Literably vs Pearson TELL
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Literably
This app provides a quick and precise method for evaluating reading skills in K-8 students. It includes a comprehensive running record to track fluency, accuracy, and comprehension.
- Reading fluency assessment
- Reading accuracy assessment
- Reading comprehension assessment
- Full running record
- K-8 student focus
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A fast and accurate way to assess reading fluency, accuracy, and comprehension for K-8 students, including a full running record. The iOS app is for student use only; classes must be set up elsewhere.
Pearson TELL
This app offers a self-administered online language proficiency assessment for K-12 students. It includes various tests to monitor progress and provide schools with insights into students' language skills, informing instructional decisions. Results are available quickly thanks to innovative speech and writing evaluation technology.
- K-12 language proficiency assessment
- Screener, diagnostic, and progress monitoring tests
- Measures listening, reading, writing, and speaking skills
- Innovative speech and writing evaluation technology
- Fast, reliable scored results
- Detailed reporting for schools and districts
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Pearson’s TELL is a self-delivered online language proficiency assessment for students in grades K-12. TELL consists of a single screener, two diagnostic, and eight progress monitoring assessments that are administered throughout the course of an academic school year. The results from TELL provide schools and districts with a complete understanding of their students’ current language proficiency and allows them to measure their progression. This robust reporting that also helps inform instructional decisions. With minimal set-up time, students can begin testing. During test administration, students watch video clips and interact with pictures and words on a tablet, then answer questions out loud. They listen, write, read, and speak—all with no mark-ups or grading by teachers. Short, effective testing allows users to monitor student progress on the development of core English language skills necessary for learning academic content. TELL’s unique items types allow for measuring multiple skills in a single item. TELL’s innovative speech recognition and writing evaluation technology yields highly reliable scored but also means that results are available in minutes! TELL scores are provided at the Overall level, for the four foundational skills (listening, reading, writing and speaking), and for the following sub-skills : pronunciation, fluency, grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, reading rate, expressiveness, and pre-literacy.
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Pearson TELL at 100% against Literably's 43%. Pearson TELL also leads on rating (4.7 vs 2.8) and iOS requirement (11.0 vs 15.6). Literably's advantage is ratings volume (39 vs 3). On price, update cadence, 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Pearson TELL holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 2.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Literably has 39 ratings behind it against 3, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 43% of Literably's written reviews are positive against 100% of Pearson TELL's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 6, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Literably | Pearson TELL |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.8 (39 ratings) | 4.7 (3 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 42.9% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 39 — better | 3 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPad | iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 | 11.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 4 MB | 12 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Literably, Inc. | Pearson Education, Inc. |
Customer experience
Literably
Pearson TELL
In-app purchases
Literably
No in-app purchases
Pearson TELL
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Literably free?
Is Pearson TELL free?
Which has better reviews, Literably or Pearson TELL?
Do Literably or Pearson TELL have ads?
Which is updated more often, Literably or Pearson TELL?
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