Disclosure: This comparison is published by Labbaik. We've tried to represent IlmFlow fairly using publicly available information, but we naturally know Labbaik in greater depth. If you spot something outdated, let us know.
Quick verdict
IlmFlow is built around the madrasah. Labbaik is built around the organisation behind it.
Choose IlmFlow if: you want a straightforward, madrasah-only system with predictable per-student pricing and a flat monthly bill from day one, and you don't need anything beyond education, fees and payroll.
Choose Labbaik if: your madrasah is part of a wider masjid or Islamic organisation, and you want education, payments, WhatsApp, events, donations and community tools connected in one place, with no bill until you're ready to grow into one.
Both are credible choices. IlmFlow does one thing and does it well. Labbaik covers that same ground, then adapts when your organisation needs more.
At a glance
Feature parity where it genuinely exists. Where we couldn't find a feature on IlmFlow's public site, we say "Not publicly advertised" rather than assume it's missing.
| Feature | Labbaik | IlmFlow |
|---|---|---|
| Attendance | ✓ | ✓ |
| Hifz tracking (Sabaq, Sabaq Para, Dhor) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Exams & mark sheets | ✓ | ✓ |
| UK payroll (PAYE, NI, pensions) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Parent portal | ✓ | ✓ |
| Teacher portal | ✓ | ✓ |
| WhatsApp automation | ✓ | Not publicly advertised (in-app messaging advertised) |
| Events & bookings | ✓ | Not publicly advertised |
| Donations & Sadaqah | ✓ | Not publicly advertised |
| Masjid & community management | ✓ | Not publicly advertised |
| Certificates (Nikah, Shahada, ijazah) | ✓ | Not publicly advertised |
| Alimiyyah / adult programme tracking | ✓ — custom PDF syllabus import, kitab → section → page | Mentioned, no detail published |
| Payment retry automation | ✓ | Reminders advertised; retries not publicly advertised |
| Recurring compliance & admin tasks | ✓ — WhatsApp alerts for renewals & overdue deadlines | Not publicly advertised |
| Online classes (Zoom/Meet, OAuth cloud recordings) | ✓ — auto WhatsApp/email alerts, auto attendance | Not publicly advertised |
| Built-in video classes (no Zoom account needed) | ✓ Labbaik Live: private rooms, attendance on join, 0.35p per person, per minute | Not publicly advertised |
| Fixed monthly plan available | ✓ — Manzil | — (bills scale with active students) |
| Per-student pricing | — | ✓ — 32¢/student/month, $19 minimum |
| Free ongoing plan | ✓ — Safar, no expiry | — (30-day trial, then billed) |
"Not publicly advertised" means IlmFlow's public site doesn't mention the feature, not that it definitely doesn't exist. Check directly with their team if it's a dealbreaker either way.
Where each one shines
Where IlmFlow shines
- Simple, predictable pricing — 32¢ per active student a month, $19 minimum, as one flat bill.
- Built for the sector — designed for madrasahs and Islamic schools, not adapted from mainstream school software.
- Strong Hifz tracking — Sabak, Sabak Para and Dhor, plus Juz 30 and daily duas.
- Three-language parent portal — English, Arabic and Urdu.
- Established UK payroll — PAYE, National Insurance and pensions, a prominent part of the product.
- A focused, madrasah-only product — with personal onboarding during the 30-day trial.
Where Labbaik shines
- Built around the whole organisation — a masjid, madrasah, small maktab or charity each gets a focused workspace, with tools added or removed as you need them.
- Free to start, with no student cap — £0 a month on Safar, paying only on card payments you collect.
- WhatsApp at the core — fee reminders, attendance alerts and admin commands on the channel parents actually open.
- Kitab-level Alimiyyah tracking — upload your own syllabus and track it kitab by kitab, page by page.
- Flexible payroll calculations — hourly, daily, fixed salary or per-student fee share, feeding the same PAYE, NI and pension run.
- Events, donations and certificates — in the same system, for madrasahs inside a wider masjid or community.
