LMS · head to head
Pear Deck vs Sana
Sana
LMS
AI-native learning and knowledge assistant, acquired by Workday in 2025
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Pear Deck has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: Pear Deck the Teacher Dashboard, draggable and drawing responses and Reflect and Review require Teacher Premium at $149 per year; Sana workday completed its acquisition on 4 November 2025, so Sana is now an HCM vendor's capability; if you do not run Workday, the roadmap will be shaped around a platform you do not use and standalone availability is not guaranteed long term.
- They diverge on capability: Pear Deck covers Interactive slides, Sana covers Sana Agents.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Pear Deck and Sana actually diverge.
Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (LMS).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in Pear Deck
- Interactive slides
- Real-time responses
- Formative assessment
- Student-paced mode
- Dashboard
- Audio responses
- Drawing
- Vocabulary
Only in Sana
- Sana Agents
- Sana Learn
- Enterprise search
- Live collaborative sessions
- Content generation
- Permission-aware retrieval
- Analytics
- Workday integration
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Pear Deck
- Interactive classroom presentations for teachersnot Sana
- Student practice and assessment toolsnot Sana
- Standards-aligned content delivery for schoolsnot Sana
Sana
- An organisation whose employees repeatedly ask the same policy and process questions in Slack and where the answer already exists in a document nobody findsnot Pear Deck
- A Workday customer wanting learning and an internal assistant on the same employee record rather than a separate LMS contractnot Pear Deck
- Onboarding at a fast-growing company where content goes stale faster than the training team can rewrite coursesnot Pear Deck
- Sales enablement where reps need an answer about a product or a contract term during a call, not a course to complete next weeknot Pear Deck
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Pear Deck
- The Teacher Dashboard, draggable and drawing responses and Reflect and Review require Teacher Premium at $149 per year
- Pear Assessment Premium is a separate $125 per year purchase from Pear Deck Premium
- Standards aligned content, district library and efficacy reports are only in the Schools and Districts plan
- SIS and LMS integration is only in the Schools and Districts plan
- School and district pricing is by quote with no published rate
Sana
- Workday completed its acquisition on 4 November 2025, so Sana is now an HCM vendor's capability; if you do not run Workday, the roadmap will be shaped around a platform you do not use and standalone availability is not guaranteed long term.
- Answer quality depends entirely on the state of your internal content, so an organisation with contradictory or outdated documents gets a confident assistant citing the wrong version, which is worse than not having one.
- Permission-aware retrieval across many source systems is difficult to get exactly right, and a misconfigured connector can surface content to employees who should not see it, which makes the security review substantial.
- Compliance-heavy training needs, such as certification tracking, regulator-mandated evidence and SCORM-based external content, are handled less thoroughly than in traditional learning management systems built for that purpose.
- Pricing is unpublished and now negotiated in the context of a Workday relationship, which reduces a non-Workday buyer's leverage and makes a like-for-like comparison against a standalone LMS difficult.
Pricing, plan by plan
Pear Deck
Free- Pear Start FreeFree
- 40+ AI tools for teachers
- unlimited usage
- Pear Deck FreeFree
- basic interactive presentations
- anonymous responses
- student-paced mode
- Pear Deck Premium$149/year
- Teacher Dashboard with named responses
- drawing/draggable features
- Reflect & Review
- Pear Assessment FreeFree
- basic assessment creation
- autograding
Sana
On request- Sana$undefined/year
- Per-employee annual subscription
- Agents and Learn licensed together or separately depending on the agreement
- Connector scope affects pricing
Which should you pick?
Choose Pear Deck if
- You need interactive slides.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Chrome Extension.
- You also want real-time responses.
Choose Sana if
- You need sana agents.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want sana learn.
Questions people ask
- Is Pear Deck or Sana better?
- Neither clearly leads. Pear Deck starts at Free and Sana at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Pear Deck or Sana?
- Pear Deck has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Pear Deck and On request for Sana.
- Does Pear Deck or Sana run on more platforms?
- Pear Deck runs on Web, Chrome Extension. Sana runs on Web, iOS, Android.
- Can I use Pear Deck for free?
- Yes. Pear Deck has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Sana starts at On request.
- What is Pear Deck best used for?
- Pear Deck is most often used for interactive classroom presentations for teachers, student practice and assessment tools, standards-aligned content delivery for schools. Of those, interactive classroom presentations for teachers and student practice and assessment tools are not what Sana is typically brought in for.
- What can Pear Deck do that Sana cannot?
- Pear Deck covers Interactive slides, Real-time responses, Formative assessment, Student-paced mode. Sana covers Sana Agents, Sana Learn, Enterprise search, Live collaborative sessions.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Pear Deck: What is the price for individual teacher subscriptions?
Pear Deck Premium: $149/year; Pear Assessment Premium: $125/year. Pear Practice and Start have custom pricing for paid tiers.
SourceSana: Is Sana still an independent company?
No. Workday completed its acquisition on 4 November 2025 for approximately $1.1bn; the integrated experience begins rolling out in 2026.
Pear Deck: Are there free versions available?
Yes, all Pear Deck products offer free teacher plans: Pear Start, Pear Deck, Pear Practice, and Pear Assessment are free for educators.
SourceSana: Is it an LMS or a search tool?
Both, but the emphasis is on answering questions from your existing content. Traditional course delivery and completion tracking are secondary.
Pear Deck: What features require payment in Pear Assessment?
Free version includes basic assessment creation and autograding. Premium ($125/year) adds advanced security, accessibility tools, state test interface mimicry, and rubric scoring.
SourceSana: Does it work if we are not a Workday customer?
Currently yes, but the product direction now serves Workday's platform strategy, so weigh that in a multi-year commitment.
Pear Deck: Do schools get discounted pricing?
Yes, schools and districts receive custom pricing with additional features like standards-aligned content, shared libraries, and LMS integration.
SourceSana: How is it priced?
Per employee per year, unpublished, and increasingly negotiated as part of a Workday agreement.
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