What Math Academy decides, and what it leaves to you.
Math Academy’s homepage describes it as fully automated. When you join you sit an adaptive diagnostic which, according to its explanation of how its AI works, looks for your “knowledge frontier”: the boundary between what you know and what you do not. Its page for adult students adds that the diagnostic then builds a custom course, folding in any prerequisites you are missing from lower courses, and gives you a report recommending which course to take.
From there, the controls in your hands are few and clearly described. Its FAQ says you can stay in the course you picked or move to the one the report recommends, and that the daily XP goal and the number of work days a week can be set for each student. It suggests 20 to 40 XP a day on three to five days a week, where one XP is roughly a minute of focused effort.
Which lesson comes next, and when a topic counts as done, belong to the system. The same AI page explains that new lessons unlock as soon as you finish earlier ones, that a topic the evidence only narrowly supports is marked “conditionally completed”, and that a student who then struggles falls back along the learning path to earlier material. We could not find anything on the site about choosing or skipping an individual topic.
For someone who wants to hand the sequencing over entirely, that is the point of the product. An adult with one specific target and a patchy but real background has a harder time with it, because the diagnostic on day one is the only moment where what they already know reshapes the route.
Math Academy and Seekful, row by row.
Seekful is the product we build. The Math Academy column is taken from Math Academy’s own website. Where its pages are silent we say so, rather than filling the gap with what third-party reviewers report.
| Aspect | Math Academy | Seekful |
|---|---|---|
| Who picks the next lesson | The system. The diagnostic sets your starting point and a custom course, and lessons unlock as you complete earlier ones. | You choose a goal on the full map. The route is worked out backwards through the prerequisites that goal needs, and any concept on it can be opened and inspected. |
| Clearing material you already know | Through the diagnostic when you start. The site does not describe testing out of a single topic later. | The Knowledge Scan takes what you hold off your route at the start. After that, any concept you reach on the map can be marked as already known, at any point, not only on day one. |
| What a lesson looks like | Lessons to read, with example problems to follow on paper. The site describes no video lessons, and the homepage contrasts itself with passively watching YouTube videos. | Written lessons with figures, then a quiz whose problems are generated afresh each attempt, all reached from the map. |
| Price, and how you try it first | $49 a month per student. No free trial; cancel within the first 30 days for a full refund, with no refunds for unused time after that. | The Student plan costs $9.99 a month or $79.99 a year. The Knowledge Scan is up to 25 questions and needs no account and no card. Sign up to keep your route and take your first lesson; after that comes a 7-day free trial, then the Student plan. |
| Where the catalogue ends | From fourth-grade level up to university courses: Calculus I and II, Linear Algebra, Multivariable Calculus, Methods of Proof, Differential Equations, Discrete Mathematics, Probability & Statistics, Mathematics for Machine Learning, and Mathematical Methods for the Physical Sciences I and II. Abstract Algebra is marked as coming soon. | 1,424 concepts, from counting through school algebra, geometry and trigonometry to single-variable calculus, multivariable calculus and linear algebra. Nothing beyond linear algebra yet. |
| Daily workload | A daily XP goal, adjustable per student; the FAQ suggests 20 to 40 XP on three to five days a week. | No daily target is set for you. There are XP, levels, a weekly league and streaks, and a streak allows recovery days. |
| Bringing old topics back | Spaced repetition: reviews follow quizzes and resurface on their own, and a failed lesson returns within a few days. | Each finished concept gets a short review timed for before you are likely to forget it, and the ones coming up are listed on your dashboard. |
One real route: from school maths to the singular value decomposition.
To show what steering means in practice, we traced one goal through our own graph: the singular value decomposition, the result underneath principal component analysis and low-rank approximation, and so a common target for anyone learning linear algebra for data work. On the Seekful map its direct prerequisites are spectral theorem (symmetric matrices) and orthonormal basis. Follow every prerequisite edge backwards from there and 101 distinct concepts sit upstream of it, out of the 1,424 on the map.
- concepts upstream
- 101
- school mathematics
- 61
- new material
- 40
- Foundations of Arithmetic36
- Pre-Algebra11
- Algebra I5
- Geometry9
- Trigonometry0
- Pre-Calculus & Discrete Foundations0
- Single-Variable Calculus0
- Multivariable Calculus9
- Linear Algebra31
61 of the 101 are school mathematics: long division, negative numbers, the order of operations, solving equations, plotting points, right angles and Pythagoras’ theorem. Someone who took A-level maths or an equivalent, even years ago, probably still holds most of these. The Knowledge Scan is designed to take the ones you hold off the route, and any it misses can be marked as known when you reach them, rather than taught again.
Look at the rows with a zero as well. The route contains nothing from Trigonometry, Pre-Calculus & Discrete Foundations and Single-Variable Calculus: in the graph, the decomposition needs vectors, dot products and magnitudes, a run of matrix work, and the eigenvalue theory that leads to the spectral theorem, but not derivatives.
What remains is 40 concepts of new material for most readers in that position, 9 from Multivariable Calculus and 31 from Linear Algebra, from the definition of a matrix through Gauss-Jordan elimination, span, bases, eigenvectors and diagonalisation. You can open every one of them before you start.
Math Academy works in whole courses instead, and its advice to adults who have been away from maths for a while is to begin with a Mathematical Foundations course. That may well suit someone starting over. For the reader above, it means the diagnostic decides how much of the school material they revisit, where the map lets them see the 61 school concepts and deal with them directly.
When a quiz goes badly, each wrong answer shows the right one with a link back to its lesson, and the map shows which prerequisites feed that concept, so you know where to go back to instead of guessing. What you clear stays fresh through reviews scheduled without any cards to write.
Count the concepts between you and your goal
The Knowledge Scan is up to 25 questions, with no timer and no account. It finds your starting point and shows the chain of concepts still ahead of you, so you can judge the route before you sign up.
Find my routeNo card needed. Free scan and route.
When Math Academy is still the better buy.
A map you steer is not always what you need. The table sorts the choice by starting point; the Math Academy side reflects its website as read on 26 October 2026.
| Your situation | Better fit |
|---|---|
| Starting over, and you want every sequencing decision made for you | Math Academy. Automated sequencing is the thing it is built to do. |
| You need topics beyond linear algebra now: proofs, differential equations, probability, discrete mathematics | Math Academy. Its university list covers them; the Seekful map stops at linear algebra and multivariable calculus. |
| A fixed daily target is what gets you to sit down at all | Math Academy. Its adjustable XP goal is designed for this, and Seekful sets no daily target. |
| One goal, limited hours, and you already know a good part of the way there | Seekful. Take what you hold off the route and spend the time on what is left. |
| You want to see the structure and choose your own order through it | Seekful. Math Academy describes its learning path as automated. |
| You learn best by watching someone work through a problem | Neither. Both teach through lessons you read rather than video. |
If you are unsure, the difference between a refund window and a trial matters. Math Academy states plainly that it has no free trial: you pay, and a cancellation in the first 30 days earns a full refund, but nothing is refunded for unused time after that. To judge it fairly, plan to use that first month properly and make the call before day 30. Seekful is arranged the other way round. You can see your starting point before giving any details, and the 7-day trial comes before the first payment rather than a refund after it.
Two limits on our side are worth knowing before you try it. If your goal sits past linear algebra and multivariable calculus, the route above is no help: the 1,424 concepts stop there, with no differential equations, proof, probability or statistics yet. And Seekful is a young product, so expect rough edges and features that change while you are using them.