Pricing, payroll and setup
| Feature | Labbaik | IlmFlow |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Free; costs built into the class price by default, so the madrasah pays nothing | Flat 32¢/student/month ($19/month minimum) whether or not fees are collected |
| How pay is calculated | Hourly (QR clock-in/out), daily (register completed), fixed salary, or per-student fee share — from Stripe, cash or both | Fixed salary, or hours via staff timesheets |
| HMRC submission | Send to payroll exports each month to BrightPay or an accountant spreadsheet, which files with HMRC — direct submission on our roadmap | You or your accountant file, same as always — auto-submission on their roadmap too |
| Fee collection | Stripe, GBP, WhatsApp payment requests and automatic reminders | Stripe Connect, GBP, paid directly into the school's own Stripe account |
| Parent portal languages | English, mobile-first PWA | English, Arabic and Urdu |
| Setup | Self-serve, ~10 minutes — or we do it for you, free | Personal onboarding during the 30-day trial |
More than a madrasah tool, without the bloat
IlmFlow's public features page is scoped to attendance, exams, fees and payroll: genuinely strong on the education and admin side, with no donation campaigns, event bookings or certificate features publicly advertised. Labbaik covers the same maktab and madrasah ground, then extends further: donation campaigns, community events and bookings, and verifiable Nikah, Shahada and ijazah certificates.
Don't want donations and Nikah in your madrasah software? You won't see them unless they're relevant. Labbaik adapts to the organisation you run: a madrasah's workspace includes attendance, progress, fees, messages, events and Ijazah, and you can add or remove tools whenever you need them, without contacting us.
See how Labbaik adapts to your organisation →
| Masjid & community tools | Labbaik | IlmFlow |
|---|---|---|
| Sadaqah & Zakat donations | One-tap giving, campaigns, recurring donations, full reporting | Not publicly advertised |
| Community events | Publish, sell tickets, take RSVPs, manage capacity | Not publicly advertised |
| Bookings & class capacity | Included for events and non-educational classes | Not publicly advertised |
| Nikah & Shahada certificates | Verifiable, institution-branded | Not publicly advertised |
| Non-educational community classes | Same registration & payment tools as the maktab | Not publicly advertised |
| One login, one bill | Yes — same platform, with each organisation seeing only its own tools | Madrasah admin, as advertised |
Payroll in detail
IlmFlow's UK payroll module is a prominent part of its product, and a genuinely useful one: automatic PAYE, National Insurance and pension calculations save real admin time. Labbaik covers the same core UK payroll requirements: pay, tax, National Insurance, pension and student loan deductions calculated automatically for every member of staff on every run, with payslips and P45/P60 generation included at no extra cost on any plan (see our features page andFAQ). As with IlmFlow, Labbaik doesn't file with HMRC itself yet. Instead, Send to payroll exports each month's hours and pay straight into BrightPay, or as a spreadsheet for your accountant, with direct submission on our roadmap.
Where Labbaik goes a step further is how pay is worked out per member of staff. It supports several bases side by side: hourly pay from QR clock-in/out at the start and end of a lesson, daily pay for completing a register, a fixed annual salary, or a per-student basis, where a teacher is paid a share of the fees collected from the students assigned to them. That figure can come from Stripe collections, cash logged in the app, or both, and feeds straight into the same PAYE, NI, pension and payslip run.
Kitab-level Alimiyyah tracking
IlmFlow's site mentions Alimiyyah / adult programme tracking without detail; we found no publicly documented support for a custom syllabus or kitab-by-kitab, page-level tracking.
