Comparison

AI grading tools for handwritten math and science, compared

Eight tools say they take handwritten or scanned work. They differ in how the steps earn points: by your answer key, by the tool’s own scheme, or by you, with the AI sorting the answers.

The Graidable team

Published 8 October 2026

Graidable makes one of the tools compared here. Every claim about another tool links to that vendor’s own page.

Tool	Handwriting	Steps	Carried errors	Free option	Price
CoGrader	Photos and PDFs, paid plan	Not stated	Not stated	150 a month; handwriting on the paid plan	$15 to $19 a month
Frizzle	Phone, document camera or scanner	Step-level; partial credit	Not stated	50 worksheets a month	$200 a year
Gradescope	Scans; AI reads one-line answers	You grade, by your rubric	Not stated	Basic plan	On request
GradingPal	Photos, scans or a class PDF	Method and answer, by your rubric	Not stated	50 submissions a month	$14 or $26 a month, billed annually
Graidable	Handwritten, multi-page scans	Yes, by your answer key	Yes: an error costs points once	Demo and sample class, no card	$9.99 or $24.99 a month
Marking.ai	Scans or photos	Not stated	Not stated	20 submissions, once	£21 to £65 a month
MathGPT.ai	Paper submissions, paid plans	Partial credit	Not stated	Essentials plan; grader on paid plans	$25 per student per course
Pensive	Handwriting transcription	Not stated	Not stated	Free for individual instructors	No prices listed

CoGrader
Handwriting
Photos and PDFs, paid plan
Steps
Not stated
Free option
150 a month; handwriting on the paid plan
Frizzle
Handwriting
Phone, document camera or scanner
Steps
Step-level; partial credit
Free option
50 worksheets a month
Gradescope
Handwriting
Scans; AI reads one-line answers
Steps
You grade, by your rubric
Free option
Basic plan
GradingPal
Handwriting
Photos, scans or a class PDF
Steps
Method and answer, by your rubric
Free option
50 submissions a month
Graidable
Handwriting
Handwritten, multi-page scans
Steps
Yes, by your answer key
Free option
Demo and sample class, no card
Marking.ai
Handwriting
Scans or photos
Steps
Not stated
Free option
20 submissions, once
MathGPT.ai
Handwriting
Paper submissions, paid plans
Steps
Partial credit
Free option
Essentials plan; grader on paid plans
Pensive
Handwriting
Handwriting transcription
Steps
Not stated
Free option
Free for individual instructors

What each vendor’s own pages said on 8 October 2026. “Not stated” means it wasn’t on the pages we read, so ask the vendor.

In this article

The eight tools, in alphabetical order
Pick by what you grade
Why is handwritten math hard to grade automatically?
Can AI read handwritten math?
Does AI grading give partial credit for the steps?
Is AI accurate enough to grade math tests?
What does an AI grader for handwritten math cost?
Which tools suit a whole STEM department?
How to test a tool on your own exam
Questions people ask

Eight tools say on their own pages that they take handwritten or scanned student work: CoGrader¹, Frizzle², Gradescope³, GradingPal⁴, Graidable⁵, Marking.ai⁶, MathGPT.ai⁷ and Pensive⁸. For a math, physics or chemistry test, three things separate them: whether the tool reads the working, whether the steps earn points under your own answer key or rubric, and whether an early slip costs the student once or again on every later line.

The table shows what each vendor states. Further down is a worked page you can use to check any of them.

The eight tools, in alphabetical order

Every value is what the vendor’s own pages said on 8 October 2026. Where the pages we read didn’t say, the value reads “Not stated”, so ask the vendor. Prices and plans change; look at the vendor’s page before you decide.

CoGrader

For essays and written assignments, typed or by hand.

Handwriting and scans: Photos of handwriting, or a class set scanned as one PDF, on the paid Individual plan
Steps and partial credit: Not stated
Errors carried forward: Not stated
Your key or rubric: Your own rubric or mark scheme, uploaded as it is, or one from its library
Results go to: Google Classroom, Canvas and Schoology, or a gradebook CSV; the pricing FAQ puts Canvas and Schoology on school and district plans
Free option: Starter: 150 submissions a month; handwritten assignments are listed from the Individual plan
Price: Individual $19 a month, or $15 a month billed annually (350 submissions a month); schools and districts get a quote

Describes itself as a grading tool for essays and written assignments, including work students write entirely by hand.
Its home page lists the written work it grades: essays, document-based questions, science claim-evidence-reasoning responses, constructed responses and short answers.
You can scan a class set as one PDF, or photograph pages with your phone through a QR code. Teachers review every score and comment before students see it.

