Is Mathway Free? What a Free Account Actually Gets You
Mathway is free for answers and paid for step-by-step working. What a free Mathway account includes, what Premium costs, and which alternatives give the steps away free.
Short answer: Mathway is free to get an answer, and paid to see the steps. You can type or photograph any problem and see the final result without paying anything. The worked solution — the part that is actually useful for homework you have to show, or for learning the method — sits behind Mathway Premium.
That distinction catches a lot of people out, because the free tier looks complete right up until the moment you need it.
What “free Mathway account” actually gets you
Creating an account costs nothing and gives you:
- Unlimited final answers across algebra, trigonometry, calculus, statistics, graphing and more
- Problem entry by typing, by photo, or through the built-in keyboard
- Graphs for functions you enter
- Your problem history
What it does not give you is the step-by-step working. Tap “Tap to view steps” and you reach an upgrade prompt. There is no free allowance of steps — it is zero, not a few per day.
What Mathway Premium costs
Mathway charges roughly $9.99/month, or about $39.99/year when billed annually. Pricing varies by region and changes periodically, so check the current figure before subscribing. Premium unlocks step-by-step solutions and removes ads.
Mathway is owned by Chegg, and a Chegg Study subscription may include Mathway access depending on the plan you hold.
Is a final answer enough?
Sometimes, and it is worth being honest about when.
A final answer is enough when you have already done the work and want to confirm it, you are checking one arithmetic result mid-problem, or the assignment is graded on answers only.
A final answer is not enough when the assignment says “show your work” — which is most of them — when you got a different answer and need to find out where you went wrong, or when you genuinely do not know the method. In that last case a bare answer is actively unhelpful: it tells you that you are wrong without telling you anything you can use.
That third case is the common one, and it is why the free tier frustrates people. You reach for the tool precisely when you are stuck, and the free tier answers a question you did not ask.
What free alternatives exist
Symbolab follows the same pattern — free answers, paid steps, at a comparable monthly price.
Photomath gives away more: basic steps are free, with detailed explanations and animated tutorials on Photomath Plus. Its limitation is the platform. Photomath is built for phones, which means pointing a camera at a screen when your homework is already on the computer in front of you. (See why Photomath isn’t working on desktop if that is what brought you here.)
Wolfram Alpha is exceptionally capable and free for answers, but “Step-by-step solutions” is a Pro feature at around $5–7/month for students.
Desmos is genuinely and completely free, but it is a graphing calculator, not a solver — brilliant for seeing a function, not for working an equation.
Math.Photos — our own tool, so weigh this accordingly — gives you 20 free solves with the full step-by-step working included, no credit card and no account needed to start. The steps are the free part rather than the paid part, because an answer without the reasoning does not help anyone learn. It runs as a browser extension, so you screenshot the problem where it already lives instead of photographing your monitor. After the free solves, plans start at $1.99/month. There is a full comparison against Mathway and a four-way comparison if you want the details side by side.
How to pick
Be honest about which question you are asking.
If you only ever need to confirm an answer you already worked out, free Mathway does that, and so does free Wolfram Alpha. Do not pay for steps you will not read.
If you need the working — to show it, to find your mistake, or to learn the method — then compare what the free tiers actually include before you subscribe to anything. Paying $9.99/month for steps is reasonable if you will use them daily through a hard semester. It is a poor deal for the three weeks of calculus you are stuck on.
And if what you want is to check work you already did rather than have it done for you, that is a different tool entirely — see checking math answers without an answer key, which covers the self-checks that need no subscription at all.
The short version
- Mathway free: answers yes, steps no.
- Mathway Premium: about $9.99/month for the steps.
- A free account is worth having if answers are all you need.
- If you need the working, check what each free tier includes first — they differ a lot, and the differences are not advertised on the pricing page.