Chat tutors
ChatGPT, Khanmigo, and study apps can guide you well — but you have to leave your work, retype the problem into a chat tab, and lose your train of thought getting there.
A PRIVATE TUTOR BUILT INTO YOUR MAC
Stuck?
Circle it.
Press ⌃⇧Space on Mac or Ctrl⇧Space on Windows and circle anything — a problem set, a stubborn bug, a dense paragraph. Margin is the tutor that comes to your work: a hint drawn right on your screen, never just the answer.
macOS 14+ · Now piloting with select students and classrooms
YOUR MARGIN MOMENTLet’s look at it another way.
✧
✓ Oh, now it clicks.
+Built around
the way you think.M / LEARN IN PLACE
the way you think.M / LEARN IN PLACE
CURIOSITY, IN MOTION
HINTS BEFORE ANSWERS. ALWAYS YOUR CHOICE.SCROLL TO DISCOVER
✓Hints before answers✓Built for college STEM✓Course materials stay on your Mac✓Native menu-bar app
01 / WHY MARGIN
You don’t go to the tutor.
The tutor comes to your work.
Every other AI learning tool makes you bring the problem to it. Margin teaches inside the work itself.
Answer apps
Screenshot-to-solution tools hand you a finished answer. Useful in a pinch; teaches you almost nothing. Tomorrow you're stuck on the same kind of problem again.
Margin
Circles the exact term you missed, on the page you're already reading, and asks the question a good tutor would ask. You stay in your work. You do the work. You learn.
LEARN IN PLACE
THE LEARNING LAYERYOUR WORK. MORE DIMENSION.
A LITTLE CONTEXT CHANGES EVERYTHING.
There’s more
beneath your
next “aha.”
Your work, your course, and the right question. See how a little guidance comes together.
BUILT AROUND THE WAY YOU THINK.EXPLORING 01 / 03
SCROLL TO UNFOLD
02 / HOW IT WORKS
Stop retyping problems.
Start understanding them.
MARGIN IN ACTION01 / 03
Interactive example: find the derivative of f(x) = x² · cos(x). Choose a step to explore how Margin helps you work through it.
MarginHINTS BEFORE ANSWERS
This is a product of two functions — x² and cos(x). Which differentiation rule handles a product? Write out (f·g)′ first, then tell me: what's the derivative of each piece on its own?
Your next step starts here.↗
SELECT A STEP TO EXPLORE
03 / FEATURES
Private-tutor quality.
Built into your Mac.
Help that meets you in your work — grounded in your course, at the level you choose.
Socratic by default
Hint, explain, check my work, quiz me — you choose how much help you get. The final answer exists, but it's always an explicit choice, never the default.
Writes on your screen
Circles the mistake. Underlines the key line. Points an arrow at the term you missed. Annotations render on a click-through overlay, so you keep working underneath.
Knows your course
Drop in your syllabus or textbook PDF. Margin grounds every explanation in your class's notation and methods — not a random one from the internet.
Fully local mode
One toggle runs the entire tutor on a local model. Nothing — not the screenshot, not your question — ever leaves the machine.
Anywhere on screen
If you can see it, you can circle it: textbook PDFs, Canvas, lecture slides, Desmos graphs, LeetCode, a photo of handwritten work.
Native and instant
A real menu-bar app, not another homework tab. Enrolled classes and due work stay in Student Home, while help remains a keystroke away in whatever app you use.
04 / WORKS WHERE YOU WORK
Calculus at 11pm.
A failing test case at 2am.
Textbook PDFs. Canvas. Lecture slides. VS Code. If you can see it, you can circle it.
Math
The integral that won't budge
Margin circles the part that needs substitution and asks:
Margin — What expression and its derivative both
appear here? Name them before you pick u.
Code
The bug you've stared past ten times
Margin — Trace one test case: what does the window
contain before you move the pointer?
Reading
The paragraph that says nothing twice
Margin underlines the claim, leaves a short margin note, and asks:
Margin — Which sentence carries the evidence for this
claim? Summarize the argument in one line.
05 / WHO IT’S FOR
A supplement to teachers.
Never a replacement.
FOR STUDENTS
Your next breakthrough.
On your own terms.
It's 11pm, the problem set is due tomorrow, and you're stuck on question 4. Margin gets you un-stuck without leaving the page you're on.
- No retyping — circle the problem exactly as it appears
- Hints that teach the method, in your course's notation
- Follow-up questions until it actually clicks
- Exam prep against your own lecture notes and textbook
A LITTLE GUIDANCE. A REAL
BREAKTHROUGH.
wait why does the sign flip on the second term?
Good catch — that's the derivative of cos(x) at work. What is d/dx
of cos(x)? Check the sign, then look at your second term again.
ohh it's −sin(x). so it's 2x·cos(x) − x²·sin(x)
Exactly right. You just applied the product rule end to end.
FOR TEACHERS
Your classroom.
A little more possibility.
Project a problem, circle it live, and let Margin pose the guiding question while you walk the room. Built deliberately as a supplement to your teaching, not a shortcut around it.
