If I am remembering correctly, one you hit level 60 you can get lifetime for a discount if you didn’t have it already.
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First off, the $45 for my yearly subscription was a special promotion. Last January, soon after I joined, they emailed me a promo code for 50% off on monthly and annual subscriptions, meaning $44.50 for a year. There’s lots of other reports here of others getting the same offer in years past. However, it’s not an official public sale like the annual lifetime sale is, so you can’t rely on it. Some people have said they didn’t get the email.
Second, there’s a special discount on lifetime memberships once you hit level 60. If you’re already level 60, you can upgrade to lifetime for only $60. I’m not sure it’s worth it even then though. Probably better to just move on to other things at that point.
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Congrats! Cake looks delicious.
Did you add a raising agent to your dry ingredients? like baking powder?
2nd option is that you need to ‘‘beat it, beat it…’’ I found this tip: “Lift up your beater (whisk) from the batter. Make a figure “8” using the batter that drips off the beater. Then count to 10 seconds. If the figure 8 still remains on top of the batter, then you have the right consistency. If the figure 8 sinks into the batter before 10 secs, then you need to beat it longer.”
I made another test batch today, taking care to beat the eggs for longer, and to put the mixture in the oven more quickly etc. This time it did rise and turned out spongy.
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Congratulations on reaching Level 60 @l_l san 
Thanks for sharing your experiences and good luck on the next part of your journey 
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Congrats! I do have one question though: I see a lot of people talking about averaging ~10 days per level, whereas I take a decent bit longer than that on average. So do you, (and others with similar averages) just get the reviews right basically every time? It usually takes me a bit to get it into my brain when I learn new stuff.
And yeah I’m not trying to compare myself to others too much here, just idle curiosity. I am by no means trying to speedrun WK and am fine taking it at my own pace since I have a decently busy daily life.
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To level up as quickly as possible, all you need to do is consistently get the apprentice reviews for kanji and radicals of the current level right. It’s not that hard if you put your mind to it and put extra effort into them. You don’t have to remember them long term, just for 3.5 days, and then you can repeat with the next level.
To further demonstrate, here are my accuracy stats for the last month. As you see, it is possible to level even with really terrible accuracy stats, as long as you do well on the reviews that matter. Notice how I have high accuracy on the apprentice level radical and kanji reviews and terrible accuracy on everything else.
radical:
Overall: 91.9% (124/135)
Apprentice 1: 100.0% (7/7)
Apprentice 2: 100.0% (7/7)
Apprentice 3: 100.0% (9/9)
Apprentice 4: 100.0% (11/11)
Guru 1: 89.5% (17/19)
Guru 2: 91.3% (21/23)
Master: 88.5% (23/26)
Enlightened: 87.9% (29/33)
kanji:
Overall: 89.5% (2481/2772)
Apprentice 1: 99.0% (303/306)
Apprentice 2: 99.4% (313/315)
Apprentice 3: 96.2% (357/371)
Apprentice 4: 95.9% (462/482)
Guru 1: 88.6% (441/498)
Guru 2: 76.7% (323/421)
Master: 80.7% (205/254)
Enlightened: 61.6% (77/125)
vocabulary:
Overall: 77.2% (8830/11432)
Apprentice 1: 74.8% (1002/1340)
Apprentice 2: 87.0% (1171/1346)
Apprentice 3: 84.8% (1702/2006)
Apprentice 4: 83.8% (1748/2087)
Guru 1: 71.4% (1362/1908)
Guru 2: 69.9% (995/1424)
Master: 67.3% (565/839)
Enlightened: 59.1% (285/482)
Overall accuracy: 79.748% (11435/14339)
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Yeah, for most of us normal people, we don’t get 100% on all the apprentice radicals and kanji. I’m perfectly fine with that. I can see how it is feasible if you study the apprentice level stuff more than just the once through that Wanikani gives you initially. I’ve found that the busier my life gets, the more competing time sinks I have, the more difficult it is to retain those initial apprentice level items. Sigh. My goal is to really get the kanji and vocabulary down. It was encouraging to me to hear that lvl 18 is where it starts slowing down on common vocabulary. It helps me define my goal.
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The main reason I chose level 18 as the cutoff is because that’s when you learn 友達, which is a really common word.
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I guess the most important lesson was the friends we made along the way
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I still haven’t managed to make time for non-WK Japanese study in the last week, and WK is still kicking my ass, but I did take another crack at making a Japanese Christmas cake today, and the second try went a lot better.
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I owe you my $80 then. Almost caught by current sale offer, though expect to hit lv60 around next June with currently being on monthly subscription. Thanks for a nice intel from the top! And of cource, congratulations with graduating 
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Yeah, I bought it before reading this.
Too bad, but on the other side I’m lucky enough I can live with it so… more love for Tofugu from my wallet.
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I unlocked the final lessons on Wanikani this evening. It’s crazy to think about how there will be no more lessons again ever. The rigors of the Wanikani schedule several times a day have been a constant presence in my life for nearly a year. It’s hard to believe it’s all over now.
All that’s left is to keep doing reviews until my subscription ends. Now that I’m no longer constantly heaping new lessons onto the pile, my Apprentice count should rapidly drop, although I don’t expect it to go to 0 since I’m constantly missing old reviews as well.
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I did average about 8 days for the first 5 levels I think, but somewhere around level 6 or 7 I decided to ease up on my pace because the reviews piling up was becoming overwhelming and I don’t have a lot of time every day to dedicate to doing large sets of reviews. I also don’t like to let my reviews pile up for just one free day of the week either.
I find that I learn more by making mistakes, and I do make a lot of them on the most recent levels I’ve done but I don’t think it would make the level go much faster if I got them right all the time because I spread my lessons out so much. I like to take my time through the kanji on the level because rushing through my lessons makes it harder for me to keep new kanji straight and I also tend to struggle with similar meaning kanji because of English and its many synonyms - wk yells at me a lot for not being exact.
After I get the kanji in a level past Apprentice IV, I do the vocab lessons in larger chunks since I know their related kanji well by then and then speed through the next level’s radicals before slowing down again for the kanji.
I’m late to the party but well congratulations!!! 
That’s a crazy speed run and your graph shows fantastic numbers.
that’s really some achievement.
Really like your idea of going fast then slow down.
Best of luck on the next chapter of your language learning journey.
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Update: In case anyone wants a better idea of my Japanese ability after a year of Wanikani and other study, I took a bunch of JLPT practice tests yesterday to gauge my progress.
I’d say I’m N4 overall, but a N1 in kanji knowledge (thanks to WK) and an N5 in grammar.
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Congratulations!
“Expecting to look at the kanji once during the lessons and get them perfectly four hours later just doesn’t work.”
This is my biggest gripe with WaniKani. I wish you could flash card your lessons after they are complete.
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