Online Whiteboard for Tutoring: Free Options Compared (and What Tutafy Does Not Have)

The best free online whiteboard for tutoring is the one your student can open from a link in ten seconds, that does not cap how many boards you can edit, and that you can save when the lesson ends. For many tutors that means a simple open board such as Excalidraw or tldraw; for others it means the whiteboard inside the video tool they already use.

This guide compares the free options on those tests, using each tool's own pages checked on 31 October 2026, and says plainly where a limit could not be confirmed. It also covers which kind of board suits maths, languages, music and young children, how to use a whiteboard next to Tutafy, which has none, and a ten-minute test to run before you commit.

What a tutor needs from a whiteboard

A team whiteboard is built for workshops with ten people. A tutor needs something smaller: two people, one hour, one subject. Five things matter, and most of the comparison below comes back to them.

• Opens from a link. The student should not need to install anything, make an account or ask your permission. Every extra step costs minutes of a paid hour.
• Writing that feels natural. Typing a label is easy anywhere. Writing an equation or drawing a diagram needs a pen, a stylus or at least a mouse that behaves.
• Both people can draw at the same time, and you can see who is drawing.
• A free plan that does not stop you mid-term. Some free plans keep only a few boards editable, which is a problem when you teach twenty students.
• A way to keep the board. After the lesson the student wants a picture of the working, and you want to start the next lesson where you stopped.

Notice what is not on the list: templates, sticky notes, voting and integrations. Those are the features whiteboards advertise, and almost none of them help a tutor. If a tool is famous for workshops, check that its simple drawing mode is good before you choose it.

The comparison, checked 31 October 2026

The table uses only what each tool's own page said on the day we checked, and says "not confirmed" where we could not read it. Plans change often. Open the linked page before you decide, and test with a real student before you rely on any of them.

The pages used for the table, read on 31 Oct 2026. Plans and limits change, so read the current page. Sources: Miro pricing · Excalidraw on GitHub · tldraw · Zoom Whiteboard pricing · Microsoft Whiteboard: get started with collaboration · Canva: free online whiteboard · GeoGebra licence · Google Jamboard: winding down.

The tools one by one

Excalidraw: the simple, open choice

Excalidraw is a free, open source whiteboard released under the MIT licence. Its own page lists real-time collaboration and end-to-end encryption, and says drawings export as PNG, SVG or an .excalidraw file. The look is deliberately hand-drawn, which many students find friendly and which hides the shakiness of a mouse. It is a good default for a tutor who wants a plain surface and no plan to manage. The page did not say whether a collaborator needs an account, so open a shared link in a private window before the first lesson.

tldraw: another free, minimal board

tldraw.com describes itself as a free collaborative whiteboard. The page we could read showed little more than that, so we cannot confirm limits, sign-in rules or export options. It is worth a trial for the same reason as Excalidraw: it is simple. Run the ten-minute test below with it before you treat it as a plan.

Miro: powerful, with a board limit on the free plan

Miro is the best known of the team whiteboards. Its pricing page lists a Free plan at $0 with three editable boards: it says the three most recent boards remain editable. You can create more, but older ones lock. The page also says the free plan has unlimited team members and no visitor or guest roles, and that exports are low resolution only. For a tutor with many students this is the main thing to plan around: you may need to reuse one board for several lessons, or pay. Miro is worth it if you already use it for other work. If you do not, start with something lighter.

Zoom Whiteboard: no extra tool if you already use Zoom

If your lessons are on Zoom, its whiteboard is the least friction: it opens inside the meeting. Zoom's pricing page lists Whiteboard Basic with three whiteboards that can be edited at a time, and unlimited collaboration with public sharing and no sign-in needed. A Zoom employee answering in Zoom's community forum says you free a slot by erasing a board. If you teach many students, plan to export or screenshot a board and clear it after each lesson.

Microsoft Whiteboard: check before you rely on it

Microsoft Whiteboard is widely used in schools, but the support page we could read describes collaboration inside an organisation, and we found no page confirming that a free personal account can share with an outside student. That does not mean it cannot. It means you should test it with a student on a different account, and not assume.