Frizzle

For K-12 teachers whose students work on paper.

Handwriting and scans: Photos from a phone, document camera or scanner; each page is linked to the right student
Steps and partial credit: Reads every step and gives step-level feedback; says it recognizes more than one valid approach, and partial credit
Errors carried forward: Not stated
Your key or rubric: Custom rubrics and grading scales on the Pro and Institution plans
Results go to: One-click export; Google Classroom and Canvas on the Institution plan
Free option: Free plan for teachers: up to 50 worksheets a month, no card, no expiry
Price: Pro $200 a year ($16.67 a month) for up to 1,000 worksheets a month; Institution priced by enrollment

Students keep working on paper. You photograph or scan the stack, and Frizzle reads math, ELA, science, social studies and essays.
Feedback points to the step where the thinking went off, and its site says it tags named misconceptions.
When its confidence is low, it shows you the page for a check, and each flag links to the spot on the page. Its own benchmark figure for K-12 handwriting is 97%.
Its FAQ says student work is not used to train models.

Gradescope

For instructors grading paper, digital and code work.

Handwriting and scans: Paper exams you scan, and PDFs or photos students upload. On fixed-template exams its AI reads handwritten English text and math notation when the answer is on one line
Steps and partial credit: You grade each question with your own rubric; the AI forms groups of similar answers so you grade a group at once
Errors carried forward: Not stated
Your key or rubric: Your own rubric; a change applies to work you have already graded
Results go to: Grades sent to students or exported to your gradebook; LMS integration on the Institutional plan
Free option: Basic plan
Price: Institutional pricing on request

Its home page lists math, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, economics and computer science.
Answer groups and AI-assisted grading come with the Institutional license and work on fixed-template PDF assignments. The question types its guide lists are multiple choice, math fill-in-the-blank, text fill-in-the-blank and manually grouped.
For a question with working, its guide suggests a final-answer box on the page: answers are grouped by that box, and you read each student’s reasoning inside the group.
Gives statistics per question and per rubric item, and handles regrade requests online.

GradingPal

For US teachers, elementary school to higher education.

Handwriting and scans: Photos, scans or a class PDF, which it separates into student submissions; included on every plan
Steps and partial credit: Assesses the method and working as well as the final answer, with partial credit where your rubric awards it
Errors carried forward: Not stated
Your key or rubric: Your own rubric or pasted criteria, with grading instructions, or one from its library of 500
Results go to: Google Classroom, with or without grades, and printed or shared feedback reports; Canvas and Schoology on a school plan
Free option: 50 submissions a month, no card
Price: Lite $14 and Pro $26 per teacher a month, billed annually ($168 and $312); schools on request

Its math page says it reads handwritten math, grades multi-step solutions against your rubric and explains each score. You tell it how much credit belongs to the method and how much to the final answer.
Equivalent numerical and algebraic forms can be recognized; your instructions decide whether a particular form or method is required.
Its science page covers handwritten calculations, tables and diagrams in physics, chemistry and biology, with units and precision set in your rubric.
It asks you to check unclear symbols, cropped steps and missing pages before you approve. Teachers edit grades and feedback before sharing.

GraidableOur tool

Built for handwritten math, physics and chemistry tests.

Handwriting and scans: Handwritten, multi-page scans
Steps and partial credit: Yes, following the rules in your answer key
Errors carried forward: Yes: an error costs points once
Your key or rubric: Your own answer key or rubric
Results go to: Feedback PDFs and a spreadsheet of each student’s points per question
Free option: Demo and sample class, no card
Price: Student $9.99 and Professional $24.99 a month (10 and 60 students graded a month); the first plan starts with 10 free gradings; schools get a price on request

Drafts points and feedback for each question from your own answer key. You review, change and approve every score; nothing reaches a student before you have.
Each score shows where on the student’s page it comes from, and doubtful items get a “Check closely” flag with the reason.
Its school-owner page has the data processing agreement, DPIA material and sub-processor list, and says neither Graidable nor its AI providers train on student work.

Marking.ai

For teachers in the British curriculum, GCSE and A-Level.

