Mainstay 2026: Benefits, Features & Pricing

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Overview
Pricing and Plans
Features
Integrations
User Reviews

Overview

Mainstay

5.0

(10)

Pricing

Pricing available upon request

About Mainstay

Mainstay is the student engagement platform that is powered by behaviorally intelligent chatbots. It is purpose-built to positively influence students and guide them throughout their academic journeys.

Higher education institutions and college access networks across the country have partnered with Mainstay to support 5 million students. With a research-backed approach to student engagement, Mainstay is proven to close equity gaps, boost enrollment, and improve retention.

Mainstay Screenshots

Mainstay Pricing and Plans

Starting price: Pricing available upon request

Free Trial

Free Version

Basic

Pricing available upon request

No plan information available

Mainstay Features

Popular features found in Higher Education
Admissions Management
Assessment Management
Curriculum Management
Financial Aid Management
Learning Management
Scheduling
Self Service Portal
Student Information/Records
More features of Mainstay
Activity Dashboard
Activity Tracking
Alerts/Notifications
API
Chat/Messaging
Communication Management
Customizable Branding
Customizable Reports
Event Calendar
For Higher Education
Forms Management
K-12
Monitoring
Performance Metrics
Polls/Voting
Real-Time Analytics
Real-Time Data
Real-Time Notifications
Reminders
Reporting/Analytics
Reporting & Statistics
Search/Filter
Student Management
Surveys & Feedback
Third-Party Integrations

Mainstay Integrations

WileyPLUS

Canvas

Blackboard

Ellucian

HubSpot CRM

Slate

See all 8 integrations

Mainstay User Reviews

Overall Rating

5.0

Ratings Breakdown

100%

Secondary Ratings

Ease of Use

4.9

Value for money

4.9

Customer support

4.9

Functionality

4.9

Have you used Mainstay and would like to share your experience with others?

Sheenah H.

Verified reviewer

Higher Education

501-1000 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed August 2022

Chatbot for Enrollment and Retention

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The customer service is stellar and the actual AI conversations are highly atuned to higher education. Our students enjoy interacting with the chatbot - both for enrollment and retention purposes. We are able to get valuable student insight in real time with Mainstay.

Cons:

During the implemention, it took a few weeks for us to really see automation start to work. The bot would often say "i'm not sure," which was annoying. It did get better, though - much better!

Jason A.

Verified reviewer

Higher Education

201-500 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed April 2021

Allegheny loves our AdmitHub chatbot.

AdmitHub offers us a way to connect with students that is both high tech yet also very personalized and highly personal. Our students develop a rapport with the bot and become quite attached. We get responses via AdmitHub campaigns quicker and with response rate compared to email or print. It's a vital part of our communication stream to students.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The ease of developing message campaigns, some with complex decision trees, is one of the best features of AdmitHub, but it's hard to overlook the artificial intelligence knowledge base as the key feature. It handles the bulk of student questions and allows for a lot of customization. AdmitHub is easy to use, didn't require laborious set-up and constantly offers improvements and new features. Customer service is beyond compare.

Cons:

It's hard, nearly impossible, to say what I like least. Viewing replies used to be slightly more time consuming but improvements have been made in that area already. It's really as close to perfect for software as you can get.

Reasons for choosing Mainstay

AdmitHub's customer service and innovative artificial intelligence were huge factors in our choice. We knew we could find ways to send SMS messages but it didn't solve the problem of staff time needed to answer replies from this new communication stream. Our bots AI's handles the overwhelming majority of questions so it's like having an additional staff member or two on the team.

Kylie H.

Verified reviewer

Higher Education

1001-5000 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed April 2021

The Best Addition to Our Enrollment Communication Strategy

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Not only does AdmitHub offer SMS texting, but it also has sophisticated surveying technology, web chat, and Facebook Messenger options. Although we originally purchased the product specifically for texting and AI capabilities, we continue to find new ways to utilize the product - including managing Facebook Messenger and adding the Web Chat to our website. The AdmitHub team is constantly looking for ways to improve the product, and they actively solicit user feedback to ensure updates and features are what the user community needs. Before AdmitHub, we knew that email wasn't always the best way to reach students, but it was our only option. Adding AdmitHub to our multi-modal communication strategy helped us communicate with students more effectively and see more engagement than before. Other departments at the University send us updates and deadline reminders to share via AdmitHub because they know students will take action after receiving a text. Many students come back to the bot with questions (even when they have not received a nudge) because they know they will receive a quick response.

Cons:

As the AdmitHub team frequently adds more features, it has become much easier to integrate with our other communication software - previously it required a ticket, but now you can do it yourself.

Reasons for choosing Mainstay

The AdmitHub team is easy to work with - they keep us updated on important analytics, new features, and best practices. They offer "Office Hours" webinars to demonstrate their new features and share success stories from partners. These webinars have given us some great ideas to implement in our communications (even things as simple as last-minute reminder invitations to virtual events, which have gotten us big gains in attendee numbers).

