Free Learning Apps vs Paid Courses: What UK Students Actually Save

Have you ever checked your bank statement and wondered where it all went? The tutoring sessions, the revision guides, that online course you bought in January and opened twice. It adds up quietly, and by the end of the year, the figure can be properly sobering.

UK students spend somewhere between £800 and £1,200 annually on private tutors, paid courses, and learning materials. Some spend considerably more. And while nobody’s saying that money is wasted — good tutoring can be transformative — there’s a growing reality that free apps and platforms now cover a significant chunk of what students used to pay for.

The question isn’t whether free alternatives exist. They do. The question is which ones actually work, which ones are “free” in name only, and when it genuinely makes sense to pay instead.

What Learning Actually Costs in the UK

Before talking about savings, it helps to see what the baseline looks like. These are real figures from 2025 research.

Private Tutoring (the big one):

That’s one hour per week. Students doing two hours weekly — common for A-Level sciences or maths — double those figures. A student getting A-Level Physics and Maths tutoring at average rates could easily spend £2,500 in a single academic year.

Textbooks and Materials:

Around 70% of UK university students have skipped buying required textbooks at some point. Of those, 35% said they couldn’t afford them. The typical annual spend sits between £240 and £480, though STEM subjects run higher — individual textbooks routinely cost £50 or more.

Online Course Platforms:

None of this is unreasonable for what you get. But it does mean a student using a tutor, buying textbooks, and subscribing to one platform could easily hit £1,500+ without realising it.

The Apps That Are Genuinely Free

Not “free trial” free. Not “free but you’ll hit a paywall in ten minutes” free. Actually, properly free.

• Khan Academy remains the gold standard. Every video, every exercise, every article — completely free, no ads, no subscription, no account required to browse. The catch is that content aligns to the American curriculum, not UK exam boards. For GCSE and A-Level students, it’s brilliant for understanding concepts but won’t match your specific syllabus. Maths foundations, science principles, economics — all excellent. Exam technique for AQA Biology? Look elsewhere.
• Anki is the open-source flashcard app that medical students have been quietly obsessing over for years. Completely free on desktop, Android, and web. The iOS app costs £24.99 (one-time, not subscription), which funds the developer. Spaced repetition, unlimited decks, community-shared content — it does everything Quizlet does, just with a steeper learning curve and less polish.
• Open University’s OpenLearn offers over 1,000 free courses across every subject, aligned to UK education standards. Some courses even provide free statements of participation. It’s not glamorous, but the content is solid and genuinely costs nothing.
• MIT OpenCourseWare provides 2,500+ actual MIT courses — lecture notes, videos, assignments, exams. No sign-up required. If you’re studying something at university level and want to see how MIT teaches it, it’s all there. Free. Forever.
• YouTube sounds obvious, but the depth of quality educational content now rivals paid platforms. Channels covering A-Level content, university lectures, exam walkthroughs — hours of material that would’ve cost money a decade ago.

The Apps That Feel Free But Aren’t Really

This is where it gets frustrating. Some apps market themselves as free learning tools when they’re actually subscription products with a limited preview.

• Quizlet used to be the go-to flashcard platform. Then in 2022, features that were previously free — Learn mode, Test mode — moved behind a paywall. The free version now limits you to about five rounds of practice per study set before asking you to upgrade. Basic flashcard flipping still works, but serious revision gets interrupted constantly. Quizlet Plus costs around £29/year, which isn’t outrageous, but the bait-and-switch left users bitter. Trustpilot reviews sit at 1.4 out of 5 stars, mostly driven by paywall complaints.
• Duolingo offers all its language content for free — technically. But the hearts system means you lose a life every time you make a mistake, and once you’re out, you either wait five hours per heart to regenerate, watch ads, or pay. For casual learners doing ten minutes a day, it’s fine. For anyone trying to study seriously, the interruptions become maddening. Super Duolingo (around £60/year) removes the restrictions.
• Nibble sits in interesting territory. It’s a microlearning app offering bite-sized lessons across 20+ subjects — everything from psychology to art history to personal finance. The free trial runs 3-7 days depending on how you sign up, after which it’s subscription-only at around £40/year. Unlike the exam-focused apps, Nibble is built for curiosity rather than coursework — replacing doomscrolling with learning, as they put it. Worth it for daily users who want general knowledge without the textbook feel. Less useful if you’re revising for specific exams.