Canva Whiteboards: friendly, with limits to read

Canva's whiteboard page says there is no limit to the number of whiteboards you can create, and boards share by link or by email. Canva suits visual subjects and younger learners who like stickers and images. We could not open Canva's help article on free-plan limits, so read the current terms for sharing and export before you rely on it.

GeoGebra: excellent for maths, with a licence question

GeoGebra is a graphing and geometry tool rather than a general whiteboard, and many maths tutors love it. Its licence page says that GeoGebra is free to use for non-commercial purposes, and that "any use of GeoGebra for a commercial purpose is subject to and requires a special license". The page lists selling materials for a fee, including tuition fees, as commercial use. It does not say whether private tutoring counts, and we cannot decide that for you. If you plan to build paid lessons around GeoGebra, ask its team and keep the answer.

A shared document: the plainest whiteboard

Many tutors teach from a shared document or slide file that both people can edit. It has no pen, but it handles text, tables, pasted images and a lesson plan, and your student probably already knows how to use it. For languages, grammar and writing feedback, it is often better than a drawing board. Keep a separate drawing tool for the moments you need to sketch.

And Jamboard? It is gone

Older lists of free whiteboards for teaching include Google Jamboard. Google's support page says Jamboard was no longer available after 31 December 2024, on the web, on iOS and Android and on Meet hardware, and that files could be exported or moved to FigJam, Lucidspark or Miro. If a guide still recommends it, the guide is out of date, and it may have other stale advice too.

Which kind of whiteboard for which subject

Maths and science

You write equations, draw graphs and show steps, so a pen matters. A mouse works for a few lines and is miserable for an hour. A small graphic tablet or a tablet with a stylus changes the experience completely. Choose a board with a clean pen tool and an infinite canvas, so that a long solution never runs out of room. If you graph functions, a tool built for it saves time, but check its licence for paid lessons. Take a screenshot of the finished working for the student before you clear the board.

Languages

You mostly need text: vocabulary, sentences, corrections. A shared document or a board with text boxes does the job, and typing beats handwriting for clarity. Use colour to mark mistakes and corrections. Pasted images help for describing pictures, and a simple timeline is useful for tenses. You rarely need a pen, so choose the tool the student finds easiest to open.

Music

A general whiteboard is poor at notation. Keep a notation or score tool for the music itself, and use the whiteboard only for diagrams such as chord shapes, rhythm patterns and fingering. Share your screen for the score and keep the whiteboard small beside it.

Young children

A child wants to draw, drag a picture and make a mark that stays. Look for big buttons, stickers or images, and a board that does not crash when a seven-year-old taps everywhere. Keep the board simple: one activity per lesson, prepared beforehand. And check the privacy terms, because for children the rules on data are often stricter. Rules differ by country, so check where you and your students live.

Free plan limits that trip tutors

• A cap on editable boards. Miro and Zoom Basic both keep only three boards editable at a time on their free plans, according to their pages. With ten students, that is a problem you will meet in the first week.
• No guests. A plan that has no guest role may make a student join your team or sign in. Test with a real second account.
• Exports in low resolution, or none. A blurry picture of a graph is not much use as a record. Check the export before you need it.
• Boards that disappear. Some free plans delete inactive boards. Save what matters as an image or a PDF.
• A licence for personal use only. A tool free for "non-commercial" use may not cover paid lessons. Read the licence, and ask when it is unclear.
• Privacy. Whatever you draw on a shared board may be stored by the provider. Do not put a student's full name, address or school records on a free board.

A ten-minute test before you commit

Whatever tool you choose, test it with a friend or family member who is not you, on a different device, before the first paid lesson. Do these in order:

• Create a board and copy the link. Open the link on a phone, in a private browser window, without signing in. Does it open? Can you draw?
• Draw at the same time as the other person. Do both strokes appear quickly, and can you tell whose is whose?
• Write an equation or a sentence with a mouse, then with a stylus if you have one. Is it readable?
• Export the board as an image or PDF. Is it sharp enough to send to a student?
• Close the board, reopen it from the link tomorrow and check it is still there.
• Create four more boards. Do the first ones still edit?

If a tool passes all six, it will work for lessons. If it fails the first, the link test, drop it: nothing else will rescue a student who cannot open the board.

