Plickers alternatives: a fair look at free checks that are not cards

People searching for a Plickers alternative usually want one of three things: no pupil devices, less fiddling with cards, or a reason instead of the letter A, B, C or D.

Those are different products. This page separates them. A wider buying guide, including the tools a school already pays for, is in free formative assessment tools. Boards versus a private digital answer is in mini whiteboards versus a digital check. If the thing you actually liked was "one question at the end, from everyone", the reason paper versions die is in why teachers stop using exit tickets. The rest of the notes are on the blog.

What Plickers actually is

Each pupil has a paper card with a code on it, and the letters A, B, C and D around the edges. They rotate the card so their answer is at the top. You scan the room with the Plickers app. The orientation of the code is the answer, and the card number is the pupil. Nobody in the class needs an account or a device. Plickers says a session can be run offline, which matters in the rooms where the wifi has given up.

On their own help pages, the core stays free for teachers: cards, questions, scanning, results. A free set holds up to five questions, and you can make as many sets as you like. There are 63 card designs, so a class bigger than that needs a workaround. Pro removes the five-question limit on a set, and it lengthens the results history you can look at in one go. The price is on their site, in dollars. It will not be the thing that decides this for most people. The five-question cap and the multiple choice will.

That description is the tool. It is good at a planned multiple-choice hinge, in a room where pupil devices are a bad idea, when you are willing to prepare the questions beforehand and live with a letter rather than a sentence.

Where the cards run out

A letter is not a reason. One in four will be right by luck, and if your distractors are weak the lucky share is higher. Two pupils can hold opposite models and land on the same letter if you wrote the options carelessly. You will think the hinge was clean. It was not. You just could not see the sentences.

Scanning is slower in a restless room than a demo suggests, and the answer is still held up for the row behind. Cards are less public than shouting, and more public than a screen only you can see. Cards also go missing, and a supply teacher cannot invent the roster at the door. You have to have written the questions beforehand. If your constraint is no pupil devices, a letter from everyone, and options you are willing to write, Plickers is a fair answer. An alternative that ignores that constraint is a different lesson.

Mini whiteboards

If the constraint is no pupil devices, boards are the first thing to try before another website. Everyone answers, you see working rather than only a letter, and there is nothing to print except, once, the boards themselves. They are public, so copying is easy, and the answer disappears when they wipe. For a method or a diagram they beat cards. For a private confession of confusion they do not. Run them with boards down until you count, and look at the back row first. The longer version of that trade-off is the whiteboards piece linked above.

A quiz game is a different job

Kahoot is what people open when they want energy. Pupils join a live game with a PIN, usually pick a nickname, and do not need an account to play. In the classic game, faster correct answers score more, so the careful pupil loses to the fast one. Kahoot's schools pricing page, checked in October 2026, lists a free plan with a live cap of 40 participants, and quiz or true/false questions. Paid plans raise the cap. Those numbers move, so check the page before you promise a class a game.

Use a quiz for public recall: a Friday starter, a set of definitions. Do not use it as the hinge of a fragile idea. You will not have their sentence.

Forms you may already have

If the school is on Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, Forms is included rather than being another subscription. Short-text questions are allowed, so you are not stuck with A to D. Pupils often sign in with a school account, which gives you a real name and also gives you the five minutes of "I can't log in" that cards were invented to avoid. Responses collect in a sheet. You can watch them arrive. You still have to read them. Nothing in Forms tells you, in one glance, who needs you before the bell. It will store the exit ticket. It will not decide the next five minutes unless you are quick at reading.

A check that asks for the sentence

If the thing you wanted from Plickers was "everyone commits, I can see who", and the thing you are tired of is the letter, ask for the explanation. That needs a device — a phone, a Chromebook, an iPad — so it is the wrong swap in a strict phone ban with no other hardware. Where the devices exist, it answers a question cards cannot.

Get It? is built for that swap, not as a clone of the cards. You type what you taught. It drafts the questions. You edit or bin them. Pupils join with a code, no account, and answer in their own words, typed or spoken. There is no A to D to guess. If they waffle, it asks again. In about two minutes you see who has got it, who is unsure, and who needs help. It is free for a limited time, no card.

Be straight about the data, because cards never sent a sentence to anyone. A first name and the answer are there for you, and an AI reads the answer so you are not marking thirty scripts at the door. If your school's policy does not allow pupil answers to go to an external AI service, do not use it. Use the boards. The policy is the constraint, the same way a phone ban is.

Which alternative, in one line each

• Keep Plickers if you need letters, no pupil devices, and you will write the options properly.
• Switch to mini whiteboards if you need working or a sketch, and you can tolerate public answers.
• Use a quiz game if you want pace and recall and you do not need a diagnosis.
• Use Forms if you need a stored short answer and you can bear the logins.
• Use a two-minute explanation check if you need the reason, the name, and the chance to reteach before they leave.

Pick the constraint first. The tool is the easy part, which is why changing tool every term changes so little.

Questions people ask

Try it on one class.

One lesson. One question. Two minutes. If it doesn't tell you something you didn't already know, walk away.

Try it free — no card

Students need no account. They just need the code.