- Hints-first design — it won't hand students the answer sheet
- Load your own course materials so help matches how you teach
- Local mode keeps student work off the cloud entirely
- Works with whatever you already project: PDFs, slides, anything
Projected in class
∫ x·eˣ dx = ?
"Margin, give the class a hint — but don't solve it."
LIVE FOR TUTORS
Get early access
The live teaching workspace.
A private copilot that suggests the next guiding question mid-lesson, session notes written from the transcript, and a brief on each student before every session — with the tutor in control the whole time.
06 / THE LONG GAME Live now
A tutor whose goal
is that you need it less.
Every session teaches Margin how you learn — not just what you asked. Over a semester it builds a private map of what you've mastered, where you slip, and which kinds of explanation actually land for you.
Most tools measure engagement. Margin measures independence: are you solving more on your own this week than last? It's on your Progress page as soon as you've answered a few graded problems — and it's yours to see, or delete, any time.
What Margin remembersEXAMPLE
- Mastered: product rule, u-substitution, basic recursion
- Watch for: sign errors when differentiating cos(x); off-by-one when the loop moves a pointer
- What works: visual call-stack diagrams; tracing one concrete test case first
- Independence: solved 7 of 9 problems this week without a hint — up from 3 of 9
07 / PRIVACY
Private enough
for a school.
"It sees only what you share and remembers only what helps you learn."
Only what you circle
Margin never records or watches your screen. It captures the exact region you select, only in the moment you select it — every capture is user-initiated and visible as it happens.
Course files stay home
Your PDFs are read, chunked, and embedded entirely on-device with Apple's built-in language models. The files are never uploaded anywhere.
Zero-cloud option
Flip on local mode and inference runs on your own machine. No account, no API key, no network calls — a tutor that works in airplane mode.
Your data, your call
Everything Margin learns about you lives on your Mac, readable and deletable. Private-session mode retains nothing at all — planned alongside app exclusions for banking, messages, and health. How optional tutoring recordings work →
08 / PRICING
Plans for tutors, schools,
and learning teams.
FOR YOUR PRACTICE
Individual Tutors
$79
track student progress in real time
- Circle-to-ask workspace for each learner
- Grounding in your course materials and notes
- Learner model, review deck, and progress tracking
- Private Mac app setup for your tutoring workflow
- Pilot support while we scope your practice
FOR YOUR LEARNING COMMUNITY
Schools & Organizations
Custom
track student progress in real time
- Teacher dashboards, live classes, and assignment workflows
- Organization rollout planning and training
- Privacy, security, and data-retention review
- Email, LMS, and classroom workflow integrations
- Pricing matched to your learners and support needs
Margin is currently in pilot. Pricing is scoped around your tutoring practice, school, or organization. Get in touch.
09 / FAQ
Fair
questions.
Isn't this just a cheating tool?
It's built to be the opposite. By default Margin refuses to hand over final answers — it identifies the type of problem, points at the key step, and asks a guiding question, the way a good tutor does. The full solution exists, but it's an explicit choice, visible and deliberate. Compare that with what students do today: paste the question into a chatbot and copy what comes back.
How is this different from ChatGPT?
Two ways. First, you never leave your work — no retyping the problem into a chat tab; Margin sees exactly what you circled and answers beside it. Second, it's a tutor by design, not by prompt: hints-first pedagogy, grounding in your actual course materials, and drawings on your real screen instead of a wall of chat text.
What does it cost?
Pilot participants use Margin free while we scope the right rollout. Pricing is custom for individual tutors, schools, and organizations, and local mode remains available for zero-cloud tutoring on your own Mac.
What do I need to run it?
A Mac running macOS 14 or later. That's it — during the pilot we'll get you set up in about five minutes, including local mode if you want the zero-cloud version.
Which subjects does it handle?
It's strongest where seeing the work matters: calculus, statistics, intro programming, physics, chemistry, economics. If you can circle it, Margin can look at it — including graphs, diagrams, code, and handwritten work.
Does it watch my screen?
No. Margin is idle until you press the hotkey, and it sees exactly one screenshot: the region you circled. Screen Recording permission is required by macOS for any capture tool — you grant it once, and every capture is user-initiated.
10 / A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE
A little help. A whole new perspective.
FROM CHAOS TO CLARITY
It all
comes together.
A question becomes a starting point. Circle what’s confusing and find your next step, right where you’re working.
STAY WITH THE IDEA
Keep your
train of thought.
A hint. A follow-up. That moment it clicks. Keep exploring without leaving your work or losing your place.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Your course.
In context.
Your notes, lectures, and course materials belong together. Get help grounded in what you’re actually learning.
YOUR NEXT CHAPTER
See what’s
on the other side.
Move from being stuck to knowing where to go next. The thinking stays yours. Margin helps you keep going.
PILOT PROGRAM
Margin is in
private pilot.
We're working closely with a small group of students, teachers, and tutors before opening up. If that sounds like you — a STEM student on Mac or Windows, a teacher who'd project it in class, or a tutor who wants the workspace early — we'd love to talk.
Or just email us: hello@learnmargin.org