Medly AI vs Save My Exams: A full comparison for GCSE and A-Level students

Medly AI and Save My Exams both help students prepare for exams, but they take very different routes. Medly AI leans into AI tutoring, adaptive practice and AI marking on written answers. Save My Exams leans into examiner-written revision notes, topic questions and past papers across a wide sweep of exam boards. If you're deciding between them, here's how they line up.

Medly AI is an AI-powered exam preparation platform covering GCSE, IGCSE, A-Level, IB, AP and SAT across the main UK and international exam boards. The core of the product is an AI tutor that adapts to your responses, thousands of exam questions across a wide range of types, and AI marking that gives annotated feedback on written answers. Medly also includes a handwriting canvas, a Flexible Marking feature for any exam paper, and Medly Mocks: free nationwide mock exams with grade boundaries. There's a free tier plus a paid subscription.

Strengths. The AI tutor guides you through content adaptively, adjusting explanations based on how you respond. That kind of one-to-one dialogue is a genuine differentiator for students who learn well by asking follow-up questions. AI marking on written answers gives you feedback fast, and Medly Mocks give you the closest thing to a real exam experience outside of school, for free.

Where it's less strong. There's no video content, so teaching happens through AI dialogue and text-based lessons, which suits some students more than others. The subject range is focused on core exam subjects rather than a broad humanities-and-languages spread. And the monthly price is on the higher end for exam-prep platforms.

Save My Exams is a UK-founded revision platform built around exam-board-specific notes, topic questions and past papers. It covers GCSE, IGCSE, AS, A-Level, IB, O-Level and AP across AQA, Edexcel, OCR, WJEC, CCEA, Cambridge International, Oxford AQA and Edexcel International. Resources are written by teachers and examiners, and the library extends into flashcards, mock exams, Target Tests, Smart Lessons and model answers. There's a partial free layer plus a paid subscription at around £48 a year.

Strengths. The breadth of exam-board and qualification coverage is impressive, especially the side-by-side of UK boards and Cambridge International. The topic-question and past-paper library is deep and well tagged, and the notes are written by people who've marked exams. It's also strong for last-minute revision because you can quickly find notes and questions on any spec point.

Where it's less strong. The platform is historically text-first, with limited video teaching. AI marking and adaptive practice aren't headline features, so the experience leans on you to drive your own revision loop.

A feature-by-feature summary of how the two platforms compare.

Honestly, the best move is to find what works for you, and it doesn't have to be all or nothing.

What's great is that both have free content you can try. Save My Exams has a partial free tier before the annual plan kicks in. Medly AI has a free tier with Medly Mondays and limited daily premium AI.

Broadly, Medly AI suits students who like learning by dialogue and want AI feedback on written answers. Save My Exams suits students who want examiner-written notes and a deep past-paper library tied precisely to a specific board. If you want video teaching plus notes plus AI-marked practice all in one place, Cognito is worth adding to the shortlist.

Cognito is designed to be an all-in-one platform that supports you from learning the content, to remembering it, to knowing how to apply it in your exams. So when you sign up, you can add all of your subjects to your dashboard, ready to go, as you can see below.

Each subject is broken down into sections and subtopics, all mapped precisely to your specification. That means you only ever learn what you actually need to know for your paper, and you can see at a glance what's left to cover.

Each topic has a short video lesson and/or beautifully designed revision notes, and some have a little cheat sheet that summarises everything on one page. It's good for last-minute revision, or printing out and sticking on the wall.

Once you've learned a topic, you can build your own quiz mixing any set of topics you've covered. Cognito uses spaced repetition and interleaving to decide what to bring back and when, adapting to how you're doing. These are the two study techniques with the strongest evidence base in cognitive science.

And when you're ready for exam-style practice, you can work through real exam questions with typed answers. Then either self-mark against the mark scheme point by point, or use AI marking to check your answer against the examiner's points.