Caribou Contest Alternatives: 9 Online Math Competitions (US & Canada)

North Star Contests TeamAugust 21, 2026

Caribou Mathematics Contest has shut down. We verified every real alternative — dates, prices, eligibility — for Canadian schools planning 2026–27

Caribou Contest Alternatives for 2026–27: A Complete Comparison Guide

For more than fifteen years, the Caribou Mathematics Contest was a fixture of the school year for thousands of Canadian classrooms — six low-stakes online rounds, kindergarten through Grade 12, in more than ten languages. In August 2025, following the passing of founder Dr. Thomas Wolf, Caribou Contests ceased all operations. No 2025–26 season ran, and the site is winding down.

If you ran Caribou and are now looking for what to run instead, this guide is for you. Below is every math contest we could verify as currently operating and open (fully, partly, or via a partner) to Canadian schools, plus a few well-known U.S. programs that are not open to Canadian students, included so you don't waste time chasing them.

A note on how this was built. Every figure below comes from each organization's own website, checked in August 2026. Where a detail wasn't published anywhere we could find, we wrote "not stated" rather than guess — contest pricing and dates change from year to year, so we'd rather send you to the source than hand you a stale number. Currencies are noted explicitly where the organizer states them; where a site prints only a bare "

quot; with no code, we've said so, because a few Canadian-facing pages turned out to be priced in USD, and vice versa. Always confirm current pricing and dates directly with the organizer before registering — several 2026–27 seasons hadn't been posted yet as of this writing.

The closest matches to Caribou's format

If what you valued about Caribou was the rhythm — several online rounds spread across the year, run by the classroom teacher, with a season-long standing — these are the programs that come closest.

North Star Contests

Contests per year: 6 rounds for the 2026–27 season — October 6, 2026 (free); November 10–11, 2026; January 12–13, 2027; February 16–17, 2027; April 13–14, 2027; and a final round May 11–12, 2027. Most rounds run roughly 36 hours (8:00 AM one day to 8:00 PM EST the next).
Eligibility: JK through Grade 8. Described on-site as serving students globally
Format: Fully online. Proctoring/webcam requirements for students participating independently
Organizer: North Star Contests Society, a Canadian registered not-for-profit. (Disclosure: North Star is the publisher of this comparison guide.)
Price: The first contest of the school year is free for every grade, and K/1 students are free for the entire year. Beyond that, Grades 2–8 pay for additional contests — specific per-student/per-school figures are available in the pricing page. Schools pay in a single coordinator checkout; families register and pay per child. Fee waivers are available on request for financial hardship (admin@northstartests.com). Registration fees are described as covering "test administration, software maintenance, content creation and translation."
Prizes/certificates: Participation and achievement (ranked) certificates per contest; Distinction Medals for the top 10% of students annually (best 3 of the season's contests); a North Star School of Excellence plaque for the top 10% of schools per country; a Grit Honour Roll for students who complete 10+ practice questions a week for 12+ weeks at 50%+ accuracy and place in the top 50th percentile on an official contest. A "Top Performers" leaderboard is publicly viewable without login, filterable by grade and contest.
Good to know: A language selector is present on the site, currently supporting English, French and Turkish.

MOEMS (Math Olympiads for Elementary and Middle Schools)

The most Caribou-like cadence among the long-established programs.

Contests per year: 5 monthly rounds (November through March), 5 questions each.
Eligibility: Grades 4–8, split into an Elementary division (4–6) and Middle School division (6–8). Canadian teams are explicitly priced — there's a "United States/Canada/Mexico" fee tier separate from the international rate.
Format: Hybrid — schools choose paper or online, administered by a school-based coach within each contest window.
Organizer: MOEMS (Bellmore, NY).
Price: Per team of up to 35 students. Sliding scale by registration date: $175 Early Bird (by Jul 31), rising to $300 "Last Chance" (after Nov 1). International teams pay $215–$340. Currency isn't printed on the site, but MOEMS is U.S.-based.
Prizes/certificates: Certificates for all; patches for the top 50%; gold/silver pins and medallions for perfect scores; plaques for the top 10% of teams.
Good to know: Practice material — five contests with full solutions, plus two years of past problems with video walkthroughs — is included in the registration fee. Two official MOEMS pages disagree slightly on the exact end date of Contest 5 (Mar 23 vs. Mar 29); use the dedicated "Dates, Deadlines and Fees" page.

