Four of these ten cost nothing at all. Every option is ranked by what a year of actual use costs, with the date we checked each amount, and what you give up at that price.
Learning Cadence editorial, , 8 min readHow we work
Affordable is not the same as cheap. This page ranks ten learning apps by what a year of real use costs, starting at nothing, and says what each one asks you to give up at that price.
We make Cadence, and it is fifth. Four apps above it cost nothing, and we would rather point you to one of those than take money for the wrong fit. Every amount is a US price from the company's own page, carrying the date we read it.
Start here
Ranked by what a year costs, checked 6 and 7 September 2026.
Swipe the table to see every column.
Ranked by what a year costs, checked 6 and 7 September 2026
App
What a year costs
What you give up
1. Khan Academy
US$0, permanently
No paid tier at all, and no course built around your own goal.
2. MIT OpenCourseWare
US$0, no account needed
University material with no guidance, no certificate, and nobody to ask.
3. Duolingo
US$0 for course access
Free access carries ads, and the subjects are language, maths, and music.
4. Anki
US$0 on desktop, web and Android; US$24.99 once on iPhone
You write every card yourself. It schedules review, it does not teach.
5. Cadence
US$0 for 3 lessons a day; Plus US$39.99 a year on the web
In-app Plus is US$44.99 a year. No certificate or named instructor. This is our app.
6. Deepstash
US$0 for the feed; Pro US$49.99 a year
Short idea cards in a feed rather than an ordered course.
7. Headway
US$0 for one summary a day; US$89.99 a year
Book summaries, which give you the argument without the practice.
8. Yoodli
US$0 for five roleplays; Pro US$8 a month billed annually
Speaking practice only. It does not teach you a subject.
9. Brilliant
US$0 for two lessons a day; Premium shown at checkout
It publishes no standing price, so it cannot be ranked exactly on cost.
10. Coursera Plus
US$59 a month or US$399 a year
The most expensive here, and it buys graded courses and recognised certificates.
The apps
Every app, with what it is bad at.
Start with the job you need the app to do, then read the tradeoff.
01
Khan Academy
School and university fundamentals
Khan Academy is a nonprofit that publishes full course sequences in maths, science, economics, and test preparation. Every lesson is free, there are no ads, and the practice sets tell you which idea you have not understood yet instead of only marking you wrong.
Best for
Rebuilding a foundation you missed at school, especially in maths and science.
Not for
Soft skills, workplace situations, and creative subjects.
Price
Free. It is funded by donations, not subscriptions.
MIT publishes the actual materials from its courses: lecture notes, problem sets, exams, and often video. There is no account, no upsell, and no certificate. It is the raw course, and you supply the discipline.
Best for
Self-directed learners who want depth and do not need a credential.
Not for
Anyone who needs structure, reminders, or someone to tell them what to do next.
Duolingo teaches languages, maths, music, and chess through short exercises on a guided path. Its streak, daily goal, reminders, and game mechanics make the return habit unusually visible, which is why the same shape is copied across education apps.
Best for
Building and holding a daily language habit through short guided exercises.
Not for
A broad subject outside its current catalogue, or reaching confident conversation through the app alone.
Price
Course access is free with ads. Optional paid tiers remove ads and add premium features.
Anki is a flashcard tool that schedules each card for the day you are about to forget it. It is plain, it is powerful, and it does nothing to help you decide what is worth learning. Medical students and language learners rely on it for a reason.
Best for
Facts, vocabulary, and anything you must recall exactly.
Not for
Understanding a subject. Anki assumes you already know what belongs on the card.
Price
Free on desktop and Android. The iPhone app is a one-time purchase that funds the project.
Cadence starts with a problem you want to solve or a curiosity you want to explore, then builds an ordered 7 to 30 lesson course around it. Each lesson takes about ten minutes, can be read or played as audio, and stays connected to the course. Lessons use checks or practice when they help, and Ask Coach stays inside the lesson.
Best for
Turning your own starting point into one coherent course you can keep progressing through.
Not for
Anyone who needs a recognised certificate, a named instructor, or a language course with speaking practice.
Price
Free to start, with custom courses, up to 3 new lessons a day, and audio included. Plus raises the daily lesson allowance to 30 for US$39.99 a year on the web, with a 7-day trial.
Deepstash turns ideas from books, articles, podcasts, and videos into short cards that can be read in a few minutes, saved, and organised into collections. Its personalised feed is built for daily discovery more than for following one subject in order.
Best for
Replacing an idle social-media scroll with short ideas you can save for later.
Not for
A stable course sequence, assessed practice, or material where every interpretation must be checked against the original source.
Price
Free access includes idea cards and personal collections. Pro removes ads and adds features such as audio, offline access, and longer history.
Headway condenses nonfiction books into short text and audio summaries you can finish in a sitting. It is a fast way to decide whether a book is worth your time, and a reasonable way to recall one you have already read.
Best for
Covering a lot of book ideas quickly, or triaging a reading list.
Not for
Learning a skill. A summary tells you what a book argued, not how to do the thing.
Yoodli lets you practise a live AI roleplay or upload a recording, then reviews the content and delivery. Its roleplays can ask follow-up questions, which makes it useful for presentations that end with an interview, objection, or question-and-answer section.
Best for
Rehearsing a presentation, interview, or pitch when you need the other side to respond.
Not for
Unlimited free practice. The starter plan is enough to inspect the workflow, but it carries a small lifetime roleplay allowance.
Price
A limited free starter plan. Paid individual plans raise or remove the roleplay limit, and team plans add administration and custom scenarios.
