Alright, I started WaniKani quite a while ago, maybe a month or two ago, and I’ve enjoyed the kanji immensely and enjoy the style of learning this site exposes me to. Although, I’ve reached the end of the free trial. I don’t know if I should just buy the lifetime or if maybe the monthly would be better for the price. Any reccomendations?
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If you can afford lifetime, it’s a safe bet. You don’t really know how long you’ll take to finish yet. And most people that buy lifetime still seem glad they did even if they took less than the break-even time to finish.
Also, there’s usually an annual sale on Lifetime in late December ($100 off, I think), So you could either wait until then, or buy 1 month then get lifetime.
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Lifetime when it’s on sale for sure. No regurts.
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Thanks, I think ill buy it when it’s on sale then
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if the currency ratio is not huge you should buy lifetime, I had to pay for a year because it was way cheaper than lifetime, besides, as soon as I hit lvl 60 I will have to find another tool for kanji/vocab so i dont see meaning to keep lifetime anyway.
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It really depends on how fast you go through Wanikani. If you’re using it for longer than 2 years, the lifetime subscription is cheaper when it’s on sale in Decemer (2 years = $180, lifetime discount = $199).
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Personally, I would stick with the monthly subscription for a little while before committing to a several-hundred-dollar purchase. The drop-out rate for WaniKani (and Japanese learning in general) is… not low.
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From personal experience learning outside and inside WaniKani I would say getting more than the yearly subscription is somewhat debatable.
Yes, WaniKani is super valuable as a kanji learning tool, but one can learn kanji outside as well and the more you do, the more the returns on WaniKani diminish. Eventually you might get tired of trying to fit a kanji or word to a single gloss/answer and will understand the language more organically.
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Considering like 90% people quit the first year, if not more, taking a year is probably a bit over-optimistic.
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I love WaniKani and very glad I got the lifetime awhile back. Things happen in life so sometimes you have to step away, but you don’t have to worry about paying ever again. Plus the Extra Study feature that they added has in my opinion made WK even more useful and effective.
I’ve slowly been able to read/understand more so WaniKani in definitely worth getting lifetime for.
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I agree! Even if you learn all of the kanji, you might want to review periodically. If something happens, like your computer goes down and you can’t afford to get a new one right away, you don’t have to worry about having to pay for WK all over again. Lifetime was definitely right for me, and I’ve been using it for several years now.
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For what it’s worth, I didn’t buy lifetime at first (I was still completing the first three levels at the time of the winter sale), and I ended up really regretting it. I could tell pretty early on that WK worked well for me, and that I had the enthusiasm to keep going, but I followed WK’s own advice and held off 
.
I ended up buying a yearly subscription (thankfully they gave me a really good discount on it because it was soon enough after the winter sale ended), and then I bought lifetime last year at the discounted price. I didn’t have to pay for the portion of my yearly subscription that I hadn’t used yet when I upgraded.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to know at the beginning of your studies whether WK is the right tool for you, or whether you’ll even end up sticking it out with Japanese in general. So you do run that risk when buying lifetime. For me, it was the right choice.
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I have mixed views on this. I bought my lifetime sub after spending a year paying monthly to see if it was something I would commit to and about a month later I burned out really hard. I am back though, so I didn’t lose money per se. But even if I finish at my current pace it would be under 3 years of WK. Which would be less than the cost of the lifetime. No one can predict where their life is gonna take them 3 years out let alone a year unless your in some contract job. Even then life can throw you curve balls.
TL;DR It really comes down to your actual commitment to learning Japanese. I am pretty much at the phase where I am too far now to really go back but not far enough that I can just ignore study resources completely.
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I think I’ve seen the staff work things out in situations where that is a major problem. If op does have that problem they should try the contact form, the worst that happens is that the staff say no… and scream at me for giving them more tickets to respond to
As a side note, I literally started using jpdb’s srs yesterday in part because I figured it would be a better long term solution.
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You could pay monthly until the typical Christmas/year-end sale… That’s what I did. I had a few more months, but I think you’ll only have a month or so before the sale starts. In your case, you shouldn’t purchase the lifetime before the sale.
For me, I knew that a lifetime account would be beneficial, because (a) I wouldn’t (won’t) have to rush, (b) Japanese is going to be part of my life for the rest of my lifetime, and (c) I want to have access to the resources and potentially may review more items late.
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I’ll be yet another person recommending lifetime if you can afford it.
It usually goes on sale around the end of the year, so if you can wait a bit, you can get it at a discount.
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