Credit Based Enrollments
Overview
Revolution Prep has historically used "hours" as currency for users to consume their products. In an effort to allow users to reserve more than just hourly based products, we wanted to enable "credit" based enrollments. With this change users have the option to enroll in our Small Group Course offerings in addition to one on one tutoring products.
The Bright Horizons Partnership
Most of the demand for credit-based enrollments came out of Revolution Prep's partnership with Bright Horizons, the largest provider of employer-sponsored childcare in the United States. Revolution Prep has worked with Bright Horizons since 2012, and in 2024 we became one of three tutoring providers under their Back-Up Care program, which covers roughly eight million people across fifteen hundred employer clients. Through Back-Up Care, eligible employees can redeem a block of tutoring as a benefit.
The original integration only supported one-on-one tutoring, so a family's hours could only be spent one way. Moving to a credit-based model let us broaden what those benefits could unlock, the same reservation could now be applied to Small Group Courses. The result was a more flexible offering for families, and a self-service experience that gets a Back-Up Care family from redemption to their first session in under seventy-two hours.
The Challenge
- Using hours is deeply engrained in our existing architecture.
- Handling users who have both "hour" and "credit" based enrollments.
- Communicating what users can redeem credits for.
Motivation
- We want to provide our users with more options.
- Enabling users to be able to schedule Small Group Courses with their credits allows them to get more tutoring help with less cost.
Goals
- Get more users enrolled in Small Group Courses.
- Have less friction when reserving sessions or scheduling with a tutor individually.
Schedule Sessions Page
The Schedule Sessions page is the first place a credit-based family lands after redeeming their benefits, so it had to make sense at a glance whether you came in with hours, credits, or a mix of both. We reworked the header to lead with a single "remaining" summary and conditionally rendered an unscheduled-hours chip for Back-Up Care families, so users can see what they have left before picking how to spend it. The same page now drives both the one-on-one tutoring booking flow and the new Small Group Course path, which kept the entry point familiar for returning families while opening up the new offering without an extra detour.
Credit Calculator
The hardest part of moving to credits was helping families and advisors visualize what a credit was actually worth. A credit isn't a session or an hour, it's a unit that converts differently depending on what you redeem it for, so we built a Credit Calculator that does the math for you. Pick how many credits you have, and it shows you every valid combination, whether that's a 12-hour Small Group Course, a stack of one-on-one tutoring hours, or any mix that adds up. Advisors picked this up almost immediately on sales calls, and it cut down the back-and-forth families used to have just to understand their own benefit.
Small Group Course Explorer
The Small Group Course Explorer is where credit-based families browse and book into a live course. We pull from the same course catalog that powers the retail-facing website, so families see real upcoming sections with real seat counts, but the experience is tuned for credit redemption, each card shows the credits required up front, surfaces a "seats remaining" alert when a course is filling up, and only lists courses with at least one retail student already enrolled so we don't risk seating a Back-Up Care family into a section that might not run. Picking a course leads into a focused confirmation step where the family can review the schedule, see exactly how many credits they're spending, and lock in their seat in a single tap.
Once a family confirms their booking, we land them on a success page that restates what they just enrolled in, the updated credit balance, and the next steps for joining their first session. Closing the loop here mattered, families used to drop off after enrollment unsure whether anything actually happened, and giving them a clear confirmation immediately translated into fewer support tickets and a noticeable lift in first-session attendance for Small Group Courses.