Sumdog Contests

Contests per year: Several fixed contest weeks through the year, run inside Sumdog's adaptive math-game platform. The organization announced a new contest format starting January 2026.
Eligibility: Ages 5–14 (roughly K–8). Sumdog explicitly runs Canadian Regional Contests alongside a national "September Slam."
Format: Fully online — adaptive-question games rather than a fixed test, with school leaderboards during contest weeks.
Organizer: Sumdog (UK-based).
Price: Not published as a standalone contest fee — participation is bundled into a school's Sumdog subscription. Contact the organizer for current pricing.
Prizes/certificates: School-level leaderboards during each contest week.
Good to know: Because it's game-based and adaptive rather than a fixed written test, it's a different experience from Caribou even though the cadence is similar — worth trying a demo before committing a whole school.

Perennial Math

Contests per year: 4 tests per season, one per month, across two optional seasons (Season 1: November–February; Season 2: January–April) — up to 8 rounds a year if a school runs both.
Eligibility: Grades 3–8 core band (the tournament page also lists Apprentice/Master divisions reaching grades 9–12). Both U.S. and Canadian teams are named as receiving a physical awards package.
Format: Coach's choice — online or printed with teacher grading. Live virtual tournaments run through a WebEx room with live scoring.
Organizer: Perennial Math (Huntsville, AL).
Price: $75 U.S. team / $100 international team / $25 individual (parent-registered) student, for a team of up to 30. Note: the site's own FAQ page states $100 for a U.S. team, conflicting with the $75 figure on the tournament page — confirm at registration.
Prizes/certificates: Certificates for every student, a gold medal for the class champion, dog tags for the top 10%, plaques for top teams.
Good to know: Individual parents and homeschool groups can register directly — one of the few programs on this list that allows that.

Continental Mathematics League (CML)

Contests per year: 3 Meets (Grades 2–3), 5 Meets (Grades 4–9), or 4 Meets (Calculus) — genuinely multi-round.
Eligibility: Grades 2–9, plus separate Calculus and Computer leagues. Country eligibility isn't stated on the site, so Canadian schools should confirm directly.
Format: Paper-based — schools download a PDF of each Meet and administer it themselves. A parent-proctor-at-home option exists for non-returning schools.
Organizer: Continental Mathematics League (operates at cmleague.com).
Price: $90/team (Grades 2–3) or $100/team (Grades 4–9, Calculus); multi-team discount to $85 for additional teams. Individual homeschool entry is $25/child.
Prizes/certificates: 5 certificates and 2 medals per participating team; regional and national awards for top performers.
Good to know: No online testing platform — this is entirely a download-and-print model, which some schools will prefer and others won't.

Established Canadian contests

CEMC Gauss (Grades 7 & 8)

Contests per year: 1, written within a two-week window.
Eligibility: Grades 7–8 (younger students may write it, but it's pitched at that level). Canadian and international schools both eligible, with separate fee handling.
Format: Hybrid — paper or online, administered at school by a Contest Supervisor.
Organizer: CEMC, University of Waterloo.
Price: $5.00/participant (minimum order of 10), plus a $5.00 processing fee per order. This is the only program in this guide that states its currency outright — CEMC's terms page confirms "all fees are in Canadian dollars."
Prizes/certificates: Certificate of Participation for everyone, additional certificates for top performers. Note: CEMC has stopped publishing public student honour rolls for Gauss.
Good to know: The 2026–27 contest window is already posted: May 10–21, 2027. Schools must hold a CEMC account; individual/parent registration isn't available.

