What's the best online whiteboard for online tutoring?
The best online whiteboard for tutoring depends on what you teach and whether you want a whiteboard-only tool or a whiteboard inside a full virtual classroom. Six worth shortlisting in 2026: BitPaper (best for general 1-on-1 tutoring with handwriting), Ziteboard (best for math tutors who want a vector canvas), Lessonspace (best for STEM tutors who need equation, graph, and code editors), Koala Go (best when you want one tool that bundles a whiteboard with a cobrowser, scheduling, and a 3D playground for younger students), Miro (best for adult learners and design or business teaching), and Microsoft Whiteboard (best as a free option for tutors already on Teams or Microsoft 365). All six run in the browser, so students don't install anything. Paid tiers cost roughly $9–$25 per month, with free tiers available on most.
The 6 best online whiteboards for online tutors
None of these tools is right for every tutor. Each replaces a different weak spot of a shared screen or a generic video tool — the missing pen pressure for handwriting, the cramped canvas for long algebra problems, the awkward PDF workflow, the lack of multi-page lesson saving. Pick the one whose strengths match the subject you actually teach and the age of your students.
1. BitPaper — best for general 1-on-1 tutoring with handwriting
What it is: A browser-based whiteboard built specifically for tutors, originally by working tutors in the UK. Auto-saved multi-page "papers" you share with each student via a permanent link, with a built-in audio/video call, document upload (PDF, images), and a pen-friendly drawing canvas that's smooth on a stylus or trackpad.
Strengths: Tutor-specific from day one. Each student gets their own paper that persists across lessons, so you and the student can scroll back through last week's work without re-uploading anything. The handwriting feel is one of the best in the category — important if you teach maths, handwriting, or a script-heavy language. Reasonable pricing for solo tutors.
Tradeoffs: It is a whiteboard plus a basic call — not a full virtual classroom. No scheduling, no invoicing, no rewards system, no built-in marketplace of activities. If you want one tool to run your whole tutoring practice, BitPaper isn't it.
Best for: Solo tutors doing 1-on-1 lessons in any subject who want a clean shared workspace and don't need scheduling or invoicing baked in.
2. Ziteboard — best for math tutors on a vector canvas
What it is: A vector-based infinite canvas whiteboard with shape recognition, equation-friendly drawing tools, PDF import, and real-time collaboration. Stylus-friendly on iPad and graphics tablets.
Strengths: The infinite vector canvas matters more than it sounds — you can zoom in to neaten a fraction or pan across to a different worked example without the lines pixelating. Strong with a stylus, which is the realistic way most math tutors actually write equations on screen. Free tier is genuinely usable for occasional lessons.
Tradeoffs: Interface is utilitarian rather than warm — fine for adult learners or older teens, less engaging for young kids. No real "lesson" or "student" model; it's a canvas, not a classroom. No audio/video call built in (you pair it with Zoom, Meet, or similar).
Best for: Math, physics, and engineering tutors working with older students or adults; anyone who teaches primarily with a stylus.
3. Lessonspace — best for STEM tutors who need equation, graph, and code editors
What it is: A full virtual classroom built around a powerful collaborative whiteboard with subject-specific tools — an equation editor, a graph editor, a code editor with syntax highlighting, document annotation, and session recording. Students join via a "Space" link with no signup.
Strengths: The whiteboard is widely considered one of the strongest in the category, especially for technical subjects. Tutor-side controls let you lock what students can edit and unlock when it's their turn. Available in 10+ languages and used by larger tutoring organizations via embeddable APIs.
Tradeoffs: More whiteboard-first than engagement-first — less optimized for very young learners who need movement and rewards. Some reviewers report audio/video hiccups on weaker connections. Premium tiers can get expensive for solo tutors compared to whiteboard-only tools.
Best for: Math, science, and coding tutors with older students; tutoring companies that need a polished whiteboard and APIs.
4. Koala Go — best whiteboard inside a full virtual classroom for kid-focused tutors
What it is: A browser-based virtual classroom for online tutors with an interactive whiteboard at the centre of every lesson. The whiteboard takes PDF and PowerPoint uploads (unlimited on the Pro plan), runs as a Fabric.js canvas with drawing, sticky notes, text, images, stamps, and embedded video, and sits alongside two features no standalone whiteboard offers: a cobrowser (you and the student interact with the same live webpage together), and a 3D Playground used as a brain break or full lesson environment with student avatars. Built-in scheduling, worldwide invoicing (including WeChat in China), and 24/7 in-app support round out the package.
