Free AI tutors for GCSE: what you actually get without paying
Compare eight GCSE revision tools by free access, answer marking, exam board support and paid plans.
Yes, there are free AI tutors for GCSE. The useful ones differ in three ways: how many answers they'll mark, whether they know your exam board, and how long the free access lasts. The table below compares what each tool offers for free, its marking features and any usage limits.
Free AI tutors for GCSE compared: features and limits
| Tool | Free marking? | Exam board? | Paid plans | What you get free |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Medly | Yes, within the daily limits | AQA, Edexcel, OCR and CIE | £24.99 a month or £180 a year | 5 marked questions, 20 tutor messages and 1 uploaded paper a day, plus lessons and notes with no daily limit |
| ChatGPT study mode | Comments on what you paste in | Only if you tell it | Paid plans available | A free account, with usage limits |
| Gemini Guided Learning | Comments on what you paste in | Only if you tell it | Paid plans available | A free account, with usage limits |
| Save My Exams | Smart Mark is free to try, with unlimited use on Premium | Yes, with Smart Mark on selected courses | Premium from £25 a month or £96 a year | A weekly allowance of notes, limited exam questions and limited use of its chat tools |
| Cognito | Offers AI marking on typed answers | Yes | Cognito Pro from £9.99 a month | Videos and notes, with weekly caps on flashcards and exam questions |
| Seneca | AI marking is a paid feature | Yes | Priced at checkout | More than 600 exam board courses |
| Revision Genie | Yes, within the 50 | Yes | £14.99 a month or £71.88 for the exam year | 50 AI actions a month across marking and chat |
| Flint | Feedback in mark scheme language | Yes, when your teacher sets it up | See Flint's pricing page | Free for teachers and their pupils |
Features, limits and standard prices checked on 1 November 2026. Time-limited offers are excluded.
You can verify each row on the provider's own page: Medly, ChatGPT study mode, Gemini Guided Learning, Save My Exams (plans and free access), Cognito, Seneca, Revision Genie and Flint. Limits and prices change often, so check before you rely on one.
How to choose a free AI tutor for GCSE revision
Four things separate a useful GCSE tutor from a general chatbot:
- It works from your exam board's specification, because AQA and Edexcel can test the same topic in different ways.
- It marks your answer against a mark scheme and shows where each mark went.
- It asks before it tells. If it hands you the answer, you haven't practised anything.
- It remembers what you find hard, so you don't have to work out what to revise next.
The type of limit matters too. A daily allowance suits revision well, because you can't use up a month of help in one evening. A monthly allowance gives you more flexibility, but it can run out before an exam.
If you're a parent, check each tool's age rules and what it does to keep under-16s safe. Medly's safeguarding approach is on our site.
Can ChatGPT be a free GCSE tutor?
For explaining things, yes. ChatGPT's study mode and Gemini's Guided Learning walk you through a problem in steps, and they'll explain the same idea as many times as you need.
Two limits matter for GCSE. They don't know your exam board unless you tell them, and they aren't working from your mark scheme unless you paste it in. In our study of more than 30,000 examiner-marked answers, marking accuracy depended on how the question, mark scheme and student's answer were presented to the model. In a general chat window, that job falls to you.
If you're using a chatbot for marking, paste the question, the mark scheme and your answer together. Then take a moment to read through the feedback alongside the mark scheme, so you can see where you've picked up marks and what to try in your next answer.
How to revise for GCSEs with free AI tutors
You can get a long way on free allowances. Here's one way to combine them:
- Pick a topic and work through the lesson in Medly's Learn Mode, which has no daily limit.
- Answer your 5 marked questions on that topic. Choose longer questions, because that's where feedback helps most.
- Once a week, do a past paper by hand and upload it with the mark scheme for marking. It counts as one uploaded paper, however many questions it has.
- Check the Medly Mondays timetable. Each week one subject has unlimited practice, from 9am on Monday to 9am on Tuesday.
- When an idea won't click, ask the tutor, or ask a general chatbot to explain it another way.
Medly Mocks are also free, and they show you how your exam technique holds up under timed conditions. If your school mocks are close, our two-week revision plan goes through it day by day.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a completely free AI tutor for GCSE?
Several tools have free plans with no end date, including Medly, ChatGPT, Gemini and Revision Genie. All of them limit how much you can use in some way. Flint is free when your teacher sets it up.
What's the best free AI tutor for GCSE maths?
Our advice is to look for one that can read handwritten working, because GCSE maths awards marks for method. Medly marks handwriting on its canvas or from a photo, and Revision Genie also advertises handwriting marking. General chatbots can help explain a method. Compare each step of the AI's solution with the worked answer in your textbook or mark scheme, and ask your teacher about any steps that don't match.
Is using AI for GCSE revision cheating?
No. Using AI to revise, practise and get feedback is part of preparing for an exam. Coursework and other non-exam assessment are different: JCQ's guidance on AI use in assessments says the work you submit must be your own and any AI use must be acknowledged. If you're unsure, ask your teacher.
Is an AI tutor as good as a human tutor?
They're good at different things. An AI tutor is there at any hour and can mark every answer, while a human tutor knows the student and keeps them accountable. In a randomised controlled trial in GCSE science, students using Medly for 30 minutes a week for four weeks scored 22% higher on the post-test than students revising in their usual way, adjusted for where they started. If you're weighing up the cost, take a read of our guide to whether Medly AI is worth it.
What does Medly's free plan include?
Every subject, with lessons, notes, textbooks and flashcards at no daily limit, plus daily allowances for marking, the tutor and uploads. Our guide to what's free on Medly has the full list.