CEMC Beaver Computing Challenge

Contests per year: 1, within a two-week window.
Eligibility: Three levels covering up to Grade 10 (the Grade 5/6 paper is open to any student in Grade 6 or below). This is a computational thinking contest, not a math contest — worth noting if you're specifically replacing a math contest.
Format: Online, written at school.
Organizer: CEMC, University of Waterloo.
Price: $3.00/participant, $5.00 processing fee, minimum order of 10. Confirmed CAD.
Prizes/certificates: Certificates of Participation and Distinction (top 25% within a school of at least 4 participants).
Good to know: 2026–27 window already posted: November 9–20, 2026.

Mathematica Centrum (Thales, Byron-Germain, Fibonacci, and four more)

Contests per year: 1 sitting per grade-level contest; schools can register for anywhere from 1 to 7 of the seven contests (Thales–Gr.3, Byron-Germain–Gr.4, Fibonacci–Gr.5, Pythagoras–Gr.6, Euler–Gr.7, Lagrange–Gr.8, Newton–Gr.9).
Eligibility: Grades 3–9. Quebec-based, and the primary audience is Canadian schools.
Format: Fully online.
Organizer: Mathematica Centrum (Quebec).
Price: Per-school block pricing: $125 for one contest, rising to $875 for all seven, capped at 30 students per contest ($3.95 per additional student). Currency isn't printed, but a Quebec address and GST number strongly imply CAD.
Prizes/certificates: Certificates of distinction and participation, school medals, provincial and national plaques, and Fields-Medal-style medals for the top 3 in Canada.
Good to know: 2026–27 dates weren't posted as of this writing; the most recent confirmed season ran mid-April 2026. A free practice archive going back to 2007 is available with no registration required.

Math Kangaroo Canada

Contests per year: 1 annual sitting.
Eligibility: Evidence points to roughly Grade 1 through Grade 12, though the exact range wasn't confirmed on a readable page. Operates as the Canadian affiliate of the international Math Kangaroo movement.
Format: Site-based, administered by volunteer site coordinators.
Organizer: Canadian Math Kangaroo Contest.
Price: Not confirmed — the official fee page is part of a JavaScript-only site that couldn't be read for this research. Check mathkangaroo.ca directly, not mathkangaroocanada.com (that older domain no longer resolves).
Prizes/certificates: Certificates by grade and percentile, a National Math Kangaroo Medal (top 10% nationally), provincial ribbons, and cash Special Recognition awards for Grades 11–12.
Good to know: Offered in English and French.

Canadian Innovation Math Contest (CIMC)

Contests per year: 1, in April.
Eligibility: Grades 2–10. Canadian program.
Format: Online, proctored — teachers proctor their own students at school, or individuals can register directly with Zoom proctoring.
Organizer: CKSTEM / Competitive Kids (Ontario, volunteer-run non-profit).
Price: Not published on the contest page.
Prizes/certificates: Preliminary results and medal recipients are published each year.
Good to know: One of the few genuinely Canadian, teacher-proctored online options on this list. 2026–27 date not yet posted.

International Spirit of Math Contest

Contests per year: 1, inside a window running January to April.
Eligibility: Grades 1–8, open to any student whether or not their school is affiliated with Spirit of Math.
Format: Paper-based, written at the student's own school or a Spirit of Math campus.
Organizer: Spirit of Math Schools (Toronto).
Price: Not published — the site directs schools to contact their nearest host location.
Good to know: The 2026–27 window is already confirmed: January 4 – April 5, 2027. Note this organization also runs a commercial tutoring chain of the same name.

