Eureka vs Novela
The sharpest AI marketing simulator on the market, played solo against a simulated market — versus a multi-discipline engine where the other teams in the room are the market.
For marketing faculty and programme directors deciding whether they need the deepest digital-marketing simulator there is, or one platform that also covers strategy, finance, operations and supply chain — and runs in the language of the classroom.
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| Dimension | Eureka Simulations | Novela |
|---|---|---|
| Catalogue size | 36 core simulations (18 co-developed with IESE) + an Express catalogue of short formats | 5 simulations, all digital marketing: Google Ads (Burberry), Meta Ads, organic content, B2B (WorkWell) and AI Search with SEO/GEO (Beckwith & Co.). One function, covered deeply, plus a 15-week syllabus and a companion textbook |
| Languages | Platform in 16 languages; Express in 9 (EN, ES, CA, DE, EU, FR, IT, PT, ZH) | English only — platform, catalogue and teaching pack. No multilingual delivery published |
| MBA / Exec-Ed depth | High — ExSim plus 18 simulations co-developed with IESE faculty | High within marketing — Columbia, Kellogg, INSEAD, Oxford, Booth, Imperial and 50+ institutions (company figures). It is the tool for a marketing elective, not a general-management capstone |
| Corporate L&D fit | Medium-high — 90-minute Express format to scale to thousands of managers | Narrow but sharp: a three-hour session retrains a marketing team on AI search. Outside the marketing function there is nothing |
| Deployment / hosting | Cloud SaaS, 100% browser (Archimedes platform), EU-hosted (GDPR) | Web SaaS, no install; faculty request access and get a demo cohort created the same day. Novela Ltd, London; UK GDPR |
| Pricing tier | $$ — €8–25/student; €4K–60K/year at institutional level | Not published — demo and custom quote. Free instructor access, and a free textbook PDF for adopting professors |
| Customization | High — co-development with the professor; custom-built simulations (€25–50K) | Low on the model, high on the course — brands and mechanics are fixed (Burberry, Aura, WorkWell, Beckwith); what they tailor is the teaching wrapper, mapping decks, readings and quiz items onto your syllabus |
| Integrations (LTI, SSO) | LTI + SSO (SAML 2.0); integrates with Moodle, Canvas, Blackboard | "Grades land in your LMS gradebook or through the class link"; Canvas, Brightspace and Blackboard appear in their FAQ. No stated LTI 1.3 or SSO |
| Reporting / analytics | Live instructor dashboard; decision data taggable by competency (AoL-ready) | Strong per student: you see every student's brief, budget split and result per round, a class leaderboard, a four-trait rubric, two graded assignments and a 105-question quiz bank |
| Target geography | Spain + LATAM (IESE family: IPADE, IAE, INALDE, PAD…); 20+ institutions, 40,000+ students trained | Global English-speaking; UK-based, with strong US and UK university adoption (Columbia, Kellogg, King's, Imperial, Elon, Florida) |
When Novela is the better choice
Novela does one thing very well that we do not do at all: teach the craft of digital marketing in 2026, on the screens of the craft. Choose them when:
- You teach digital marketing specifically — paid search, Meta Ads, organic content, B2B and now GEO/AEO — and you want interfaces that mirror Google Ads, Meta Ads and ChatGPT Ads with real platform data. They go deeper than we do in that one function, and there is no point pretending otherwise.
- You want the course, not just the simulator: a 15-week syllabus, seven chapter decks, a 105-question quiz bank, four-trait rubrics, two graded assignments and a companion textbook — with the first class taught by the founder.
- AI is the subject, not the delivery: students work alongside Ela and are marked on how they prompt, how they ground an answer and what they can defend — exactly what a 2026 marketing hire is tested on.
When Eureka is the better choice
Eureka wins when the class has to run a whole company, in several languages, against the people sitting next to them.
- The programme is wider than marketing — strategy, finance, operations, supply chain, sustainability, negotiation — and you want one platform and one instructor console across all of it, not a marketing tool plus four others.
- You want the class to be the market: in Eureka the team is the unit of play, and your result moves because a rival team cut price that round. Novela's rivals are, in their own words, "simulated competitors", and the leaderboard compares solo runs.
- You need the language of the classroom (16 on the platform, 9 in Express), EU hosting, LTI plus SAML SSO, and a published institutional price rather than a custom quote.
Sometimes you use both
They stack cleanly, precisely because they barely overlap. Novela owns the marketing function at a depth we do not attempt: run their AI Search or Meta Ads simulation for the digital block. Then run Eureka for the general-management block, where the same cohort has to fund that marketing budget out of a P&L it also has to defend against operations, and where the other teams in the room push back. One teaches a marketer to run the channel; the other teaches them to argue for the budget.
Frequently asked questions
Is Novela a business simulation or a marketing tool?
It is a real simulation — of one function. There is an auction model underneath that computes AdRank and ad quality, and their engine is deterministic: replay with a different strategy and you get a different, traceable result. What there isn't is a company. No P&L to defend, no production, no financing, no cash. Every decision lives inside the marketing budget. Eureka models the whole firm, and marketing is one line competing for the money.
Do students play in teams on Novela?
On everything they publish, the unit of play and of grading is the individual student: the class leaderboard compares solo runs, the gradebook holds each student's brief and budget split, and the market rivals are — in their own words — "simulated competitors". They field an FAQ on group use, but do not publish the answer. In Eureka the team is the unit of play, and what the other teams decided that round is an input to your result.
A marketing elective, or a whole programme?
Tell us what the course has to cover. If it is the digital-marketing block alone, Novela is a seriously good answer; if it is general management, across functions and languages, let us show you ours.
ContactLast reviewed: 2026-09