Sheenah H.

Verified reviewer

Higher Education

501-1000 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed April 2021

Reggie to the Rescue!

Working with Admithub has been much more like building a friendship than a client/vendor relationship. They truly believe in helping us engage with our students in a meaningful way and are passionate about bettering their products to assist us. Admithub is extremely sensitive to our needs and responsive in any support issues that may come up. They listen to our feedback, which creates an organic two-way street which has strengthened the relationship.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Working with the system has been really easy, from implementation to maintenance. Using conversational AI to engage students and retain relationships has been instrumental for our institution. The ability to send surveys has been extremely helpful in making data-driven decisions, especially throughout the global pandemic. The system itself is easy to train end-users on. The company is always working towards continuous improvement and really values client relationships.

Cons:

Sometimes getting the information off of a survey requires a little bit of finagling; it isn't initially intuitive.

Reasons for choosing Mainstay

Cost-effective, friendly and not pushy sales reps, higher-education focused only, demonstration was very effective and strong.

dr raveenia h.

Verified reviewer

Higher Education

51-200 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review source

Reviewed December 2021

Highly Recommend Mainstay

Thus far we have had an overall wonderful experience. Mainstay has helped Admissions with attracting students and with retaining them too while enrolled. The mms features have kept our students updated and not missing critical deadlines. Further, the reporting tools have helped us quantify and analyze such impacts.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

It was easy to use, great onboarding and training sessions, and the price was unbeatable for what you get, the flexibility of the product is awesome and covers beyond our scope of use, the backend is easy to use and update information as necessary. Our students love it!

Cons:

Not really. We are still maximizing the full potential of the system for our purposes

Reasons for choosing Mainstay

price, flexibility, features

Cara D.

Verified reviewer

Higher Education

501-1000 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed July 2021

AdmitHub (Mainstay) has changed the way we communicate with students!

AdmitHub helped us increase retention by 3% for our first to second year students DURING a Pandemic. Not only that, but it was a great resource for us to have when the Pandemic struck so we could keep in contact with our students. It was a very difficult time, but I feel that Coop (our Chatbot) was able to be there for our students.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

I like that we can personalize the chatbot to fit our mascot's personality. This really helps the students be able to connect and identify with our school and mascot.

Cons:

AdmitHub is fast changing! As a startup, the software is always developing and changing which is great! However, as someone who has been with them since their older software, it is difficult to get caught up with the new features. Thankfully, AdmitHub has done a great job keeping me up to date with these changes and helping me get caught up.

Sue M.

Verified reviewer

Education Management

5001-10000 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed April 2021

The Best Bot for Student Success and Retention!

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

AdmitHub (soon to be Mainstay) is, by far, the best student success and retention tool I have used in my 30+ years in higher education! The quality, ease of use, features and functionality of the bot make it all highly effective. The bot answers our students’ seemingly countless questions in a matter of seconds, 24-7; allows us to send nudges about important matters; engages students in creative ways that enable us to understand their needs; and enables our staff to spend more time having meaningful interactions with students. As if that weren’t enough, Admithub's (soon to be Mainstay's) customer support is highly personalized and beyond exceptional!

Cons:

I honestly can't think of any downsides or features I like the least!

Jandro H.

Verified reviewer

Higher Education

1001-5000 employees

Used weekly for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed April 2021

Game Changer

The team at Admithub from the top to our consultant have been great, real people who understand the every hustle and grind of Higher Education, they hear are our issues and work with us on developing new campaigns that we may not have considered.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The best part about the software is how easy it was to implement and start using, every week we get more comfortable with the software and are able to deploy more elaborate campaigns. The response rate from a text campaign compared to an email campaign is unbelievable.

Cons:

All of the features are great and easy to use, we have no found any issues that we do not enjoy.

Jared C.

Verified reviewer

Higher Education

1001-5000 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed April 2021

Game Changer

Strong experience, the founders I respect immensely: [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN]

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Being able to engineer digestible student-focused communication journeys via live responsive texts has changed they way we can implement the right conversations at the right time.

Cons:

I wish they would treat all size universities the same with pricing.

Reasons for choosing Mainstay

Excellence and focus on higher education AI specialization.

Emily S.

Verified reviewer

Higher Education

11-50 employees

Used weekly for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed June 2021

AdmitHub Review

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The best part about AdmitHub is the ability to connect with students without the loss of valuable employee time. Our office sends out mass messages to thousands of students and the chatbot can respond to questions quickly and efficiently.

Cons:

The only improvement for my office would be easier integration with our CRM (Recruit - but we are transitioning to Target X). It would streamline the process so we could contact the list of students quicker and more effectively.

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