Khan Academy Alternatives for Students, Parents and Teachers

Khan Academy still works and still costs nothing. Its about page lists 840+ free courses in more than 55 languages and 104.9 million learners in the 2024-2025 school year. The one paid part is the Khanmigo AI tutor, which the Khanmigo pricing page lists at $4 a month or $44 a year for learners and parents. Teachers get it free.

So most people searching for alternatives are not escaping a shutdown. They want a different format: live tutoring instead of videos, a game for a 7-year-old, a printed textbook, a lab simulation for class, or more drill than Khan Academy gives. The seven picks below cover school subjects only. Readers after classroom coding should read our CodeHS alternatives guide instead.

Four of the seven are free. The other three are paid, and IXL does not publish its prices.

Prices below are as of November 6, 2026. Our method is on How we review tools.

Quick comparison

CK-12

For a family that wants Khan Academy's price without its format, CK-12 is the first stop. The CK-12 Foundation is a nonprofit, and its mission page describes free materials plus Flexi, "a FREE digital tutor for every student." Math runs from grade 1 through Algebra II, geometry, trigonometry, calculus and statistics. Science covers K-5, then biology, chemistry, physics, and earth, life and physical science.

Khan Academy teaches mostly through short videos. CK-12 is built around FlexBook readings and practice questions, with Flexi answering questions inside the lesson. The same page lists social studies, English writing and spelling, and adult education such as high school equivalency and ESL, so a parent going back to school can use the same account as the kids.

Best for: Students in grades 1 to 12 who learn better by reading and practising than by watching videos, at no cost.

Pricing:

• Free for students, parents and teachers
• Flexi AI tutor included at no charge
• No paid plan listed; CK-12 runs on donations

Watch out for:

• CK-12's own help center says Flexi can give incorrect, incomplete or outdated answers and asks students to state the subject and grade and to split hard questions into parts. Check its math before copying it into homework.

Official site: CK-12.

Schoolhouse.world

Sal Khan has a second nonprofit, and it swaps videos for people. On Schoolhouse.world, trained volunteer tutors, many of them high school students, lead live sessions on Zoom. The homepage calls every program "100% free" and counts 229,000+ learners and 563,000+ sessions.

SAT prep is the main reason to sign up. A 4-week SAT Bootcamp works through Math and Reading and Writing in small groups and reviews full-length practice tests together, and the site says it partnered with College Board in January 2026. Homework help for high school math and science runs every day, evenings and weekends included. College workshops cover essays, applications and financial aid.

Best for: High school students who want free SAT prep or homework help from a real person.

Pricing:

• Free: SAT Bootcamps, single SAT sessions, homework help, college workshops
• No paid tier

Watch out for:

• Tutors are peers, not certified teachers. The homepage says they are high school students, so a session is only as good as the volunteer who runs it.
• Everything happens live at booked times on Zoom. It does not replace self-paced practice at whatever hour a student is free.

Official site: Schoolhouse.world.

IXL

Parents who decide to pay for practice usually end up looking at IXL. Its membership page covers math, English language arts, science, social studies and Spanish from Pre-K to grade 12, with unlimited questions across 20,000 skills. A child works one skill at a time while a SmartScore climbs toward 100.

Khan Academy mixes video lessons with exercises. IXL is almost all exercises, so it works best next to a teacher or a video source. IXL also sells classroom licences, so ask the school if your child already has a login before you buy a family plan.

Best for: Parents who want daily, measurable practice across the main school subjects and are happy to pay for it.

Pricing:

• One subject: $9.95/month or $79/year
• Combo (math and language arts): $15.95/month or $129/year
• Core (math, language arts, science, social studies): $19.95/month or $159/year
• Each extra child: $4/month or $40/year
• Prices from a June 2026 price guide; IXL does not publish its prices, so confirm at checkout

Watch out for:

• Some students find the SmartScore discouraging when it falls after a wrong answer. A public change.org petition asks IXL to change how the score moves.

Official site: IXL.

