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Akros vs. Khan Academy

A daily plan on paper, not a library on a screen.

Khan Academy offers videos and exercises on a screen, and your child has to find the way through them. Akros sends a complete lesson every morning, on paper, built from everything your child has done. AI reads every step they write, coaches the step where they went wrong, and decides what comes next.

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7-day money-back guarantee · Siblings half price · Cancel online anytime

At a glance

How Akros and Khan Academy compare

	Akros	Khan Academy	Why it matters for your child
Where your child works	On paper, with a pencil	On a screen	Writing by hand engages more of the brain, and nothing on the page pulls your child away.
What gets read	Every step your child writes	Only the answer your child types	A wrong step gets fixed where it happened instead of practiced again.
When your child gets stuck	Help arrives on its own: the problem returns with a hint aimed at the exact wrong step	Hints or a Khanmigo chat, if your child asks	Every mistake gets help, not just the ones your child asks about.
New topics	A printed Concept Lesson for every Math Topic	Videos and articles	Your child learns from the page, with no screen at all.
What comes next	A complete lesson every morning, built for your child	Your child, you, or a teacher choose courses and assignments	Real structure, with no planning from you.
What you see	A photo of your child’s work beside every graded answer	Progress reports	You see exactly what your child wrote and what got fixed.

Why Akros wins

Why Akros is the better choice for your child

Every lesson is planned around your child.

Each morning, a complete lesson arrives, built from every answer your child has given: recent misses to fix, skills due for review, and the next new topic they’re ready for. Akros skips what your child already knows, repairs a missing building block before moving on, and keeps lessons challenging but winnable, with about 4 answers in 5 right. You never pick skills or set goals.

Help reaches every mistake.

In a two-year study in 18 Tennessee middle schools, students messaged Khanmigo in only 17% of the sessions where they made a mistake. Akros doesn’t wait to be asked: it brings missed questions back on its own, with a hint aimed at the exact step that went wrong.

Pencil and paper help learning stick.

Writing by hand engages more of the brain than typing, and that engagement goes hand in hand with better learning and memory. In a randomized study, kindergartners who learned new letters by hand named 92% of them correctly, compared with 76% for children who typed. Across 24 experiments, students who took notes by hand scored higher on later tests than students who typed.

Schools are moving back to paper.

Countries that went furthest with classroom screens are turning back. Since 2023, Sweden has budgeted more than a billion kronor for printed textbooks, and Denmark’s education minister said the country owed a generation of schoolchildren “a huge apology” for being “enthusiastic about digitalisation and naive.” In the United States, Iowa now limits digital learning to one hour a day from Kindergarten through Grade 5. The research explains why: across 54 studies of more than 170,000 readers, people understood informational text better on paper than on a screen, and when 1,139 ten-year-olds took the same reading test both ways, they scored lower on screen at every skill level.

Akros reads the work, not just the answer.

Khan Academy sees only the final answer, so it knows your child was wrong but not why. Akros reads every handwritten step, pinpoints where the thinking broke, and names the kind of mistake: a careless slip, a wrong method, or a step left out. When researchers compared computer tutors, those that gave feedback on each step produced more than twice the learning gains of those that checked only the final answer.

Your child fixes each mistake themselves.

Every missed question comes back the next day with new numbers, chosen so the same mistake can’t produce the right answer, and a one-sentence hint aimed at the step that went wrong. The hint never gives away the answer, because working out an answer yourself is one of the most reliable memory boosters in psychology. After this coaching, children get that type of question right on a later lesson 97% of the time, with no hints. That’s proof the coaching works: nearly every mistake gets fixed, and your child does the fixing.

Every skill comes back right before it would fade.

Each topic comes back 2 days after it’s taught, then at widening intervals: a week, 2 weeks, a month, 2 months. Fragile skills return sooner and strong skills later. Memory research finds that this widening spacing is one of the best defenses against forgetting. Every review uses fresh questions, so your child recalls the method instead of recognizing an old problem. As a result, 85% of fixed mistakes are still answered correctly a week or more later: what your child learns stays learned.

You see proof, not promises.

Your parent dashboard shows the whole map: every skill your child has learned, where Akros is fixing gaps and teaching new concepts, and a photo of your child’s handwriting beside every graded answer. You always know exactly what your child knows and where they need help, with no grading or quizzing on your part.

Real results

What Akros does for real children

80%

of questions answered correctly on brand-new topics after one Akros lesson, up from about 25% before it

97%

of missed questions fixed: answered correctly on a later lesson, with no hints

85%

of those fixes still answered correctly a week or more later

“We have used several tools over the years and so far I have the most confidence with this. Love the combination of mostly hands off for parents, paper sheets, show your work, and AI grading.”

George’s Dad, 7th Grade

The price

A tutor’s job for less than one tutoring session a month

Tutor, 3 times a week$893a month: $60 an hour, 13 sessions, plus driving

Akros Daily$19.99a month: a lesson every day, every sibling half price

Every first payment comes with a 7-day money-back guarantee, and you can cancel online anytime.

Questions parents ask

Choosing between Akros and Khan Academy

Khan Academy is free. Why pay for Akros?

Khan Academy gives your child a free library. Akros does a tutor’s job: it decides what your child should learn next, teaches it on paper, reads every step of their work, coaches each mistake, and brings skills back before they fade. A month costs less than one hour with a tutor, and every sibling is half price.

My child is self-motivated. Do they still need Akros?

Even motivated children skip what feels hard and rarely review what they already “got.” Akros catches every mistake, repairs missing building blocks, and brings old skills back right before they fade, so motivation turns into skills that last.

Can Akros read messy handwriting?

Yes. Akros reads the answer, the work shown, the math around it, and your child’s own writing patterns. If a read is genuinely uncertain, Akros asks you to confirm it instead of guessing.

Sources, checked November 2026. Paper vs. screen reading: Delgado et al. (2018) and Støle et al. (2020). Handwriting: Ibaibarriaga et al. (2025) and Flanigan et al. (2024). Feedback on each step: VanLehn (2011). Working out answers yourself: Bertsch et al. (2007). Schools and screens: Government of Sweden, Folkeskolen (December 2023, translated) and Iowa Capital Dispatch (May 2026). Khanmigo: Khanmigo for parents and NBER working paper 35620. Akros results: real Akros students, as reported on our homepage.

Try Akros

You’re the coach.
Akros is the math teacher.

Start today, because every lesson builds on the one before: your child’s first lesson shows exactly where they stand, and tomorrow’s is built from it. Siblings are half price, and every first payment comes with a 7-day money-back guarantee.

Choose your plan See how it works