Labbaik lets institutions running Alimiyyah or other Islamic studies programmes upload their own PDF syllabus (Bahishti Zewar, Zad ut-Talibeen, Mishkat, Hidayah, whatever the curriculum requires) and automatically breaks it into trackable sections. Teachers log progress kitab by kitab, section by section, page by page, and that progress shows live in the student and parent portal.
| Alimiyyah & Islamic studies | Labbaik | IlmFlow |
|---|---|---|
| Alimiyyah / year-group tracking | Included, standard | Mentioned, no detail published |
| Custom syllabus import | Upload your own PDF — auto-split into sections | Not publicly advertised |
| Kitab tracking granularity | Kitab → section → page | Not publicly advertised |
| Pre-loaded kitab library | Bahishti Zewar, Zad ut-Talibeen, Mishkat, Hidayah & more, or add your own | Not publicly advertised |
| Non-Hifz Islamic classes (Tajweed, Tafsir, Fiqh, Arabic, etc.) | Any class type, same tracking tools | Maktab-focused, as advertised |
| Parent/student visibility of kitab progress | Live in the portal as teachers log it | Not publicly advertised |
| Alimah/Aalim completion certificates | Verifiable, institution-branded, print-ready | Not publicly advertised |
Committee admin and online classes
Committees carry a stream of dates that are easy to lose in a spreadsheet or someone's inbox: utility and insurance renewals, servicing, Charity Commission report deadlines, safeguarding and DBS renewals, fire safety checks and more. Labbaik sets these up as recurring tasks with an owner and a due date, and sends WhatsApp alerts as renewals approach and if the most important deadlines go overdue. IlmFlow doesn't publicly advertise equivalent task or compliance-reminder tooling.
For online classes, Labbaik has its own built-in video, Labbaik Live (0.35p per person, per minute), where attendance is marked as students join. It also connects your own Zoom account by OAuth, alerts enrolled students by WhatsApp and email when a live class starts, and marks attendance automatically when they join from the portal. Recordings publish from your own Google Drive or Dropbox, and Labbaik only ever sees the specific files you publish. This isn't advertised on IlmFlow's public site.
Frequently asked questions
Is IlmFlow better than Labbaik?
It depends what you're weighing up. IlmFlow is a solid, UK-built platform with its own flat per-student pricing and no free tier. Labbaik covers the same core Hifz tracking and UK payroll requirements, then adds a free plan with no student cap, WhatsApp-native communication, and payroll that can be calculated hourly, daily, on a fixed salary or as a per-student fee share. If you want to trial a platform at no cost before committing, Labbaik is generally the lower-risk starting point.
Does IlmFlow support Hifz tracking?
Yes — IlmFlow tracks Sabak, Sabak Para and Dhor, plus Juz-30 and daily duas. Labbaik covers the same ground, logging Sabak, Sabak Para and Dhor separately, with a live juz map for each student.
Does Labbaik include payroll?
Yes. Labbaik runs HMRC-compatible UK payroll on every plan — PAYE, National Insurance, pension and student loan deductions calculated automatically, with payslips and P45/P60 generation included at no extra cost.
Does Labbaik cost more than IlmFlow once card fees are counted?
Not for the madrasah, if you use inclusive class pricing, which Labbaik recommends. Take 100 families each paying $64 a month by card: Labbaik works out a class price of $65.41 to $66.04 (rounded up to the nearest 64¢) that covers the Stripe and Labbaik costs (one agreed price, whichever way you pay), and the madrasah receives its full $6,350 so Labbaik costs it nothing. With IlmFlow the madrasah pays the 32¢-per-student subscription ($32 here) every month, plus Stripe's card fees unless it builds those into its prices too. If you'd rather absorb the fees, Labbaik's platform fee (from 1.5%, falling as volume grows) and Stripe's fee come out of what you collect, and then a flat subscription can work out cheaper for a card-heavy madrasah. Families who pay by cash or bank transfer cost nothing on Labbaik at any volume, and every feature is included, from online classes and payroll to donations and certificates.
Which is better for a small UK madrasah?
For a small maktab that wants to try a platform before committing to a subscription, Labbaik's free Safar plan (no student cap, no card required) is usually the lower-risk starting point. IlmFlow's $19/month minimum applies from day one, even for a handful of students.
Can I migrate from IlmFlow to Labbaik, and does it cost anything?