OpenStax

A student who wants a real textbook instead of a playlist can get one from OpenStax, a nonprofit at Rice University. Every book is free to read online or download as a PDF, and a print copy costs a small fee, its about page says. It reports 43.3 million students and 59,000+ instructors in the U.S. and more than 160 countries.

The titles target intro college courses, from biology and chemistry to calculus, psychology and U.S. history, and the about page notes that high schools adopt them too. They pair well with Khan Academy videos: read the chapter in OpenStax, then watch a short video on the part that did not stick.

Best for: High school and first-year college students who need a free textbook for a course.

Pricing:

• Free online and as a PDF
• Print copies at low cost; price varies by book
• Assignable, a course tool for instructors, has no price on the about page

Watch out for:

• These are books, not a tutor. No adaptive practice or video lessons come with the free version, so a student who needs feedback on each answer will want CK-12 or IXL alongside it.

Official site: OpenStax.

PhET Interactive Simulations

Science teachers often keep a PhET tab open next to Khan Academy. The University of Colorado Boulder project was founded in 2002 by Nobel laureate Carl Wieman, and its about page describes free, research-based simulations in physics, chemistry, biology, earth and space science, and math and statistics. Sponsors pay so schools do not have to.

A student can build a circuit, change a pendulum's length or balance a chemical equation and watch what happens, which a video cannot do. The language menu lists 48 languages. Sims run in the browser or can be downloaded, and PhET links to apps on the App Store and Google Play.

Best for: Teachers and students who need a hands-on science or math model for a lesson or lab.

Pricing:

• Simulations: free online and as downloads
• PhET Studio, for customised sims, needs a purchased licence; a free trial is offered and no price is listed on the about page

Watch out for:

• Most sims are HTML5, but the about page says some legacy ones still use Java or Flash, which modern browsers will not run.
• PhET has no courses, videos or progress tracking. The teacher supplies the lesson around each sim.

Official site: PhET Interactive Simulations.

Brilliant

Brilliant suits the learner who finds watching a video too passive. Lessons are short interactive problems in math, science and computer science, and Premium adds the Koji tutor, unlimited lessons, no ads, and access on web and mobile, per its pricing help page.

It fits older teens and adults better than young children, and it does not follow a school syllabus the way Khan Academy and IXL do. The help page says some families in certain US states can pay with education savings account, scholarship or homeschool charter funds. Schools are asked to email schools@brilliant.org.

Best for: Teens and adults who want to build math and science intuition by solving problems rather than watching lessons.

Pricing:

• Individual, monthly: $30/month
• Family: $40/month for 6 seats
• An annual plan exists at a lower monthly rate; Brilliant does not publish its price
• Free tier with limited lessons

Watch out for:

• Its $30 monthly plan is the highest monthly price in this list, and the subscribe page does not spell out what the free tier includes.

Official site: Brilliant.

Prodigy

Younger kids who will not sit through a Khan Academy video may happily play Prodigy. It is a fantasy role-playing game in which children answer questions to win battles. The membership page lists Prodigy Math for grades 1 to 8 and Prodigy English for grades 1 to 6.

The math membership page says math and English content are free. Science, for grades 1 to 6, and some game extras need a membership. Parents with more than one child get 25% off when buying memberships for each of them.

Best for: Children in grades 1 to 8 who need math practice that feels like play.

Pricing:

• Free: math and English content
• Core (math), billed yearly: $58.95/year
• Plus, billed yearly: $88.95/year
• Ultra (math, science, English), billed yearly: $118.95/year
• Shorter-term prices shown as $9.95, $14.95 and $19.95; the page says annual billing saves 50%
• 25% off for multiple children

Watch out for:

• All subscriptions renew automatically, the membership page says, so set a reminder if you only want one term.
• Science sits behind the paywall, unlike on Khan Academy or CK-12, where it is free.

Official site: Prodigy.

How to choose

When to stay with Khan Academy

Keep Khan Academy if one free site needs to cover videos, practice and progress across math, science, economics and test prep. No pick here matches that range at zero cost. Teachers also get Khanmigo free, and Khan Academy Kids covers ages 2 to 8, per the about page. Add CK-12 or IXL only for the gap you actually feel.

Frequently asked questions