Explain Everything

Explain Everything is a teaching-oriented whiteboard and recording tool for turning visual explanations into lessons or tutorials. It is best suited to educators, tutors, and facilitators who need a shared canvas as well as a way to record it. Its broad workflow is compelling, but the free plan is too constrained for regular projects.

Overview

The service brings an infinite canvas, video creation, and collaboration into one workspace. Users can place documents, presentations, images, audio, and video on the canvas, then record narration and canvas activity, edit the recording, and render it in Explain Drive. That makes it a stronger fit for teaching and guided explanations than for a basic board used only to exchange notes.

Collaboration works synchronously or asynchronously, with access by link or code and built-in voice chat. Presentation mode, diagramming, guest collaboration, and voting tools broaden its usefulness for structured sessions. The three-board limit remains a practical constraint for people who want multiple ongoing workspaces.

Key features

Canvas and recording

The open canvas can bring varied source material into one explanation, and recording captures both the narration and activity on the board. Editing and cloud rendering complete a workflow from lesson to video. This is useful for educators making reusable tutorials, though it is more machinery than needed for simple note sharing.

Collaboration and integrations

Live and asynchronous modes let participants contribute at different times, while voice chat supports real-time sessions. Dropbox, Google Drive, YouTube, and OneDrive integrations connect the board with external cloud services; LMS project assignments are supported for Canvas, Schoology, Moodle, and Blackboard. Schools can provision licenses through Google Admin, and students can sign in with Google EDU accounts.

On iPad, the product also supports Split View drag and drop, Sketchfab 3D objects, SharePlay on FaceTime, and screen mirroring. These features make it particularly relevant to Apple-based teaching workflows, rather than establishing a reason for every user to choose it.

Pricing

The free plan costs nothing and caps users at three projects, one slide per project, three-minute videos, one collaborator, 15-minute collaboration sessions, and 500 MB of cloud storage. Those limits are enough to explore the workflow, but they sharply restrict classroom use or recurring video production.

Pro costs $9.99 a month, billed monthly. It removes project, slide, and video-length limits, provides 20 GB of storage, allows up to eight collaborators without a time limit, and includes email support. This is the clearest fit for an individual tutor, creative, facilitator, or consultant who needs room to produce and collaborate regularly.

Team costs $9.99 a month per user, billed monthly. It adds team settings and management, shared folders, 20 GB of pooled storage per person, and a choice of data residency region. Teams above 50 people also receive an account manager and onboarding. The per-user charge makes this a more deliberate choice than Pro for groups needing shared administration.

Advanced has custom pricing, 7.5 GB of storage, one collaborator, and 30-minute collaboration sessions. School has custom pricing and provides 100 student licenses per teacher license. Custom Pricing for Schools has custom pricing and includes LMS integrations, flexible license deployment, expanded collaboration, professional development, and custom features and volume pricing. All plans include an online Help Center; Pro adds email support, while school custom plans include priority email support.

Platforms

Explain Everything is available on Android, iOS, and the web. Its iPad-specific tools make the iOS option especially capable for users who teach or present from an iPad.

Who it's for

Teachers and tutors who need to assemble mixed media, explain it on a canvas, and preserve the result as a video are the strongest match. Facilitators and business consultants can also benefit from the presentation and collaboration tools. People seeking only a lightweight shared whiteboard, or who need a generous free workspace, should look elsewhere.

Promethean says it complies with GDPR for collection, use, and retention of personal information from EU member countries. The service 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 relevant consideration for schools and organizations assessing privacy and data-location requirements.

Pros and cons

• Pros: An infinite canvas accepts multiple media types, and narration plus canvas recording turns lessons into editable videos.
• Pros: Synchronous and asynchronous collaboration, guest access, and voice chat support different teaching formats.
• Pros: LMS assignments and Google EDU provisioning make it a practical candidate for school workflows.
• Cons: The free plan's project, slide, video, collaborator, session, and storage caps limit sustained use.
• Cons: The three-board limit may frustrate users maintaining several continuing workspaces.
• Cons: School and custom school plans use custom pricing, so institutions cannot compare a fixed published cost.

Alternatives

For a broader category comparison, browse Explainer Video Software, Presentation Recording Software, Collaborative Whiteboard Software, or Online Whiteboard Tools.

Choose Animaker when animation tools and premium assets matter more than a teaching whiteboard; its free exports are watermarked and premium assets are limited. Powtoon is another option for screen recording and template-based video, though its free plan is limited to 720p and three-minute videos and adds a watermark. Doratoon offers a free animation-oriented plan with 150+ templates and 10 downloads per month, but exports carry a watermark and are limited to 720p.

Golpo AI is an alternative for AI video creation, with one one-minute video on its free plan. Mango Animation Maker is a desktop alternative for macOS and Windows. Renderforest Slideshow Maker is an alternative for slideshow creation, while Steve AI is an alternative for AI video creation. CoAnimator is an alternative for animation creation.

Verdict

Choose Explain Everything if you teach, tutor, or facilitate and want one workspace for mixed-media explanations, collaboration, and recorded lessons. Its decisive advantage is that it can turn activity on a flexible whiteboard into a video. Look elsewhere if you need a generous free tier, many boards, or a published school price before committing.