Learn with Fred and Heddy both refuse to simply do a child's homework, and both are built in the UK. The difference is who they are for: Fred is a parent-led tutor for ages 7 to 16 with a parent dashboard, while Heddy is a KS3 app for students aged 13 and over that a teenager can open without any adult.
Everything below about Fred comes from its own website, read in September 2026. It is a young product that has changed quickly, so check its current pages before deciding.
At a glance
| Learn with Fred | Heddy | |
|---|---|---|
| Ages | 7 to 16 (Year 3 to Year 11) | 13+, KS3 and early GCSE |
| Subjects | Maths, English, Science, History, Geography | Seven subjects, one professor each |
| Gives the answer? | States it guides with hints and questions | Structurally never (worked twin only) |
| Parent view | Dashboard with plain-English summaries | None of the conversation, by design |
| Cost | 14-day trial, then £15 a month (one child) or £25 (two or more) | Free to start; cards free; tutor turns metered |
| Setup | Parent creates account, adds a card | No account |
| Platform | Web app, add to home screen | iOS app |
Fred reaches younger children and gives parents a dashboard.
What Fred does better
It covers far more ages. Fred serves children from Year 3 to Year 11. Heddy is for students aged 13 and over in the UK and is at its best in KS3. If your child is nine, Heddy is not an option, and Fred is one of the few AI tutors that is.
It gives the parent a window. Fred's parent dashboard offers plain-English summaries such as "confident on fractions, struggling with negatives", shows effort as well as results, and lets parents see session activity. Fred also says it alerts the parent on serious safeguarding signals. Heddy offers none of this, and says so openly. If oversight matters to you, that is a real advantage and a legitimate thing to want.
It has more ways in. Its site lists homework help (including uploading a photo), guided study, knowledge check-ups, writing practice and a creative Story studio. For a parent whose child needs help across the day, that breadth is useful. Heddy has tutor rooms and flashcards and little else.
Exam-board choice. For Years 9 to 11, Fred lets the parent choose AQA, Edexcel or OCR so practice follows the specification. Heddy does not work that way.
Family pricing. The price is stated plainly (£15 for one child, £25 for two or more), with a free trial first and a stated route to ask if the cost is hard. Heddy's pricing is split between free cards and metered turns, which takes more explaining.
Where they genuinely differ
Who opens the door. Fred begins with a parent: you create the account, add a card so it can check a genuine adult is in charge, then add your child. That is a reasonable design for younger children. Heddy starts the other way round: no sign-up, no email, no adult, because its audience is teenagers who want to try something without a discussion first.
Privacy of the room. Fred tells children their session activity is visible to parents. Heddy takes the opposite view: there is no parent view of a conversation, since a fourteen-year-old admits confusion more readily when nobody is reading over their shoulder. Neither is objectively right; they are different bets about what a teenager will tell a tutor. The other aitutors.me product, which is parent-provisioned, offers the dashboard.
How the refusal works. Fred's site says it is designed to guide through questions and hints and will not write essays or solve maths. Heddy's hint ladder has four rungs, the top is a worked similar problem then "now redo yours", and the hint function takes no level argument. I built Heddy's, so I can vouch for the mechanism; I have not tested Fred's, and I am taking its description at its word.
Revision after the lesson. Heddy's professor turns a session into spaced-repetition flashcards and lets you carry a stubborn card back to the tutor. I did not find flashcards in Fred's feature list, though its knowledge check-ups serve a related purpose.
Safeguarding
Both take it seriously. Fred states it is built to the ICO's Children's Code, does not sell data or use conversations to train models, and runs a distress-detection layer. Heddy hard-fails any safeguarding signal to one fixed Childline line, keeps conversation logs on a 30-day rolling deletion, and does not allow third-party model training on them (the full parent guide is here).
Which to choose
Choose Learn with Fred if your child is under 13, you want a dashboard, or you want one tutor across five subjects with exam-board options, and you are comfortable managing the account.
Choose Heddy if your teenager is 13 or over, studying KS3 into GCSE, and will only use something they can open themselves, with flashcards that grow out of each lesson.
It is also easy to try both. Heddy is on the App Store.
Comparison written 30 Sep 2026 from Learn with Fred's public website. Its plans and features may have changed. Written by Duke Harewood, who builds the tutors at aitutors.me.
Choose Fred if
- Your child is under 13
- You want a parent dashboard
- You want exam-board options
Choose Heddy if
- Your teenager is 13 or over
- They open it themselves
- You want cards from each lesson
Questions people ask
How much does Learn with Fred cost?
At the time of writing (September 2026), Fred's site lists a free 14-day trial and then £15 a month for one child or £25 a month for two or more children. A card is required to start the trial, though nothing is taken until it ends. Check Fred's pricing page for current terms.
Does Learn with Fred give the answers?
Its site says no: Fred is designed to guide children with questions and hints, and won't write an essay or solve a maths problem for them. Heddy makes the same promise and enforces it structurally, with a hint ladder that tops out at a worked similar problem.
Which has a parent dashboard?
Learn with Fred does, with plain-English summaries of a child's progress. Heddy deliberately has no parent view of a child's conversations, because the room only works if it is private.
Is Heddy cheaper than Learn with Fred?
Heddy is free to start and its flashcards are free and unlimited, but tutor turns are metered, so the two are not priced like for like. Compare what your child will actually use.