Comparison

Explain Everything Whiteboard vs Instructional Design

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Explain Everything Whiteboard

This interactive whiteboard app allows users to create notes, drawings, and record video lessons. It supports real-time collaboration, PDF annotation, and offers various tools to enrich content, making it ideal for education and presentations.

Highlights
  • Infinite canvas for notes and drawings
  • Record and edit whiteboard video lessons
  • Real-time collaboration
  • PDF annotation
  • Import images, GIFs, 3D models, and more
  • Interactive engagement apps (Polling, Timer, Spinner)
Features
Read full description

The iPad App Store Trend of the Year 2020 award-winning interactive whiteboard and note taking app for iPad. With over 25 million downloads across the globe, Explain Everything helps teachers and students with every day learning. Explain Everything Advanced, Promethean's award-winning cloud-based plan, is one of the most dynamic, easy-to-use, and powerful lesson creation and delivery tools on the market today. Explain Everything is an interactive whiteboard, built to create notes and make drawings, explain concepts and share boards anywhere. Make notes and draw together on the infinite canvas. Use sticky notes, work with imported documents, and annotate PDFs. Easily record whiteboard videos and share the entire process of explaining a lesson. Use real-time collaboration to stay on the same page with your students or team. Our customers love using Explain Everything to: • Record and edit whiteboard video lessons, then share them automatically with your preferred cloud drive! • Capture ideas, create interactive presentations, and use PDF annotation for teaching purposes. • Use engagement apps such as Polling, Timer, and Spinner to promote student participation and deep focus. • Draw, write, sketchnote, visualize, and scribble using Apple Pencil then easily present materials both in-classroom or online. • Enrich your materials with images and GIFs, Sticky Notes, Clipart, 3D Models, Shapes, Web Browser, Equations, hyperlinks, text boxes and notes grid. • Digitize and store materials in one place thanks to the Explain Everything Drive cloud; available from any device, anywhere. • Collaborate with students by hosting group assignments in the classroom and in the cloud. • Broadcast through SharePlay or popular conferencing tools, including Zoom or Microsoft Teams. New Activities within Advanced Plan We’re coming with new activities to enhance your lessons and create some fun throughout your classroom. Launch and play activities right from your whiteboard canvas. Crossword – Add a list of words, provide image or text clues, and Explain Everything will generate a crossword for you. Memory game – Turn a set of images into a randomized memory pair-finding game. Matching game – Build a matching game from a collection of images, shapes, and text. Promethean Engagement Apps We’ve enhanced our Explain Everything Advanced plan with other new features, including Promethean’s ever-popular Spinner, Timer, and Polling apps; all to improve your teaching experience in the classroom. Polling – ask questions and receive responses from students instantly. Timer – use clock and stopwatch to measure time and improve executive functioning skills. Spinner – randomly select items from the built-in templates or your own lists to add excitement to any class. If you enjoy using Explain Everything please leave us a review! https://explaineverything.com/terms-of-use/

About

Instructional Design

This app guides learning professionals through a step-by-step process to quickly create a comprehensive needs analysis. It aligns with industry standards, prompts critical questions, tracks progress, and generates a shareable PDF report.

Highlights
  • Step-by-step needs analysis guide
  • Industry standard alignment
  • Progress tracking
  • Shareable PDF reports
  • Rapid creation tool
Features
Read full description

All great learning design starts with a needs analysis. This needs analysis creator guides learning professionals through a step by step process to rapidly create a brilliant needs analysis. Each step is aligned with instructional design industry standards and carefully crafted to prompt the right questions. The needs analysis creator also tracks your progress and publishes a beautiful PDF that can be shared with others. About IDC Instructional Design Central (IDC) was created to provide instructional design and learning related professionals access to resources, tools, and content so that they can be successful in their career and education. Instructional Design Central (IDC) is also a vibrant community that connects more than 18,000 of instructional design related professionals around the globe in more 20 countries worldwide.

Screenshots

Explain Everything Whiteboard4 screens
Instructional Design4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Explain Everything Whiteboard at fortnightly against Instructional Design's every 10 months. Explain Everything Whiteboard also leads on ratings volume (8.9K vs 16). Instructional Design's advantage is review sentiment (60% vs 48%) and iOS requirement (11.4 vs 17.0). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Explain Everything Whiteboard sells 11 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month and Instructional Design sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Explain Everything Whiteboard holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Explain Everything Whiteboard has 8.9K ratings behind it against 16, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 48% of Explain Everything Whiteboard's written reviews are positive against 60% of Instructional Design's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Explain Everything Whiteboard ships an update fortnightly, Instructional Design every 10 months. The most recent releases landed on October 21, 2026 and October 9, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Explain Everything Whiteboard versus Instructional Design: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterExplain Everything WhiteboardInstructional Design
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (8.9K ratings) — better4.4 (16 ratings)
Positive reviews47.9% of reviews60.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings8.9K — better16
Update frequencyFortnightly — betterEvery 10 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, MaciPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS17.011.4 — better
Further details — not scored
Size312 MB18 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperPromethean Ltd.CodePro Studios

Customer experience

Explain Everything Whiteboard

All ratings8,863 ratings
Positive90.1%
Neutral3.1%
Negative6.8%
Written reviews374 reviews
Positive47.9%
Neutral12.6%
Negative39.6%

Instructional Design

All ratings16 ratings
Positive87.5%
Neutral0.0%
Negative12.5%
Written reviews5 reviews
Positive60.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative40.0%

Bugs and requests

Explain Everything Whiteboard

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Inability to select desired controls
  • Recordings cutting off audio
  • Projects not saving properly
  • Restricted account limits

Requested features

6 requests
  • Toggle option for consistent line width
  • Improved pen and drawing tools
  • Better undo/redo functionality
  • Ability to move audio clips
  • Animated GIF support
Show 1 more
  • Customizable font size

Instructional Design

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

11 purchases

Explain Everything Whiteboard

Subscriptions11
  • Individual Monthly Plan7 Days trial$9.991 Month
  • [LEGACY] Individual Monthly$12.991 Month
  • [LEGACY] EDU Group, Monthly$12.991 Month
Show 8 more
  • [LEGACY] Individual Monthly7 Days trial$12.991 Month
  • Solo Teacher Plan1 Year trial$34.991 Year
  • [LEGACY] Solo Teacher Plan7 Days trial$34.991 Year
  • Advanced Plan7 Days trial$69.001 Year
  • Individual Annual Plan1 Year trial$89.991 Year
  • Individual Annual Plan7 Days trial$89.991 Year
  • [LEGACY] Individual Annual2 variants$129.991 Year
  • [LEGACY] EDU Group, Annual$129.991 Year
1 purchases

Instructional Design

One-time1
  • Unlimited PDF Exports$0.99

Questions

Is Explain Everything Whiteboard free?
Explain Everything Whiteboard is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Instructional Design free?
Instructional Design is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Explain Everything Whiteboard or Instructional Design?
Explain Everything Whiteboard is rated higher. Explain Everything Whiteboard averages 4.6 out of 5 from 8.9K ratings, while Instructional Design averages 4.4 from 16 ratings.
Do Explain Everything Whiteboard or Instructional Design have ads?
Neither Explain Everything Whiteboard nor Instructional Design shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Explain Everything Whiteboard or Instructional Design?
Explain Everything Whiteboard ships an update fortnightly, and Instructional Design every 10 months. Most recently, Explain Everything Whiteboard was updated on October 21, 2026 and Instructional Design on October 9, 2026.

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