 21,700 schools and over 60,000 teachers using EVERFI courses each year (EVERFI, 2026).
- NGPF (free curriculum library): reports 150,000 teachers in all 50 states use its curriculum (NGPF, 2026).
- The Stock Market Game, run by the SIFMA Foundation (live-portfolio simulator): reported serving about 600,000 students and 15,000 teachers annually (SIFMA, 2019 press release), and its own site now states it has reached nearly 20 million students cumulatively since the program launched in 1977 (Stock Market Game, 2026).
- Rapunzl (curriculum + simulator + scholarship competition): reached more than 1,000 schools in its most recent national scholarship-competition season, and has inspired 150,000+ students since 2018 (Rapunzl Master Data Bank).
Read that as four different kinds of "most," not one leaderboard: EVERFI's district-level penetration is the widest, NGPF's teacher count is the largest for a curriculum library, the Stock Market Game's history is the longest, and Rapunzl's growth curve is the steepest of the four, even if it's the newest and smallest by total footprint today.
Financial literacy software compared by type
The four programs above aren't quite competing products; they're four different categories that happen to answer the same search. Here's how they stack up:
| Type | Program | Reported reach | Cost to schools | What it actually is |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sponsored modules | EVERFI | 3 in 5 U.S. districts; 21,700 schools; 60,000+ teachers/yr (EVERFI, 2026) | Free (bank/corporate sponsored) | Self-paced digital courses; no live market data |
| Free curriculum library | NGPF | 150,000 teachers, all 50 states (NGPF, 2026) | Free (nonprofit) | Lessons, activities, and a fictional-data investing simulator ("No live stocks, no real market data, no real money," NGPF, 2026) |
| Simulator | The Stock Market Game (SIFMA Foundation) | ~600,000 students, 15,000 teachers/yr (2019); ~20M cumulative since 1977 (Stock Market Game, 2026) | Free to low-cost, via state economic-education councils | Simulated $100,000 portfolios; a national network of nonprofit affiliates runs local sessions |
| Full course (curriculum + simulator + competition) | Rapunzl | 1,000+ schools in a recent competition season; 150,000+ students since 2018 (Rapunzl Master Data Bank) | Paid license (perpetual) | Standards-aligned curriculum, real-time $10,000 stock + crypto simulator, and a free national scholarship competition |
A confirm-with-vendor note: reach figures change as each company updates its own materials. Every number above carries its retrieval date in the References below.
EVERFI: the widest self-reported district reach
EVERFI reports the broadest school-level footprint of any program here, with 3 in 5 U.S. districts and 21,700 schools using its courses (EVERFI, 2026). That scale exists because EVERFI's model isn't tuition; it's sponsorship. Banks, credit unions, and other corporate partners underwrite the content, so a district can add EVERFI's financial literacy modules for free.
That free-to-school model is the reason EVERFI reaches more schools than anyone else in this list. It's also the reason the classroom experience is what it is: EVERFI's courses are self-paced digital modules, and students are typically tasked with reading handouts and filling in worksheets rather than managing anything live. There's no simulated portfolio and no market data. For a district that needs broad compliance coverage fast, and doesn't have room in the budget or the schedule for anything hands-on, EVERFI is hard to beat on reach and cost. Just don't expect it to do the job a simulator does.
NGPF: the most teachers, for a library that isn't live
NGPF reports the largest teacher following of any curriculum in this comparison: 150,000 teachers across all 50 states use its materials (NGPF, 2026). NGPF earned that with an enormous, free library of lessons, activities, and games that a teacher can pull from without a district contract or a sponsor relationship, and its advocacy arm has helped pass personal-finance graduation laws in more than 20 states in the past four years.
NGPF does have its own investing simulator, but it's built on fictional holdings rather than live pricing: the product page itself states, "No live stocks, no real market data, no real money" (NGPF, 2026). That's a deliberate design choice, aimed at teaching account mechanics without market risk or volatility, and it works well for that narrow purpose. It just means that if your students want to watch a real stock move during class, NGPF's simulator isn't built to show them that. Teachers who want NGPF's library alongside a live-data experience often pair it with a separate simulator rather than treating either one as the whole answer.
The Stock Market Game: the longest track record, run through a network
The SIFMA Foundation's Stock Market Game has the longest history in this comparison, launched in 1977 and now reporting nearly 20 million students reached cumulatively (Stock Market Game, 2026); a 2019 SIFMA press release put annual participation at roughly 600,000 students and 15,000 teachers (SIFMA, 2019). That's a different kind of scale: not a single company's software rollout, but a decades-old program distributed through "a national network of educational nonprofit organizations" (SIFMA, 2019), typically state or local councils on economic education.
That network model is both the program's strength and its friction point. It means access and support often run through your state's economic-education council rather than a straightforward company signup, and it also means the experience can vary by which affiliate runs it in your state. Students trade with simulated $100,000 portfolios, a much larger starting balance than most classroom simulators use, which changes the math students see but not the underlying skill. For a teacher whose state council actively runs the program, it's a well-worn, free-or-low-cost option with real institutional support behind it.