HKIMO Canada Heat Round

Contests per year: 2 stages — a Canadian heat round feeding an international final (WIMO).
Eligibility: Grades 2–12, restricted to students at Canadian schools; awards ship only within Canada.
Format: Online, proctored.
Organizer: CKSTEM, as the Canadian channel for a Hong Kong-run contest.
Price: Heat Round roughly $32–$40 CAD depending on registration type; Global Final $200–$250 CAD.
Good to know: The published page is built around the 2024–25 cycle, so treat dates and prices as needing reconfirmation for 2026–27.

Established U.S. contests open (fully or partly) to Canadian schools

Math League

Contests per year: 1 per grade for the elementary/middle-school series (only the separate High School series runs multiple rounds — 6 a year — so don't assume the younger levels match that cadence).
Eligibility: Grades 4–8, plus Algebra Course 1. Math League runs a dedicated Canadian registration path with Canadian-dollar pricing, distinct from its U.S. route.
Format: Hybrid — paper test sets by mail, or online through the Math League Adaptive Learning System at no extra charge.
Organizer: Math League.
Price: $45/set of 30 tests (Grades 4–8, Algebra 1), $100/set of 30 for High School — priced separately in USD and CAD depending on which registration route a school uses.
Prizes/certificates: Official results PDFs are published by grade band; individual medals/certificates weren't stated on the site.
Good to know: Only schools can register for current-year contests — no individual/parent path. Starting September 2026, calculators are no longer permitted on any Math League contest.

Noetic Learning Math Contest

Contests per year: 2 — a Fall and a Spring contest, each roughly a two-week window.
Eligibility: Grades 2–8. Canadian eligibility isn't explicitly stated, though the registration form includes a country field.
Format: Hybrid — schools choose paper or online.
Organizer: Noetic Learning.
Price: $129 per contest, per team of up to 30 students (includes 3 practice tests, awards, and shipping). An individual "At-Home Edition" also exists, though its price isn't publicly listed.
Prizes/certificates: Team Winner Medal, National Honor Roll Medal (top 10%), Honorable Mention Ribbon (top 50%), Team Achievement Plaque. At-Home participants get a digital certificate and ranking but no physical award.
Good to know: The site's own meta description still advertises an older $99 price — the actual current fee shown on the page is $129.

AMC 8

Contests per year: 1, held during a set competition week.
Eligibility: Grade 8 and below (and under 15.5 years old on contest day). Canada is explicitly named as eligible, alongside the U.S.
Format: Hybrid — digital or print-and-scan administration — but proctoring is strict: remote proctoring isn't allowed, and the supervisor must be an unrelated adult affiliated with the host school. Homeschools and parent-registrants aren't permitted.
Organizer: Mathematical Association of America (MAA).
Price: Tiered — $55 Early Bird, $75 Regular, $115 Late, plus a $25 bundle fee licensing 10 students.
Prizes/certificates: Downloadable certificates for participation and high scores; no public honour roll structure stated.
Good to know: The strongest multilingual offering of any program in this guide — problems are available free in English, Spanish, French, and Simplified Chinese, with Braille and large print on request. 2026–27 dates are confirmed: January 21–27, 2027.

Math Kangaroo USA

Contests per year: 1 individual sitting (3rd Thursday in March), plus a separate Team Competition.
Eligibility: Grades K–12. This is the U.S. affiliate — Canada has its own separate Math Kangaroo Canada organization (above), and Canadian eligibility for the U.S. version isn't stated.
Format: Hybrid — five participation types ranging from in-person paper to fully self-proctored virtual.
Organizer: Math Kangaroo USA.
Price: $18/student (Sep 15–Dec 31), rising to $35 late (Jan 1–Feb 1).
Prizes/certificates: Certificates of Participation and Ranking; national Gold/Silver/Bronze medals; state-level ribbons; scholarships for top seniors.
Good to know: Individual families can register their own children directly, without going through a school.

