Full disclosure before anything else: I'm Adrian Martinez, I founded Infinilearn, and you're reading this on Infinilearn's blog. Every incentive I have points toward telling you my game is better than Prodigy. So read this the way you'd read a Honda dealer's write-up on Hondas versus Toyotas — with your guard up, checking claims as you go.
With that on the table, my goal is to write the comparison I would actually want if I were the one choosing for my own kid or my own classroom. That means saying plainly where Prodigy is the better pick — and there are real situations where it is. If your child is seven, for example, you can skip to the end right now: get Prodigy or another elementary game, because Infinilearn doesn't cover grades that young at all.
Both products are free-to-play fantasy RPGs where kids solve math problems to power their character. The decision comes down to who each game is actually built for, what the optional subscription buys, and how each one handles classrooms and safety. Here's all of it, as straight as I can tell it.
Who I Am, and Why I Built a Prodigy Competitor
I'm a high school student in Orange County, California. Before Infinilearn, I built Minecraft mods — by the time I was eleven, my mods had racked up over a million views. I started Infinilearn because the math practice tools I kept seeing fell into two buckets: real games with shallow math bolted on, or real math wearing a thin costume of a game. I wanted math practice that felt like a game worth playing on its own merits.
That backstory cuts both ways, and I'll use both edges in this comparison. It means Infinilearn was designed by someone who cares about the game part first, not as an afterthought. It also means Infinilearn is newer and smaller than Prodigy, which is a large, established company with years of polish behind it. Both of those facts matter, and both show up below.
Infinilearn vs Prodigy at a Glance
Prices and details are accurate as of this writing; either company can change its plans at any time.
| Infinilearn | Prodigy Math | |
|---|---|---|
| Grades covered | 5-9 | 1-8, elementary-leaning |
| Price | Free; optional Premium at $9.99/month or $59.99/year | Free; membership about $9.95/month (roughly $60-120/year depending on plan) |
| What's paywalled | Nothing in the game — Premium adds family insights and cosmetics only | Game rewards: pets, gear, member-only areas (the math questions stay free) |
| Format | Fantasy RPG: battles, quests, and bosses across 15 zones | Fantasy RPG with heavy pet collecting |
| Platforms | Browser only (Chromebooks, laptops, desktops); no install | Native iOS and Android apps |
| Safety / chat | Preset quick-chat phrases only; no open chat, no ads, no external links | Not evaluated here — review Prodigy's parent resources directly |
| Teacher tools | Free: classrooms, built-in diagnostic, assignments, tracking by topic and standard | Free teacher dashboards |
| Parent tools | Free dashboard for one child; Premium covers unlimited children with deeper insights | Parent dashboard |
A note on the safety row: I'm not going to characterize Prodigy's moderation systems, because I don't run them and I'd rather leave a blank than guess. I can tell you exactly how Infinilearn's multiplayer works, because I built it: chat is limited to preset phrases. There is no open text box for a stranger to type into, anywhere in the game.
Where Prodigy Genuinely Wins
Your Child Is in Grades 1-5
This is the clearest call in the whole comparison. Prodigy spans grades 1-8 with a distinctly elementary center of gravity, and it's good at what it centers: younger kids adore the pet collecting, and the math meets them at their level. Infinilearn starts at grade 5 and goes up from there. I would rather lose a signup than have a third grader bounce off problems written for middle schoolers. Under age 10, choose Prodigy — or one of the other elementary-friendly options in our roundup of math games like Prodigy.
Your Family Lives on Phones and Tablets
Prodigy has native mobile apps. Infinilearn is browser-based — a genuine strength on school Chromebooks, since there's nothing to install and no IT setup, but it means no iOS or Android app, and the game isn't built for phone screens. If math practice in your house happens on an iPad in the back seat of the car, Prodigy fits your life better than my game does right now.
You Want the Established Choice
Prodigy is a big company with a long track record, a support staff, and years of accumulated polish, and plenty of schools already know it by name. Infinilearn is a newer, smaller game with a student founder. I believe a small team can care more per user and fix things faster — I ship fixes myself — but I won't pretend scale buys nothing. It buys polish, content volume, and institutional trust, and Prodigy has all three.
Where Infinilearn Wins
Your Child Is in Grades 5-9
Middle school math is a specific, demanding progression. Under Common Core, one-step equations land in 6th grade, two-step equations in 7th, and linear functions and slope in 8th — each layer depending on the one before it. Infinilearn covers exactly this band, grades 5-9, and nothing else, so all of its depth is spent where your middle schooler actually is. Prodigy reaches grade 8 on paper, but a game tuned for its elementary majority tends to feel like it. Twelve-year-olds have finely calibrated detectors for "this is a little-kid game," and once that detector fires, engagement is over.
