Free trial: what's included
When you sign up for Marking.ai, you start on a free trial with the full product unlocked — every feature, no card required. This article explains how the trial works, what’s included, and what happens when your free submissions run out.
How many free submissions you get
Your free allowance depends on the email you sign up with:
- 6 free submissions if you sign up with a personal email (Gmail, Outlook, iCloud, and the like).
- 20 free submissions if you sign up with a school or work email.
Each student’s work that you mark uses one submission — so a school email lets you try Marking.ai across a fuller class set before deciding on a plan. If you have a school email, use it.
You can also earn more free submissions beyond your starting allowance — see Can I get more free submissions? below.
What’s included
During your trial, you get the full Marking.ai experience — the same product a paid plan unlocks, just capped at your free submissions. That means:
- Unlimited assessments — set up as many as you like, even before you mark any submissions
- AI marking — your submissions go through the same marking engine as paid plans
- Marko, your AI assistant — full access
- Insights — class performance, question analysis, misconceptions, student trends
- Sharing — share results with your students via private links
- Exports — PDF and CSV reports, student summaries, class summaries
- Branding — add your school logo and colour to shared outputs
- Customisation — feedback structure, language and dialect, share defaults, and more
In short — what you can do on trial is what you’ll be able to do on a paid plan.
What happens when you run out
When your free submissions are used up, marking is paused: you won’t be able to start new marking until you top up your allowance, and any marking you’d queued doesn’t quietly resume on its own once you’re blocked. Your account, assessments, and data all stay exactly where you left them.
To carry on, you have a few options:
- Pick a subscription plan — depending on how much marking you do each month. See Choosing the right plan.
- Buy a top-up pack — a one-off bundle of submissions. Great if you only mark a few assessments a year. See Top-up packs.
- Earn more free submissions — a school or work email starts you higher, and you can earn more by referring other teachers. See the referrals article in the help centre for details.
- Pause for now — do nothing. Your account stays open and your data stays put. Come back any time and pick up where you left off.
You’ll be prompted to choose when you reach the cap.
Need help?
Got questions about the trial, plans, or pricing? Open the Account menu in the sidebar and choose Chat to a human, ask Marko, or email us at connect@marking.ai. We’re happy to talk through what fits your situation.
FAQs
Do I need to enter a card to start the trial?
No. Sign-up is free and doesn’t ask for payment details.
How many free submissions do I get — 6 or 20?
It depends on your email. A personal email gets 6; a school or work email gets 20. Signing up with your school email is the quickest way to the larger allowance.
What if I’m just exploring and don’t want to use a submission yet?
You can do most things in Marking.ai without spending a submission — creating assessments, exploring the interface, talking to Marko, setting up your profile. Submissions are only counted when Marking.ai actually marks a student’s work.
What counts as one submission?
Each individual student’s work that you mark uses one submission. Re-marking the same student’s work doesn’t cost an extra submission.
Will my marking carry on automatically once I add more submissions?
No — when you’ve run out, marking is blocked and won’t silently pick back up. Once you’ve topped up (via a plan or a top-up pack), you can start marking again yourself.
Can I get more free submissions?
Yes. Signing up with a school or work email gives you a more generous allowance from the start, and you can earn more by referring other teachers. Beyond that, paid plans and top-up packs are the way to add submissions.
Happy marking!