AI grading tools compared for essays, handwritten math and code

AI grading tools are built for different kinds of work, so start from what your students hand in. For typed essays, look at Brisk, CoGrader, EssayGrader, GPTZero, MagicSchool and Turnitin Feedback Studio. For handwritten tests, look at Gradescope, GradingPal, Graidable and Marking.ai. For code, look at CodeGrade and Gradescope.

The table above shows what each of the eleven grades, its free option and its price, as the vendors’ own pages stated them on 8 October 2026.

Pick by what you grade

• If you grade typed essays against a rubric, start with CoGrader and EssayGrader. If you want comments on a draft while the document is open, start with Brisk or MagicSchool. More in AI essay graders compared.
• If the essays are handwritten, CoGrader, EssayGrader, GradingPal and Marking.ai all say they read them.
• If your students solve math, physics or chemistry problems by hand, look at Gradescope, GradingPal and Graidable. More in AI grading tools for handwritten math.
• If you grade code, look at CodeGrade and Gradescope. More in AI grading tools for programming assignments.
• If you want an AI-writing check next to the grade, look at GPTZero and Turnitin Feedback Studio.
• If you teach GCSE or A-Level, Marking.ai is built for the British curriculum.

Which AI grading tools are built for essays?

Six of the eleven are built mainly for essays and other written assignments: Brisk, CoGrader, EssayGrader, GPTZero, MagicSchool and Turnitin Feedback Studio. They differ in what comes back and where you work.

• CoGrader and EssayGrader score a class set against a rubric and draft comments for you to review. Both name AP, IB and Common Core on their pages, and both read handwritten essays (CoGrader on its paid plans).^1,2
• Brisk and MagicSchool draft feedback. Brisk is a Chrome and Edge extension that works inside Google Docs and your LMS. MagicSchool’s Class Writing Feedback tool drafts comments for a batch from your rubric.^3,4
• GPTZero and Turnitin Feedback Studio put grading next to integrity checks. GPTZero’s AI Reviewer suggests a score and feedback from your rubric. Feedback Studio has rubrics, reusable comments and AI summary comments beside its similarity report.^5,6

GradingPal, Graidable and Marking.ai grade essays and written answers too, alongside other work.^7,8

Which tools grade handwritten math and science?

Gradescope, GradingPal and Graidable name math or science on their own pages as handwritten work they handle. They work in different ways.

• Gradescope: you scan the paper exams and grade them with a rubric. For some question types its AI forms groups of similar answers, so you grade a group at once. That feature is part of the Institutional license.⁹
• GradingPal reads scanned responses, including math notation and written explanations, and returns rubric-based scores and feedback.⁷
• Graidable, the tool we make, drafts a score and feedback for each question from your own answer key. It follows the key’s rules, including errors carried forward, so an error costs points once.⁸

Marking.ai reads handwritten scripts for GCSE and A-Level. The sample classes on its home page are in Geography, English Language and History.¹⁰

The hard part is the steps. Fractions, exponents, structural formulas and free-body diagrams are not plain text, and the same question can be solved in two valid ways that look nothing alike on paper:

A $2.0\ \mathrm{kg}$ block slides from rest down a frictionless ramp $1.8\ \mathrm{m}$ high. Find its speed at the bottom ($g = 9.8\ \mathrm{m/s^2}$).

Energy

$mgh = \dfrac{1}{2}mv^2$

$v = \sqrt{2gh}$

$v = \sqrt{2 \times 9.8 \times 1.8}$

$v = \sqrt{35.28}$

$v \approx 5.9\ \mathrm{m/s}$

Forces and kinematics

$a = g\sin\theta$

$L = \dfrac{h}{\sin\theta}$

$v^2 = 2aL$

$v^2 = 2g\sin\theta\,\dfrac{h}{\sin\theta}$

$v^2 = 2gh$

$v \approx 5.9\ \mathrm{m/s}$

A grader, human or AI, has to recognize both, find the line where a mistake happened, and decide what the later lines are worth. In two studies of AI grading handwritten university exams, the drafts were good enough to help and still needed a person checking them, most of all on numerical and graphical answers.^11,12

So ask three things of any tool for math and science. Does it read handwritten equations, units and diagrams? Does it give partial credit for the method in a multi-step problem? Does it have a rule for errors carried forward? And make sure you can see where each score came from and change it in one step.

Graidable has subject pages for math, chemistry and lab reports.

Which tools grade programming assignments?

Two of the eleven grade code: CodeGrade and Gradescope. Both run an autograder that you set up, and both let you grade by hand with comments on the code.

• CodeGrade is built for programming courses and runs inside Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle or Brightspace. It autogrades code in more than 175 languages, along with Jupyter notebooks, coding quizzes and code exams. Students get feedback on every submission and can resubmit until the deadline.¹³
• Gradescope handles programming projects next to paper exams and homework, which suits a department that grades both. Students can submit from GitHub or Bitbucket. Programming assignments and code similarity are on the Institutional plan.⁹

CodeGrade also sells an AI assistant as an add-on. It is a coding helper for students, with limits you set, and you can read every conversation.

If the exam is on paper and students write code by hand, Graidable grades it from the scan, against your answer key.⁸

Which tools also check for AI-written work?

Four of the eleven list an AI-writing check next to grading: CoGrader, EssayGrader, GPTZero and Turnitin Feedback Studio.

