Comparison
Bell Path vs Prime Timetable
Choose Bell Path when Australian planning time, job-shares, daily cover and yard duty are the hard part. Choose Prime Timetable when you want a light, general scheduler you can edit on any device, phones included.
Prime Timetable is an online scheduling tool that runs on anything with a browser and is deliberately general, for all kinds of educational organisation. Bell Path is deliberately narrow: Australian primary schools only.
Already run one? Send the file and it is in Bell Path within 48 hours, with Daily Cover free for two weeks.
Based on Prime Timetable’s public product and pricing page and its user guide. Confirm current features and pricing with the vendor.
Sources checked · 3 October 2026
Which product fits which school.
Choose Bell Path if
- The timetable exists to deliver planning time, and someone has to prove it did
- Job-shares, part-time days and specialists who also teach a class all have to be entered as they really are
- Daily cover, yard duty and wet day plans matter as much as the timetable itself
- You want an Australian approval pack, a risk assessment and published pricing for your procurement review
Choose Prime Timetable if
- You want a simple, general scheduler and your rules are mostly about rooms and periods
- You need it to run comfortably on a tablet or phone as well as a computer
- You are outside Australia, or you are scheduling something that is not a primary school
- You want a 30-day free trial, then a plan sized by number of teachers
What the decision usually comes down to.
Scope
Deliberately narrow: Australian primary timetabling, daily cover, yard duty and wet day plans
Deliberately general: scheduling for all kinds of educational organisation
Planning time
State entitlements enforced as minimums and checked before the timetable goes out, with the cause named when one cannot be met
General teacher availability and free-period settings that you set up yourself
Job-shares
Two teachers on one class with their real days, each receiving their own planning time
Modelled through general teacher constraints. Splitting the planning time is yours to manage
After the timetable
Daily cover, yard duty with a fairness record, wet day plans, event timetables, an operations calendar and a staff portal
Timetable creation, sharing, and export to Excel and Google Sheets. Duty and recess can sit on the timetable as non-teaching slots, with no yard duty roster
Where it runs
In a web browser, designed for planning on a computer and viewing on a phone
Any device, including editing on a tablet or phone
Evaluation and pricing
Send the timetable you already run and it is in Bell Path within 48 hours, with Daily Cover free for two weeks. Or set up and build a free preview of your real timetable. Prices are published, $679 a year for up to 100 students and $1,349 for 101 to 300, rising with school size, with no GST added
A 30-day free trial, then plans sized by number of teachers. Prices show once you pick a term of one to five years
Australian procurement
Approval pack, risk assessment, security and data handling pages published
General vendor documentation, not written for Australian schools
FAQ
Questions schools ask when comparing Bell Path and Prime Timetable.
Is Prime Timetable good for primary schools?
It will produce a primary timetable, but it has no Australian planning-time rules. Planning time, job-share splits and specialist cover are the difficult part of the job, and in a general scheduler they stay entirely your responsibility to get right and to check.
Which is easier to start with, Bell Path or Prime Timetable?
Prime Timetable gets you to a first timetable faster because it asks less of you up front. Bell Path asks more during setup, because it is collecting the staffing detail it needs to check every teacher’s planning time before you publish, and that is the work that removes the checking afterwards.
Can Bell Path or Prime Timetable handle yard duty?
Bell Path builds yard duty rosters from the current timetable, with a whole-year fairness record and wet day supervision on the same screen. Prime Timetable can place duty or recess on the timetable as a non-teaching slot, but has no duty areas, rotation or fairness count. Confirm current capability with the vendor if this matters to you.
Other comparisons.
Bell Path vs TimetableMaster
Choose TimetableMaster if you want a general AI scheduler for schools, colleges and universities, with phone apps and a 10-day free trial.
Bell Path vs aSc Timetables
Choose aSc when a low one-off price, an unlimited trial or a desktop program matters more than Australian primary-school rules.
Bell Path vs FET
Choose FET when there is no budget and you have someone technical who will own it.
Bell Path vs the spreadsheet
Keep the spreadsheet while your week rarely changes and checking it by eye is still manageable.
See the timetable before you decide.
Send us the timetable you already run and it is in Bell Path within 48 hours, or see a week Bell Path built for a sample school first.
Bell Path publishes its prices: $679 a year for up to 100 students and $1,349 for 101 to 300, rising with school size, with no per-user add-ons. See the full price list.