The Paywall Difference — Read This Part Even If You Skim the Rest
Both games are free to play, and in both, the math itself is free. The difference is what the optional payment buys, and I think it's the most important difference between the two products.
Prodigy's membership, about $9.95 a month as of this writing, unlocks game rewards: pets, gear, member-only areas. Because those rewards are the motivational engine of the game, free players are playing a version with the best parts fenced off — and the game makes sure they can see over the fence. When half a lunch table plays Prodigy, the members' pets and areas are visible to every non-member at that table. The upsell doesn't just appear on your screen at home; it comes home from school with your kid.
Infinilearn's answer: the entire game is free. All 15 zones, every quest, every boss, all of the grades 5-9 math, with no ads. Premium exists — $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year, which works out to roughly $5 a month — but it buys exactly two kinds of things. For parents and teachers, deeper insight: unlimited children or classes on the dashboard, practice-path controls, progress trends over time, and Common Core standards tracking. For students, cosmetics: fantasy hair colors, a custom username, a gold name tag, premium emotes, and a pet named Finny. In the interest of full honesty: cosmetics are visible to other players, so a premium kid does look a little fancier. But no zone opens, no reward unlocks, and nobody progresses faster because a parent paid. A free player has the whole game.
Practice Aims Itself at Your Child's Weakest Topics
This is the product detail I'm proudest of. Infinilearn tracks each student's accuracy topic by topic, and when a student attacks with their weapon in battle, the problems are pulled from their weakest subjects. A 7th grader who is solid on integer operations but shaky on proportional relationships will simply meet more proportion problems mid-fight, without a parent or teacher assigning anything. The game quietly spends your child's practice time where the gaps are.
Free Parent and Teacher Tools
Infinilearn's parent dashboard is free for one child and shows accuracy by topic — strengths, weaknesses, and what's worth talking about at dinner. For schools, teacher accounts are free and include classroom creation, a built-in diagnostic that locates each student's level, content assignment, and performance tracking by topic, standard, and student. There's no "school pricing" conversation to have; a teacher can set up a class tonight without asking anyone for budget.
Where Infinilearn Honestly Falls Short
You should hear the cons from me rather than discover them later:
- It's newer and smaller. Prodigy has years and a large team on us. You'll find more polish and more sheer content volume there, and the occasional rough edge here.
- Multiple choice only. Every Infinilearn problem is multiple choice. There's no typed free-response yet, which matters if you want your child producing answers entirely from scratch.
- Browser only. Great on a Chromebook or laptop, but there's no native mobile app, and the game isn't built for phones.
- Nothing for younger siblings. We start at grade 5. A family with a 2nd grader and a 7th grader can't standardize on Infinilearn.
- It's practice, not lessons. Infinilearn isn't an instructional library like Khan Academy. If a concept is brand new, your child needs a teacher, a video, or you — the game's job is making the practice stick.
Which Should You Choose?
- Your child is under 10: Prodigy — or another elementary pick from our list of Prodigy alternatives. Infinilearn doesn't serve those grades, and I'd rather say so than waste your evening.
- Your child is in grades 5-9: This is Infinilearn's home turf: middle-school-specific depth, an adaptive engine aimed at their weakest topics, and a completely free game with no reward paywall. Try it for a week alongside Prodigy's free tier and watch which one your child asks to play again.
- You're choosing for a classroom: Both offer free teacher dashboards. For elementary rooms, Prodigy's age fit wins. For grades 5-9, Infinilearn's built-in diagnostic and per-standard tracking are free, and every student gets the full game whether or not any family pays.
- Budget is the deciding factor: Both are playable at $0 — the difference is what $0 feels like. A free Prodigy player is regularly shown what membership would buy; a free Infinilearn player has everything except cosmetics. For a wider survey of no-cost options, see our guide to the best free math games for middle school.
The Bottom Line
If I compress all of this into two sentences: under grade 5, Prodigy is the better choice, and I'll say that without hedging. In grades 5-9, I built Infinilearn specifically for your kid — deeper coverage of exactly those standards, practice that targets their actual gaps, and a game where the free version is the whole game.
But you shouldn't take a founder's word for it, including mine. Both games cost nothing to try. An afternoon watching your child play each one will tell you more than any comparison table — including the one I just wrote.