IXL scores the practice. Level Up makes sure the skill is really there.
IXL is built around practice and a SmartScore that drops after a wrong answer. On Trustpilot it rates 1.1 out of 5 from 761 reviews, and Change.org’s IXL page lists petitions with more than 52,000 signatures. Level Up finds the exact skills your child is missing, practices each one from three angles, steps back to the earlier skill when your child is stuck, and counts a skill only when your child has proven it on the harder problems.
Level Up meets all thirteen. IXL meets two, and is partway on three.
Is Level Up better than IXL?
For a child in kindergarten to 8th grade who is behind or struggling in math, yes. IXL is a large practice library: the child or parent picks skills, and a SmartScore that rises and falls with each answer decides when a skill counts as mastered. Level Up starts with an assessment that finds the missing skills from earlier grades, builds the practice order for you, steps back to the earlier skill when your child is stuck, and brings mastered skills back in a daily warm-up so they stay solid. IXL is the better fit if you need other subjects or high school math.
Thirteen things to check in any K-8 math program
| What decides whether it works | Level Up | IXL |
|---|---|---|
| Try it before you paySee the whole thing, and your child’s report, while you can still change your mind | Every plan opens with 7 days free, then stays refundable in full for 30 days after the first charge.You read the report, and watch the first skills clear, with the decision still open. | IXL does not publish a free trial for family memberships. You subscribe first and find out where your child stands afterwards. |
| Names the missing skills | The report names them, one by one, in plain language. A grade level is not a diagnosis: the children we assess are missing about 200 specific skills on average. | IXL’s placement reports a level per subject and suggests a skill plan, which is more than most offer. Navigating the library is still yours to do. |
| Goes back to earlier gradesGoes back to earlier grades on its own when the gap is older | When your child keeps getting stuck on a skill, practice steps back to the earlier skill it builds on.A 5th grader stuck on fractions is often missing a piece of 3rd grade. The assessment finds those earlier skills and puts them on your child’s board, with no “remedial” label, and during practice Level Up opens the earlier skill with a worked example and works on that foundation first. | For a stuck learner, IXL suggests “building block skills”. Your child or you pick one, and nothing moves your child back on its own.(Source: IXL, Recommendation Types (PDF)) |
| Proven, not counted | A skill clears only when your child has solved the harder versions too, consistently. Proven, not counted, so it does not come undone in November. | A SmartScore out of 100. IXL’s own guide says the score “goes both up and down” as your child answers.(Source: IXL Help Center, “How does the SmartScore work?”) |
| Each skill from three anglesPractices each skill from three angles, not just recognizing it | Nearly every skill is practiced three ways: identify the idea, build the answer, and find the mistake in a worked answer.The mix shifts toward building and analyzing as your child gets stronger, so a skill becomes something your child can use and reason about, not just recognize. | A skill is mastered when the SmartScore reaches 100, a score built from correct answers. IXL’s guide does not describe practicing a skill from different angles.(Source: IXL Help Center, “How does the SmartScore work?”) |
| Progress never taken away | Progress only moves forward. A wrong answer is information about what to practice next, never a penalty, and missing a day costs nothing. | Above 90, IXL’s own guide puts a correct answer at 1 to 2 points and a wrong one at 3 to 8, with “as many as 10 questions correctly in a row” needed to reach 100.(Source: IXL SmartScore Guide (PDF)) |
| Brings skills back before they fade | Everything not revisited is forgotten. Level Up resurfaces a skill on the day it is most likely to slip, and stretches the gap wider as it gets solid. | Nothing schedules a return. Coming back to a skill before it fades is a parent’s job to remember. |
| No points, streaks, leaderboards | None of it. No leaderboards, no points, no comparison with other children. The only comparison is to where your child was last week. | Awards, certificates and a score to chase. The score is not a side feature, it is the mechanic. |
| A goal and a reward at homeA goal your child chose, and a reward that means something at home | You and your child agree a Quest: a size, from about two weeks to a school-year milestone, and a real reward you both name.Level Up sizes the target from what your child can actually reach, progress counts only skills genuinely mastered, and you both sign it. | Awards and certificates, handed out by the platform. Your child did not choose them and you are not part of it. |
| Covers all of K-8 | Every Common Core standard from kindergarten through 8th grade, and one subscription covers the whole range. | Yes, and far beyond: Pre-K to 12. Note that math is priced separately from the other subjects. |
| Works without you beside them | Yes. The next session is already built from the last one, so there is nothing for you to set up, choose or supervise. | Mostly, once the skills are chosen. Choosing them, and re-choosing them each week, is the part that needs you. |
| See every problem attempted | Every problem attempted, solved or not, how long each one took, and what was mastered this week against last. Evidence of learning, not minutes logged. | Detailed analytics, and genuinely good ones. Reporting is one of IXL’s real strengths. |
| A dose you can sustain | About 30 minutes a day, five days a week, for one monthly price no matter how much your child uses it. | Possible and affordable. Whether it is sustainable depends on how your child reacts to a score that can fall. |
| Level Up is ahead on eleven of the thirteen, level on two (covers all of k-8 and see every problem attempted). | ||
What each one costs
A month of Level Up costs about what one hour of private tutoring does.
Why Level Up costs more. Each child gets more: an assessment that finds the missing skills, a practice path built for that child and rebuilt every day, a step back to the earlier skill when stuck, a daily warm-up that keeps skills solid, and Quests with a reward your family chooses.
How the free trial works
- 7 days free. A card is collected at signup and nothing is charged that day.
- The assessment and your child’s report both happen inside those 7 days.
- When the trial ends the plan starts at $49 a month, $196 every 6 months, or $294 a year, unless you cancel first.
