Showbie review

Showbie is a classroom app for setting work, collecting it and giving feedback, built first for the iPad. Students open an assignment, write or draw on a worksheet, record a voice note or upload work from another app, and the teacher marks it with a pen, a typed comment or a recorded voice or video message. It is made by Showbie Inc., founded in Edmonton, Canada in 2012, which also owns Socrative. It is common in schools that gave every pupil an iPad and want a simple place to hand in work.

Who it’s for

Showbie suits primary and secondary schools with iPads, and teachers who give a lot of feedback on handwritten or annotated work. Think of a Year 5 teacher who wants pupils to photograph their maths working and talk through their method, or a GCSE English teacher who records a two-minute voice note on each essay instead of writing the same comments thirty times.

It is less suited to schools that run on Chromebooks or Windows laptops. The web version works on those devices, but Showbie says its best experience is on iPad. A school that wants full course structure across many departments will find more in Google Classroom or Canvas.

What it does well

Feedback is the reason to choose Showbie. A teacher opens a student’s submission, writes on it with the Apple Pencil, pins a voice note to the exact line that needs work, and moves to the next student. Students see who has looked at their feedback, and the teacher sees who has submitted, who has viewed feedback and who is still working. Our guide on how to cut marking time with apps explains why voice feedback saves time on extended writing.

Students can type, draw, annotate a PDF, record audio or video, or scan a paper page with the camera. For pupils who write slowly or are still learning English, a voice reply lets them show what they know.

Showbie now has its own assessments. Teachers can build quizzes, import questions from a document or an Excel template, or copy in a Socrative quiz with its SOC code. Showbie says Assessments is included in every plan. Imported quizzes are copies, and past Socrative results stay in Socrative.

Each student has a portfolio of their best work, chosen by them or the teacher. Parents link their account with a parent code and can see the portfolio by default. If the teacher turns on parent access for a class, parents can also see assignment folders, due dates, grades and documents. Parents cannot comment or message through Showbie, so it does not replace a home-school messaging tool.

Newer additions include Canvas, a whiteboard in beta that gives each student an editable layer, and AI tools for drafting questions and feedback.

Where it falls short

The free plan is tight. Showbie’s help pages say Basic accounts can have only 10 active assignments at once, older ones count towards the limit, and assignments archived on Basic can only be restored for 90 days without upgrading. A teacher setting weekly homework for several classes will hit that limit within a few weeks.

Showbie now sells mainly to schools. Its help pages say teachers join through an invitation from a Showbie admin, so a teacher who wants Pro alone may struggle to buy it.

Platform support is narrow. The iOS app needs iOS 18 or later, and there is no Android app, so Android tablets and Chromebooks use the browser version.

Class structure is simple next to a full LMS such as Canvas.

Pricing

Showbie offers a free Basic plan for teachers with the limits above. Pro and school or district plans are quoted on request, and Showbie does not publish their prices on its site (checked in November 2026). Its AI data FAQ says AI features will be limited to Pro subscriptions.

Privacy and data

Showbie says it will never direct advertising to students or disclose student personal data. Student accounts exist only where a school or teacher has contracted with Showbie, and the policy places responsibility for parental consent on the school. Data sits on Amazon Web Services, in the US by default, with an EU option in Stockholm. Showbie says backup servers in other countries may hold non-identifiable assignment data. It does not mention UK or Australian hosting.

Showbie says it holds Cyber Essentials Plus and has been GDPR compliant since May 2018. Its compliance page describes ongoing compliance with ISO 27001 and SOC 2 “principles” rather than certification, so ask for evidence if your procurement rules require a certificate.

For AI, Showbie names OpenAI as its sub-processor. It says no student names, emails or IDs go to the AI service, prompts are not used to train OpenAI’s models, and OpenAI keeps them for up to 30 days. Its FAQ describes a school-wide AI opt-out as planned rather than available, which matters if your AI policy requires a switch-off.

Verdict

Showbie is one of the best tools for fast, personal feedback on iPad. It is a strong fit for one-to-one iPad schools that want a simple assignment flow rather than a full LMS. Schools on Chromebooks or Windows, and those that need shared course structure or two-way parent messaging, should pick something else, such as Google Classroom or Seesaw for younger pupils.

See the best Showbie alternatives