Math Madness

Contests per year: 10 rounds total (2 practice, 3 league/scrimmage, 6 bracket) — a team-vs-team league and playoff format rather than individual scoring.
Eligibility: Grades 3–12. Canadian eligibility isn't stated on the official page — confirm before committing a Canadian school.
Format: 100% online.
Organizer: Arete Labs.
Price: $115–$169 USD (elementary), $165–$375 USD (middle/high), depending on team size.
Good to know: This is a genuinely different experience from Caribou — it's a bracket competition between school teams, not an individual contest with a season-long standing.

Purple Comet! Math Meet

Contests per year: 1, submitted during a ten-day window.
Eligibility: Middle school and high school divisions (no elementary division). International in scope; Canada isn't specifically named but nothing excludes it.
Format: Free online team contest — teams of 1–6 with a required adult supervisor.
Organizer: Purple Comet.
Price: Free.
Good to know: Problem translations are offered in multiple languages. Useful if your school population skews to middle school, but it has nothing for younger elementary grades.

World Maths Day

Contests per year: 1, a single 48-hour global event.
Eligibility: Ages 5–18, worldwide.
Format: Fully online.
Organizer: 3P Learning / Mathletics.
Price: Free.
Prizes/certificates: Hall of Fame placement for top participants.
Good to know: A genuine no-cost option if budget is the constraint, but it's a single event rather than a season with a standing.

Prodigy State Challenge / National Cup

Contests per year: A leaderboard that restarts monthly from September to April, with National Cup finals in May.
Eligibility: Grades 1–8. Worth flagging: although Prodigy is a Canadian company, this specific contest is structured around U.S. states, and Canadian eligibility isn't stated — confirm before assuming your school can enter.
Format: Free online leaderboard inside the Prodigy platform.
Organizer: Prodigy Education (Burlington, ON).
Price: Free.
Good to know: Because it's a leaderboard inside an existing platform rather than a standalone written contest, it plays differently than Caribou did.

Not open to Canadian schools

Included here only so you don't spend time chasing them.

MATHCOUNTS

Eligibility: U.S. students only — defined as attending a school in a U.S. state or territory, or an overseas school affiliated with the U.S. Departments of Defense or State. Canadian schools do not qualify through the normal registration path.
Contests per year: A single roughly 3-hour event with four rounds (Sprint, Target, Team, Countdown), followed by a chapter → state → national elimination progression.
Format: In-person, paper, live event.
Organizer: MATHCOUNTS Foundation.
Price: $42–$53 per student depending on registration date (early bird to late), or non-school-competitor rates of $75–$85.
Good to know: This is a high-profile, well-resourced U.S. program that several other "Caribou alternatives" articles online recommend to Canadian readers — but based on the organization's own eligibility rules, it isn't actually open to them.

IMLEM (Intermediate Math League of Eastern Massachusetts)

Eligibility: Organized entirely around in-person school clusters in eastern Massachusetts. No pathway for non-Massachusetts or Canadian schools was found.
Contests per year: 5 in-person meets.
Good to know: The organization's own website shows significant signs of not having been updated in some years — treat any information about it as unreliable until confirmed directly, regardless of eligibility.

International contests reachable through a partner organization

SASMO (Singapore and Asian Schools Math Olympiad)

Contests per year: 1 annual sitting.
Eligibility: Kindergarten 2 through Grade 12 — the broadest sub-Grade-1 coverage of any program in this guide. Canadian students can enter via SASMO's Canadian Country Council Partner (Canada International Academic Competitions Corporation).
Format: Varies — online or paper for Singapore schools; paper for individual "Private Candidates."
Organizer: SIMCC (Singapore International Mastery Contests Centre).
Price: Singapore-schools rate is $30 (GST inclusive); individual Private Candidates pay SGD 57. The price a Canadian student would pay is set by the Canadian partner and isn't published on SASMO's own site.
Prizes/certificates: Perfect Score medallion plus a cash voucher, Gold/Silver/Bronze medals, Honorable Mention, and Certificates of Participation.
Good to know: Contact the Canadian partner directly for local pricing and dates rather than relying on the Singapore-facing pages.

