Best Apps for Teachers, and Where Each Free Plan Stops

Teacher apps earn their money from schools, districts or parents, so the teacher mostly pays nothing. The free plan a single teacher gets usually has a limit somewhere: the number of classes, of students, or of questions in a quiz. That limit decides which app fits your class. Google Classroom is the default where the school uses Google accounts, since it comes with the school’s account. ClassDojo suits young children and parents you want in the loop, because one app does the classroom and the messaging.

What each free plan allows

Every app here is on both stores and also works in a web browser. Prices are the makers’ own, in US dollars.

Setting work and running the class

Google Classroom is where assignments go out and come back. Its listing describes creating classes, handing out work, marking it and posting announcements, with every file kept in Google Drive. Google’s help pages add that parents and guardians can sign up for email summaries of a pupil’s upcoming or missing work. The app shows no ads label and nothing to buy on Google Play, and it is on the App Store too.

What you pay depends on your school, not on you. Google says the Education Fundamentals edition of Workspace, which includes Classroom, is available at no charge to qualifying institutions. Education Plus adds more and is priced on request. If your school has not signed up, Google’s help page says you can still use Classroom with a personal Google account, and gives a homeschool or a club as examples.

ClassDojo ties the classroom to home. Teachers and parents message each other, parents get photos and videos from the classroom, and the listing says it is used in 180 countries. The in-app purchase on the store pages is ClassDojo Plus, which the listing describes as an extra for parents.

Edmodo is gone. Its owner, NetDragon, announced in August 2022 that the free Edmodo.com would shut down on 22 September 2022, and the address no longer leads to a classroom service. Google Classroom does the same job. Class123 no longer turns up in a search of Google Play or the App Store, and its website did not load for us.

For lessons over a video call, there are free video calling apps to choose from.

Lesson plans, with or without AI

Planboard is the choice for a lesson planner and nothing else, with a backup. You write and share plans on a timetable, attach files and photos, tie lessons to curriculum standards, and everything syncs with the web version. Its Google Play and App Store listings both say it is 100% free for teachers.

The backup is there for a reason. Planboard came from a company called Chalk, and the listings now name PowerSchool as the maker. Chalk’s old website forwards to PowerSchool’s products for schools, where Planboard has no page of its own. The address of the web app still loads. We would use it, and keep a copy of anything important somewhere else.

Planbook Mobile is the paid alternative, and its listing gives the price as $20 a year after a 90-day free trial.

Two AI helpers run in a browser. MagicSchool has a plan it calls Forever Free for individual teachers, and a Plus plan at $8.33 a month billed yearly that removes the limits on what you can generate. Khan Academy’s Khanmigo is free for teachers and drafts lesson plans, rubrics and exit tickets. The same assistant costs learners and parents $4 a month. Khan Academy’s pricing page does not list the countries where the teacher version is offered, so you will find out at sign-up.

For writing worksheets and handouts, we cover word processing apps separately.

Quizzes when pupils have devices

Kahoot! is the lively revision lesson for a class of 40 or fewer: it turns a quiz into a game on the classroom screen, with pupils answering from their own devices. The listing says Kahoot! is free for teachers and their students. The free plan on its pricing page is called Kahoot! Go, and more players and more question types come with the paid plans.

Wayground, the new name for Quizizz, takes over for a larger class, since its free plan allows 100 students. Its plans page says the Basic plan is free for every teacher, forever, with a limited set of question types, and schools and districts pay for the full version.

Socrative Teacher runs quick polls, quizzes and exit tickets and marks them for you. The 50 students on its free plan are per activity. Socrative says it is free for students on every device.

Google Forms also makes quizzes that mark themselves, if your pupils can reach a browser. You set an answer key and points for each question. It needs a Google account and has no app to install.

Classes with no phones or tablets

Plickers is for questions in class. Each pupil holds up a printed card, and you scan the room with your own phone to collect the answers. The free account allows unlimited classes, and Plickers Pro removes the limit on questions.

ZipGrade marks multiple-choice tests on paper. You print its answer sheets, pupils fill them in with pen or pencil, and your phone’s camera reads each one. The listing says it works without an internet connection and syncs later. For a large class, its $6.99 for a year is the cheapest thing in this article that costs anything.

Wayground for Teachers, a second Wayground app, marks paper too. You photograph a completed worksheet or bubble sheet and the results go into your Wayground reports.

Messages to parents and families

ClassDojo already covers this for many teachers. Remind suits parents who only read text messages, in the US or Canada. It sends class announcements and two-way messages without showing anyone your phone number, and its listing says messages can be translated into more than 90 languages. Remind calls the free version Remind Chat and says it is always free for teachers.

Where you teach matters here. Remind’s help centre says its text messages can only be delivered to US and Canadian mobile numbers. Everywhere else, parents need the app or email. The same help centre says pupils under 13 cannot join classes outside the United States, and suggests that a parent joins in their place. Remind is now part of ParentSquare, which Remind’s site describes as the product for whole schools and districts.

Seesaw is built for primary classes. Pupils record their work with photos, video, drawing and voice, and families see it. The free plan, Seesaw Starter, now covers one active class of up to 35 pupils, 35 saved activities and five media items per post. Seesaw says Starter stays free.

TalkingPoints suits families who speak a different language from you. It comes from a nonprofit and does one thing: two-way messages between teachers and families, translated into 150 languages. Families can receive them as ordinary text messages. Its site says individual teachers use it free. The Google Play listing words that as free for teachers in the US, so check that it reaches your pupils’ families before you depend on it elsewhere.