Strengths: One tool replaces the stack-juggling that most tutors fall into — video + whiteboard + scheduler + invoicer + rewards system collapsed into one browser tab. Strong engagement for younger learners because the whiteboard sits next to the Playground rather than in a separate window. PDFs and PowerPoints come straight in and become annotatable slides, so existing materials work without re-creation.
Tradeoffs: Koala Go's whiteboard is good but not the most flexible one on this list — Lessonspace's subject-specific editors and BitPaper's handwriting feel each win on a narrow axis. If your tutoring is whiteboard-only and you have no use for the cobrowser or Playground, you're paying for capabilities you won't use. Koala Pro is $25.99/month ($21.99/month billed annually); free tier exists with a cap on group size and on PPT/PDF uploads. The Playground is actively developed and still adding requested features like timers and group-select.
Best for: Independent tutors teaching K–12, especially under-10s; ESL teachers of kids; reading and Orton-Gillingham practitioners; any tutor whose retention problem is "the student is bored on Zoom."
5. Miro — best for adult learners and design or business teaching
What it is: A general-purpose collaborative whiteboard from Miro Inc., used by product, design, and consulting teams. Infinite canvas, templates, sticky notes, drawing, comments, frames, plus a large library of integrations (Google Docs, Figma, Jira, and many more).
Strengths: Extremely capable canvas with the deepest template library on this list — anything from mind maps and Kanban boards to flowcharts and SWOT frames. Strong on mobile and tablet. Great fit for adult learners who are already comfortable in business tools.
Tradeoffs: Not designed for tutoring. No "lesson" concept, no student-management view, no scheduling, no audio/video call built in. Free tier limits you to three editable boards, which is fine for one or two students but tight for a full practice. Interface assumes desktop-class comfort — wrong for young kids on tablets.
Best for: Adult-learner tutoring (business English, IELTS prep with mature students, executive coaching), design teaching, or any context where the template library and integrations matter more than tutor-specific features.
6. Microsoft Whiteboard — best free option for tutors already on Teams or Microsoft 365
What it is: Microsoft's collaborative whiteboard, free with any Microsoft account and integrated into Microsoft Teams. Infinite canvas, ink and shape tools, sticky notes, image and document insertion, and live collaboration.
Strengths: Genuinely free for personal Microsoft accounts. If you (and your students) already live in Teams or Microsoft 365 for school, the whiteboard is one click away and works without onboarding. Reliable, well-maintained, with strong stylus support on Surface devices and iPad.
Tradeoffs: A general-purpose whiteboard, not a tutoring tool — no lesson structure, no student dashboard, no scheduling or invoicing. The strongest "Teams + whiteboard" workflow assumes both you and the student are on Microsoft accounts, which is true in school settings but rarely true for independent K–12 tutoring with families.
Best for: Tutors whose students are already on Microsoft 365 (common in schools and some districts); cost-constrained tutors who want a real whiteboard without a subscription.
Feature comparison at a glance
Approximate as of mid-2026. Vendor pricing and features drift, so check the source pages before committing.
| Feature | BitPaper | Ziteboard | Lessonspace | Koala Go | Miro | MS Whiteboard |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Built specifically for tutoring | Yes | Partial (popular with tutors) | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| PDF / PowerPoint upload onto the canvas | Yes (PDF, images) | Yes (PDF) | Yes | Yes (Pro: unlimited) | Yes (PDF, images) | Yes (PDF, images) |
| Subject-specific editors (equation, graph, code) | No | Equation-friendly drawing | Yes | No | No (templates only) | No |
| Infinite / multi-page canvas | Multi-page papers | Infinite | Multi-page | Multi-slide | Infinite | Infinite |
| Built-in audio / video call | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Via Teams |
| Live shared web browsing (cobrowser) | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| 3D playground / avatars for younger students | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Built-in scheduling and invoicing | No | No | Partial (via integrations) | Yes (worldwide, incl. WeChat) | No | No |
| Lesson recording | Yes (paid) | Limited | Yes | Yes (Pro) | Limited | Yes (via Teams) |
| Has a free tier | Yes (limited) | Yes | Trial | Yes (group + upload caps) | Yes (3 editable boards) | Yes |
| Starting paid price (per month, approx) | From ~$10 | From ~$9 | From ~$9 | $25.99 (Pro) | From ~$8 / editor | Free / part of M365 |
How to choose between online whiteboards for tutoring
Four questions, in order, narrow the field fast:
- What subject and what age? Math, physics, and coding tutors with older students get the most out of Lessonspace and Ziteboard. ESL, reading, and any K–4 tutoring is better served by a tool with built-in engagement (Koala Go). General handwriting-led tutoring works well on BitPaper. Business English and adult learners pair naturally with Miro or Microsoft Whiteboard.
