What 791 App Store reviews say people dislike about homework apps (2026)
We read the most recent public 1â3 star App Store reviews of seven homework and study apps in the US, UK and Norway stores, and counted what people complain about. Nearly a third mention wrong answers. About one in six are about paywalls and limits. The method, its limits and the aggregate counts (CSV) are below, free to cite.
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Key findings
- Wrong answers are the top complaint: 238 of 791 reviews (30%), and 138 of those are about Gauth.
- Paywalls and limits come next: 129 reviews (16%), led by Quizlet (55).
- Photo scanning: 93 reviews (12%), mostly Photomath (55), including "matched solutions" for a different question.
- Fewer but sharp: 43 reviews want the explanation, not just the answer; 24 describe billing problems; 31 complain about ads.
- 322 reviews (41%) matched none of these themes (short, off-topic or in another language).
Complaint themes
Share of 791 reviews matching each theme. A review can match more than one theme. "Spot-check" is how many of 12 randomly sampled matches we judged to be genuinely about that theme.
| Theme | Reviews | Share | Spot-check | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wrong answers The app gave a wrong or made-up answer. | 238 | 30% | 10 of 12 | |
| Paywalls and limits Features moved behind a subscription, or tight free limits. | 129 | 16% | 10 of 12 | |
| Photo scan problems The camera misread the problem or returned a different, "matched" question. | 93 | 12% | 10 of 12 | |
| Bugs and log-in trouble Crashes, freezes, log-in failures, "doesn't work". | 63 | 8% | 9 of 12 | |
| Answer without the explanation Missing, weak or paywalled steps and explanations. | 43 | 5% | 8 of 12 | |
| Ads Ads interrupting study. | 31 | 4% | 9 of 12 | |
| Billing problems Charged after cancelling, trial charged at once, refunds refused. | 24 | 3% | 10 of 12 |
By app (top three themes)
| App | Reviews in sample | Wrong answers | Paywalls/limits | Scan problems |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gauth | 217 | 138 | 9 | 16 |
| Quizlet | 153 | 8 | 55 | 3 |
| Photomath | 150 | 42 | 30 | 55 |
| ChatGPT | 98 | 12 | 9 | 6 |
| Khan Academy (Khanmigo) | 82 | 10 | 0 | 1 |
| Brainly | 77 | 23 | 23 | 9 |
| Socratic AI (third-party clone) | 14 | 5 | 3 | 3 |
The sample sizes differ a lot between apps, so compare themes within an app rather than raw counts between apps. Counts per app and storefront are in the CSV.
In reviewers' words
"it will teach you how to do the problems wrong"
Gauth review, US App Store, 2â , October 2026
"constantly getting my questions wrong therefore misleading me into revising the wrong way"
Gauth review, UK App Store, 2â , October 2026
"about 35% of the answers are incorrect"
Brainly review, US App Store, 2â , June 2025
"It was great until 90% of it was put behind a paywall."
Quizlet review, US App Store, 2â , August 2026
"you now only get 10 answers per WEEK not per day per WEEK"
Brainly review, US App Store, 1â , March 2026
"a broken down explanation is a premium only feature so.. if your actually trying to learn find a different app"
Photomath review, US App Store, 1â , September 2026
"it can show the answer but it can't show the working out, which was the whole point in getting the app"
Photomath review, UK App Store, 1â , April 2025
"I don't want you to find a match just solve the problem"
Photomath review, US App Store, 1â , February 2026
"Charged a full year. Never used the app. No refund"
Brainly review, US App Store, 1â , September 2026
"Too many interruptions from adverts."
Quizlet review, UK App Store, 1â , May 2026
"nesten ikke fĂĽr noe uten og betale for det ("you hardly get anything without paying for it")"
ChatGPT review, Norway App Store, 3â , August 2026
Method
- Source: Apple's public customer-reviews RSS feed for each app, most recent first, in the US, UK and Norway storefronts. Pulled on 19 October 2026.
- Apps: Photomath, Brainly, Gauth, Khan Academy (the app that includes Khanmigo), Quizlet, ChatGPT and a third-party app called "Socratic AI â Homework Helper". Google's own Socratic app is no longer in the App Store, so this is a different, unrelated app with a small sample.
- Sample: 3,231 reviews were fetched, of which 1,080 were rated 1â3 stars. The 791 of those dated 1 January 2025 or later form the analysis set (534 one-star, 125 two-star, 132 three-star).
- Classification: each theme is a keyword rule applied to the review title and text. Themes overlap. We then read 12 random matches per theme to estimate how often the rule was right (the spot-check column). The exact rules are listed below.
- Privacy: we did not collect or publish reviewer names. Quotes are short excerpts of public reviews, attributed only by app, store, rating and month. The CSV contains counts only.
Keyword rules (regular expressions, case-insensitive)
- wrong_answers:
(?<!went )wrong(?! with)|incorrect|inaccura|mistakes?\b|not correct|false answer|bad answers?|hallucinat|made up|makes up - paywall_or_limits:
paywall|subscri|premium|pay(ing)? (for|to)|used to be free|not free|expensive|price|\$\d|ÂŁ\d|limit|per day|per week|run out|ran out|locked - answer_not_understanding:
explain|explanation|steps\b|step by step|show (the |your )?work|working out|how to solve|just (gives|give) (you )?(the )?answer - scan_problems:
scan|camera|photo|picture|crop|handwrit|matched solution - bugs_and_login:
crash|glitch|bugs?\b|freez|log ?in|sign ?in|won.?t load|doesn.?t work|not working|broken|went wrong - billing_problems:
charged|refund|cancel|free trial|billed|auto.?renew - ads:
\bads?\b|advert|commercials?\b
Limits
- Apple's feed returns only about 500 recent reviews per app and store, and some app and store pairs returned none (Brainly, Gauth and Quizlet in Norway, and Khan Academy in the UK). The Norway sample is thin: mostly ChatGPT.
- Only 1â3 star reviews are included, so this shows what unhappy reviewers say. It is not a measure of how good or bad any app is, or how often an app is wrong.
- Keyword rules miss some complaints and catch some off-topic ones (see the spot-check). Treat counts as approximate.
- ChatGPT is a general assistant, not a homework app. It is included because students use it for homework.
- Many reviewers appear to be younger students. Reviews can't tell us who wrote them.
Download and cite
Download the aggregate counts (CSV)
Columns: theme, app, storefront, reviews matching, reviews in the sample for that app and storefront. Licence: CC BY 4.0.
Suggested citation: Ask Poppy (2026). What 791 App Store reviews say people dislike about homework apps. https://learn.askpoppy.ai/research/homework-app-reviews-2026/
Disclosure: Ask Poppy makes an AI tutor app, so we compete with some of these apps. Our own app is not in this sample. Like any AI, our app can also make mistakes, and nothing here shows that any app, including ours, is more accurate. Corrections: [email protected].
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