A lesson routine with a whiteboard

A whiteboard works best as part of a routine. A simple one for a regular student:

• Before the lesson: open the student's board from last time, or copy a prepared one. Put the plan in a corner so you do not lose your place.
• At the start: paste the board link in the video chat, or keep it in the lesson notes so that the student has it each week.
• During the lesson: write less than you think. The student should write, draw and correct as much as you do.
• At the end: export the board as an image, or take a screenshot, and send it with two lines of homework.
• After the lesson: name the board with the student and the date, or clear it for the next one if your free plan limits boards.

Name boards in a way that you can find them in a hurry, such as "Dana 2026-11-03". With a board cap, keep one reusable board for each regular student rather than a new one every week.

Three lessons on a board, step by step

A tool is easier to judge when you picture a real lesson on it. Here are three, in the order you would do them.

A maths lesson: solving a quadratic

Start by pasting the problem at the top of the board. Ask the student to write the first step themselves, and wait. Write your own working in a second colour below theirs, one line at a time, so the two columns can be compared. When you reach the answer, draw a box around it and ask the student to explain, out loud, why the second line follows from the first. Before you close the board, take a screenshot of the full working. The test of the board is whether the student's handwriting is readable at the speed they write.

A language lesson: correcting a paragraph

Paste a paragraph the student wrote into the left half of the board, as text. In the right half, copy the paragraph and correct it, marking each change in a different colour: grammar in one, vocabulary in another, spelling in a third. Then ask the student to write three new sentences using the corrections. The test here is typing, not drawing: if pasting text is awkward on a tool, a shared document will serve you better.

A lesson with a young learner: a story map

Prepare the board before the lesson with a title, three empty boxes and a few images. Ask the child to drag a picture into each box and tell you what happens. Let them draw, even badly. Finish by letting the child press the save or export button themselves, if the tool lets you, because a child who made the board will want to show it to their parents. Keep the lesson to one board, one activity and one idea.

Hardware: mouse, pen tablet or tablet with a stylus

Software is half of the choice. A mouse is fine for text boxes and arrows and poor for handwriting. A pen tablet, which sits on your desk and connects to the computer, lets you write with a real pen while you watch the screen; it takes a day or two to get used to looking at the screen while your hand moves on the desk. A tablet with a stylus lets you write directly on the screen, and it can double as a second screen for the whiteboard while the video call stays on your laptop.

Prices vary widely and change, so we quote none. Try before you spend: draw a page of working with your mouse and see whether you would be happy to read it as a student. If you teach maths, physics or chemistry, a pen is usually the best money you spend on the lesson. If you teach languages, you may never need one.

When the student joins from a phone

Many students, especially younger ones and those in countries where the phone is the main computer, join from a phone. A board that works on a laptop can be frustrating on a small screen, where the toolbar covers the drawing area and pinch gestures move the canvas by mistake. Ask the student at booking what device they will use, and test your board on a phone yourself. If it is hard to use there, switch to a shared document, or prepare static images and talk through them while you draw on your side.

Using a whiteboard next to Tutafy

Tutafy does not have a whiteboard. Its built-in classroom, read from the code on 31 October 2026, has a toolbar with the microphone, camera, closed captions, screen sharing, full screen, hang up, chat, tile view and settings. There is no drawing tool.

There are two ways to teach with a whiteboard and Tutafy. The first is to use the built-in classroom and share your screen: open any whiteboard in a browser tab, press the screen-share button in the room, and draw while the student watches. The student cannot draw on your screen, so this suits explaining more than working together. The second is to put a Zoom or Google Meet link on the lesson, which the lesson form has fields for, and use that tool's whiteboard or any other. In both cases, keep the board link in the lesson's notes field so that you find it at the next lesson.

Tutafy takes 0% commission on lessons and the Free plan covers up to 10 students. It does not replace a whiteboard, and it is not meant to.

Mistakes to avoid

• Picking a tool for its templates. A tutor needs a pen and a clean canvas.
• Not testing the link as a student would. Always test signed out, on another device.
• Relying on a free plan without reading its limits.
• Building paid lessons on a tool whose licence you have not read.
• Leaving boards unsaved. Export after every lesson.
• Putting a child's personal details on a public board.
• Writing everything yourself. If the student never holds the pen, they are watching, not learning.