Akros vs. a math tutor
A tutor’s job, every day, for less than one tutoring hour a month.
Parents hire a tutor for three things: teaching new math, fixing mistakes, and building skills that last. Akros does all three every day instead of once or twice a week. It teaches each new topic with a printed lesson, reads every step your child writes, coaches the step where they went wrong, and brings each skill back right before it would fade. A month of Akros costs less than one hour with a tutor.
- A new lesson every day, not once or twice a week
- Any time that suits your day, with no appointments
- A dashboard that shows exactly what your child knows
- Less each month than one hour with a tutor
7-day money-back guarantee · Siblings half price · Cancel online anytime
How Akros and a math tutor compare
| Akros | Tutor | Why it matters for your child | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How often | Every day: a new lesson each morning | Usually 1 to 3 sessions a week | Consistency is key to successful learning. Tutoring works best at 3 or more sessions a week, and Akros makes daily practice easy. |
| When | Whenever suits your day | Fixed appointments, plus the drive | No planning around someone else’s calendar, and no lost sessions when someone is sick. |
| What you see | A dashboard with every skill and a photo of every graded answer | A few words at the end of a session | You always know exactly where your child stands. |
| New topics | A printed Concept Lesson, reviewed by a person, that your child can reread | An explanation on the spot | Children go from about 25% correct to 80% after one lesson. |
| Mistakes | Every step read, every mistake traced and coached the next day | Whatever the tutor catches in the session | 97% of missed questions get fixed. |
| Review | Each skill returns right before it would fade | Whatever the tutor remembers to revisit | 85% of fixes are still right a week or more later. |
| Price | From $19.99 a month; every sibling half price | About $60 an hour, full price for every child | A month of Akros costs less than one tutoring hour. |
| Independence | Your child works it out from the page, with a hint instead of a person | A tutor sits beside your child and often walks them through it | Learning on their own is the skill that lasts long after the math. |
Why Akros is the better choice for your child
Daily practice beats weekly sessions.
Consistency is key to successful learning. A review of 96 randomized studies found that tutoring works best at 3 or more sessions a week, and psychologists who reviewed 10 popular study methods rated spaced practice one of the 2 most effective. Akros sends a new lesson every morning, so your child can practice every day. On Akros Premium, Instant Grading delivers the next lesson in about 10 minutes when your child wants to keep going. That’s 30 or more lessons a month, compared with 13 sessions from a tutor who comes 3 times a week.
Your schedule stays yours.
A tutor, learning center, or class locks you into the same hours every week. You plan around them, drive to them, wait through them, and lose them when someone is sick. Akros has no appointments. The lesson waits in your inbox, and your child does it whenever suits your day: before school, after soccer, on a Saturday morning, or on vacation. Your part takes about 5 minutes.
You see exactly what your child knows.
Most tutors sum up a session in a few words. Your Akros parent dashboard shows the whole map: every skill your child has learned, where Akros is fixing gaps and teaching new concepts, and every graded question beside a photo of your child’s handwritten work. You always know where your child stands and where they need help.
New concepts click in one lesson.
Every new Math Topic comes with a printed Concept Lesson: the key rule, a clear explanation, worked examples, and a warning about the most common mistake. On topics that are new to them, children answer about 25% of questions correctly before the lesson and 80% after it: one lesson takes your child from mostly wrong to mostly right. A tutor explains on the spot, and the explanation is gone when the session ends. An Akros Concept Lesson stays on the table for your child to reread, and a person reviews and approves each one before any child sees it.
Every mistake gets traced to its cause.
When researchers recorded real tutoring sessions, they found that tutors often missed why a student got a problem wrong. Akros reads every step your child writes, pinpoints where the thinking broke, and names the kind of mistake: a careless slip, a wrong method, or a step left out. The next day the problem comes back with new numbers, chosen so the same mistake can’t produce the right answer, and a hint aimed precisely at the broken step. After this coaching, children answer that type of question correctly 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.
Skills stay learned.
Akros tracks every question your child answers and every skill they learn, a record no human tutor could keep up with, so it knows exactly when each skill is due for review. Each topic comes back 2 days after it’s taught, then at widening intervals of a week, 2 weeks, a month, and 2 months. 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, with no hints.
Your child learns to figure things out.
With Akros, your child learns each new topic from the page and fixes each mistake with a hint, not a person leaning over their shoulder. That self-sufficiency is the skill that lasts. Most advanced math won’t be used after school (when did you last do calculus?), but the ability to learn something new on your own will be used for life. Every fix tells your child: you didn’t need anyone to show you; you figured it out yourself.
No screens and no devices.
While many tutors and learning centers now teach over video, Akros is completely device-free: every lesson is printed, and your child writes out each step with a pencil. Children get more math problems right when they write out their steps: in a study of Dutch 6th graders who found math hard, answers with written-out steps were right 40% of the time, compared with 19% for answers worked out in their heads. Schools are moving the same way: countries that went furthest with classroom screens are turning back, and American states are following. Sweden, which had required digital tools even in its preschools, has budgeted more than a billion kronor since 2023 to give every student a printed textbook in every subject. And in 2026, Iowa limited digital learning to one hour a day from Kindergarten through Grade 5.
Every sibling is half price.
Tutors charge full price for every child. With Akros, your first child costs less each month than one tutoring hour, and every brother or sister adds just $9.99.
What Akros does for real children
of questions answered correctly on brand-new topics after one Akros lesson, up from about 25% before it
of missed questions fixed: answered correctly on a later lesson, with no hints
of those fixes still answered correctly a week or more later
A tutor’s job for less than one tutoring session a month
Every first payment comes with a 7-day money-back guarantee, and you can cancel online anytime.
Choosing between Akros and a math tutor
Isn’t a real person better than software?
What if my child gets stuck?
Can Akros help with a test coming up?
Can Akros read messy handwriting?
Sources, checked November 2026. Writing out work: Fagginger Auer et al. (2018) and Hickendorff et al. (2010). Paper vs. computer math tests: Backes and Cowan (2019). Schools and screens: Government of Sweden, The Local (2019) and Iowa Capital Dispatch (May 2026). Tutoring frequency: J-PAL review of 96 randomized evaluations. Study methods: Dunlosky et al. (2013). Tutors and misconceptions: Chi et al. (2001). Akros results: real Akros students, as reported on our homepage.
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.