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Pro & credits

What Pro unlocks

shì bàn gōng bèi — “Half the effort, twice the result”

Everything behind the paywall, feature by feature, so you can tell whether you need it.

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A plan unlocks content. That is the whole of it: the parts of a lesson past the opening, the exams, the practice studios and the specialised modules. It is a separate thing from AI credits, which pay per-use for the features that call a live model. This article is the feature-by-feature boundary, including the large amount that stays free.

What is free, permanently

The reference half of the site needs no account and no plan. It is not a trial and it does not expire.

  • The dictionary — Over 13,000 entries, every one with pinyin, meanings, stroke order, examples and audio. Read the whole thing. Open it.
  • Grammar — Every grammar point, with structures, examples, common mistakes and exercises. Open it.
  • Culture — History, art, philosophy, traditions and festivals. Open it.
  • Learning materials — Radicals, the pinyin table, stroke order, tones, calendars, names and numbers. Open them.
  • One full mock test per level — Mock Test 1 of every HSK level is free — a complete paper in the official format, sat under real exam conditions. Browse them.
  • The first part of every lesson — Each HSK lesson opens for free, including its podcast — which is recorded audio, free to play, and costs you no credits. You can read a lesson at any level before deciding whether the rest is worth paying for.
  • Spaced-repetition flashcards — The review deck itself is free with an account — 20 cards a day, scheduled by FSRS, costing no credits on any plan. Pro lifts the daily ceiling. Open it.
  • Your progress — Checkpoints, XP, streaks and stats are yours regardless of plan.

What a Pro plan adds

Pro opens the rest of the course and the practice surfaces built on top of it.

The learner pricing section, headed ‘Plans & Pricing’ over ‘For Learners 学习者’, with a Monthly / Yearly toggle — Monthly selected, a green ‘Save up to 54%’ badge beside Yearly — and a line noting prices exclude VAT and any tax is added at checkout. Three cards sit below it, every row marked with a green tick, a gold star or a grey cross. Free, 免费, $0, subtitled ‘Your personalized plan + 300 AI credits a month’ under an outlined ‘Explore for Free’ button, ticks the full Chinese dictionary, the complete grammar library, Chinese culture and history, and learning materials and stroke-order animations; stars a personalised study plan from your onboarding, 300 AI credits a month for speaking and tutor chat, spaced-repetition flashcards at 20 reviews a day and seven full lessons — one at every HSK level; ticks one HSK mock-test paper per level, the unit 1 exam at every level, the first reading passage and writing exercise of each level, three of seven Learning Lab facets, and XP, achievements and streaks; and crosses out all 1,101 HSK lessons in full and the learning modules. Pro, 专业, $15 a month under a ‘Most popular’ ribbon and a ‘7-day free trial · billed monthly’ line, opens with ‘Everything in Free’ and adds all HSK 1–9 structured lessons, every HSK mock-test paper and all 124 unit exams, the reading library of graded passages, the listening library with comprehension and dictation, pronunciation scoring on your own recordings, five of seven Learning Lab facets, the beginner modules (Survival, Everyday, WeChat, HSK 1–2), sharing up to three boards by link, unlimited flashcards and SRS practice, writing practice, AI speaking, tutor chat and roleplay at 1,500 AI credits a month, the learning calendar with insights and HSK progress, XP, achievements and challenges, and custom sound, haptics and offline access. Pro Plus, 进阶, $27 a month under a gold ‘Best value’ ribbon, opens with ‘Everything in Pro’ and adds the career modules — Business, Diplomatic, Tech, Tourism, Academic and Media — all seven Learning Lab facets including Speaking and Writing, unlimited shared board links, far more AI speaking, tutor chat and roleplay at 12,000 AI credits a month, a priority generation queue and early access to new modules. Each paid card ends on a starred ‘≈’ line turning its credit figure into rough usage — ‘generous everyday’ practice on Pro, ‘heavy daily’ use and four times the Pro allowance on Pro Plus — and carries a ‘Start 7-day free trial’ button. A ‘See full Learners pricing’ link sits under the three cards.
Each paid card inherits the one before it — Pro opens on ‘Everything in Free’, Pro Plus on ‘Everything in Pro’ — so every line beneath that first row is what the card adds, not everything it holds. That is why the dearest card carries much the shortest list: those few rows are the entire distance between $15 and $27 a month. The credit rows, and the ‘≈’ line each paid card closes on, are the ones buying uses rather than content — and on Free the figure reads ‘a month’ in both places it appears, so it is a standing allowance, not a one-off to get started.
  • The full lesson — Every section from Understanding onward — the explanation, the deeper vocabulary and grammar treatment, the cultural notes and the practice. On a free account these are locked; the opening and the podcast are the taster.
  • The rest of the unit exams — Unit 1’s exam is free at every level; the other 117 are Pro. They check whether a unit actually landed, in the official format.
  • The rest of the mock tests — Mock Test 1 of each level is free; Mock Tests 2 and up are Pro. Every paper is original content written to the official structure, sittable in timed exam mode or untimed practice mode. Browse them.
  • Unlimited flashcard reviews — The scheduled review deck is free with any account, capped at 20 cards a day. Pro takes the ceiling off, which is what a real backlog needs — words come back at the point you are about to forget them, however many of them there are.
  • The speaking studio and AI tutor — Conversation practice with a tutor that talks back, plus the free-form discussion space.
  • The pronunciation trainer — Recording yourself and getting scored on tones and syllables, attempt by attempt.
A faintly striped grey panel on the flashcards page. A red kicker reads ‘FREE WITH AN ACCOUNT’ above the heading ‘Spaced Repetition’, with a small padlock ‘SIGN IN’ badge in the top right corner. The paragraph beneath reads ‘Review your saved vocabulary with FSRS-scheduled flashcards that resurface each word at the perfect moment, and earn XP as you master them. Free accounts review 20 cards a day; Pro removes the limit.’ Below it sit three outlined pills — ‘FSRS scheduling’, ‘Mastery tracking’ and ‘Earn XP’ — then a red ‘Create a free account’ button and an underlined link, ‘Or see what Pro unlocks’.
This is the signed-out state, and the only one that shows this panel. A signed-in free account gets the real deck with ‘20 of 20 reviews left today’ above it — the ceiling is on volume, not on access.

