CYPHER LEARNING NEO Review 2023 Pricing, Features, Shortcomings

Product:
Vendor:
Founded:
Headquarters:

NEO
CYPHER LEARNING
2009
Plano, TX

Ownership:
Customers:
Deployment Model:
Free Trial:

Private
20,000+
Cloud
Yes

Download Comparison Guide

NEO At A Glance

Good: Many features available in free plan, accessibility from all devices, easy implementation process.

Bad: Not intended for businesses.

Bottom Line: Cloud-based platform for schools with many features designed to help teachers and students maximize learning.

Product Overview

CYPHER LEARNING offers three LMS products: NEO for schools and universities, MATRIX for businesses and INDIE for entreprenuers. This review focuses on NEO.

NEO is a learning management system (LMS) that’s targeted to the education sector, both K-12 and higher education. It’s a cloud-based platform that’s accessible on all devices including PCs, tablets, and iOS, Android and Windows smartphones. NEO is even available as a mobile app with full functionality.

NEO includes an intuitive design via a dedicated portal that administrators and teachers can customize with school colors, logos, pictures, fonts and other items. Teachers can create a curriculum, courses, learning paths and materials without having to worry about spending too much time on building content.

The platform includes content authoring tools that allow teachers to create content and upload any type of file, such as video, images, documents and audio. The content can even be reused in future classes.

There are other benefits of NEO as well.

First, it encourages collaboration and networking among students and teachers. Much like with social networking tools, students can connect with other students as friends. They can also collaborate via groups, team, chats or forums. In addition, there’s a timeline where students can see updates on class assignments and discuss topics.

Second, NEO offers automation, adaptive learning, and personalized competency-based learning.

Thirdly, NEO offers fun learning features by way of gamification. Students can earn badges or points for completing games that include elements of class, learning paths and site-wide tasks. Teachers can also reward performance with certificates they can personalize with the school logo and create team games in which students can compete as a team.

Finally, NEO provides a variety of ways for teachers to evaluate students’ performance. Teachers can choose from 12 types of assignments, such as quizzes, surveys, debates and essays. There’s also an electronic gradebook for recording student grades. And there’s a rubrics feature that lets teachers assign ratings and criteria for specific assignments and tests.

The NEO platform integrates with Microsoft Office365, Google Workspace, Zoom, GoToMeeting, PayPal, Panopto, Turnitin, Clever, Kimono and over 1,500 apps via Zapier.

NEO is available in two pricing plans: Free and Premium.

Features

Free plan: The Free plan is a free trial that doesn’t expire. It offers many of NEO’s basic features and is intended for schools with up to 400 students. Here are some of the the features available in the Free plan:

Dashboard for students, teachers and administrators
Custom logo
Activity feed
Templates for class content and materials
Content authoring tools
Supports instructor-led, self-led and blended courses
Six assignment types (quizzes, freeform, offline, Dropbox, surveys and attendance)
Ability to grade assignments
Integration with Google Workspace, Microsoft OneDrive and Amazon Alexa
Parent-oriented accounts
Unlimited storage
Badges to reward student performance
Collaboration and social networking tools
Ability to import and export accounts in bulk

Premium plan: The Premium plan includes the features of the Free plan, plus:

Customizable portal / URL
Ad-hoc reporting
Adaptive learning
Learning paths
SIS integration
SCORM, LTI, and Turnitin
Advanced content authoring features
Web conferencing integration

Target Market

NEO is targeted to the education market worldwide, both K-12 and universities.

We’ve listed 10 schools below that use NEO:

Adler College
ARNOS Online Education
STI College
Northwest University
De La Salle University Dasmariñas

Grace Christian School
The Hochschule Furtwangen University
Santa Barbara Unified School District
The Inclusive Higher Education Certificate Program (IHECP)
The REALM - South Burlington School District

Download Now: Learning Management Software Buyer's Guide

Choosing a Learning Management Solution is all about finding the right fit. Our report will walk you through the process and help you make a smart purchasing decision. Download Now

Implementation/Integration

Most new customers are able to configure their portal within just a few hours. Here are the typical implementation steps:

Signing up for an account on the site
Customizing the site with school’s logo and other branded materials
Creating accounts for administrators and instructors
Configuring the class catalog
Configuring e-commerce catalog and single-sign-on (both are optional)
Creating an outline and curriculum for each class
Creating materials and assignments for each class
Creating an optional learning path
Testing the platform
Adding student accounts

NEO offers four teaching style options with the platform: self-paced, instructor-led classes, blended learning and micro learning.

We also want to note that there’s a Pilot Premium program for schools that want to get started quickly. It offers unlimited use of NEO for up to six months, plus support and training from EdTech specialists (e.g., 24/5 tech support, student help desk, custom training) and access to all of the Premium plan features.

Customer Service & Support

NEO offers customer support during U.S. business hours through its support forum, where users can communicate with NEO’s support staff about questions or issues, and the answers are shared with other users. Staff tends to respond to queries within 15 to 30 minutes.

There’s a built-in Help Center where users can access guides and videos on NEO, as well as product news and a roadmap. They can also offer suggestions on product improvements.

NEO provides consulting services in areas such as account setup and customization, application program interface (API) integration, content creation, and migration and site auditing.

Pricing

The Premium plan requires a minimum purchase of 500 accounts. NEO doesn’t publicly display pricing information, so please contact the vendor directly for a quote.

How Much Does LMS Software Cost?

Download our free report to compare pricing on 27 of the most popular LMS Solutions including Google Classroom, Schoology, Canvas, and Edmodo.Download Now

Shortcomings

NEO is targeted at schools only. Corporations and nonprofits looking to train their employees can check out any of our other LMS reviews.

Screenshots

About

CYPHER LEARNING was founded in 2009 by Graham Glass, an entrepreneur with a background in teaching computer science. The company debuted with its flagship LMS platform NEO (then known as EDU 2.0 for School) that’s targeted to the education sector. MATRIX, its LMS intended for small businesses, was released in 2010. In 2018, it debuted INDIE, an LMS that’s targeted to entrepreneurs.

CYPHER has received numerous accolades for its solutions, including the 2021 Learning Excellence Awards Finalist for NEO in the Digital Learning category, CorporateVision’s 2020 Education and Training Awards for NEO as Most Engaging Student Learning Platform, and the 2020 EdTech Digest Awards for NEO as a Cool Tool Finalist.

CYPHER’s platforms are used by over 20,000 organizations and over 1 million users. The platforms support at least 40 languages.

In addition to its San Francisco headquarters, CYPHER has offices in the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Romania, South Africa, India, and The Philippines.