Plickers review

Plickers is a formative assessment tool that works without student devices. Each student gets a printed card with a square code on it. To answer a multiple-choice question, they turn the card so the letter they choose is at the top and hold it up. The teacher scans the room with the Plickers app on a phone or tablet, and every answer is recorded against that student’s name. It is for teachers who want whole-class, per-student data in rooms where laptops are scarce, banned or more trouble than they are worth.

Who it’s for

Plickers suits primary teachers, and secondary teachers in schools that keep phones away from students. A Year 3 teacher can run a five-question check on number bonds in four minutes with no logins, no charging trolley and no child stuck on a frozen tablet. It also works well in schools that are cutting screen time, which our article on apps in a phone-free school covers in more detail.

It is less useful in classes where every student already has a laptop. If devices are on the desks anyway, a tool like Socrative gives you more question types.

What it does well

The card idea is simple, and it works. Because each card’s code looks different depending on which way it is turned, a neighbour can’t easily copy an answer at a glance. The app reads a whole class in one sweep from the front of the room.

Every answer is tied to a student. When you set up a class on plickers.com, each student is assigned a card number. After the lesson, the reports and scoresheets show who got each question right, and you can track a class over weeks. Mini whiteboards can’t give you that record.

The display side is tidy. You open Now Playing on plickers.com on the classroom computer, and the question appears on the board. Your phone controls it, so you can reveal the graph or the correct answer while walking the room.

The cards are free. Plickers offers four printable sets: a standard set of 40, an expanded set of 63, a large-font set of 40 and a jumbo set of 63 with one card per page. The help centre says Plickers will always offer free printable cards for teachers. Classes can have up to 63 students.

Sessions can run without an internet connection, which helps in older buildings with patchy Wi-Fi.

Where it falls short

It is multiple choice only. That suits quick recall and hinge questions, but you can’t ask for a written explanation, a number or a labelled diagram. For deeper checks you still need mini whiteboards or written work.

The free plan is tight. Free sets are capped at five questions, and free accounts can review 30 days of student results at a time. Five questions is enough for an exit ticket, but you will notice the cap if you want a ten-question review before a test.

Cards wear out and go missing. Laminate a set, keep it in a folder by the door, and give one student the job of collecting them. Cards covered by a hand won’t scan, so the first few lessons run slower while students learn to hold them.

Lighting and distance matter. A large hall or a room with strong glare can make scanning harder from the front, so you may need to walk the aisles.

Pricing

Plickers is freemium. When we checked the Plickers help centre in November 2026, an individual Pro subscription cost US$8.99 per month or US$71.88 per year, which works out to US$5.99 per month, with sales tax included and a 14-day free trial. Pro removes the five-question cap, gives unlimited date ranges for results, adds Packs for sharing content with other Pro teachers, and includes priority support. Schools can buy group orders for two or more teachers at the same yearly per-user price, with bulk discounts on top. The cards stay free on both plans.

Privacy and data

Students don’t have accounts, and they never touch a device in the card mode. The teacher enters student names into the roster, and Plickers stores answers against them. For younger classes, you can use first names or initials to keep the data to a minimum.

Plickers’ student data policy, effective March 2021, says Plickers will not collect, store or use student data except for authorised educational purposes. It says Plickers will not use student data for targeted advertising, will not build student profiles for advertising or other non-educational purposes, and will not sell student data for any purpose. For children under 13 it relies on the school or teacher to authorise collection under COPPA, and parents can ask for access or deletion by email. The policy says Plickers protects data with encryption. It does not state where data is hosted or name any third-party certification, so schools that need this should ask Plickers directly. Our student data privacy checklist lists the questions to ask.

Verdict

Plickers is the easiest way to get per-student answers from a whole class without a single student device, and Pro costs less than most classroom subscriptions. Its limits are the multiple-choice format and the work of managing cards. Teachers whose students already have laptops, or who need open answers, should look at Socrative, Kahoot! or the rest of our assessment rankings.

See the best Plickers alternatives