Comparison
Gauth vs Photomath: Which Should You Use?
Photomath is a camera-first phone app with a genuinely free step-by-step core. Gauth is a browser tool that writes out the reasoning behind each move. They are good at different halves of the same job.
Verdict
Photomath for scanning paper. Gauth for understanding the step.
Photomath wins the moment your problem is printed on something: its camera reads printed and handwritten math well, and its core step-by-step solutions are free with no daily cap, which is more than most rivals give away. Gauth wins when you can already read the steps but cannot see why anyone would pick them — the reasoning is written out in sentences, and you can ask a follow-up on the answer rather than starting over. Gauth has no mobile app of any kind, so if your homework happens on a phone away from a keyboard, that settles it on its own.
Who should pick which
Pick Photomath if
- Your problems live in a printed textbook or a handwritten worksheet.
- You work through twenty practice questions in a sitting and need steps for all of them at no cost.
- You want to see two accepted methods for the same problem next to each other.
- You are handing a phone to a younger student and would rather there were no open chat box on it.
Pick Gauth if
- The steps make sense individually but you cannot see why that route was chosen.
- You want to reply to the answer — "why not factor instead?" — and get a real reply.
- You are at a laptop and would rather type than scan.
- You need one answer right now, with no install and no account.
Feature by feature
| Gauth | Photomath | |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile app | No — browser only | iOS and Android |
| Photo input | Upload a photo in the browser | Live camera, printed and handwritten |
| Free step-by-step working | First solution free with no account, then 3 a day | Core steps free, no daily cap |
| Animated walkthroughs | No | Included with Plus |
| Reasoning written as prose | Yes, on every step | Step list with hints and concept notes |
| Follow-up questions on an answer | Included, no extra quota | Not a chat — rescan or open a tutorial |
| Multiple methods for one problem | Ask for another method in a follow-up | Often offered side by side |
| Subjects covered | Math, physics, chemistry | Math |
| Rendered mathematical notation | Yes | Yes |
| Paid plan (September 2026) | $11.99/mo, $99.99/yr | $9.99/mo, $69.99/yr |
Six of those ten rows go to Photomath, and the two that matter most to a busy student are the free tier and the app. A free Gauth account stops at three solutions a day. Photomath does not meter its core steps at all. If your problem is volume rather than comprehension, that gap is decisive, and no amount of better prose closes it.
Pricing
Gauth. The first solution is free and needs no account, no card, and no signup. A free account gets three solutions a day. Gauth Plus removes the cap at $11.99 a month with a three-day free trial, $31.99 a quarter, or $99.99 a year, as of September 2026. Follow-up questions are included on every plan and do not consume quota. The current numbers are always on the Gauth pricing page.
Photomath. Free covers camera scanning, the scientific calculator, and step-by-step solutions to symbolic math, which Photomath states will remain free. Photomath Plus is $9.99 a month or $69.99 a year as of September 2026, with a six-month plan in between whose price varies by market. Billing runs through the App Store or Google Play rather than Photomath, so your local price, any introductory trial, and the cancellation screen all belong to the store. Check the Photomath Plus tab in the app for what your region is actually charged.
On money, Photomath wins twice: the free tier is more generous and the paid tier is cheaper. What you are paying Gauth for is the explanation layer and the ability to keep asking, not more solved problems per dollar.
The same problem, both tools
Take . The discriminant is 60, so the roots are irrational, factoring is a dead end, and a student who has only ever been shown factoring is stuck at line one.
Photomathreturns the solution set at the top and a numbered list of steps underneath, each one expandable. It names the operation performed at every line, and for a quadratic like this it will typically offer more than one accepted route — the quadratic formula and completing the square — so you can pick the one your class uses. Tap a step and you get a short hint about the operation itself; with Plus, an animated tutorial redraws the working the way a teacher would at a whiteboard. What it will not do is discuss the choice. Photomath is a solver, not a chatbot, so a question like "why divide by 3 first?" has nowhere to go.
Gauth writes the same working as connected reasoning. Dividing through by 3 comes first with a stated reason: completing the square only works cleanly when the coefficient is 1. Adding 4 to both sides is justified before it happens, not after. The final arrives in real notation rather than as 2+sqrt(15)/3, and if you want to know why the quadratic formula lands in the same place, you ask, and the answer stays in the same thread. If completing the square is the part that never quite stuck, the walk-through in our guide to choosing a quadratic method covers when it beats the formula.
Completing the square on 3x² − 12x + 7 = 0
0 of 6 stepsSolve a algebra problem now
First solution freeWhere Photomath is the better choice
The camera is not a feature bolted onto Photomath; it is the product. Recognition of handwriting — including the cramped, half-erased kind that appears in a math book at eleven at night — is what the company spent years building, and it shows. Framing a problem and getting steps back takes about four seconds, with no transcription, no typing exponents, and no worrying whether you entered the parentheses correctly. Every typed input carries the risk that you solve a different problem from the one on the page. A scan does not.
Its free tier is the other genuine advantage, and it is a large one. Photomath states that core step-by-step solutions to symbolic math will always remain free, with no daily allowance to ration. A student grinding through a thirty-question problem set the night before a test can check all thirty. On a free Gauth account they would check three.
Two more things Photomath does that Gauth does not. It routinely shows several teacher-approved methods for one problem, which is quietly valuable when your class was taught elimination and the tool wants to use substitution. And its Plus tier includes animated tutorials — several hundred of them, with voice-over — that rebuild the working visually rather than as text. If you learn by watching something get drawn, that is a format Gauth simply does not have.
There is also a case for the narrowness. Photomath does math and nothing else. There is no open chat to wander into, no essay to generate, no way to ask it to do the assignment in a different sense. For a younger student, or for a household that wants a homework tool rather than a general assistant, that boundary is a feature. Gauth's conversational layer is the thing that makes it useful for understanding, and it is also the thing that makes it easier to misuse — which is why where the line sits between learning with AI and handing in work that is not yours is worth reading before you lean on either tool.