Is Khan Academy really free?

Yes. Khan Academy states its mission is to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere, with 840+ free courses and no paywalls or ads. Its AI tutor, Khanmigo, is a paid add-on and is separate from that.

Can I use Khanmigo outside the United States?

Not as a parent or learner. Khan Academy's own FAQ states that to access Khanmigo as a parent or learner you must be 18 or older, live in the United States, and have a US billing address. Families in the UK, Pakistan and elsewhere cannot subscribe.

Does Khan Academy follow the British National Curriculum?

Khan Academy describes its content as standards-aligned but does not name the British National Curriculum or Cambridge IGCSE. Sasta Basta follows the British curriculum through to IGCSE, with a US-standards mode as an option.

Does Khan Academy teach Islamic Studies?

No. Khan Academy's library covers maths, humanities, coding and social studies. Sasta Basta teaches 84 Islamic Studies lessons inside the same timetable as every other subject.

Sasta Basta › Comparisons › Khan Academy

A Khan Academy alternative for British-curriculum and Muslim families

Khan Academy is free, enormous and genuinely good. We are not going to pretend otherwise. But it is built around American standards, it has no Islamic Studies, and its AI tutor cannot be bought outside the United States.

Start free — no account needed Look at a lesson first

Maths and everything for under-7s are free, forever.

Start with the obvious: Khan Academy is free, and that matters

Khan Academy states its mission is to provide "a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere", with 840+ free courses, available in 190+ countries and 55+ languages, and "no paywalls, no ads". For a family with no budget, that is an extraordinary thing to be able to use, and no honest comparison starts anywhere else.

So the question isn't which is better. It's whether the free thing fits the family you actually are.

Three places it doesn't fit

1. The AI tutor is United States only

Khanmigo, Khan Academy's AI tutor, costs $4 a month or $44 a year. But their own FAQ sets out who may buy it:

“To access Khanmigo as a parent or learner, you must make a monthly or annual payment, be 18 years or older, live in the United States, and have a billing address in the U.S.” — Khan Academy, Khanmigo FAQ

If you are in Birmingham, Lahore or Dubai, that door is closed — not expensive, closed. Sasta Basta's tutor answers from wherever you are, and it knows which chapter your child has open, so the answer arrives pitched at their year group rather than in general.

2. "Standards-aligned" means American standards

Khan Academy describes its content as "standards-aligned" but does not name the British National Curriculum or Cambridge IGCSE anywhere we could find. In practice a British family hits this as friction: different year labels, different topic order, a different shape of exam at the end.

Sasta Basta follows the British National Curriculum through to Cambridge IGCSE — the qualification international schools teach from Lahore to Kuala Lumpur — with a US-standards mode if you want it the other way round.

3. There is no Islamic Studies, and there was never going to be

Khan Academy's library covers maths, humanities, coding and social studies. That is not a criticism; a secular global nonprofit is not going to teach aqeedah. It just means a Muslim family using Khan Academy is running a second system alongside it — a weekend madrasah, a YouTube channel, or nothing — and holding both in their head.

	Khan Academy	Sasta Basta
Core content price	Free, no ads, no paywalls	Maths + under-7s free; £6.99/mo for the rest
Breadth of courses	840+ courses	616 chapters across 11 subjects
Languages	55+	English
Curriculum named	"Standards-aligned", unnamed	British NC → Cambridge IGCSE
AI tutor available to you	US residents only	Anywhere, on the paid plan
Islamic Studies	None	84 lessons, in the timetable
Printable worksheets	Not offered	One per chapter, with answer key
Builds your weekly timetable	You choose the path	Yes, from a starting year group
KS2 SATs practice	No	Arithmetic, reasoning and GPS papers
Works offline	Needs a connection	Installs as an app, works offline
Backed by	A large nonprofit, since 2008	One homeschooling father, since 2026

That last row is not a joke. Khan Academy has seventeen years, a staff and philanthropic funding behind it. We are a family project that has been running for months. If longevity is what you're buying, buy theirs. We think the fit matters more for the specific family we built this for — but you should know exactly what you're choosing.

What Khan Academy does better

It is free, which we are not, for ten of our eleven subjects. It has far more content, in far more languages, with far more people checking it. Its maths practice engine has been refined over more than a decade against millions of learners. Its videos are better than ours, because we don't have videos at all.

If your child is studying American standards, or you simply cannot pay anything, Khan Academy is the right answer and we would tell you so.

Using both

This is a sensible thing to do and we'd rather say it than pretend you must choose. Use Khan Academy's videos when a topic needs explaining a different way. Use the plan here to decide what the week contains, to get the printable, to mark the test and to keep Islamic Studies in the timetable rather than in your head.

Questions people actually ask

Is Khan Academy really free, or is that a trial?: Genuinely free. They say the content library and learning platform "will always remain 100% free". Khanmigo, the AI tutor, is the paid part — and is US-only for parents.
Can I try Sasta Basta without paying?: Yes. The whole of Maths and the whole under-7s tier are free forever, with no account and no card.
Do you have videos?: No. Lessons are written, with worked examples, interactive widgets, quizzes and printable worksheets. If your child learns best from video, Khan Academy is better at that and it is free.
Is this only for Muslim families?: No. The curriculum subjects stand on their own. It is built so a Muslim family doesn't have to assemble a child's education from three different places.

Sources

Quotations and figures are from Khan Academy's own pages: khanacademy.org/about (mission, 840+ courses, 190+ countries, 55+ languages), /teachers ("no paywalls, no ads"), and khanmigo.ai/parents plus its FAQ (pricing and the US-residency requirement). Figures for Sasta Basta are counted from the app's own curriculum data. Khan Academy and Khanmigo are trademarks of Khan Academy, Inc.; we are not affiliated with or endorsed by them. Last checked November 2026 — if anything here has gone out of date, tell us and we will correct it.

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