The Subscription Trap Nobody Talks About

Here’s a statistic that should make everyone uncomfortable: UK consumers collectively spend £688 million per year on subscriptions they don’t use.

The average Brit wastes roughly £119 annually on forgotten or rarely-used subscriptions. Among 18-24 year olds, half admit to letting free trials roll over into paid subscriptions they didn’t intend to keep. That “just cancel before the trial ends” reminder? Most people forget.

For students, this adds up fast. A language app here, a revision platform there, that online course you signed up for during exam panic — each one ticking over at £5, £10, £15 per month. By the time you notice, you’ve paid for six months of something you used twice.

How to avoid it:

• Set a calendar reminder for two days before any trial ends. Not the day of — two days before, so you have time to actually do it.
• Use a virtual card or PayPal where possible. Some banks let you create single-use card numbers that auto-decline after the trial.
• Check your subscriptions quarterly. Most people are genuinely surprised by what’s still active.
• If cancellation requires phoning or chatting with retention teams, that’s a red flag about the company’s priorities.

The 2024 Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Act has started pushing back against these tactics. Regulators want active opt-in before auto-renewal becomes standard. Until then, vigilance is the only protection.

When Paid Actually Makes Sense

Free apps can do a lot. But there are genuine limits, and pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone.

• Advanced A-Level and university content. Khan Academy covers most maths concepts, but it won’t give you worked solutions to past papers from your specific exam board. Beyond the basics — proof-based maths, advanced statistics, organic chemistry mechanisms — free apps struggle to provide the depth and feedback students need.
• Dissertation and essay writing. No app can review your argument structure, challenge your methodology, or give subject-specific academic feedback. Grammar tools catch errors; they don’t improve thinking.
• Interview preparation. University admissions, graduate schemes, medicine — these require real-time human feedback, mock scenarios, and the ability to read body language. An app cannot replicate sitting across from someone who’s done fifty interviews and knows exactly where candidates stumble.
• When you’re stuck and falling behind. Self-study works beautifully for some people and terribly for others. If you’ve tried the free resources, genuinely tried, and you’re still not getting it — that’s when a tutor earns their fee. A good tutor diagnoses where you’re going wrong in a way no algorithm can match.
• The resit maths: Exam resit fees run £50-325 depending on credits. Retaking a module with attendance costs £1,150-1,500. Repeating an entire year means another £9,250 in tuition plus a lost year of graduate earnings — easily £25,000-30,000 in real terms. A £500 tutor who prevents that outcome is an investment, not an expense.

What Universities Already Provide Free

Before paying for anything, check what your institution already offers. Most students never fully explore this.

Common freebies through university logins:

• Grammarly Pro (writing assistance)
• LinkedIn Learning (full catalogue)
• Microsoft 365 (including desktop apps)
• SPSS and MATLAB (for stats/engineering students)
• Journal access worth thousands annually
• Specialist software for your discipline

The library is the most underused resource on any campus. Not just for physical books — for e-books, past papers, revision databases, and reference materials that would cost hundreds out of pocket.

The Honest Summary

The goal isn’t to avoid spending money on education. Education is worth spending on. The goal is to stop spending on things that don’t actually help — the forgotten subscriptions, the courses never opened, the apps that promise more than they deliver.

Free alternatives have genuinely improved. A student using Khan Academy, Anki, OpenLearn, and YouTube has access to more quality material than any previous generation could imagine. That doesn’t replace everything, but it covers more than most people realise.

Check what’s free. Use what works. Pay for what you actually need — and cancel everything else before the trial ends.