• GPTZero is best known as an AI detector. You can add its AI-detection and plagiarism reports to the review of each paper, and its page gives lab reports as one kind of writing AI Reviewer takes.⁵
• Turnitin Feedback Studio has an AI writing indicator. AI-writing and paraphrasing detection are in its Originality add-on, and Turnitin marks some of these features as English only.⁶
• CoGrader lists AI detection and plagiarism detection on its Individual plan.¹
• EssayGrader lists AI-writing and plagiarism detection on its Pro and Premium plans.²

For lab reports and technical writing, GradingPal also names lab reports among the work it grades.

What do AI grading tools cost, and which are free?

Seven of the eleven have a free plan that keeps going, and listed plans for one teacher run from $6.99 a month (EssayGrader Lite) to £65 a month (Marking.ai Plus). The table above has each price. Three things make them hard to compare.

• The free plans count different things. CoGrader gives 150 submissions a month, EssayGrader 100 essays a month and GradingPal 50 submissions a month. Brisk and MagicSchool are free for teachers, Gradescope has a free Basic plan, and CodeGrade is free for up to 50 students per course.
• Some free offers are a trial. Marking.ai gives 20 submissions once. Graidable has a demo and a sample class with no card, and its first plan starts with 10 free gradings.
• Some tools are sold to schools. Gradescope’s Institutional plan and Brisk’s school plans are priced on request, and the Turnitin page we read gives no price. CodeGrade charges per student per course: $24 or $39.

Check what a plan includes before you compare prices. Handwriting, LMS sync and AI-writing checks often sit on a paid or school plan. Graidable’s plans are on our pricing page.

How do the tools handle student data?

Every vendor here says something about student data, and they say different things. Compare them on the same four points.

• Training. CoGrader, EssayGrader, GradingPal, Graidable and Marking.ai say student work is not used to train AI models. CoGrader words it as student PII.
• Selling. Brisk says it does not sell student data, Gradescope’s privacy policy says it does not sell personal information, and GPTZero says it never sells or shares your information.
• Location. Marking.ai says data is stored in the EU, and EssayGrader says all data is stored in the U.S.
• Agreements. Brisk, GradingPal and MagicSchool offer a data privacy agreement on their school plans. Graidable’s school-owner page has the data processing agreement, the DPIA material and the sub-processor list.

Several list FERPA and COPPA as well, and the profiles below have what each vendor says. Before you upload real student work, ask the vendor for the agreement your school or district needs, and run your first test on papers with the names removed.

How to test a tool on your own exam

Use a set you have already graded, so you know what the right answer looks like.

1. Take a test you have already graded, with 15 to 30 papers and a few messy ones.
2. 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.
3. Compare the tool’s draft with your scores question by question, or criterion by criterion for essays. Totals hide errors that cancel out.
4. Look at each disagreement. Is it a misread digit, a different reading of your key, or a judgment call?
5. Time the review. What matters is how long it takes you to check and approve one paper.

If the tool shows where on the page each score comes from, step 4 takes minutes. If it only gives a number, you’ll be re-reading the whole page.

The eleven tools, in alphabetical order

Each profile says what the vendor’s own pages stated when we checked: Brisk³, CodeGrade¹³, CoGrader¹, EssayGrader², GPTZero⁵, Gradescope⁹, GradingPal⁷, Graidable⁸, MagicSchool⁴, Marking.ai¹⁰ and Turnitin Feedback Studio⁶. Prices and plans change, so look at the vendor’s page before you decide.

Questions people ask

Brisk or CoGrader for fast feedback on essays?

They do different jobs. Brisk writes feedback inside Google Docs or your LMS and is free for teachers. CoGrader scores a class set against your rubric and drafts comments for you to review, with 150 submissions a month on its free plan. If you want comments on a draft while the document is open, try Brisk. If you want rubric scores for a whole class, try CoGrader.

What do STEM departments use for structured grading?

Gradescope is the tool here that is built for it. You grade question by question with a rubric, a rubric change applies to work already graded, and you get statistics for each question and rubric item. Its home page lists computer science, physics, math, chemistry, biology, engineering and economics. For one teacher’s handwritten tests with an answer key, look at GradingPal and Graidable.

Can these tools grade presentations as well as essays?

Two vendors’ pages mention it. GradingPal lists slides and spoken audio or video among the work it grades⁷, and EssayGrader’s Pro plan lists oral exams and video submissions². On the other vendors’ pages we read about written work, code and scanned paper.

Does the teacher stay in control of the grade?

Yes, on every tool whose pages address it. CoGrader, EssayGrader, GPTZero, GradingPal, MagicSchool and Marking.ai all describe a step where the teacher reviews or edits before anything is shared. With Graidable you approve every score before a student sees it.

Which AI grading tool is the best one?

None is best for every class. Essay tools, handwritten-test tools and code tools are mostly separate products, and no vendor here lists all three. Pick two that fit the work you grade, then run the five-step test above on a set you have already graded.

Updated 8 October 2026: Rewritten with eleven tools, prices and student-data notes; vendor pages checked 8 October 2026.

Sources

1. CoGrader, home page and Pricing, including its FAQ. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑

2. EssayGrader, home page and Pricing. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑

3. Brisk Teaching, Plans. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑

4. MagicSchool, Pricing. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑

5. GPTZero, AI Reviewer and Pricing. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑

6. Turnitin, Feedback Studio. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑

7. GradingPal, home page and Pricing. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑

8. Graidable, Pricing. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑

9. Gradescope, home page, Pricing and Privacy policy. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑

10. Marking.ai, home page and Pricing. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑

11. 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. ↑

12. 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. ↑

13. CodeGrade, home page and Pricing. Checked 8 October 2026. ↑