The facts side by side
| As of 7 Nov 2026 | BandCheck | ChatGPT |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $3.99 for 1 month · $9.99 for 3 months [source] | Free plan; paid Go, Plus and Pro — the price is shown for your country on the pricing page [source] |
| How you pay | One-time pass, no auto-renew. Fair use: 50 Writing/Speaking reviews per 30 days; Reading & Listening unlimited [source] | Monthly subscription (paid plans) [source] |
| Free tier | 2 Writing/Speaking checks at signup, first 2 Reading and 2 Listening tests, first full mock test, 1 casual Live Speaking conversation a day [source] | Unlimited text chats (with abuse guardrails), limited voice chats [source] |
| Writing | Yes — Task 1 and Task 2, a band for each of the 4 criteria [source] | General-purpose: comments on an essay if you ask; no built-in IELTS rubric or band history [source] |
| Speaking | Yes — live conversation or recorded Parts 1–3; pronunciation scored from audio [source] | Voice chat can role-play an examiner; not an IELTS scoring tool [source] |
| Reading | Yes — full tests, auto-scored [source] | No built-in IELTS tests [source] |
| Listening | Yes — full tests with audio, auto-scored [source] | No built-in IELTS tests [source] |
| Live voice AI examiner | Yes — Turna, a voice AI examiner (beta) [source] | Voice chat (limited on Free), not an IELTS examiner [source] |
| Feedback languages | English, Russian, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Arabic, French | Not stated on the pricing page; in practice it answers in the language you write in [source] |
| Payment methods | Visa/Mastercard, Apple Pay, Google Pay (Dodo Payments). In Uzbekistan also Payme, Click or card transfer — arranged by hand for now [source] | Not stated on the pricing page [source] |
“Not stated” means the competitor's own site did not say, as far as we could find on 7 Nov 2026. Prices are in US dollars as shown on each site. Spotted something out of date? Email [email protected] and we'll fix it.
Where ChatGPT is stronger
- Free and flexible. The free plan includes unlimited text chats (with abuse guardrails) and limited voice chats.
- A tutor for anything. It can explain why a sentence is wrong, suggest synonyms, generate ideas for a topic or rewrite a paragraph in a different style — far beyond what any IELTS checker does.
- Answers in your language if you write in it.
Where BandCheck is stronger
- A fixed rubric every time. BandCheck scores every essay against the four official criteria with band-descriptor anchoring, so you don't have to write the right prompt, and two essays are judged by the same standard. With a general chatbot the result depends on the prompt and can change between attempts.
- Calibration. The grader was checked against 1,200+ human-graded essays (see methodology). A general chatbot is not tuned for IELTS banding.
- A Speaking examiner, not just a voice chat. Turna runs the interview like the exam and scores fluency, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation from your audio.
- Real tests and progress. Full Reading and Listening tests, a full mock exam, and your bands by skill over time.
BandCheck's honest weaknesses
- It's young. BandCheck grew out of a Telegram bot and is a small, independent service. There are few public reviews of it yet — none on AlternativeTo at the time of writing — so you have less social proof to go on than with older tools.
- Live Speaking is in beta. Turna, the voice examiner, works, but it is newer than the Writing grader and can still have rough edges.
- Local payment in Uzbekistan is manual for now. Cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay are instant; Payme, Click and card transfers are arranged by hand.
- It's an estimate. Like every AI checker on this page, BandCheck can't give an official band — see how we grade.
Which one should you choose?
Use ChatGPT to learn: ask why something is wrong, get ideas, practise paraphrasing. Use BandCheck when you want a consistent band against the IELTS criteria, Speaking under exam conditions, and a record of your progress. Many students sensibly use both.
More comparisons
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- BandCheck vs IELTS International