SIMOC (Singapore International Math Olympiad Challenge)

Contests per year: 1 annual event with three components — an individual online round plus two team-based events at a global finals gathering.
Eligibility: Grades 1–12. Canada is a listed SIMCC partner country, but SIMOC's own page doesn't spell out Canada-specific terms.
Price: Not published anywhere on the official page.
Good to know: The most recent dated content on the official site referenced a 2023 event, and no 2026 or 2027 information was found — confirm current status before recommending it.

WMI (World Mathematics Invitational)

Contests per year: 2 stages once a year — a Preliminary Round run within each member country, then an in-person international Final Round requiring travel.
Eligibility: Kindergarten through Grade 12. Canada is listed as a WMI member country, but no Canadian national contact or agent is listed, so the practical registration route wasn't confirmed.
Price: Not published anywhere official — fees are typically set by each country's national agent.
Prizes/certificates: Medals and named awards (including "The Star of the World") at the Final Round.
Good to know: Offered in English, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese. A genuinely different commitment than Caribou — the Final Round means travel to an international host city.

Regional Canadian contests

These are strong options if your school is in the right province or city, but they don't serve a national audience the way Caribou did.

ELMACON (Grades 5–7, British Columbia) — an in-person annual contest hosted at UBC. Run by PIMS.
Calgary Junior Math Contest (mainly Grade 9, but open to Calgary-area junior high students) — a free, in-classroom 90-minute exam run by the University of Calgary.
Calgary Elementary School Math Contest (CESMC) (Grades 4–6, Calgary area) — run by Mount Royal University; recent activity couldn't be confirmed, so check directly before planning around it.
Math Challengers (Grades 8–10, British Columbia) — a regional-to-provincial tournament with individual, team, and buzz-in rounds; recent pricing and dates weren't confirmed on the official site.
Championnat de l'AQJM / La magie des maths (Grade 3 and up, Quebec) — a multi-stage, French-language logic and puzzle championship run by Université Laval, feeding an international final. One of the few active French-language options since Caribou closed.
Virtual Mathematical Marathon (Grades 3–12, run by Université de Moncton) — a free, bilingual (English/French) online marathon posting new problems weekly. Structurally attractive, but the most recent evidence of it running was from years ago — confirm directly with the university before counting on it.

Worth flagging, but not currently a going concern

Global Math Challenge — Sony Global Education's own site confirms this program was discontinued after 2019 and its website closed in 2020. Not an option for 2026–27.
Saskatchewan Math Challenge — the Saskatchewan Mathematics Teachers' Society states it is no longer hosting this challenge, and is instead pointing teachers toward other extracurricular math opportunities.
Beestar National Math Competition — third-party sources describe a twice-yearly online contest for elementary/middle school, but Beestar's own competition pages couldn't be accessed for this research. Confirm directly before including it in any plan.

Choosing among them

There's no single one-for-one replacement for Caribou — nothing else combines its exact mix of six online rounds, a K–12 span, and a dozen-plus languages at a near-free price point. But depending on what mattered most to your school:

Want the closest cadence and format? Start with North Star Contests or MOEMS.
Want a well-established, low-cost Canadian option and don't need multiple rounds? CEMC's Gauss contest is the most clearly documented program in this guide, right down to its currency.
Want the broadest grade range, including the youngest students? SASMO reaches down to Kindergarten 2 — further than almost anything else here.
Want genuinely free? World Maths Day, Purple Comet, the Calgary Junior Math Contest, and the Virtual Mathematical Marathon all charge nothing, though each comes with its own trade-off in scope or grade range.

Whichever you choose, confirm current-year pricing, dates, and eligibility directly with the organizer — as this guide shows, even official contest websites don't always agree with themselves, let alone stay current year to year.

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