ArielleOrganic Search & Marketing @ PipUpdated June 2026
9 min read
Pretest Plus builds the most exam-accurate online simulations of the ISEB Common Pre-Test, CAT4 and Cambridge (CEM) Insight, the adaptive cognitive tests independent schools use. But its bundles are expensive and one-off, it is a narrow mock simulator rather than a daily-practice tool, and it has almost no review history of its own. Here are the five strongest alternatives, prices checked this month.
Short on time? The quick verdict:
Best for the ISEB pre-test specifically: Bond Premium Plus, the only ISEB-endorsed practice platform.
Best free skills foundation: Pip, the underlying Maths, English and reasoning the pre-test draws on, free.
Most complete adaptive engine: Atom Learning, which covers ISEB, CAT4 and Cambridge-style assessments.
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 Pretest Plus is (and where the gaps are)
Pretest Plus (pretestplus.co.uk), the sister site of Exam Papers Plus, is a specialist: online mock tests that mirror the adaptive cognitive exams independent schools use, the ISEB Common Pre-Test, CAT4, Cambridge (CEM) Insight, UKiset and London Consortium pretests, with age-benchmarked scoring and answer explanations. For families targeting independent senior schools it is the most exam-accurate simulation of those specific formats you can buy.
Two things send parents looking at alternatives. Cost: it sells as one-off bundles, and the full 15-test ISEB set is £478 (discounted from £735). And focus: it is pre-test and cognitive-niche, an online mock simulator, not a daily-practice platform or a grammar-school GL tool, with almost no standalone review history of its own (the reputation sits with the sister brand, Exam Papers Plus, at 4.9 out of 5 from around 1,560 reviews). The alternatives below cover the underlying skills, the printed rehearsal, and the daily practice that a mock simulator alone does not.
1Bond Online
Best budget all-rounder from a trusted nameBond Online
PriceBasic £7.50 a month or £65 a year (new-subscriber prices from February 2026). The genuinely adaptive experience costs much more: Premium from £20.66 a month (£247.92 a year) and the ISEB-endorsed Premium Plus from £28.99 a month (£347.92 a year), both powered by CENTURY's AI.
FreeFree sample quizzes and a free mock on the Try It page. Trial references a card upfront, so diary the cancel date.
Subjects & boardsEnglish, Maths, VR and NVR in the GL style; the ISEB-endorsed Premium Plus tier covers pre-tests.
PlatformWeb only
ReviewsTrustpilot 2.2/5, but from only 11 reviews, so treat it as anecdotal either way.
Watch outThe basic platform feels dated, true adaptivity is paywalled behind the pricier CENTURY tiers, and the Trustpilot is thin (2.2/5 from only 11 reviews), with recurring login and billing complaints.
For the ISEB Common Pre-Test specifically, Bond holds a credential none of the others can claim: its Premium Plus tier is the only ISEB-endorsed practice platform, with 2,000+ extra questions aligned to the format, from Oxford University Press. It is a subscription (from £28.99 a month) rather than Pretest Plus's one-off bundles, and the platform feels dated, but if endorsement and ongoing practice matter more than one-shot mock simulation, it is the natural alternative.
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.
Be clear about what Pip is and is not here. Pip is GL-style daily practice, not an ISEB adaptive-pretest simulator, so it will not replicate the exact CAT4 or Insight format Pretest Plus mirrors. What it does, free, is build the underlying Maths, English, Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning skills the ISEB pretest draws on, every day, with adaptive difficulty and instant explanations in a real app. Treat it as the affordable skills engine that runs alongside a handful of format-specific mocks, the daily foundation under the dress rehearsal, with Pro mocks and spatial NVR at £59 a year if you want timed practice too.
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.
Atom is the heavyweight that overlaps Pretest Plus most directly: it covers ISEB, CAT4 and Cambridge-style assessments with a large adaptive question bank and weekly plans, and unlike a one-off mock pack it keeps generating practice as your child improves. It is pricier as an ongoing subscription (£383.90 to £671.90 a year) and web-only, but for sustained independent-school cognitive prep rather than a fixed set of mocks, it is the most complete option.
🆓 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.
Best printed papers for exam rehearsalExam Papers Plus
PriceOne-off purchase per pack rather than a subscription: typical 11+ packs £20 to £30 with 2-year access; school and region bundles run to £85 and beyond.
FreeSample content only.
Subjects & boardsGL, CEM-style, ISEB, CSSE and named-school packs, many with video solutions. It is the downloadable-papers sister site of Pretest Plus, run by the same company.
PlatformDownloadable PDFs
ReviewsTrustpilot 4.9/5 from about 1,560 reviews, the strongest score in the category.
Watch outPer-pack pricing stacks up across subjects, and the PDFs are not adaptive or auto-marked; this is exam rehearsal material, not daily practice.
Pretest Plus's own sister site is also its most natural alternative: Exam Papers Plus sells the same company's content as downloadable papers (with ISEB and CEM-style material and video solutions) rather than online adaptive mocks. If you would rather print and mark at home than sit timed online simulations, and keep the papers for re-use, it is the format-flip of the same trusted source, at a 4.9/5 Trustpilot from ~1,560 reviews.
5PiAcademy
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 route to worked-solution papers for the underlying skills the pretest assesses: a big library of maths and English papers with step-by-step answers, as one-off packs. It is not an ISEB or CAT4 simulator, but for cheap, self-marked practice on the fundamentals it complements a small number of format-specific mocks well.
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
Bond Online
£7.50/mo · Premium £20.66 · Plus £28.99
Sample quizzes + free mock
Web
2.2/5 (11 reviews)
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+)
Exam Papers Plus
Packs £20 to £30; bundles £85+
Samples only
PDF
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 Pretest Plus?+
For the ISEB pre-test specifically, Bond's Premium Plus is the only ISEB-endorsed platform. For ongoing adaptive cognitive practice across ISEB, CAT4 and Cambridge formats, Atom. For the free skills foundation underneath the test, Pip. For printed papers from the same family, Pretest Plus's own sister site, Exam Papers Plus.
Is Pip good for the ISEB Common Pre-Test?+
Pip builds the underlying Maths, English, Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning the ISEB pre-test draws on, free and daily, but it is GL-style practice, not an ISEB adaptive-mock simulator. Use it as the affordable skills engine alongside a small number of format-specific mocks, rather than as a replacement for them.
What is the cheapest Pretest Plus alternative?+
Pip's daily practice is free, and PiAcademy's free past-paper hub gives you papers with worked solutions at no cost. Among paid options, Bond Online is far cheaper per month than Pretest Plus's bundles, though it is a subscription rather than one-off mocks.
Does Pretest Plus or Atom cover the ISEB pre-test better?+
They do it differently. Pretest Plus is the more exam-accurate one-off mock simulator; Atom is the ongoing adaptive platform that keeps generating practice and covers CAT4 and Cambridge formats too. Many independent-school families use an adaptive platform through the year and a few Pretest-style mocks near the exam.