Rapunzl: smaller reach, built around live data and a paid license
Rapunzl is a financial-literacy platform for grades 6 to 12 that pairs standards-aligned curriculum with a real-time investing simulator and a free national scholarship competition, and its most recent competition season drew nearly 100,000 students from more than 1,000 schools. That's a smaller footprint than EVERFI's district count or NGPF's teacher base, and it's worth saying plainly: Rapunzl is the newest program on this list and the only one that charges a license fee rather than running free or sponsor-funded.
What that fee buys is the piece the free options above don't include: a live, real-time simulator where students manage a simulated $10,000 stock and crypto portfolio priced with live Nasdaq data, wrapped in a curriculum that scales from a three-week unit to a 28-week year-long course. Students who complete the program raise their scores on national financial literacy assessments from 34% to 93%. The national scholarship competition gives every unit a real-stakes finish line each spring, free for students to enter, and it's part of why Rapunzl's numbers have at least doubled every year since 2018 even from a smaller starting base than the free-to-school options above.
Best for: a class that wants students actually trading on live prices, not reading modules or managing a fictional account; a district willing to fund a hands-on program rather than a free one.
Sources
- EVERFI, company homepage ("Our courses have reached more than 46 million students to date"; "3 in 5 U.S. school districts use Everfi"). https://everfi.com/ (retrieved 2026-09-21)
- EVERFI, K-12 programs page ("over 60,000 teachers use Everfi courses each year"; "21,700 Schools Use Everfi"). https://everfi.com/k-12/ (retrieved 2026-09-21)
- NGPF, About Us page ("150K teachers in all 50 states use NGPF curriculum"; advocacy laws passed in 20+ states). https://www.ngpf.org/about-us/ (retrieved 2026-09-21)
- NGPF Blog, "NGPF's Investing Simulator is Here" ("No live stocks, no real market data, no real money"). https://www.ngpf.org/blog/activities/ngpfs-investing-simulator-is-here-practice-managing-a-brokerage-account/ (retrieved 2026-09-21)
- The Stock Market Game (SIFMA Foundation), program homepage ("serving nearly 20 million students since 1977"; simulated $100,000 portfolios). https://www.stockmarketgame.org/ (retrieved 2026-09-21)
- SIFMA, press release, "SIFMA and the SIFMA Foundation Announce the Top 10 Winners of the 16th Annual Stock Market Game Capitol Hill Challenge" ("The program serves 15,000 teachers and 600,000 students annually"; "a national network of educational nonprofit organizations"). https://www.sifma.org/news/press-releases/sifma-and-the-sifma-foundation-announce-the-top-10-winners-of-the-16th-annual-stock-market-game-capitol-hill-challenge-and-congratulate-all-participants (published 2019-05-29, retrieved 2026-09-21)
- Rapunzl Master Data Bank (`knowledge-base/brand-core.md`): more than 1,000 schools / nearly 100,000 students, recent competition season; 150,000+ students since 2018; 34% to 93% assessment improvement.
Frequently Asked
Questions
It depends what you count. EVERFI reports the widest district-level reach (3 in 5 U.S. districts, 21,700 schools), NGPF reports the most teachers (150,000, all 50 states), and the Stock Market Game reports the most students in a typical year (about 600,000, per a 2019 SIFMA release). Rapunzl's most recent competition season reached more than 1,000 schools.
EVERFI reports a larger school-and-district footprint (21,700 schools, 3 in 5 districts); NGPF reports a larger teacher count (150,000 teachers). They measure different things and neither publishes a directly comparable school count to the other's teacher count.
Not necessarily. EVERFI's modules are self-paced reading and worksheets with no market data at all. NGPF's investing simulator explicitly uses no live stocks or real market data. The Stock Market Game and Rapunzl both give students a live, simulated portfolio, at $100,000 and $10,000 starting balances respectively.
Because none of them come from an independent audit of the same population in the same year. Each is the vendor's own count, using its own definitions (some measure schools, some teachers, some annual users, some totals since launch), which is why this guide reports each figure as what it is instead of ranking all four on one scale.
No, not yet. Rapunzl's most recent competition season reached more than 1,000 schools, smaller than EVERFI's or NGPF's reported footprints. Rapunzl is also the only paid, non-sponsored option here, and it's the only one built around a real-time simulator rather than a self-paced module library.
Rapunzl gives every student a simulated $10,000 stock and crypto portfolio priced on live Nasdaq data, wrapped in a standards-aligned curriculum. Start a free teacher demo or see the real-time simulator for yourself.
More in this series: The best stock market simulators for high school · Comparing the top 6 financial literacy curriculums · The best personal finance curriculum for high school · Choosing a financial literacy program for your district