You can, yep, you get a selector for what level to reset to 
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i got yearly right away because i’d read xmas would have lifetime on sale and i got lifetime the day it came out! i think i’d cry if i did not have WK anymore lol!
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Dec 2018 I’d just started
Dec 2019 I’d taken a break
Dec 2020 I finally did it
Paid for WK all that intervening time… if I’d just got the lifetime when I started, it would have paid for it self in terms of monthly cost by the time I finally got it, but que sera. I didn’t make the same mistake with Kitsun, got lifetime the moment it went on sale the first time 
With lifetime for LingoDeer bought ages ago, the only monthly Japanese thing going out now is Bunpro, but that’s only like £2.50
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When the Christmas deal came around
I actually held off buying any plan for almost half a year because I heard about that deal. I do not recommend doing that though, because after I bought the lifetime plan I realised how much kanji I could have learnt had I bitten the bullet earlier. 
As for my reasons, I don’t like time pressure, hence ruling out the subscriptions, and the original price of the lifetime plan was too expensive.
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I chose a year to begin with after level 3, and im kinda glad i did, not that i need it right now, but i know that paying for a year will give me a little bit of extra motivation to keep going if i ever feel demotivated. I will probably end up getting the lifetime, but then i feel like if i ever become super de-motivated, i may use the excuse ‘i can come back to it whenever because i have it for life’ whereas i can’t say that with the year subscription. May not be a reason for other people, but feel like its a good little kick every now and then
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Christmas deal. It’s only slightly more than two years, and I noticed most people reported just over 2 years to level 60.
Seemed easy enough
I didn’t know about the December sale because I initially took interest in Japanese during the first week of January. Even so the lifetime bundle is not for me. Even with that $100 discount it’s still less efficient than the annual package unless I drag my feet on WaniKani for over two years. If I really want to finish burning lingering items there’s always KameSame.
Every dollar counts. Gotta brace my bank account for the day that my linguistic ability to communicate with a certain necromancer through superchats overtakes my self control…
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I want life time but I just can’t afford it even at the sale time.
Too much money in one go.
Overall the better deal is lifetime.
As soon as my first month of paid ended. It happened to be during the 30% off Christmas sale. I was quite happy with the service and I figured I would regret not getting the lifetime plan. The amount of time and effort this website saves me is well worth the cost, personally.
I got mine almost the day I started. My executive functioning sucks. I prefer one-time payments to monthly payments because I never remember to cancel monthly payments. I knew I’d be using this site for a long time, so I figured I’d come out ahead if I just ripped that Band-Aid off immediately.
I’d just finished university when I started WaniKani so I couldn’t afford putting out the price of a Lifetime subscription all at once. So I remained on monthly subscriptions for about two years until I finally got employed and could afford to pay using my own money rather than my parent’s money. Of course, I waited for the annual discount. I knew that I would be spending years on this.
(See, I’ve even had to reset my account back to level 1 because I took a 1 1/2 year vacation.)
The year was 2013. I’d been a member since October, and when December rolled around with the sale, I, sitting in my new home furnished with only a twin bed, a camping chair, and a bottle of wine, figured somewhat tipsily that if I’d already spent a few hundred grand that month what could a few hundred dollars hurt.
…the next month I started my masters program and promptly spent the next 4.5 years burning myself out in a constant repetition of work–>commute–>school and only made it level 13 by the end of it.
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I started with a subscription to WK maybe around October or November a year or two ago. When it came time to renew my subscription, I did the math for my speed and the cost and realized lifetime (with the winter sale would be cheaper). I did a monthly subscription for a month or two and then got lifetime during the sale this past winter.
I was almost in your exact position when I got into WK. I studied for 1-1/2 years then studied abroad for 6 months. I used WK for several months on the yearly plan before switching to the lifetime plan on sale. They prorated me the unused time back on the yearly plan as well. I think what you said is best, see if you stick with it for a couple months. If it becomes an integral part of your japanese studying then consider getting it on sale 
Where did you study by the way? I was at Waseda University.
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That’s super cool, I did a semester at Sophia! Waseda was one of the schools my basketball circle had practice matches with that season!
I’d love it if WaniKani would do some sort of gift-card service. I have a couple of friends who are trying to learn Japanese and I’ve been begging them to give WaniKani a try!
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How long? Immediately after Level 3.
When I found it. Fortunately, it was December so I could get it on sale, but any program that I like that has a lifetime subscription I buy so I don’t have to track yet another subscription service if I know I will be using it for a long time. I am lucky enough to have a version of Adobe Photoshop CS6 just before they became a BS subscription, so I will buy any lifetimes I can afford if I am going to use it after learning that cost ineffective lesson after trying out the Creative Suite subscription.
Other services I bought? BunPro and LingoDeer Plus. Fortunately, I had bought coffee for LingoDeer during development and I got the lifetime for free. Yay!
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Like many others, i bought when it went on sale after being on monthly for… 8 months. So ultimately I didn’t really save myself much haha but basically I decided it was worth it because even once i finish going through this once, i can see my self resetting and doing it again - at least from level 30 or so. Remebering kanji is very much use it or lose it and even though I am reading plenty now, being able to comeback and review here I think will be useful.
(Side note, I bought the life time for bunpro almost immediately given its currentrly cheaper, though the fact that N1 is incomplete has become a bit trobulesome for me. Had to adjust my studies to tailor to what is currently available as opposed to N2 where I could just trust the grammar in Try! N2 would be there - but depending on your current level this could be a nonissue if you wont reach N1 before they finish it)
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I’m gonna work this summer so I’ll possibly hide away some money from that until the next sale or else I’ll just got for the 1 year subscription, because I doubt it would take much more than a year from there. But, I was considering it yesterday because I wanted to see about how much money of what I make this summer to put on my studying.
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I started with the free trial period around December 2019. Then came the discount for the yearly plan and jumped immediately for the chance. I never paid monthly.