Hey there!
I have been using WaniKani for about 6 maybe 7 months now. I am really loving all it has to offer!! I want to know though, which option is best: Monthly for $9, Yearly for $89, OR the whopping Lifetime for $299. I currently reside in Japan 9-10 months out of the year and my japanese speaking is pretty good, just been focusing on listening and reading!
Curious as to what are you thoughts? Which option did you choose? Why??
Thanks for all your help. 
You can wait for the sales season around Christmas, lifetime is usually $100 off. If you want to finish and need more than two years, lifetime?
I knew from the beginning that I wanted to go slower towards the end or even reset to an earlier level, so I got lifetime. Never regretted that decision myself. If you live in Japan 10 months every year for the foreseeable future, and if you read a lot of Japanese while there, you’ll be exposed to a lot of kanji anyway. So maybe you’re okay with monthly or yearly?
I went with monthly and plan on getting lifetime in December or before if they have a sale. I figure that I’m probably going to have to reset after lv60 at least once before I can say: “Yeah, I know all the WaniKani vocabulary”. In my case I’m already juggling four languages in different levels between native and just started learning, so I’m not gonna expose myself to Japanese as frequently as you are, so for you I think that burning all vocabulary once should probably do the trick. On the other hand you seem to be going at a 1 level per month pace, so I think lifetime would make sense for you too. So, in your case I’d wait until the next sale.
I started out with monthly to see if I would be able to stick with it. Then after 2 months I switched to yearly in August with the intention of getting lifetime when it goes on sale in December if I was still using WaniKani by then (which I did). The months that I didn’t use out of that yearly subscription were subtracted from that lifetime subscription so for me that seemed like the best compromise since I’m never sure if I really end up sticking with something in the long run.
I like that I have lifetime now since I’m super relaxed about going on vacation mode when life gets in the way. Maybe after level 60 I’ll review my burnt items and unburn anything that seems like it needs repeating. We’ll see…
If you get lifetime now, it costs you 19 dollars more than waiting for December (on monthly) for the deal and getting lifetime then.
Your best bet would be to save 48.5 bucks, by paying for yearly now and then paying for lifetime in December as you’ll be credited the remaining amount from your yearly subscription when you pay for lifetime.
For now I am still using Wanikani for free. But if I end up getting to level 4 someday I will mostlikely go for lifetime 
So far Wanikani proofs to be really useful and it is helping me a lot.
I’m super happy serving the 
and all that, but don’t you guys think the lifetime subscription is a bit too expensive? Also, remember it’s not your lifetime we are talking about, but the lifetime of the application, which I find difficult to imagine in a world that’s constantly evolving technologically.
Well, supposing that you started WK in January (from your registration on the forums):
It took you 4 months to get to lvl 10 or 1/6 of the program. Which means that if you follow the same speed, it will take you 2 full years to reach lvl 60. Not to mention that you’d still have to burn items from around 15 levels by then, which would take it 2 and half years.
Also, WK is not a finished product. They might decide to add something new to it and you’d be missing out on it. Not to mention that they do offer 50% off to lifetime users of their old product, which can happen again in case they release another product.
No one is going to disrupt WK in terms of how to learn kanji for a while. People are still using RTK (30+ old method) to learn them.
I think all three payment options are a bit expensive, but personally I like the notion of buying a product better than a service for those kinds of things. I think that for a product that I might use for the next five or so years it’s an ok price, especially if I get on sale.
I choosed the monthly suscrption as a way to “avoid hanging in here forever” kinda safeguard…
Don’t get me wrong, people here has been most helpful when I have had any doubt, but I don’t want to feel that there’s no pressure for actually completing this method (I don’t have actually any kind of real pressure about learning japanese), even if that pressure it’s just not to have a monthly charge.
So, for me knowing that eventually I’ll graduate from WK to some other resource… or even better to actually doing things in japanese, it’s something I kept in mind for not upgrading to a lifetime or even a yearly suscription, and feeling like… “well, it’s already payed, I might as well take it slowly…”
I don’t know if anyone here has this kind of considerations 
I remember seeing that too. Mentioned it to my husband seeing as we will definitely be in Japan for quite some time! Thank you!
Thats a good way of looking at it, but the knaji here teaches me before I see it so when I do I actually know what it means but great point!
That’s actually a very good point. But I also agree with @Ncastaneda (although I got a yearly subscription):
Oh, that was not my intention, sorry. I just guess you can find good reasons for both options. I will probably go for a lifetime subscription next year to be honest. 
I finished out the first three levels and decided that I liked WK a lot as a tool and was going to get to level 60 but I wasn’t quite ready to commit to a lifetime membership so I got the annual, with the thought that I’d be 60 within two years anyway so I’d be saving some money. Now that I’ve been here a little longer I can see I’ll want to stick around for burns or even potentially a reset at some point, so assuming it goes on sale later this year I’ll pick up the lifetime membership.
@dbuendia It’s a chunk of change to be sure for a lifetime membership but for the method, the amount of content and the updates I think it’s a pretty good value proposition. I’ve tried a few other methods over the years like my RTK books gathering dust and this is working better for me than any of the other methods (cheaper or more expensive) so I’m happy to support it. The worth of the application will be up to the individual though.