Handwriting and scans: Scans or photos of handwritten work, several pages per answer
Steps and partial credit: Not stated
Errors carried forward: Not stated
Your key or rubric: The marking guidelines you upload, turned into criteria for each question
Results go to: Question-level results by student and by class; exports of marks and feedback on Pro
Free option: 20 submissions, one time, no card
Price: Starter £21, Pro £36 and Plus £65 a month; schools get a custom license

Says it is built for the British curriculum, GCSE and A-Level, and reads handwriting, typed text and diagrams on the same page.
Every mark quotes the words in the answer that earned it, criterion by criterion. You edit the drafted feedback before it is sent.
The worked examples on its home page are in English Language, History and Geography.

MathGPT.ai

For higher education math courses.

Handwriting and scans: Handwritten, paper-based submissions, through the Step-by-Step Grader on the Advanced and Institutional plans
Steps and partial credit: Its news page says the grader awards partial credit
Errors carried forward: Not stated
Your key or rubric: Its own four-factor rubric, which faculty can weight (press release, 29 July 2026)
Results go to: Its gradebook, with grade sync to your LMS on the Advanced and Institutional plans
Free option: Essentials plan; the Step-by-Step Grader is listed on Advanced and Institutional
Price: Advanced $25 per student per course; Institutional custom

A courseware platform for college math: question banks and AI tutoring for OpenStax and uploaded textbooks, with rosters, assignments and grades synced to your LMS.
The pricing page lists the Step-by-Step Grader as automated solution grading for handwritten, paper-based submissions. The press release calls it a limited release.
The release says the grader handles handwritten solutions and proofs, and can award partial credit when the final answer is wrong.

Pensive

For university instructors and departments.

Handwriting and scans: AI handwriting transcription, from the Lite plan up
Steps and partial credit: Not stated
Errors carried forward: Not stated
Your key or rubric: A rubric it generates for you to review and deploy; it adjusts as you edit grades, rubrics and feedback
Results go to: Works with LMS platforms including Canvas, Blackboard and Moodle
Free option: Individual instructors can sign up and use it free
Price: Plans named Bubble Sheet, Lite, Pro and Max, with no prices listed; department and school licenses by contact

Each AI grade comes with a confidence score, and the site says you can skip manual review for grades that meet human-level accuracy.
Its FAQ lists mathematics, computer science and economics, and question types that include short answers and proofs. It also says no models are trained on course content.
A paper by its own team reports 95.4% agreement with instructor grades on the grades the system marked as high-confidence, across computer science, math, physics and chemistry courses.

Pick by what you grade

If you grade tests and exams from your own answer key in math, physics or chemistry, that is what Graidable is built for. It follows the key’s rules question by question, including errors carried forward.
If your students do worksheets and problem sets on paper in a K-12 classroom, Frizzle and GradingPal both take phone photos, and both have a free monthly allowance.
If you run a large university course with paper exams, Gradescope and Pensive are built for instructors and departments, and MathGPT.ai adds a grader to its college math courseware.
If you teach GCSE or A-Level, Marking.ai is built for the British curriculum.
If most of what you grade is written explanation, such as lab conclusions or claim-evidence-reasoning responses, look at CoGrader and at our comparison of AI essay graders.
If you grade code, see AI grading tools for programming assignments.

For every kind of grading in one table, see the full comparison of AI grading tools.

Why is handwritten math hard to grade automatically?

Because the points are in the working, and working is not plain text. A grader, human or AI, has three jobs on every page:

Read it. Fractions, exponents, units and crossed-out lines, written at speed. A 4 that looks like a 9 changes the answer.
Follow the method. Two students can reach the same answer by different valid routes, and the key usually shows one.
Trace the error. One slip changes every number after it. The grader has to find the line where it happened and decide what the later lines are worth.

The third job is where grading rules differ most. Figure 1 is a short solution with one slip in part (a) that carries into part (b).

A rectangle is $4\ \text{cm}$ longer than it is wide. Its perimeter is $36\ \text{cm}$ . Find (a) the width $w$ and (b) the area.