Brilliant teaches through problems and not lectures. You are given a puzzle, you try it, and the explanation arrives once you have already thought about it. That order is harder work than watching a video and it is why the ideas tend to stay.
Best for
People who want to think during a lesson instead of watching one.
Not for
Subjects outside maths, science, and computing, or learners who need unlimited daily access without a subscription.
Price
Brilliant Free provides two keys a day. Each key unlocks one lesson or practice set, and free users move through courses in order. Premium removes the daily limit, allows jumping ahead, removes ads, and gives full Koji access.
Coursera hosts courses from universities and companies, with video lectures, readings, assessments, and paid certificate tracks. The first module of nearly every course can be previewed free, which makes it useful for checking the instructor and workload before paying.
Best for
Subjects where the name on the certificate matters to an employer or an application.
Not for
A ten-minute daily habit. Most courses expect real study blocks.
Price
The first module of nearly every course is free to preview. Continued access, graded work beyond the preview, certificates, and subscription plans are generally paid.
Every app here can be used for something without paying, so the order starts with the lowest amount you can spend and still use the product for a year. Among the ones that do charge, the order then follows the cheapest annual plan the company publishes.
One entry could not be placed exactly. Brilliant publishes no standing amount and sends you to its subscription page instead, so it sits by its free allowance rather than by a number we cannot verify.
Free first
Four of these cost nothing, and one may be enough.
If your budget is zero, the top four are not a consolation prize. Khan Academy is a donation-funded nonprofit with no paid tier at all, and MIT OpenCourseWare publishes real university course material without even asking for an account.
What you give up is direction. A free catalogue assumes you already know what to study, in what order, and how to tell when you have understood it. That work is what a paid course structure is actually selling, and it is worth nothing to you if the free option already covers your subject.
Where we fit
Cadence is fifth, and cheapest only among the paid plans.
We make Cadence, so read this section with that in mind. It is not the most affordable app on this page. Four options above it cost nothing, and if one of them covers what you want to learn, use it.
Of the apps here that publish an annual price, Cadence Plus is the lowest at US$39.99 a year on the web, below Deepstash at US$49.99 and Headway at US$89.99, checked on 6 and 7 September 2026. Subscribing inside the iPhone app costs US$44.99 a year instead, because app store fees are reflected in the in-app price. We quote our own amounts because we set them and they are on our pricing page.
The free plan is not a trial. It builds custom courses and opens up to 3 new lessons a day with audio included, and it does not expire.
Before you pay
Check what your library or employer already covers.
Two sources of free access get missed regularly, and both cover paid products. Many public library systems provide LinkedIn Learning to cardholders, and LinkedIn publishes a help page for library patrons explaining the sign-in. Many employers hold Coursera or LinkedIn Learning seats that nobody announced, or a learning budget that covers a subscription if you ask.
For how the billing itself works, including app store markups, annual plans charged up front, and trials that need a card, our learning app cost guide sets out each pattern beside the current amounts.
Questions
Common questions.
What is the most affordable learning app?
Khan Academy, because it has no paid tier at all. It is a donation-funded nonprofit, so the whole catalogue is free permanently rather than free until a limit. MIT OpenCourseWare is the same price and does not even require an account, though neither builds a course around a goal you choose.
What is the cheapest paid learning subscription?
Of the apps on this page that publish an annual price, Cadence Plus is the lowest at US$39.99 a year on the web when we checked it on 7 September 2026, below Deepstash at US$49.99 and Headway at US$89.99. Cadence is our app. Brilliant publishes no standing amount, so it cannot be compared directly.
Is a cheaper learning app worse?
Not automatically. Price mostly tracks what the company had to pay for: recognised certificates, licensed instructors, and graded assignments cost real money, and an app that does not offer them can charge less without being worse at teaching. Judge it on whether the format matches what you are trying to learn.
Do free learning apps expire after a trial?
Some do and some do not, and the difference matters more than the headline price. Khan Academy, MIT OpenCourseWare, and Duolingo course access are free with no end date. A free tier with a daily allowance, like Brilliant's two lessons or Cadence's three, also does not expire. A free trial that asks for a card is a purchase with an opt-out.
How do I stop paying for a learning app I no longer use?
Cancel where you bought it, which is not always where you use it. A subscription started inside an iPhone app is managed in your Apple account settings rather than in the app, and one started on the web is cancelled on that company's site. Check the renewal date before you cancel, because access usually runs to the end of the term you already paid for.
See it in concrete terms
Open a real Cadence course.
These Cadence courses can be started on the free plan, and the syllabus is visible before you sign up.
We ranked by price, not by preference. For each app we found the lowest amount that still allows a year of use, then the cheapest annual plan the company publishes, reading its own pricing, plan, help, or store page. We state a number only where a product publishes a stable public US amount, and we say so plainly where it does not. Where a company charges a different price inside an app store than on the web, both amounts are shown.
What we checked directly: On 6 September 2026 we opened the official pricing or store pages for Deepstash, Headway, Yoodli, and Brilliant. On 7 September 2026 we read Anki's US App Store listing for its one-time iPhone price and confirmed Cadence's own web and App Store amounts against our published plans. The Khan Academy, MIT OpenCourseWare, Duolingo, and Coursera figures were checked on 20 August 2026 for our learning app cost guide.
Limits of this review: We did not buy every plan or complete every checkout. Prices change after a review date and differ by region, account, app store, tax, and promotion, so the amount you see may not match ours. Brilliant publishes no standing public price, so it cannot be ranked exactly on cost. Library and employer access varies by institution, so confirm your own.
