GradLaunch and Naviance, compared
Naviance is PowerSchool's established college, career and life readiness platform, with document sending to colleges, family accounts and the rest of the PowerSchool family behind it. GradLaunch is newer and narrower: a plan each student talks through, coaching that never writes for them, and a caseload ranked by who is about to miss something.
Side by side
Naviance details come from PowerSchool’s public materials, read in October 2026. Check with PowerSchool for anything that has changed.
| Topic | GradLaunch | Naviance |
|---|---|---|
| Course planning | A four-year plan checked against your graduation requirements. Students enter their courses; there is no catalog import. | Naviance Course Planner. |
| Career exploration | O*NET Interest Profiler, and a career path built in conversation. | Strengths, career and pathway exploration. |
| Sending documents to colleges | Not offered. Students apply on each college's own form. | eDocs sends transcripts, recommendations and school forms, including to Common App. |
| Families | The plan is emailed home as a PDF. No parent accounts. | Family accounts. |
| Student information system | No SIS sync. | Part of PowerSchool's product family. |
| AI | A coach that asks questions and never writes essay prose for the student. | AI-powered guidance, added for the 2025–26 school year. |
| After high school | Resume editor with an ATS score, cover letters and internship search for college students. | Built for K–12 schools. |
| Pricing | Students: free, or Pro at $5/mo or $39/yr. Schools: quoted per student per year. | Quoted by PowerSchool. |
Where Naviance is stronger
Getting documents to colleges
eDocs handles transcripts, recommendation letters and school forms, including Common App. GradLaunch does not send anything to colleges.
Families and systems
Naviance has family accounts and sits next to PowerSchool's student information system. GradLaunch has neither a parent portal nor SIS sync.
Track record
PowerSchool says Naviance is in about a third of US high schools. Districts get years of training material and an established support organization.
Where GradLaunch is different
A plan each student talks through
Students build their career path in conversation, alongside the O*NET Interest Profiler, rather than from a quiz result. They can change any stage of it themselves.
Coaching that never writes the essay
The essay coach asks about sentences the student wrote. It does not hand back prose to paste, and the same rule holds in the resume and cover letter tools.
A caseload ranked by who needs a counselor now
Counselors see students ordered by what is closest to being missed, with notes, meetings and a way to mark a plan reviewed.
It keeps going after high school
College students get an ATS resume editor, cover letters and internship search. A student can use GradLaunch free without their school, or go Pro for $5 a month.
Using both
A school can keep Naviance for transcripts, recommendations and school forms, and add GradLaunch for career planning, essay coaching and the counselor caseload. The two do not exchange data, so students would use both.
Questions schools ask
Is GradLaunch a replacement for Naviance?
Not for every school. If you depend on eDocs to send transcripts and recommendations, or on family accounts, Naviance does things GradLaunch does not. GradLaunch is built around student planning, coaching and the counselor caseload.
Can we use GradLaunch and Naviance at the same time?
Yes. They do not exchange data today, so students would sign in to both. One way to split it: Naviance for documents, GradLaunch for planning and coaching.
Does GradLaunch import our Naviance data?
No. There is no Naviance import today. Students build their plan in GradLaunch from a conversation and their own entries.
How is GradLaunch priced for a school?
Schools are quoted per student per year. Students can also use GradLaunch on their own: the free plan has metered AI, and Pro is $5 a month or $39 a year with a 14-day trial.
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