ArielleOrganic Search & Marketing @ PipUpdated June 2026
9 min read
Bond is the UK's longest-running 11+ name and its books are a genuine classic. But parents keep looking around for the same three reasons: the online platform feels dated, true adaptivity is paywalled behind the pricier CENTURY tiers, and the public reviews are thin. Here are the six strongest alternatives, compared honestly, prices checked this month.
Short on time? The quick verdict:
Closest cheaper swap: CGP, same books-plus-online idea with a better free tier, around £60 a year.
Best free and most modern: Pip, unlimited adaptive daily practice in a real app, free, with Pro mocks at £59 a year.
Most adaptive (and most expensive): Atom Learning, £383.90 to £671.90 a year billed annually.
Full transparency: Pip is our own app, and it appears in this list. Everything we say about every tool here, including ours, is factual, sourced and checked this month, and we tell you exactly who each alternative suits better than us. That is the only way a comparison like this is worth your time.
What Bond is (and why parents look around)
Bond is the UK's longest-running 11+ brand, published by Oxford University Press, and for many families the age-banded books (Up to Speed, Assessment Papers, Stretch) are still the backbone of a prep plan. Bond Online adds a digital question bank with instant marking and progress reports, and the Premium Plus tier is the only ISEB-endorsed practice platform.
So why look elsewhere? Three reasons recur. The basic platform interface feels dated next to newer apps. True adaptivity is paywalled: the cheap £7.50-a-month tier is essentially a digital workbook, and to get AI-personalised pathways you jump to the CENTURY-powered Premium (£20.66 a month) or Premium Plus (£28.99 a month), which also blurs what you are actually buying. And the public review base is thin, 2.2 out of 5 from just 11 Trustpilot reviews, with recurring login and billing complaints. None of that makes Bond bad; it makes the alternatives below worth ten minutes.
1CGP 11+ Online
Best books-plus-online combo on a budgetCGP 11+ Online
Price£7.50 a month or £60 a year (checked on CGP's page this month). Books £6.95 to £16.95, most with free Online Editions.
FreeGenuinely useful free layer: free online 10-minute tests and free downloadable practice papers in all four subjects.
Subjects & boardsAll four subjects, GL-focused, with the famous book range behind it.
PlatformWeb (plus the books)
ReviewsNo product-specific Trustpilot; CGP's book reputation speaks for itself.
Watch outNot adaptive, and there is no mock-exam service or deep analytics - it is honest drilling, not a coach.
CGP is the most natural like-for-like swap from Bond: the same trusted-books-plus-online model, a similarly low price, and a genuinely better free layer (free online 10-minute tests and free papers in all four subjects, no paywall). If what you liked about Bond was the structured, affordable, GL-style drilling, CGP gives you that with a fresher free tier and the famous book range behind it. It is not adaptive either, but as a cleaner, cheaper version of the same idea it is the obvious first stop.
2Pip: 11+ PracticeOUR APP
Best free tier, and the best value ProInside Pip: the Non-Verbal Reasoning skill tree with the 3D Lab (Pro), a 3D nets-and-cubes question, and the Number codes game.
PriceFree for unlimited daily practice. Pip Pro is £7.99 a month or £59 a year (about £4.92 a month) with a 7-day free trial.
What free gets youUnlimited adaptive questions across Maths, English, VR and NVR, five question formats, instant explanations, streaks and leagues, multiple child profiles, no ads, no sign-up, zero data collection. Plus the free printable papers, vocabulary flashcards and the grammar-school catchment checker on this site.
What Pro addsFull timed mock papers in all four subjects with instant marking, answer review and topic breakdowns, the Word Quest vocabulary booster, and 3D and spatial Non-Verbal Reasoning practice.
Subjects & boardsAll four 11+ subjects in the standard GL-style multiple-choice formats, generated fresh daily so children never memorise a fixed bank.
PlatformiOS and Android (App Store and Google Play), plus free practice and printables in any browser.
Honesty cornerPip is newer than the big names, so it does not have years of Trustpilot history yet. That is the full list of caveats.
Bond's most common complaint is its dated, web-only platform, and its true adaptivity sits behind the £20+ CENTURY tiers. Pip answers both for nothing: daily adaptive practice in all four subjects, free, in a real iOS and Android app built for the way children actually study, short bursts on a phone, no account, no ads, zero data collection. The Non-Verbal Reasoning is the part parents notice, every figure machine-verified to have one defensible answer, including 3D and spatial types. When you want exam rehearsal, Pro adds full timed mocks and the Word Quest vocabulary booster for £59 a year, less than a single hour of tutoring.
ReviewsTrustpilot around 4.4/5 from 1,300+ reviews. Praise for support and results; recurring complaints about price and cancellation friction.
Watch outIt is the most expensive mainstream option by far, and some parents report the real exam felt harder than Atom's questions.
If the thing you actually wanted from Bond's Premium tiers was real adaptivity, Atom does it more completely: a 90,000+ question bank, weekly plans mapped to your target schools, and mock tests on the top tier. It costs far more (£383.90 to £671.90 a year billed annually) and is web-only, so go in clear-eyed, but for data-hungry households it is the most complete adaptive engine in the category.
🆓 TRY THIS TODAY
Reasoning practice that feels like a game
This is the Number codes game, one of dozens of skills inside Pip: crack which digit stands for which letter, then earn XP for speed. Word Quest does the same for vocabulary, the biggest single lever in verbal reasoning, and the 3D Lab (Pro) lets children spin real solids with a finger. Start with the free flashcards on this site, then let the app take over the daily reps.
