Write down the same workload for every quote
Consider a fictional team of 80 employees and one training owner. It runs two training periods in different parts of the year, more than 30 days apart. Each period contains 80 first attempts and 16 retakes: 96 attempts per period and 192 across the year. Preparation, practice and retakes fit within each chosen service window.
This is a budgeting example, not a completed procurement test. It excludes additional practice attempts, coordinator test runs, monitoring and paid integration work. Add them if your workflow requires them. Record the months in which attempts occur, since a monthly allowance cannot necessarily be pooled across the year.
Official competitor pages were checked on October 18, 2026. Amounts and quotas below describe particular published offers and assumptions. The selected plan, billing cycle, taxes, payment fees and vendor confirmation determine an actual purchase. We have not purchased or rehearsed the competitor plans for this scenario.
Keep four billing units separate
| Platform | Unit to budget | Quantity to investigate for this example |
|---|---|---|
| Zhixu | Organization capacity and continuous service term | 81 members including the owner; two separate 30-day windows |
| ClassMarker | Test/survey credits and their validity | 192 ordinary attempts before adding trials or extra practice |
| Testportal | Results allowance for each billing month | 96 results in each training month, subject to confirmation of retake counting |
| ProProfs Quiz Maker | Unique active quiz takers in a month and selected plan term | 80 employees active in each training month; confirm whether the owner also takes a quiz |
An employee, a result and an attempt are not interchangeable. Compare both the software charge and the time needed to prepare imports, correct questions, set up access and reconcile exports. If a required feature forces a higher plan, use that plan's quote throughout.
Calculate Zhixu windows and annual continuity
The example fits a 100-member plan because the owner is included in its 81-member total. Standard software prices are CNY 99 for a continuous 30-day plan and CNY 249 for an annual plan. Two separated short windows therefore total CNY 198, compared with CNY 249 for continuity across the year. These are standard prices, not assumptions that every future order will receive a temporary promotion.
Retakes within a window do not use extra member places. Include the time spent importing material and arranging the roster: service starts on successful activation, not automatically on the future exam date. If practice must remain available between periods, the two-window comparison no longer covers the requirement.
The same arithmetic for the standard 300-member tier is CNY 149 per 30-day window or CNY 499 annually. Do not select that tier merely because 192 attempts occur; attempts are not roster capacity. Conversely, 100 employees plus a separate owner exceeds 100 occupied member places.
Current entitlements, trial availability, payment methods and refund rules are on the pricing page. Zhixu currently cannot issue invoices. Its English frontend does not add international-card acceptance, a USD offer or an overseas data-residency commitment. A lower software amount is irrelevant if those conditions prevent your organization from purchasing.
Include ClassMarker's occasional-use option
ClassMarker's business pricing offers subscriptions and credit packs for occasional use. Ordinary tests or surveys use one credit per taking; camera monitoring has a different charge. Its standalone packs list a 12-month term.
For 192 ordinary attempts, a 250-credit pack is a candidate to quote, provided your complete schedule fits its validity and extra runs stay within the remaining credits. Confirm the current pack price and renewal/expiry conditions. The publicly readable price page did not provide an amount we could reliably capture, so this article leaves that quote open rather than inventing a dollar price.
Your worksheet should contain the confirmed pack price, added credits for practice and the cost of any required monitoring. Compare that with the appropriate subscription. It would be misleading to budget twelve subscription months while ignoring a published pack that may fit occasional use.
Check Testportal capacity for each assessment month
Testportal's business pricing displays Standard with 30 results per month and PRO with 300. Its Monthly tab lists PRO at $89 per month; the $79 figure belongs to the Annually tab's monthly equivalent. The example's 96 results do not fit a 30-result allowance.
If two independently purchased billing months cover the complete preparation, assessment and retake periods, and PRO supplies all required features, the conditional software calculation is 2 × $89 = $178. Confirm those conditions, how retakes and coordinator tests consume results, and what access remains between subscriptions. This is not a confirmed annual quote or a price for API integration.
If your integration requires the API extension described for MAX Customized, obtain that plan's quote instead. Do not compare a basic assessment subscription with another product's integrated administration workflow.
Distinguish ProProfs monthly units from annual payment
The ProProfs Quiz Maker price page defines an active quiz taker as a unique person taking quizzes in a month. Repeated attempts by that person in the same month do not create another active person. Its Essentials display shows $19.99 per 100 active quiz takers per month with $239.88 billed annually; that display does not mean a two-month yearly purchase costs $39.98.
Check whether Essentials covers the required people management, reports and controls, or whether your workflow needs a higher tier. Verify monthly billing availability and its actual price separately. The page also contains broad legacy FAQ wording about unlimited quiz takers; use the selected plan's capacity and written order terms rather than treating that sentence as an unlimited allowance.
A single plan's annual amount and another plan's conditional two-month amount answer different questions unless the required service is genuinely the same. Keep them in their original displayed currencies; this article does not use an exchange-rate conversion to declare a winner.
Finish the worksheet before choosing
For every candidate, record the plan, billing unit, quantity, validity, required features, taxes and payment eligibility, plus any question-format conversion or integration work. List unresolved conditions next to the total rather than hiding them in a footnote.
Try the same-workflow pilot before committing a live roster. If imports, participation or exports fail a required check, revisit the selection guide. The useful outcome is a purchase your team can complete and use for its full schedule, with records you can still retrieve afterward.