Pear Deck review

Pear Deck adds interactive questions to slide presentations. You build a lesson in Google Slides or PowerPoint Online, use the Pear Deck add-on to turn some slides into questions, and present it. Students join with a code on their own devices and answer each question as it comes up, and you can show their answers on the main screen without names. GoGuardian merged with Pear Deck in 2020 and in 2024 grouped its teaching products under the name Pear Deck Learning, which also includes Pear Assessment, Pear Practice and an AI planning tool called Pear Start. Pear Assessment was Edulastic and Pear Practice was Giant Steps before the rename. Pear Deck suits teachers at any level who already teach from slides.

Who it’s for

Pear Deck fits schools that run on Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 and teachers who don’t want to learn a new presentation tool. If your existing Year 10 English slides already work, Pear Deck lets you add a question every few slides without rebuilding the lesson. It works well for mid-lesson checks and exit tickets.

If you want ready-made lessons with lots of activity types, Nearpod has a bigger library. If you want competitive review games, a tool like Gimkit is a better fit.

What it does well

Your slides stay in Google Drive or OneDrive, and the add-on sits beside them. Question types include multiple choice, text answers, number answers and website slides. On Premium, students can also drag a dot onto a map or diagram, or draw on the slide. The draggable question shows a whole class’s understanding at once. Ask students to place a dot on a timeline or a scale, and the cluster on your screen tells you more than a show of hands.

Answers can go on the main screen anonymously. When you show a set of text answers without names, students who never volunteer get their thinking in front of the class, and you can pick one to discuss without putting anyone on the spot.

Student-Paced mode is on the free plan. Students work through the slides on their own time, which helps with absent students and homework.

Pear Deck added real-time language support for English learners in 2025, according to GoGuardian. Schools on a district plan also get a library of standards-aligned maths and ELA content for grades 3 to 12, which mainly suits US schools.

Pear Start, the AI planning tool, is free for individual educators and includes more than 40 AI tools that generate lesson content and export to Google Forms and Docs.

Where it falls short

The features that matter most for teaching need Premium. The Teacher Dashboard, which shows each student’s responses privately on your own device while the class sees the projector view, needs a paid plan, as do drawing and draggable responses and written feedback to students. Without them, Pear Deck on the free plan is close to a polling tool.

The product names change often. Several parts of the suite have been renamed since 2020, and the pricing page now lists four products with separate free and paid tiers. School leaders comparing quotes should check exactly which products a bundle includes.

Pear Deck has fewer game-style activities than rivals. There is no leaderboard race of the kind students expect from Kahoot!, which some classes miss.

Pricing

Pear Deck’s pricing page, checked in November 2026, lists a free Teacher plan and a Teacher Premium plan at $149 a year with the educator discount. School and district plans are quoted per school or district and add the district content library, professional development, onboarding and Canvas and Schoology integration. Pear Assessment has its own Teacher Premium plan at $125 a year, and Pear Practice and Pear Assessment both have school quotes. Pear Start’s premium features are included for schools that buy Pear Deck, Pear Practice or Pear Assessment. Our guide to running an edtech pilot helps if you want to test Premium with a few teachers first.

Privacy and data

Pear Deck’s privacy and trust center says it does not sell, trade or rent personal student information, and does not use it to market or advertise to students, parents or anyone else. It says Pear Deck holds 1EdTech TrustEd Apps certification, complies with FERPA and aligns with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. It de-identifies student data used for product development and says it applies data minimisation in its AI tools. Privacy questions go to privacy@goguardian.com.

Pear Deck’s documentation says students sign in with Google or Microsoft, that student names and responses are visible only to the teacher who ran the session, and that Pear Deck does not store grades. Presentations live in Google or Microsoft storage, with images on Amazon Web Services. Pear Deck shares a COPPA disclosure with GoGuardian, so read both companies’ product privacy policies if your school also uses GoGuardian’s monitoring tools.

Verdict

Pear Deck is the easiest way to make an existing slide lesson interactive, and it suits schools that live in Google Slides or PowerPoint. Budget for Premium or a school licence, because the free plan leaves out the Teacher Dashboard and the best question types. Teachers who want a bigger library of ready-made lessons should look at Nearpod, and those who want quick graded quizzes should look at Wayground.

See the best Pear Deck alternatives