informatist.net / free-business-simulation-high-school
Informatist is a free, browser-based business simulation for high school economics, personal finance, entrepreneurship, and CTE classes — no student accounts, no downloads — a full game, four quick rounds, fits in one class period.
A business simulation puts students inside a working market instead of in front of a diagram of one. Each round, they make real decisions — what to charge, how much to build, where to invest — and the market answers with sales, costs, and profit that depend on what every competitor did. The learning happens in the gap between what students expected and what actually happened.
Informatist is free with no ads and no data sales. Students run a company against AI rivals that state the reasons behind each of their moves, so the debrief has evidence in it instead of guesses.
One round is a few minutes of decisions; a full 4-round game fits in one class period with time to debrief — 4–8 rounds across five levers: price, production, marketing, R&D, capacity.
The entire student app is about 18 KB compressed — it loads in seconds on school Wi-Fi, runs on managed Chromebooks, and needs no install and no student login.
Four rival companies play four recognizable strategies — a cost leader, a premium differentiator, a price warrior, and a passive incumbent. After every round, each rival explains its move; before every round, a live forecast lets students test a plan and then compare forecast to reality. Informatist has run browser-based economic simulations since November 11, 2006.
Everything, permanently: no license, no per-student fee, no trial clock. Informatist is founder-funded and run as a nonprofit project — the free classroom program is the product. (Many "free" classroom simulations are freemium; this one is not.)
| Lever | Concept it teaches |
|---|---|
| Price | Price elasticity, margin vs. volume, competitive positioning |
| Production | Supply planning, inventory carrying cost, lost sales as opportunity cost |
| Marketing | Short-run demand generation — a faucet, not a reservoir |
| R&D | Compounding investment and differentiation, with a time lag |
| Capacity | Capital investment under uncertainty; deciding before you need it |
The score rewards profit most — about half — plus the health of the company behind it. The Student Guide explains it in plain words, and the Teacher Guide has a one-period lesson plan with eight debrief questions.
JA Titan is a volunteer- and educator-led program delivered through local Junior Achievement offices, which issue its logins — strong if you want volunteers and a national championship; see our full honest comparison. Virtual Business (Knowledge Matters) is a commercial suite that states it is used by over one third of all U.S. high schools; pricing is tiered by enrollment and quoted by phone (knowledgematters.com, retrieved 2026-08-16). Startup Wars offers a CTE-aligned startup simulation with an AI coach. Informatist's lane is narrower and deliberate: completely free, no student accounts, start-alone-today — with AI rivals that explain themselves.
Play the demo — 4 rounds, about 5 minutes, no signup. If it belongs in your classroom, join the classroom beta — we'll send your access and you can run your first class this semester.
Also useful: why there are no logins · the IT one-pager. Last verified: 2026-08-16.