I have a question.
What payment method are you using for wanikani? Which is the best way to pay and use Wanikani. monthly? yearly? In your experience oh 大先輩たち what do you suggest I do?
I dove in and paid for the lifetime subscription.
After level 3, you can decide whether that, the annual or the monthly subscription works for you.
They accept credit card payments. Although, you can also email hello@wanikani.com if you really need to pay by check/paypal/blood sacrifice.
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Was it worth the lifetime membership? Are you getting the most out of it?
It is for me because this way, I can choose to learn at my own pace and not worry about my subscription running out. This also gives me more freedom to reset levels if needed.
But really, I just wanted a badge in my favorite color…
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I bought a yearly subscription. I’m planning to get through the whole thing by two years. Hoping to at least!
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I got the Lifetime subscription when it was on sale, so it was worth about two and a quarter years under the annual membership. Since that’s almost precisely how long the WaniKani Stats page says it’ll take me to burn everything, I guess I got a good deal.
Edit: Wait, just occurred to me that as a TextFugu Lifetimer, I could have gotten 50% off an annual subscription. D’oh.
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A monthly plan is mostly useful when you can’t go for yearly/lifetime at the moment of buying, but you still wanna learn stuff and not wait.
I would say lifetime is worth it for 99% of users that end up actually not giving up. WaniKani can deliver you one thing: learn 2000+ kanji and 6000+ vocab in way less time compared to natives. Trust me, it really delivers what it promises! But it requires daily hard work from your behalf.
If you wanna make a compromise with WaniKani and test how it will work with you, go for yearly. You won’t be giving too much money and you still get to see if you stay committed. A lot of people buy lifetime and disappear after a while. After all, they have forever to finish WK and it’s not particularly easy to stay committed every day for most.
If you eventually see that going for lifetime is more than worth the price, you can always upgrade. The WK team automatically discounts you the remaining of your subscription in the cost of the lifetime upgrade. Also, during Christmas, they usually offer a 100 dollars discount, so that could end up being a good time to upgrade from yearly to lifetime. Even if you end up finishing WK in 1 year (99,99% don’t), you’ll still be able to access future upgrades by being lifetime.
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I’m a TextFugu lifer too but… PURPLE. BADGE. 
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Always the voice of reason, you are.
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I want to put this out there, but it’s going to vary a lot from person to person. I feel that a lifetime subscription takes the pressure off and sometimes leads to people putting off progressing because there isn’t the pressure of “I’m paying for this so I have to keep at it or I’m wasting my money.” Just something to consider, I think.
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Unrelated but, how often do you rotate?
Never. Everyone else does!
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Yeah, the pressure of paying 25 cents a day xD
365 days/$90= $0,25
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It’s still pressure though. It’s the same as paying 15 dollars a month for an mmo and feeling like you have to play it or you’re wasting money.
Maybe it isn’t the cost but the idea that they can use the site forever, but I do feel like I see a lot of people with lifetime subscriptions puttering out and resetting. I just think it’s something to think about when considering the lifetime subscription.
Edit: Just want to add that I’m not criticising anyone. Some of my friends are among the people that have stalled and/or reset. And one of them reset on a recurring subscription. Sometimes it’s not about motivation, but whether life gets in the way or not.
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For some people I’m sure that would help with keeping on top of their work.
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Meanwhile other people have motivations that would push them hard regardless. That’s why I said it’s going to vary a lot from person to person.
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Sure, I agree 
I was just offering the other side of the story because it’s less commented.
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Thank you this is super good information! Ok i think im going to get the yearly and see how my progress is until Christmas and then if its going well ill get lifetime!
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I started in early November and was finishing up the free levels by the end of the month and heard lifetime would likely go on sale for the end of the year, so I went for a month and then jumped into lifetime during the sale. The timing worked out for me. Likely otherwise I would have gone annual. @Borx makes an excellent point that having money on the line often will keep me motivated (exercise classes especially come to mind), but for me, there’s enough here to keep me hooked and I don’t have to worry about canceling a subscription when it’s all said and done, especially on the off chance they ever happen to expand again.
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