- Whiteboard-only or full classroom? If you already have a scheduling tool, an invoicing tool, and a video tool you like, a whiteboard-only product (BitPaper, Ziteboard, Miro, Microsoft Whiteboard) lets you keep the rest of your stack. If you want one platform to handle scheduling, payments, and the lesson itself, a full virtual classroom (Koala Go, Lessonspace) replaces several subscriptions at once.
- What devices do your students actually use? Many young students join from iPads or Chromebooks borrowed from school. Pen pressure, pinch-to-zoom behaviour, and touch responsiveness vary widely between whiteboards on those devices. Run a trial with a student on the device they'll actually use before committing.
- How important is support? Whiteboard-only tools are largely self-serve. Full classrooms vary — Koala Go offers in-app support that replies in under two minutes around the clock; some competitors are email-only. If a parent can't connect mid-lesson, the answer to "how do I reach a human in 30 seconds?" matters more than the third tier of whiteboard polish.
The honest version of the decision: for pure whiteboard quality, the standalone whiteboards on this list — BitPaper for handwriting, Ziteboard for vector math, Lessonspace for subject-specific editors — each beat a whiteboard that's bundled into a larger product. For everything around the whiteboard (engagement, scheduling, invoicing, support, parent experience), a full virtual classroom like Koala Go pulls ahead. Most independent tutors care more about the second list than the first; some specialist tutors care more about the first. Pick accordingly.
A note on Google Jamboard
If you used to teach with Google Jamboard, that product was retired at the end of 2024 and the companion Jamboard devices reached end-of-life at the same time. Google's recommended successor is FigJam (via a partnership with Figma), though it isn't tutor-specific. Most former Jamboard users we've spoken to have moved to one of the tools above — usually Microsoft Whiteboard if they wanted the closest free equivalent, or a tutor-built tool (BitPaper, Lessonspace, or Koala Go) if they wanted features Jamboard never had.
What makes a whiteboard good for tutoring, specifically?
Generic collaboration whiteboards (Miro, Microsoft Whiteboard, Figma's FigJam) are powerful tools designed for adult professionals running design or strategy sessions. Tutoring puts different demands on a whiteboard:
- Handwriting smoothness. Most tutoring still involves writing — letters, numbers, equations. Whiteboards optimised for clean ink with a stylus (BitPaper, Ziteboard, Lessonspace) feel meaningfully better than office-collaboration tools for this.
- Live document annotation. Tutors don't usually draw from scratch — they mark up a worksheet, a textbook page, or a screenshot. Drop-in PDF / PowerPoint upload with annotation on top is the single most-used whiteboard workflow in tutoring.
- Persistence across lessons. A student who returns next week should be able to see what you did last week. Whiteboards that save per-student "papers" or per-class history beat one-shot canvases.
- Control over student edits. Tutors need to lock and unlock what students can change at different points in a lesson. Office whiteboards assume peers; tutoring assumes one driver and one passenger most of the time.
- Engagement scaffolding. For young students, stickers, stars, drag-and-drop activities, and a sense of progress on the same canvas you're teaching from outperforms a sterile drawing surface, even if the drawing surface is more capable.
The whiteboards that win in tutoring tend to score highly on the last three of these; the office whiteboards that get used by tutors tend to score highly on the first two but miss the others entirely.
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If you'd like to try a whiteboard inside a full virtual classroom — built specifically for tutors of younger learners, with the cobrowser and Playground next to the whiteboard rather than in a separate tool — you can start a free Koala Go room. We're also happy to help you weigh the tradeoffs against the standalone whiteboards above; write to koala@teachwithkoala.com with a sketch of the kind of tutoring you do and we'll give you our honest read.