Skip to content

For student money, wellbeing & WP teams

Your students won't sign up for financial education. So don't make them.

BudgetUp is a money game students play in five-minute bursts: budgeting, student loans, renting, credit and scams, with real 2026/27 UK numbers. Students get in through university login, your VLE or a campus code. You get before/after evidence you can put in your APP evaluation.

Book a pilot chatPlay the games first
Students in a lecture theatre delighted as Mo, Nana and Chip the hamster pop out of their laptop screensOne-term pilot

The problem isn't content. It's that nobody turns up.

Universities already buy financial education. The hard part is getting students to open it, keep going, and showing that it changed anything.

Sources: a published 2026 university evaluation of an incumbent provider; Fernandes, Lynch & Netemeyer (2014), Management Science; OfS standards of evidence.

Illustrative value calculator

What is one student who stays worth?

A student who continues is worth up to £9,790 a year in tuition fees (2026/27). Put in your own numbers.

750 students would otherwise leave. If 15 of them stay:

£146,850

in tuition fees kept, every year they stay.

Book a pilot to see pricing

Illustrative only, not a forecast: it uses your inputs, and we don't claim BudgetUp causes these outcomes. A pilot measures what actually changes. Fee: GOV.UK, Student finance for new full-time students: Tuition Fee Loan up to £9,790 in 2026 to 2027.

How BudgetUp fixes it

  1. Students are already in

    No separate sign-up wall. University single sign-on, LTI 1.3 launch from your VLE, directory sync or a simple cohort code.

  2. They actually play

    3D missions, arcade games, daily quests and streaks with freezes for exam weeks. It's built to be a habit, not homework.

  3. You see what changed

    A short, playful wellbeing and confidence check at the start, repeated after six weeks. Results come back by cohort, with small numbers suppressed.

What you get

We label everything honestly. "Available now" means it's built, tested and ready for a pilot today. "Rolling out" means it's in build for 2026/27; "on the roadmap" means later. Neither is promised as a day-one feature.

Book a pilot to see pricing

Evidence, not page views

Built to produce APP evidence

Our outcomes framework uses established instruments and a pre-specified primary outcome (change in financial self-efficacy). Reports give paired change with 95% confidence intervals and effect sizes, and difference-in-differences for comparison designs; the research export supports ANCOVA in R or Stata. Pilot targets are 60% or more activation, 70% or more completion of the flagship game, and a positive change in self-efficacy.

Pre/post pilot report within two weeks of term end

Available now
  • Financial wellbeing: CFPB Financial Well-Being Scale (public domain)
  • Confidence and agency: financial self-efficacy items
  • Knowledge: interest, inflation and diversification questions
  • Help-seeking: "I know where to get help with money"
  • Reach by APP characteristic, only with explicit consent and n ≥ 10
  • Raw de-identified CSV so your own analysts can check our working

Pilot offer

One term, with a report at the end

Pick one cohort of 100–500 students, such as a widening-participation group, a block of halls or an induction module. We run it with you for a term and hand you the evidence.

You get

  • Launch posters, emails and VLE banners
  • A named contact at BudgetUp
  • Pre/post outcomes report within two weeks of term end
  • A paid one-term pilot, credited in full against your first year's licence if you continue
  • A written quote for a full licence, sized to your student numbers

We ask

  • A named student money or wellbeing lead
  • Auto-enrolment through your SSO, LMS (LTI) or directory sync, or a cohort code
  • Running the start and six-week check-ins
  • Permission to publish an anonymised case study

Learners are always free. Licences sit below most procurement thresholds, so a direct award or three-quote purchase usually works.

Talk to us about a pilot

Tell us a little about you. We'll come back with a 20-minute demo slot and a pilot outline. No sales sequence, promise.

Questions buyers ask

Is this financial advice?

No. BudgetUp is education. It explains how money works and never recommends a specific product, provider or investment. We are not authorised by the FCA and don't need to be for this, and we signpost free regulated and impartial help.

Who is the data controller?

Your university is the controller for students it enrols, and we act as your processor under an Article 28 data processing agreement. We can share a DPA and a prefilled DPIA on request.

Where is data hosted?

With Hetzner in Germany (EU), which UK adequacy regulations cover. The deployment is portable if you need UK-only residency.

Is it accessible?

We build to WCAG 2.2 AA and publish an honest accessibility statement. 3D missions have a classic non-3D alternative with the same learning outcomes. An independent audit is planned and hasn't happened yet.

What do staff see about individual students?

Engagement in aggregate, plus a pseudonymous progress list with no names or emails. Survey results are aggregated with groups under 10 suppressed. The support dashboard is off by default, and only shows adults who opted in.

Doing due diligence? Our trust centre has hosting, sub-processors, accessibility and security details.

Want to see what your people would learn? Every topic is open to read in our free money library, no account needed.