Student’s answer

Points

\text{(a)}\;\; 4w + 8 = 36

4w = \htmlClass{lab-err}{24}

36 − 8 = 28

w = 6\ \text{cm}

(a) 1 of 2

\text{(b)}\;\; l = 6 + 4 = 10

A = 6 \times 10

A = 60\ \text{cm}^2

1Right for

w = 6

(b) 2 of 2

Figure 1. Constructed example. The slip is in the second line of (a). Part (b) uses the wrong width correctly, so under this key it earns both points.

The key gives each part one point for the method and one for the answer, and says an error costs points once. The correct answers are $w = 7\ \text{cm}$ and an area of $77\ \text{cm}^2$ , so neither of the student’s answers matches the key. A grader that follows a different rule gives a different score for the same page.

Grading rule	(a) of 2	(b) of 2	Total of 4
Final answers only	0	0	0
Steps, error charged again	1	1	2
Steps, error carried forward	1	2	3

Figure 2. Constructed example. The page in Figure 1 under three grading rules. Only the last row matches a key that says an error costs points once.

Before you trust any tool with a class set, find out which row it follows. Errors carried forward go by other names, such as follow-through credit or “consistent with previous work”, so ask in the words your department uses.

Can AI read handwritten math?

Yes, within limits the vendors describe themselves. Gradescope’s guide says its AI reads handwritten English text and math notation, fractions and integral signs included, when the answer sits on one line in a marked box.³ Frizzle publishes a figure from its own benchmark: 97% on K-12 handwriting.²

GradingPal’s handwriting page says no system reads every style and image perfectly, and names a faint exponent and a cropped line as things that change what an answer means.⁴ That is the right way to think about it. Readable scans help every tool, and the pages a tool flags as unclear are the ones to open first.

Does AI grading give partial credit for the steps?

Some tools do, and they get there by three routes.

By your rubric. GradingPal gives credit for the working where your rubric awards it, and you set the split between method and answer.⁴ Graidable follows the rules in your answer key, question by question.⁵
By the tool’s own scheme. Frizzle gives step-level feedback and says it recognizes partial credit.² MathGPT.ai’s grader uses a four-factor rubric that faculty can weight.⁷
By you. In Gradescope the instructor grades with a rubric, and the AI groups similar answers so one decision covers the whole group.³

Then ask about errors carried forward. Graidable follows that rule when your key has it: an error costs points once. The other pages we read don’t describe a rule for it, so show the vendor the page in Figure 1 and ask what part (b) would score.

Is AI accurate enough to grade math tests?

Accurate enough to draft grades that a teacher checks. That is where the published studies land. All three below come from university courses.

A calculus exam. GPT-5 graded the handwritten work with the teaching assistants’ rubric. The authors called the raw agreement “adequate for low-stakes feedback but not for high-stakes use”. With a strict confidence filter the AI matched human accuracy, and about 70% of the items went back to people.⁹
A general chemistry exam. Agreement with human graders was high on text and reaction-equation questions, and lower on numerical and graphical ones.¹⁰
Calculus quizzes from nearly 800 students. The AI’s scores lined up closely with the teaching assistants’, and reviewers rated most of its feedback correct or acceptable.¹¹

Pensive’s own paper reports 95.4% agreement with instructors on the grades its system marked as high-confidence.¹² The pattern is the same in all of this work: a tool is reliable on the answers it is sure about, and a person handles the rest.

So look hardest at the review screen. Can you see where each point came from? Does the tool tell you which items it is unsure about? Can you change a score in one step?

What does an AI grader for handwritten math cost?

For one teacher, most plans run from free to about $26 a month. Schools, departments and universities get a quote. These are the list prices on 8 October 2026.¹^,2^,3^,4^,5^,6^,7^,8

Free to start: Frizzle (50 worksheets a month), GradingPal (50 submissions a month), Gradescope’s Basic plan, and Pensive for individual instructors. Marking.ai gives 20 submissions once. Graidable has a demo and a sample class, with no card.
$9.99 to $26 a month: Graidable ($9.99 or $24.99), GradingPal ($14 or $26, billed annually), CoGrader ($15 to $19) and Frizzle Pro ($200 a year).
£21 to £65 a month: Marking.ai.
$25 per student per course: MathGPT.ai’s Advanced plan.
A quote: Gradescope Institutional, Pensive’s department licenses, and every vendor’s school plan.

Compare the unit as well as the price. Graidable counts students graded, GradingPal and CoGrader count submissions, and Frizzle counts worksheets. Say you give one test a month to 28 students: that is 28 of any of them. Graidable’s plans are on the pricing page.