What Pro Plus adds on top

Pro Plus is Pro plus the specialised material and a much larger credit allowance — 12,000 a month against Pro’s 3,000. If you use the AI features heavily, that difference is the main reason to consider it.

  • The specialised modules — Chinese for business, technology, tourism, media, academia and diplomacy — six subject modules outside the HSK lesson ladder, though each sets an HSK floor. Browse them.
  • A four-times larger credit allowance — Enough to talk to your tutor daily, score every pronunciation attempt and rebuild your plan whenever you want, without watching the balance.
The ‘Add-on Modules’ grid, nine cards in three rows, each with a tier badge and an HSK floor in its top right corner. The top row carries a red ‘Pro’ badge: Survival Chinese (HSK 1+, 10 lessons, ~8h), Everyday Conversations (HSK 1+, 12 lessons, ~14h) and WeChat Chinese (HSK 2+, 10 lessons, ~12h). The six cards below carry a gold ‘Pro Plus’ badge — Tourism (HSK 2+), Technology (HSK 4+), Business (HSK 4+), Media (HSK 5+), Academic (HSK 5+) and Diplomatic Chinese (HSK 6+) — ranging from 12 lessons and ~15h to 20 lessons and ~30h. A ‘View All Modules’ link sits under the grid.
The badge is per module, not per HSK level: WeChat Chinese and Tourism Chinese both start at HSK 2+, and one is Pro while the other is Pro Plus. The three beginner modules come with Pro; the other six subject modules are the Pro Plus tier.

What a plan does not cover

Worth being explicit, because it is the most common misunderstanding. A plan does not buy unlimited AI. The AI tutor, pronunciation scoring, handwriting checks, exam grading and study-plan generation are paid for in credits, per use, on every plan including Pro Plus.

The reasoning is in AI credits explained, and the per-feature prices are in what each AI feature costs. The short version: content costs the same to serve however many people read it, and AI does not, so the two are billed differently.

If you are teaching, parenting or buying for a school

Tutor, parent and institution accounts are priced separately, because what they add is seats and oversight rather than content. A tutor or parent account is also a full learner account — you keep your own lessons and progress alongside the people you are following.

PricingCurrent plans, all account typesFor tutorsCircles, homework and learner progressFor institutionsCohorts, seats and reporting

Common questions

You can read the opening of every lesson at every level, including its podcast, on a free account. Everything from the Understanding section onward needs a plan. The contents list still shows you what those sections are.

Continue learning

Plans comparedFree, Pro and Pro Plus side by side, plus the separate plans for tutors, parents and schools.AI credits explainedWhat a credit is, where your starting balance came from, and why it went down by 15.Trials, renewals and cancellingHow the trial works, when you are charged, and how to cancel without losing your progress.Specialized modulesBusiness, diplomatic, academic and other vocabularies, for when general HSK is not the goal.