Save My Exams vs Physics & Maths Tutor: which is better in 2026?

Save My Exams and Physics & Maths Tutor are two of the biggest names in UK revision, and students often treat them as rivals. In truth they are built on opposite philosophies: one is a paid, tightly polished library of examiner-written notes and marking; the other is a free, sprawling bank of past papers and notes. Choosing between them comes down to one question, are you paying for organisation and feedback, or do you just want maximum free material?

This is an honest, side-by-side comparison of what each is genuinely good at, what it costs, and how to get the most out of them, together or apart. Prices were checked against each provider’s public site in July 2026 and are linked at the end.

The real difference: paid and polished vs free and comprehensive

Save My Exams is a paid revision library built by examiners and teachers. Its selling point is polish and organisation: concise notes that track the specification, topic questions with model answers, past papers with mark schemes, and Smart Mark, which uses AI to grade your written answers against exam-board criteria.

Physics & Maths Tutor is a free resource with a different selling point: sheer breadth. It hosts an enormous bank of past papers, mark schemes, topic questions, worksheets and notes across the sciences, maths and more, organised by exam board, and it costs nothing. What it does not do is teach, mark or give feedback, it hands you the PDFs and leaves the rest to you. That contrast, polished-and-paid versus free-and-DIY, drives everything below.

Save My Exams: examiner notes, organised and marked

Save My Exams is built by examiners and teachers, and its strength is exactly that professionalism. The notes are concise and follow each specification closely, the topic questions come with worked model answers, and Smart Mark grades your written responses against exam-board criteria, which is genuine, useful feedback that PMT does not offer. If you are losing marks on detail or on how you structure answers, this is the stronger tool.

The trade-off is cost. The free account is limited to a handful of notes and questions, so real value means paying (from around £5 a month billed annually, with a 7-day free trial). It is also a reference-and-practice library, not a place to learn a topic from scratch. For cheaper or free ways to get similar coverage, see the best Save My Exams alternatives.

Best for: students who want tightly organised examiner notes and AI marking, and will pay for them.

Physics & Maths Tutor: free, comprehensive, DIY

Physics & Maths Tutor’s strength is breadth at zero cost. Its past-paper bank with mark schemes is the part students rate most, and alongside it sit topic questions, worksheets and revision notes across a wide range of subjects, all sorted by board. For the sciences and maths especially, it is the free workhorse a lot of revision is built on.

The catch is that it is utilitarian by design: static PDFs with no teaching, no feedback and no interactivity, so you mark yourself and learn the topic elsewhere. Its notes are also generally less polished than Save My Exams’. For ways to add the teaching it leaves out, see the best Physics & Maths Tutor alternatives.

Best for: students who want the widest bank of free past papers and notes and are happy to mark themselves.

Using both, and the gap they share

Because one is polished-but-paid and the other free-but-DIY, plenty of students use both: Save My Exams for organised notes and marking near exams, Physics & Maths Tutor for unlimited free past-paper practice all year. It is a sensible, cost-effective combination.

But there is a gap they both share. Both are content libraries: they give you notes and papers, but neither actually teaches you a topic you have not understood, adapts to how you learn, or turns your own weak spots into fresh practice. Save My Exams marks your answers; neither one explains the topic behind them in a back-and-forth way.

That gap is where a third option, Aicademy, fits. Instead of a fixed library, it generates a lesson, quiz and spaced-repetition flashcards for any topic (or from your own notes), built for UK exam boards, with a tutor that explains the parts you keep getting wrong. It does not have real past papers, which is exactly PMT’s and Save My Exams’ strength, so it complements them rather than replacing them. If you are weighing the free-versus-paid angle more broadly, see also Seneca vs Save My Exams.

So which should you choose?

If budget is the deciding factor, Physics & Maths Tutor gives you more free material than anything else, especially for the sciences and maths. If you want that material organised, examiner-written and with your answers marked, Save My Exams is worth the subscription. And if the real problem is that neither teaches you the topics you keep dropping marks on, that is the case for adding an interactive tool alongside them.

For transparency: Aicademy, mentioned above as a third option, is our own app. We have kept this comparison about Save My Exams and Physics & Maths Tutor on their own terms, been clear about what each does better, including the free past papers Aicademy does not offer, and cited every price so you can check it yourself. You can try Aicademy free if the interactive angle appeals.