Explain Everything

Explain Everything is an online whiteboard for teaching, creating interactive lessons, recording tutorials, and collaborating. Its infinite canvas accepts documents, presentations, images, audio, and video for users to import and work with. Users can record narration and canvas activity, edit recordings, and render videos in Explain Drive. Collaboration can happen live or asynchronously, with participants joining by link or access code and using built-in voice chat. Integrations include Dropbox, Google Drive, YouTube, OneDrive, and Schoolwork, plus LMS assignment tools such as Canvas, Schoology, Moodle, and Blackboard. Schools can provision licenses through Google Admin, and students can sign in with Google EDU accounts. On iPad, listed features include Split View drag and drop, 3D objects through Sketchfab, SharePlay on FaceTime, and screen mirroring. The service runs on Android, iOS, and the web. The free plan allows three projects, one slide per project, videos up to three minutes, one collaborator, 15-minute collaboration sessions, and 500 MB of cloud storage. Pro costs $9.99 a month; Team costs $9.99 per user per month. Explain Everything has operated as a teaching platform since 2010 and is part of Promethean.

Explain Everything combines an interactive whiteboard with video creation and collaboration tools. Its free plan has project, video, collaborator, session-time, and storage limits; paid Pro starts at $9.99 a month.

Explain Everything suits teachers and schools creating lessons or tutorials, as well as tutors, creatives, facilitators, and business consultants. Its collaboration and LMS options may also suit groups working on shared teaching materials.

Explain Everything is a teaching-focused whiteboard that also turns lessons and demonstrations into videos. It is best suited to educators, tutors, and facilitators who need to explain ideas with mixed media; for regular use, the free plan’s tight limits make upgrading hard to avoid.

Overview

The service combines a flexible canvas, video creation, and collaboration rather than treating the whiteboard as a place for notes alone. Users can bring documents, presentations, images, audio, and video onto an infinite canvas, then record narration and canvas activity, edit the recording, and render it in Explain Drive. That workflow suits lessons and tutorials that benefit from a finished video, but may be more than a team needs for straightforward brainstorming.

Collaboration works synchronously or asynchronously. People can join by link or access code, and built-in voice chat supports live sessions. Presentation mode, diagramming, guest collaboration, and voting tools broaden the ways a board can be used. The three-board limit is a separate constraint: an infinite canvas does not mean an unlimited number of ongoing boards.

Key features

Teaching and video creation

Mixed-media imports make it possible to build an explanation around existing materials instead of starting with a blank board. Recording narration and canvas activity can turn that lesson into a video, with editing before cloud rendering. This is the product’s clearest advantage for teachers and tutors who need both a live explanation and a reusable tutorial.

Collaboration and integrations

Link- or code-based access and asynchronous collaboration can accommodate people who are not in the same session, while voice chat is useful when a group is working live. External cloud integrations include Dropbox, Google Drive, YouTube, OneDrive, and Schoolwork; LMS project assignments include Canvas, Schoology, Moodle, and Blackboard. Schools can provision licenses through Google Admin, and students can sign in with Google EDU accounts.

On iPad, Split View drag and drop, Sketchfab 3D objects, FaceTime SharePlay, and screen mirroring support additional ways to present or work with content. These Apple-specific options make the iPad version more compelling for classrooms that use those workflows, but they do not change the free plan’s project and video ceilings.

Pricing

The free plan costs nothing and includes up to three projects, one slide per project, videos up to three minutes, one collaborator, 15-minute collaboration sessions, and 500 MB of cloud storage. It is enough to try a small lesson or short tutorial, but the one-slide projects and short video cap make it a poor fit for an ongoing teaching library.

Pro costs $9.99 a month, billed monthly. It removes project and slide limits, allows unrestricted video length, provides 20 GB of storage, and supports up to eight collaborators with no time limit. Email support is included. This is the straightforward option for individual tutors, creatives, facilitators, and consultants who need a full recording workflow without school-level administration.