Yes, and it's free. Send us your IlmFlow export, or even just a spreadsheet or your current paper registers, and we'll migrate every student, family, class and fee balance across ourselves. If your committee isn't ready to take its first register the moment you switch, we'll finish the whole setup in advance so it's ready when you are — get in touch and tell us what you're moving from.
Does IlmFlow have masjid tools like donations or community events?
Not that it advertises publicly — IlmFlow's own features page is scoped to attendance, exams, fees and payroll. Labbaik covers that same maktab and madrasah ground, then adds donation campaigns, community events and bookings, and verifiable certificates in the same system.
Will donations and Nikah tools clutter our madrasah?
No. Labbaik adapts to the organisation you run, so a madrasah's workspace only includes the tools a madrasah uses: attendance, progress, fees, messages, events and Ijazah. Add or remove tools whenever you need them, without contacting us. See how the platform works.
Does IlmFlow support Alimiyyah or kitab-level tracking?
IlmFlow's site mentions Alimiyyah / adult programme tracking, but we found no published detail on custom syllabus import or kitab-by-kitab, page-level tracking. Labbaik lets institutions upload their own PDF syllabus, automatically breaks it into sections, and lets teachers track progress kitab by kitab and page by page, visible live in the parent/student portal.
Does IlmFlow remind committees about compliance deadlines like DBS or Charity Commission reports?
Not publicly documented. Committees can set up recurring administrative tasks in Labbaik — utility and insurance renewals, scheduled maintenance and annual servicing, Charity Commission report deadlines, safeguarding and DBS renewals, fire safety checks and more — with an owner and a due date, and Labbaik sends WhatsApp alerts as renewals approach and if the most important deadlines go overdue.
Does IlmFlow support online classes with Zoom and cloud recordings?
Not publicly advertised on IlmFlow's site, as far as we could find. Labbaik has its own built-in video classes, Labbaik Live, where attendance marks itself as students join. It also connects your own Zoom account by OAuth to run live online classes, automatically alerts enrolled students by WhatsApp and email when a session starts, marks attendance automatically the moment they join from the student/parent portal, and lets you publish recordings from your own Google Drive or Dropbox so students can catch up on missed sessions. Labbaik only ever sees the specific files you choose to publish — never your whole Drive or Dropbox account.
Does IlmFlow have a teacher portal?
Yes — IlmFlow gives teachers a dedicated view scoped to their own classes, for marking registers, entering exam results and viewing payslips. Labbaik's teacher experience covers the same ground and is built phone-first: attendance and Hifz logging happen on a teacher's phone from the classroom floor, not a desk.
We compared Labbaik and IlmFlow using publicly available product information as of October 2026. Where possible, we checked the pages below directly rather than relying on secondhand summaries. Feature availability and pricing can change — the source is the most up-to-date word on either platform.
Weighing up more than one option? See our full round-up of the best IlmFlow alternatives for UK madrasahs.
Labbaik isn't only maktab and madrasah software — the same platform also runs donations, community certificates, events and non-educational classes, so a masjid can run its whole community on one system. It adapts to the organisation you run, so a madrasah or maktab only sees the tools it uses. See how Labbaik adapts to your organisation →
Parents and students sign in with a magic link sent to their email, with Google, or with a code sent on WhatsApp to the number the madrasah has for them. Admins and teachers sign in with a magic link, Google or a passkey, which uses their phone or computer's face, fingerprint or screen lock. Nobody has a password to set, forget or reset. Tour the parent portal →
Send us whatever you're using today — a spreadsheet, e-Maktab, IBEAMS, IlmFlow, or a folder of paper registers. We'll set Labbaik up for you and migrate every student, family, class and fee balance across ourselves, at no cost.
If your committee isn't ready to take its first register yet, that's fine too — we'll finish the whole setup so it's ready the moment you are. Get in touch and tell us what you're moving from.
Compare Labbaik with another platform
See how Labbaik stacks up against more of the alternatives UK maktabs and madrasas evaluate.