It seems that you are very committed to finishing Wanikani. If that is the case you may as well go for the lifetime while it’s on sale. I just got it myself yesterday, I’ve been studying Japanese at university for two years and I just found this program. My biggest regret is that I didn’t find it sooner.
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I say go for it. I was bummed that I found out about WK last February. The sale was already over for a good month but I already knew I wanted to buy lifetime once I did my due diligence research as well as trying out the free levels. Luckily I was given a 50% code by @CyrusS when I paid for annual.
I am on a budget but figured that it was easier to save up for lifetime back in February 2019. I just had to cut out some eating out from then till now and I figured I will be okay. I just bought lifetime yesterday and just breathed a sigh of relief that my studies can continue even if a life event happens in the future. Hopefully I would not have the need to pause/reset.
I also used wkstats and it was projecting that it will take me 2-3 years to get to 60 so I figured the dollar savings was warranted. The peace of mind of not having to rush was just icing to the cake. I am a lifelong learner of languages anyway so knowing that I can still go back and resurrect burned items was a nice capability I just enabled by going lifetime.
All the best on your decision making! You have until January 8 to decide. 
PS - it’s nice to have a purple ring on your level too! 
edit: did not realize you already have lifetime 
oh well, not gonna delete this now… 
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Where in the website did you go to see that at your current pace it will take you three years to complete? I’m also tempted by the lifetime membership. Knowing how long I’m projected out to complete could help me make that choice.
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I took advantage of the lifetime sale. It will be at least 3+ years for me to finish at the rate I’m going. I’m not trying to speed through this. Some days I don’t even try learning new kanji but keep drilling the ones I struggle with.
They pro-rated my yearly subscription into the deal, and it wound up being only $154 so I’m happy with that.
Plus, I’ll probably reset it when I finish and let my wife start her journey learning Japanese.
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Hi @911pandora I went to the site below. I also included the original site in case you prefer it. Just be sure to follow the instructions so that your date gets ported over. There is a ton of information on these sites so I hope it aids you in your kanji journey!
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Is Satori Reader worth checking out?
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Make a free account, look at a couple of the stories and decide for yourself. I dont have a free account yet, but I think its something to look at.
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My advice is, ask yourself what will cause you the least stress going forward:
I bought a WaniKani lifetime account when times were good, and I’m glad I did, because it means I don’t feel rushed about completing it now, and I don’t need to worry about future payments.
However, there have definitely been quite a few times in my life when spending that much money simply wouldn’t have been feasible, because I was already struggling to afford a semi-comfortable lifestyle. If that’s where you’re at right now, I’d advise you to consider holding off for now.
Particularly if you’re expecting your economic situation to pick up in the next year or two (such as if you’re currently a student, or making the last payments on a loan), so that you can envision a point where a lifetime account is easily affordable to you.
Basically: Make sound investments, but not just money-wise; smaller payments may cost more money in the long run, but the stress of being broke is likely to have a stronger negative impact.
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I don’t know who necro-bumped this topic, but the question was from last year. It is a good time to bring it back, and possibly help others answer the same question for themselves this year, but I thought it good to throw that out there just so we don’t all bloat OP’s notifications with a year-old topic.
Giving people notifications over year-old topics aside, I enjoyed reading through this thread. I bought lifetime today because I knew with my pace and learning style it would be worth it, but actually seeing the invoice for $199 USD made me start to doubt if I’d really made the right decision. Reading this thread reminded me of all the reasons I chose to buy lifetime, and that was nice.
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Since apparently @anon9242278 thinks I am @plantron, I must respond. Satori Reader – The Tofugu Review
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Huh, and here I thought it was from yesterday, since the top post says “Dec '18” 
I think I saw a similar case yesterday where somebody thought a post was from 2017, because it was dated “Dec 17”.
That li’l apostrophe makes a whole lotta difference.
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Totally wasn’t @plantron and I or anything 
Unless you think I am plantron, in which case, it would be completely my fault
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The answer is yes. Go check it out. They will probably have a sale soon, so keep an eye on that as well.
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Yes. Resurrecting burned items is a good thing. I want to go through and test myself and see if I need to do that! Especially with the amount of burns items I am at! Lifetime! Yey! Plus, I have used the vacation feature once so that was nice. There was just no way I was going to get all that done on an actual vacation!
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This was quite a while ago, but there are third party websites and a bunch of add ons that can tell you extra stats.
I was just about to go looking for it and link it!
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It is totally okay! I promise! This was a question and concern that I had last year and if it helps people this year then great! Don’t worry! I always find old posts that still help me from other people.
I am glad I went with the Lifetime. For any of you wondering. It is a year later and I don’t regret it. It is an ease on the mind to not rush. I do my reviews every day and add lessons when my Apprentice stack gets to a certain number, meaning I’m ready to move on comfortably. It means I may be doing WaniKani for a while, but that is okay! As long as this website holds out!!! I am at the Level now where, honestly, I need to be focusing more on Grammar. I bought a Genki book and really need to start delving more into it. Any tips on Grammar would be appreciated.
Anyway, for any of you wondering if the Lifetime is worth it, ask yourself if you are serious about learning Kanji. Have you enjoyed the first 3 levels? Does the SRS learning system work for you and do you learn best with mnemonics(I have always learned well with mnemonics)? Is the amount of money feasible? Will you regret not taking advantage of the discount(Only once a year)?
Hope you like WaniKani the way I have and choose what is best for you!
Happy 漢字 Learning!!!
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Once you get past very basic grammar, start reading with an active book club. It’s so much easier to learn grammar after you come across it in context, and people in book clubs are very helpful. Just search “book club” on here–there are lots.
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Where on the stats site does it say how long it’ll take you to finish WaniKani?
You mean on WKStats? Unfortunately, the projections page has not been reimplemented in the new version yet - and the old version is out of order now…
But you can calculate that for yourself if you want - have a look at your current level-up duration, take it with a grain of salt and multiply by 60 - that would be the fastest you can get right now. You can see the durations here after you entered your API key: wkstats
(but levels 1 and 2 are faster than the levels after them, so you’d need to keep that in mind and only look at your level 3 time, I guess)
If you want to know how you can get to level 60 really fast, you can check out this guide 
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