My Options

What My Options does

My Options operates Encourage, a free college and career planning platform serving U.S. middle and high school students (grades 8-12) and the educators and counselors who support them. The company is legally organized as Encoura, LLC, a privately held Missouri-domiciled LLC founded in 2013. Encourage is positioned specifically for the exploration and discovery phase of post-secondary planning, and is explicitly differentiated from administrative tools that handle applications, transcripts, and messaging. End users do not pay for the product; the platform is funded through partnerships with colleges, universities, and education providers, monetized via opt-in student referrals — an affiliate/referral revenue model.

The product surface consists of four components: (1) the Encourage Student App, a mobile and web application where students explore colleges, scholarships, careers, and majors and track the steps to their goals; (2) the Encourage Educator Platform, a web-based dashboard for teachers and counselors that delivers actionable insights, reports, and resources to guide student conversations; (3) eleven turnkey lesson plans designed for Tier 1 classroom use to build future-readiness skills; and (4) Impact Tracking & Reporting tools that supply data and strategic guidance for educators to demonstrate outcomes to school leadership. Distribution is product-led (self-serve student and educator sign-up) combined with community-led institutional partnerships that integrate Encourage into school and district workflows.

Scale signals indicate substantial domestic reach: over 4 million students have participated in the program, more than 20,000 educators actively use it, and it is deployed across roughly 10,000 high schools and 5,000 school districts in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The company operates with no disclosed outside funding, no management team listed, no patents or trademarks, no API or integration ecosystem, and no disclosed M&A or strategic transactions, leaving its monetization depth, capital structure, and growth funding largely opaque.

Name

My Options

Legal name

Encoura, LLC

Website

https://myoptions.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2013

Operating status

Operating

Short description

My Options operates Encourage, a free college and career planning platform for U.S. grades 8-12 students and educators. Funded by college and university referral partnerships, it reaches 4M+ students across 10,000 high schools in all 50 states.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Education Technology - College and Career Planning

NAICS

Educational Support Services (611710)

SIC

Services-Educational Services (8200)

akta.pro primary industry

Academic Advising & Degree Planning (EDALABAA)

akta.pro secondary industry

Adaptive/Personalized Curriculum & Intelligent Courseware (EDAFACAE)

Keywords

• College planning software
• Career readiness platform
• Student exploration tools
• Educator guidance resources
• Future readiness program

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Partnership Revenue: The program is free for educators and students, powered by partnerships with colleges, universities, and education providers. These partners may offer connections to students who could be a good fit, with student opt-in always being the choice.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Encourage is a free, unified planning program for educators supporting grades 8-12 and the students they serve. It consists of a student-facing mobile and web app that allows learners to explore colleges, scholarships, careers, and majors in one place and learn the steps to achieve their goals, paired with an educator web platform offering actionable reports, insight dashboards, and 11 turnkey lesson plans for future readiness instruction.

Product overview

Encourage is a single, unified free planning program for educators supporting grades 8-12. The core offering consists of the Encourage Student App for personalized future exploration (colleges, scholarships, careers, majors) and the Encourage Educator Platform providing actionable insights and reporting. These are supplemented by 11 Ready-to-Use Lesson Plans for classroom implementation and Impact Tracking & Reporting tools for demonstrating program outcomes. The product is built intentionally for the exploration and discovery phase of college/career planning, rather than administrative tasks like applications or transcripts.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Encourage Student App Mobile and web application enabling students in grades 8-12 to explore colleges, scholarships, careers, and majors in one place and learn the steps to achieve their goals; designed for independent, self-paced exploration during the discovery phase of college and career planning.
• Encourage Educator Platform Web-based platform for teachers, counselors, and school staff supporting grades 8-12, providing an actionable insights dashboard with clear reports on student engagement, college, scholarship, and career fit, plus resources to guide future readiness conversations.
• Ready-to-Use Lesson Plans Eleven turnkey lesson plans designed for grades 8-12 educators to spark curiosity, explore work values, and build essential future readiness skills, suitable for Tier 1 support and classroom implementation without additional prep.

Quantifiable outcome

• Over 4 million students have participated in the Encourage program
• +2 more outcomes

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Colleges and UniversitiescoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnerships with colleges, universities, and education providers power the free program. These partners may offer connections to students who could be a good fit, with student opt-in always being the choice. Partners help expand opportunity for students while supporting Encourage's mission.
• Educational OrganizationscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerEncourage partners with leading educational organizations across the country to support students and empower educators with meaningful college and career readiness resources. Partners receive actionable data and insights to strengthen their impact.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Naviance (PowerSchool): Naviance is the dominant K-12 college and career readiness platform, owned by PowerSchool and bundled into district SIS contracts. It is the most direct competitor to Encourage, covering similar college/career exploration, though it extends into applications and transcripts.
• Xello: Xello is a college, career, and future-readiness platform serving K-12 students and counselors. It directly competes with Encourage on the same discovery and planning use cases and is sold to districts as an integrated readiness solution.
• SchooLinks: SchooLinks is a modern college and career readiness platform for high schools, with strong features for application management and counselor workflows. It competes directly with Encourage on the exploration and planning phases and bundles more downstream lifecycle functionality.
• Scoir: Scoir is a college planning network that connects high school students, counselors, and colleges with a focus on the application and recommendation process. It overlaps with Encourage on the college exploration side and extends further into the application lifecycle.

Emerging players

• MajorClarity: MajorClarity is a college and career readiness platform used by K-12 districts, focused on career exploration alongside college planning. It is a closer niche competitor to Encourage's career/major exploration features.
• YouScience: YouScience provides aptitude-based career and education guidance for high school students. It overlaps with Encourage's career exploration component while taking a more psychometric, assessment-driven approach.

Broad incumbents

• Parchment (Instructure): Parchment, owned by Instructure (Canvas), is the dominant electronic transcript and credential network. It is an adjacent incumbent covering the downstream transcript/recommendation steps of the lifecycle that Encourage explicitly does not address.

Others

• Common App: Common App is the nonprofit college application platform used by most U.S. colleges. It owns the application step of the student lifecycle and is a downstream complement—rather than competitor—to Encourage's exploration-phase positioning.
• College Board / BigFuture: College Board's BigFuture is a free college and career planning resource for students and counselors. It is a thematically adjacent, broadly distributed tool with overlapping content but different governance and no district contract.
• Khan Academy (Official SAT Practice & College Planning): Khan Academy offers free college and career planning content in partnership with the College Board and others. It is a broader EdTech incumbent that touches the same future-readiness audience but as part of a much wider learning content library.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/myOptionsOrg
• Facebookfacebook.com/myOptionsOrg

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about My Options