Which tools suit a whole STEM department?

All eight sell to schools, departments or institutions. What the larger plan adds is different in each.

Gradescope Institutional: several staff grading the same assignment, anonymous grading, section management and LMS integration.
Pensive: department-wide and school-wide licenses. It works with Canvas, Blackboard and Moodle.
MathGPT.ai Institutional: department-wide adoptions, with an administrator view and analytics.
Frizzle Institution: admin dashboards, single sign-on, rostering and standards reporting.
GradingPal School & District: Canvas and Schoology, a custom standards library and a data processing agreement.
CoGrader Schools & Districts: a shared rubric library, admin controls and institution-wide analytics.
Marking.ai whole-school license: unlimited teachers on a pooled yearly allowance.
Graidable: a school price on request, and a school-owner page with the data processing agreement, DPIA material and sub-processor list.

Two questions matter more for a department than for one teacher. Can every teacher grade the same test from one shared key, so all sections are graded alike? And do you get each student’s points per question, so you can see which questions the whole year group missed?

How to test a tool on your own exam

Take a test you have already graded: 15 to 30 students, including the messiest handwriting in the class.
Give the tool the answer key or rubric you used. Don’t tidy it up for the tool unless you would tidy it up for a colleague.
Check that the set has the hard cases: a carried error like the one in Figure 1, a correct solution by a method the key doesn’t show, a graph or diagram, and a page with crossed-out work.
Compare the tool’s draft with your grades question by question. Totals hide errors that cancel out.
Sort each disagreement: a misread digit, a different reading of your key, or a judgment call. Then time yourself reviewing five papers.

If the tool shows where on the page each score comes from, step 5 takes minutes. If it only gives a number, you’ll be re-reading the whole page.

Questions people ask

Does the teacher stay in control of the grade?

Yes, on every tool whose pages describe the workflow. CoGrader, GradingPal, Graidable and Marking.ai all say the teacher reviews or edits before students see anything.¹^,4^,5^,6 In Gradescope the instructor does the grading.³ Frizzle sends low-confidence pages to you for a check, and Pensive puts a confidence score on every grade so you can choose what to review.²^,8

Do these tools work for physics and chemistry?

Several say so. Gradescope lists physics and chemistry among its subjects, GradingPal has a science page that covers both, Frizzle lists science, and Graidable is built for math, physics and chemistry tests.²^,3^,4^,5 We have separate pages on grading math, chemistry and lab reports with Graidable.

What happens to student work?

Ask every vendor two things: where the work is stored, and whether it is used to train AI models. Frizzle says student work is not used to train models, and Pensive says the same about course content.²^,8 Graidable’s school-owner page says neither Graidable nor its AI providers train on student work, and it has the data processing agreement and sub-processor list a school will ask for.⁵

Sources

CoGrader, home page, pricing and AI handwritten grading tools. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑
Frizzle, home page and pricing. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑
Gradescope, home page, pricing and the guide AI-assisted grading and answer groups. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑
GradingPal, home page, AI math grader, AI science grader, handwritten grading, grading controls and pricing. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑
Graidable, pricing. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑
Marking.ai, home page and pricing. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑
MathGPT.ai, home page, pricing, features, news and its press release of 29 July 2026, MathGPT.ai Automates Grading for Handwritten Higher Education Math Assignments. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑
Pensive, home page and plans. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑
Kortemeyer, G., Caspar, A. and Horica, D. (2025). “Artificial-Intelligence Grading Assistance for Handwritten Components of a Calculus Exam.” Preprint, arXiv:2510.05162. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑
Cvengros, J. and Kortemeyer, G. (2025). “Assisting the Grading of a Handwritten General Chemistry Exam with Artificial Intelligence.” Preprint, arXiv:2509.10591. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑
Yu, Z., Liu, X., Mao, H., Liu, M., Chen, L., Xin, J. and Yu, Y. (2026). “Evaluating AI Grading on Real-World Handwritten College Mathematics: A Large-Scale Study Toward a Benchmark.” Preprint, arXiv:2603.00895. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑
Yang, Y., Kim, M., Rondinelli, M. and Shao, K. (2025). “Pensieve Grader: An AI-Powered, Ready-to-Use Platform for Effortless Handwritten STEM Grading.” Preprint, arXiv:2507.01431. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑

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