shouldiuse.io

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Should I Use Perusall?

perusall.com·Analyzed 7 hours ago··Based on 8 sources

The interactive social learning platform where every student is prepared for every class.

Depends

Depends

Buy if you teach reading-heavy higher-ed courses and want students arriving prepared.

Free for instructors, used in 6,000+ institutions for reading-heavy courses — overkill outside structured teaching.

Confidence: Medium

6,000+

Institutions using it

per vendor tagline

Free

Instructor price

first assignment in minutes

~477K

Monthly site visitors

third-party traffic estimate

Value for money4

Free for instructors; student costs unclear

Ease of use4

Vendor claims setup in minutes

Feature depth4

Annotation, peer review, analytics in one tool

Pros

  • Free for instructors; first assignment in minutes¹
  • Turns passive reading into active, annotated discussion²
  • Structured peer review with in-text comments and emoji¹
  • Reports adoption across 6,000 institutions worldwide¹
  • Faculty testimonial: student comments reveal which topics need re-teaching³

Cons

  • Pricing not shown on reviewed page; student costs unclear¹
  • No independent security evidence; only vendor claims¹
  • Faculty forums still debate how well it drives critical reading⁶
  • Evidence is mostly vendor content; independent reviews are thin

Gotchas

  • mediumGuess: 'free for instructors' often shifts cost to students via content licenses — confirm who pays¹
  • mediumReview found no security page at expected URL; request FERPA/SOC 2 documentation before institution-wide rollout⁷
  • lowGuess: annotation grading adds setup and grading workload in the first term²

Best for

  • Reading-heavy higher-ed courses
  • Instructors enforcing before-class preparation
  • Writing courses using structured peer review
  • Departments wanting reading engagement analytics

Not for

  • Corporate L&D and compliance training — it's courseware
  • Self-learners without an instructor structuring the work
  • Buyers needing audited security, not vendor claims
  • Casual annotation use — setup is disproportionate

Companies that use it

  • New York University²
  • South Dakota School of Mines & Technology⁴

Pricing

Instructor

Free

  • Create first assignment in minutes
  • Social annotation and analytics included

Security

No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.

What users say

Faculty testimonials praise engagement gains, but independent user reviews are scarce in public sources.

“Perusall has completely transformed my teaching experience. Based on student comments, I can see which topics they…”
— Faculty testimonial, Gary King (Harvard)
“transforms what can be a very passive learning experience (reading a text) to an active one”
— NYU FAS Ed Tech blog

Alternatives

Compare Perusall with each alternative.

Google Docs comments

Free zero-setup annotation for small classes

Full analysis

Based on 14 public sources; mostly vendor and institutional content, thin independent reviews.

Sources

  1. Perusall homepageperusall.com
    official
  2. Getting Students to Engage with Course Materials: Perusall (NYU)wp.nyu.edu
    review
  3. Perusall testimonial — Gary King, Harvardgking.harvard.edu
    review
  4. SDSMT Faculty and Staff Software KBsupport.sdsmt.edu
    official
  5. Perusall traffic estimatewebsites.milonic.com
    news
  6. Faculty discussion thread on Perusallfacebook.com
    review
  7. Perusall security page lookupperusall.com
    security
  8. Top 40 Generative AI Tools for Educationeklavvya.com
    review

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