Google
Sign-up optional
Gemini
Standard usage limits refresh every 5 hours up to a weekly cap, with no usage numbers published. Context window of 32k tokens. Deep Research may be unavailable at peak demand.
checked Oct 17
Free AI for students
You don't need a paid plan to study with AI. These tools explain topics, turn your notes and PDFs into summaries and help you review, each within its own free limit.
Using it for school? Check your school's rules on AI first.
Tip to stretch the free limit
Use Gemini Notebook to study from your own material and a chatbot for questions; splitting the work stretches each free limit.
Ready-to-copy prompt
Explain [topic] as if I were in high school, with an everyday example. Then ask me 5 questions to check what I understood.
The picks, in the order we'd try them
Google
Account needed
Gemini Notebook
Up to 100 notebooks with 50 sources each. Usage refreshes every 5 hours up to a weekly cap, with no numbers published.
checked Oct 16
OpenAI
No sign-up
ChatGPT
Everyday text chats with no fixed message cap (with abuse protection). File uploads, image creation, voice and deep research are limited, with no numbers published.
checked Oct 16 · ⚠
Perplexity AI
Sign-up optional
Perplexity
3 Pro Searches per day and 1 Research per month; file uploads are limited. No image generation or advanced models.
checked Oct 16 · ⚠
Anthropic
Account needed
Claude
A usage limit per session that resets every 5 hours; the exact number isn't published. Pro gives at least 5× more usage. No image generation.
checked Oct 16
QuillBot
Sign-up optional
QuillBot
Paraphrasing up to 125 words and summaries up to 1,200 words in 2 modes. The AI chat allows up to 20 requests per day for new users.
checked Oct 16 · ⚠
DeepL
Sign-up optional
DeepL
50,000 characters of text per month, 1 document per month (up to 5 MB) and image translation up to 1,500 characters per day.
checked Oct 17
Other tasks
Updated