PALCS vs Gauge
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
PALCS
This app allows parents to actively participate in their child's academic journey. It offers real-time updates on progress, personalized messages, and important school announcements and alerts.
- Academic progress tracking
- Personalized parent messages
- School announcements
- Critical notices and alerts
- Division-specific updates
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The PALCS App provides parents more opportunity to engage with their child's education. Our app helps parents get quick access to their child's up-to-date academic progress, receive tailored messages related to their child, see general and division specific announcements and also have access to schoolwide critical notices, reminders and alerts.
Gauge
Prepare for wastewater operator certification exams with a focus on the math section. This app offers free calculators for essential formulas and provides step-by-step solutions to common mistakes. Practice with timed exams that mirror the actual test format and weighting.
- Free operator math calculators
- Step-by-step worked solutions
- Timed practice exams
- Formula selection drills
- Offline functionality
- Exam blueprint adherence
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Wastewater treatment operator certification prep, built around the part that actually fails people: the math. THE CALCULATORS ARE FREE. FOREVER. Fifty operator formulas across flow and volume, detention and loading, process control, solids, chemical feed, pumping and power, and the laboratory. Detention time, the pounds formula, MCRT, F/M, SVI, surface and weir overflow rate, chlorine dose, chemical feed with purity correction, pump horsepower, wire-to-water efficiency, BOD. Each one shows the relationship, what it means on shift, and the mistake operators most often make with it. No account, no advertising, no network required. They stay free whether you buy anything or not. THE FORMULA SHEET IS SUPPLIED AT YOUR EXAM So what is really being tested is whether you can pick the right relationship and keep your units straight under time pressure. This app drills exactly that, with two-stage questions: choose the formula first, then compute the value. Nothing else on the store practises the skill the exam actually measures. WORKED SOLUTIONS, NOT BARE ANSWERS Every calculation shows its steps with the units carried through. Get one wrong by a factor of 8.34 and the app tells you that you dropped pounds per gallon rather than just marking it incorrect — because a unit slip is the most common way a prepared candidate loses a timed exam. BUILT TO THE PUBLISHED BLUEPRINT Five exam areas at their published weighting, and timed practice forms drawn to the same area weighting and calculation load as a real sitting, including the unscored pre-test items. Your math score is reported separately from your overall score, because some states score the calculations independently and you can clear the percentage and still fail on them. ACCURACY IS THE PRODUCT Every formula in the app is covered by an automated test suite, and every worked solution is recomputed programmatically rather than checked by eye. Explanations cite the governing regulation where one applies, so you can verify at the source instead of trusting us. Found something wrong? Tell us and it gets fixed in days, not years. WORKS WITH NO SIGNAL Everything is on the device. Plants are concrete and steel, and you will be studying in a break room mid-shift. FREE, AND WHAT THE UNLOCK ADDS Free: every calculator, the formula reference, and 88 practice questions drawn from all five exam areas. The one-time unlock opens the complete question bank, all worked solutions, every timed form, the formula-selection drills, spaced repetition and weak-area analytics. One payment, no subscription, no account.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Gauge at 5.0 against PALCS's 3.3. Gauge also leads on update cadence (every 8 days vs every 4 months). PALCS's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and ratings volume (7 vs 1). On price, ads and device support 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
Both are free to download. Gauge sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. PALCS asks for nothing beyond the download.
Gauge holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: PALCS has 7 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
PALCS ships an update every 4 months, Gauge every 8 days. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and October 13, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | PALCS | Gauge |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.3 (7 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 7 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 8 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 81 MB | 5 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | The Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School | OMAR DANIEL GRAZIANO |
Customer experience
PALCS
Gauge
In-app purchases
PALCS
No in-app purchases
Gauge
- Full Unlock$14.99