Team costs $9.99 a month per user, billed monthly. It adds team settings and management, shared folders, 20 GB of pooled cloud storage per person, and a choice of data residency region. Teams above 50 people also receive an account manager and onboarding. The per-user billing matters for larger groups, but the management and shared-folder features make this a better fit than Pro when several people need an organized team workspace.

Advanced has custom pricing, with 7.5 GB of storage, one collaborator, and 30-minute collaboration sessions. Those limits make it a narrower option than Pro for users who prioritize storage or larger collaboration groups. School has custom pricing and includes 100 student licenses per teacher license. Custom Pricing for Schools also has custom pricing, with custom features and volume pricing, LMS integrations, flexible license deployment, expanded collaboration, and professional development. Those school plans fit institutions that need licensing and deployment options rather than an individual subscription.

All plans include an online Help Center; Pro adds email support, while school custom plans include priority email support. The maker says the service complies with GDPR for personal information collected, used, and retained from EU member countries, but it is not certified by an FTC-approved COPPA safe harbor program. Data is stored in an AWS SOC2-certified data center in North Virginia, a consideration for organizations evaluating privacy and data residency requirements.

Platforms

Explain Everything is available on Android, iOS, and the web. Its iPad-specific features add useful presentation and content-handling options for Apple classrooms, while the web platform and Android support give it reach beyond that ecosystem.

Who it's for

Teachers, schools, and universities are a natural audience, particularly when lessons need to combine imported materials, live collaboration, and recorded explanation. Tutors and other individual creators can benefit from Pro’s unrestricted video length and larger storage allowance. Companies and facilitators may value the collaborative canvas, while teams that need managed workspaces or school systems that need bulk licensing should compare Team and the custom school plans. For casual board sharing or users who need only a few short projects, the free plan may suffice; for a continuing library of lessons, its limits are too restrictive.

Pros and cons

• Strong lesson-to-video workflow: users can combine several media types on an infinite canvas, record narration and activity, edit, and render a video.
• Flexible collaboration: synchronous and asynchronous work, guest access, and built-in voice chat support different teaching and group-session formats.
• Useful education connections: cloud integrations, LMS assignments, and Google EDU account support can fit established school workflows.
• Restrictive free tier: one slide per project, three-minute videos, one collaborator, short sessions, and 500 MB storage limit sustained use.
• Costs rise with collaboration: Team is billed per user, and school plans use custom pricing, so institutions must assess seat and deployment needs before choosing.
• Privacy qualification for younger students: the service is not certified by an FTC-approved COPPA safe harbor program, which schools serving children should weigh.

Alternatives

For a broader choice of whiteboard formats, browse Collaborative Whiteboard Software, Online Whiteboard Tools, Explainer Video Software, or Presentation Recording Software.

• Boardmix is worth comparing if you want a freemium whiteboard with a free trial and support across web, desktop, mobile, API, and self-hosted platforms.
• Webex App is a better direction when the priority is online meetings: its free plan supports up to 100 attendees for meetings lasting up to 40 minutes.
• Canva Whiteboards may suit users who want a whiteboard alongside Canva Pro, which includes templates and a large library of premium media.
• Collaboard offers a free-forever option with three whiteboards, five participants per board, and core whiteboard features.
• Conceptboard is another freemium whiteboard option, with its free plan capped at three active boards, 100 objects per board, and 250 MB of storage.
• FigJam is worth considering if its free Starter plan’s three editable files and unlimited collaborators suit your group.
• Lucidspark is another freemium collaborative whiteboard option.
• Miro may be a better fit for users seeking a template- and integration-rich board, with 7,000+ templates and 250+ integrations on its free plan.

Verdict

Choose Explain Everything if teaching or guided explanation is central to your work and you want one canvas to support collaboration, recording, and finished videos. Its breadth is the main reason to choose it; the free plan’s severe limits and the per-user or custom pricing for broader team and school use are the main reasons to look elsewhere.