- $29 a month for each additional child ($116 every 6 months, $174 a year). One trial covers every child on the account.
- 30-day money-back guarantee on your first charge, on any plan.
This is what you get on day one, before any charge.
The assessment happens inside the 7 free days. When it finishes, a report like this is built for your child. This one is real, with the child’s name changed.
Scrolls inside the frame. The full report opens below.
Math became much less of a struggle.
Level Up parentThey want to do math almost every day because they want to make progress toward their quest rewards. I can see that they are learning and becoming more confident, but also that doing math has become much less of a struggle. For me, that’s probably the biggest thing.
LauraMother of a fourth and an eighth grader, American International School
IXL’s mechanic can have negative consequences.
IXL review on TrustpilotWhat I and many other kids learned from this was that we don’t get to make mistakes or be wrong, because that’s not “progress”. We have to be perfect at everything immediately.
InaTrustpilot, 1 star, August 2025
IXL review on TrustpilotI dont hate this app but i also dont like it. It really helped me learn and the videos where very helpful ... But the problem is the smartscore it is bad like you lose 10 points for one qeustion wrong but one point for a corect question?
sterlingTrustpilot, 2 stars, August 2026
IXL review on Trustpilotthe more points you get the easier it is to lose them, you get 95 points, 1 question wrong, back down to 70
HughTrustpilot, 1 star, August 2025
IXL review on TrustpilotTo reach a maximum of 100 points and fully complete the lesson, you must complete multiple questions that net you only 2 to 3 points. If you get a question wrong, you can lose upwards of 10 points, forcing you to rebuild your score with more 2 point questions.
A MajumderTrustpilot, 1 star, August 2026
Level Up never takes your child’s progress back.
On IXL, one wrong answer near 100 can undo several right ones: above 90, IXL’s own guide puts a correct answer at 1 to 2 points and a wrong one at 3 to 8. On Level Up, a wrong answer only decides what to practice next.
Four things the research agrees on. Level Up does all four.
Worked examples
Studying a solved problem step by step improves math results (Barbieri and colleagues, 2023, Educational Psychology Review, a review of the studies).
Level Up: a worked solution after every wrong answer, and a worked example when practice steps back to an earlier skill.
Mastery before moving on
Moving on only after a skill is shown raised exam results by about half a standard deviation (Kulik, Kulik and Bangert-Drowns, 1990, Review of Educational Research).
Level Up: a skill counts only when your child has proven it, including on the harder problems.
Practice spread over time
Practice spread over days is remembered far longer than the same practice done at once (Cepeda and colleagues, 2006, Psychological Bulletin, 317 experiments).
Level Up: a daily warm-up brings skills back when they are most likely to slip.
Recalling, not rereading
Being asked to recall a skill strengthens it more than reviewing it (Roediger and Karpicke, 2006, Psychological Science).
Level Up: every review is a question your child answers, never a page to reread.
A semester of IXL against six weeks of Level Up.
No better on the state test
In a randomized trial IXL paid for, 545 students in grades 3 to 5 used IXL for a whole semester. On the Michigan state test, the one children take in school, they did no better than students without IXL.
Copeland, Cook, Grant and Ross, 2023, Johns Hopkins University
+18 percentile points
Level Up kids make real progress in weeks. One student practiced about 15 hours over six weeks one summer, and the MAP math score went from the 69th percentile in spring to the 87th in fall, into the top 13%. In earlier summers, that score had stalled or slipped.
IXL may be better if your child...
- You need subjects beyond math. IXL also covers language arts, science, social studies and Spanish.
- Your child is in high school, which is past where Level Up stops.
Otherwise, Level Up is ahead of IXL on 11 of the 13 areas that help kids become proficient in math, and level on the two IXL meets.
Level Up and IXL, answered.
Is Level Up better than IXL for a child who is behind?
Yes, for kindergarten to 8th grade, Level Up is better than IXL. IXL leaves it to you to find and choose the earlier skills. Level Up’s assessment finds them, and practice goes back to them on its own when your child is stuck.
Why does my child’s IXL SmartScore keep going down?
Because IXL lowers the score after every wrong answer, by 3 to 8 points once it is above 90, while a right answer there adds 1 to 2. On Level Up, a wrong answer never takes progress away.
Does IXL explain wrong answers?
Yes, but Level Up does more. After a wrong answer, IXL shows your child’s answer and the correct method, all on one screen, and the explanation is the same whatever your child answered. Level Up walks your child through the solution one step at a time, and for most problems it starts by explaining why the answer your child picked is wrong. Each solution includes the key idea and the most common mistake to avoid. And when your child keeps getting stuck, Level Up steps back to the earlier skill the problem depends on.
Does IXL have research behind it?
IXL Math has one randomized trial, which IXL paid for. 545 students in grades 3 to 5 used IXL for a whole semester, and on the Michigan state test they did no better than students without IXL. Level Up kids make real progress in weeks: one student practiced about 15 hours over six weeks one summer and gained 18 percentile points on MAP math, from the 69th percentile in spring to the 87th in fall.
How much does each cost?
IXL math starts at $9.95 a month. Level Up is $49 a month for the first child and $29 for each additional child, with a 7-day free trial that includes the assessment and the report. IXL does not publish a free trial for family memberships. Level Up costs more because each child gets more: an assessment that finds the missing skills, a practice path rebuilt every day, a step back to the earlier skill when stuck, a daily warm-up, and Quests.
Is Level Up related to IXL’s LevelUp Diagnostic?
No. Level Up (levelupmath.com) is an independent K-8 math program. IXL’s “LevelUp Diagnostic” is a separate assessment IXL sells to schools.