Chess academy software
Bring your coaches together in one place. Invite your team, pay for everyone centrally, and oversee every coach, student and class from a single dashboard — while still teaching your own students as head coach.
Built for academies, institutes and chess schools
A single coach account is built for one person teaching their own students. An academy is built for an organisation — several coaches teaching under one roof, with one person responsible for all of it.
On Chess Nexus an academy sits on top of normal coach accounts. Your coaches keep everything they already have — their students, their courses, their assignments, their live classes. What the academy adds is the layer above: central billing, a coach roster you control, and one dashboard that aggregates the whole organisation.
Individual coach
For one coach teaching their own students.
- Your own student roster, up to 150 students
- Courses, assignments, attendance, parent reports
- Live classroom — up to 25 students (+ you) on the top plan
- You pay for yourself
Academy or institute
For an organisation with several coaches.
- 5, 10 or 25 coaches under one academy
- Up to 3,750 students across the academy
- One dashboard over every coach, student and class
- You pay once for everyone — coaches never pay
How it works
Four steps from your first coach to a running academy.
- 1. Create the academySet up your academy with its name and details. You become the head coach — the owner — with full control over billing, coaches and settings.
- 2. Invite your coachesInvite coaches by email or share a join link. They accept and become members of your academy, keeping the coach account and students they already have.
- 3. Pay once, for everyoneChoose an academy plan and pay centrally. Every member coach is upgraded automatically — no coach handles their own billing, and bulk discounts apply as you add coaches.
- 4. Oversee everythingThe academy dashboard aggregates every coach: their students, classes taken, assignments set and activity — so you can see how the whole organisation is running at a glance.
You run the academy — and you still coach
The head of the academy is not an administrator locked out of teaching.
As head coach you keep a complete, ordinary coach account: your own students, your own courses and assignments, your own live classes, your own schedule and parent reports. Everything a solo coach gets, you get.
On top of that you get the academy layer — the coach roster, central billing and the organisation-wide dashboard. You switch between "my students" and "the whole academy" from the same login. There is no second account to manage and nothing to hand over to someone else.
Everything you manage in one place
- CoachesInvite, view and remove coaches. See each coach's student count and activity, and assign which plan each of them is on.
- Students across the academyEvery student of every coach, aggregated. See who is active, who has stalled, and which coach they belong to.
- Central billingOne academy plan covers all of your coaches. Pay monthly or for three months at a discount, in your own currency.
- Payments & invoicesA full record of what the academy has paid, when, and for which coaches — for your own accounting.
- Live classes for every coachEach coach gets the built-in live classroom with a shared board, video, chat and play-in-class — with limits set by the academy plan.
- Academy settingsYour academy's identity and preferences in one place, controlled by the head coach.
Plans that scale with your team
Academy plans are sized by how many coaches you have and how many students each coach teaches — with or without raised live-classroom limits.
| Plan | Coaches | Students per coach | Total students |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | Up to 5 | 50 | 250 |
| Growth | Up to 10 | 100 | 1,000 |
| Institute | Up to 25 | 150 | 3,750 |
Each of those comes in two families — one without raised live-classroom limits and one with. Bulk discounts apply as you pay for more coaches at once. See academy pricing for the full table and current prices.
Academy questions
What is a chess academy account on Chess Nexus?
An academy is an overlay over normal coach accounts. The head of the academy invites coaches in, pays for all of their plans in one place, and oversees every coach, student, class and assignment from one aggregated dashboard. Each coach keeps their own students and their own workspace — nothing is taken away from them.
Can the head of the academy also coach their own students?
Yes. The academy head is a full coach as well. You keep your own student roster, courses, assignments and live classes exactly like any other coach, and you additionally get the academy dashboard for the whole organisation. You do not need a second account.
How many coaches can an academy have?
Between 5 and 25 depending on the plan — Starter covers 5 coaches, Growth 10, and Institute 25. Each plan also sets how many students each coach can have, from 50 up to 150 per coach.
Do individual coaches still need their own subscription?
No. When the academy pays, every member coach is given the academy plan's entitlements automatically. Coaches do not pay anything themselves, and they do not need to manage their own billing.
What happens to coaches if the academy plan expires?
Nobody is locked out. Each member coach keeps their current plan on a short exit trial so they have time to set up their own subscription, and all of their students, courses and history stay exactly where they are.
Is there a discount for paying for several coaches at once?
Yes. Academy billing applies a bulk discount that grows with the number of coaches you pay for in one checkout — 10% from 3 coaches, 15% from 6, and 20% from 11 or more, off the combined total.
Can coaches be added or removed later?
Yes. The head invites coaches by email or invite link, and can remove them at any time from the Coaches page. Your plan's coach limit is the only cap.
Does every coach in the academy get the live classroom?
Yes — every Chess Nexus coach has the built-in live classroom. The academy plan then sets how often each coach can teach live, how long each class runs, and how many students can join one room.
Bring your academy onto one platform
Start as a coach for free, then create your academy when you're ready to add your team.
Explore more of Chess Nexus
Every feature is free with no ads. Pick where you want to grow next.
Chess Puzzles
Daily puzzles from super-grandmaster games, the Monthly Focus challenge, TTT and Bingo. A free, fun way to train tactics.
Learn more →Puzzle Race
Solve as many tactics as you can against the clock. Timed puzzle races by theme, with live leaderboards.
Learn more →Play Chess Online
Play live games against other members or challenge the Stockfish engine — all free, no ads.
Learn more →Play With Friends
Create a private room, share a link and play 2-player chess with a friend in real time — free, no ads.
Learn more →Masters Games
Play through famous grandmaster and World Champion games move by move, and guess the master's move — free.
Learn more →Analyse My Game
Get a move-by-move review with a CAPS accuracy score, blunder detection, piece heatmaps and session badges.
Learn more →Improve at Chess
Your Nexus Guide studies your own games, finds your weaknesses, replays your mistakes and drills the tactics you keep missing — free.
Learn more →Chess Coaching Platform
A free toolkit for chess coaches and academies — student roster & batches, assignments, course builder, private class races and parent reports.
Learn more →Live Chess Classroom
Teach chess live without Zoom — HD video, screen share and one shared board every student sees, with attendance marked automatically.
Learn more →Endgame Training
Endgames pulled from real master games, grouped by type — then play them out against Stockfish until you can actually convert them.
Learn more →Opening Repertoire
Build your repertoire on the board, drill it with spaced repetition, and find the exact move where you left your prep in real games.
Learn more →Chess Course Builder
Build an ordered syllabus from your studies, built-in studies, videos, master games and endgames — enrolled to a whole batch.
Learn more →Progress Reports
One shareable link per student — rating, puzzles, assignments, attendance and recent games. Parents need no account.
Learn more →Complete Coach Guide
How everything works, step by step — onboarding, students, batches, assignments, courses, schedule, attendance, parent reports and the built-in live classroom.
Learn more →Coach Referral Program
Refer another coach and earn 25% of their first subscription as wallet credit toward your own plan — in your own currency, with no limit on referrals.
Learn more →Coaching Questions Answered
Straight answers for coaches — managing students, running online classes, organizing batches, homework, tracking progress and starting an academy.
Learn more →3D Chess Arena
Enter an immersive 3D world as an avatar — play real-time tournaments at the table and solve tactics in a 5-stage Puzzle Hall with live leaderboards and chat.
Learn more →Chess Study
Structured lessons and tests — basic tactics, openings, endgames and positional play — chapter by chapter.
Learn more →Chess Community
Follow friends, join clubs, see live activity feeds and weekly leaderboards in the Chess Nexus social hub.
Learn more →