Price£9.50 a month rolling, or fixed terms: £40 for 6 months (+1 free) and £70 for 12 months (+3 free).
Free7-day full-access trial plus demo tests without payment details.
Subjects & boardsEnglish, Maths, VR, NVR for ages 7 to 11; board-agnostic with GL and CEM-style coverage.
PlatformWeb only
ReviewsNo meaningful Trustpilot footprint; long-standing quiet reputation on parent forums.
Watch outThe interface is plain and there is little gamification, so self-motivated children get the most from it.
BOFA gives you Bond's adaptivity without Bond's CENTURY price tag: its test-teach-retest loop redrills every wrong answer until it sticks, for £70 across 15 months. The interface is plain and there is no gamification, but as cheap, genuine spaced-repetition practice it quietly outperforms a basic Bond Online subscription.
5Exam Papers Plus (+ Pretest Plus)
Best school-specific practice papersExam Papers Plus (+ Pretest Plus)
PricePay per pack: typical 11+ packs £20 to £30 with 2-year access; school and region bundles run to £85+ (Kent) and beyond. Sister site Pretest Plus sells ISEB, CAT4 and Cambridge Select online tests in bundles (the 15-test ISEB bundle saves £257).
FreeSample content only.
Subjects & boardsGL, CEM-style, ISEB, CSSE and named-school packs, with video solutions on many products.
PlatformDownloadable PDFs + online tests via Pretest Plus
ReviewsTrustpilot 4.9/5 from about 1,560 reviews - the strongest score in the category.
Watch outCosts stack up quickly across packs, and PDFs are not adaptive; this is rehearsal material, not daily practice.
When prep shifts from daily practice to dress rehearsal, Exam Papers Plus is the specialist Bond never quite becomes: school-specific and region-specific papers with video solutions and a 4.9/5 Trustpilot from about 1,560 reviews. Pair it with a cheaper daily tool and you get the best of both, steady practice plus realistic, marked-style rehearsal.
6PiAcademy
Best worked solutions per poundPiAcademy
PriceOne-off 12-month packs rather than subscriptions, e.g. the 11+ SPaG and vocabulary pack at £59; marketing quotes pennies per paper.
FreeA large free hub of past papers with answers.
Subjects & boardsBoard-agnostic paper library: 230+ 11+ maths papers and 100+ English papers, all with step-by-step solutions.
PlatformPDF downloads
ReviewsTrustpilot around 5/5 from roughly 100 reviews (always cite the count: it is a small sample).
Watch outStatic PDFs with no marking or adaptivity, and the perpetual was-price discounts make real prices hard to read.
PiAcademy is the budget paper library: hundreds of 11+ papers with step-by-step worked solutions, sold as one-off packs rather than a subscription. For families who learn by working through a paper with the answer method beside them, it teaches better than a bare Bond mock, just know it is static PDFs with no marking or adaptivity.
Side by side
All prices re-checked on the official sites in June 2026; Trustpilot scores include review counts because a 2.2 from 11 reviews and a 4.9 from 1,560 are not the same kind of evidence.
Tool
Price (checked June 2026)
Free
Platform
Trustpilot
CGP 11+ Online
£7.50/mo · £60/yr
Free 10-minute tests + papers
Web + books
n/a (shop-wide)
Pip: 11+ Practice
Free · Pro £7.99/mo or £59/yr
Everything daily is free; 7-day Pro trial
iOS & Android apps + web tools
New app - no review history yet
Atom Learning
£39.99 to £69.99/mo (annual saves 20%)
5-day trial, no card; free for Pupil Premium
Web
~4.4/5 (1,300+)
BOFA 11+
£9.50/mo · £70/12mo+3 free
7-day trial + demo tests
Web
No profile
Exam Papers Plus
Packs £20 to £30; bundles £85+
Samples
PDF + online (Pretest Plus)
4.9/5 (~1,560)
PiAcademy
One-off packs, e.g. £59
Free past-paper hub
PDF
5/5 (~100)
Start free in the next five minutes
Whichever platform you end up choosing, these three things are free right now and useful with any of them.
📄 Free 24-question NVR paper
Exam-difficulty figures with a full worked answer key. No email, no sign-up, just the PDF.
Pip generates fresh adaptive questions every day, free, with no ads and no account.
Questions parents ask
What is the best alternative to Bond 11+?+
It depends what you want to fix. For a cheaper like-for-like with a better free tier, CGP. For a free, modern app instead of a dated web platform, Pip. For genuine adaptivity if budget allows, Atom or, much cheaper, BOFA. For exam-realistic papers, Exam Papers Plus.
Is there a free alternative to Bond Online?+
Yes. Pip's daily practice is completely free, with free printable papers in all four subjects on the same site. CGP also offers free online 10-minute tests and free papers, and GL Assessment publishes free official familiarisation papers.
Why does Bond Online cost more for the adaptive version?+
Bond's basic £7.50-a-month plan is a digital question bank, not adaptive. The AI-personalised pathways are powered by CENTURY and sold as Premium (from £20.66 a month) and the ISEB-endorsed Premium Plus (from £28.99 a month). If adaptivity is the goal, compare those tiers, not the headline price.
Does Bond have a mobile app?+
Bond Online runs in a web browser on computer or mobile, but there is no dedicated native app experience. If you specifically want a phone or tablet app built for short daily sessions, Pip is the native-app option here.
