What it costs, and why
Two plans, both with everything in them. They differ only in how much you talk. Every plan starts with a free trial and nothing is charged until it ends.
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The short answer
Standard is US$39.99 a month or US$399 a year. Premium is US$74.99 a month or US$749 a year, and gives you double the conversation time. Both include every language, every tutor, Travel Mode and everything else; the only difference is how much you talk. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial, nothing is charged until it ends, and you can cancel from your phone in about fifteen seconds.
The two plans
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Conversation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | US$39.99 | US$399, saving 17% | Generous conversation time |
| Premium | US$74.99 | US$749, saving 17% | Double the conversation time |
Everything else is identical: all 17 languages, all five tutors in each, live reference cards during the conversation, a written reflection after every session, the adaptive engine, and Travel Mode. We do not hold features back to sell you a higher tier.
Why it costs what a tutor costs
Almost every AI speaking app of the last two years is priced against Duolingo, somewhere between five and twenty dollars a month. That is a sensible business decision and it sets a hard ceiling on what can be built underneath it. A few dollars a month buys a text pipeline, a stock voice and a topic list. It does not buy a live audio model running for the length of every conversation, and it does not buy an authored curriculum in seventeen languages.
We chose the other end deliberately. The thing Well Versed is built to substitute for is not a cheaper app, it is the hour a week you might otherwise spend with a private tutor at forty to sixty dollars an hour.
So the honest way to read US$39.99 is as roughly one hour with a private tutor, per month, in exchange for a tutor that is available at eleven at night, never makes you feel slow, remembers everything you have struggled with, and comes with you on the trip. If you were never going to book a tutor, this is expensive. If you were, it is not.
What actually gets metered
A live conversation costs us real money for every minute it runs, which is unusual for an app and is the single fact that shapes the pricing. So plans carry a cap.
The cap is on spend rather than on a number of minutes, and it runs on a rolling weekly window rather than a calendar month, which stops the whole allowance being saved up for one very long sitting. The usage bar in the app shows you where you are as a percentage.
We deliberately do not print a minute figure next to the price. We could estimate one, and any number we gave you would be an estimate rather than a promise, because how far it goes depends on how much you talk, how long the tutor talks back, and what the underlying models cost us that month. Printing it would turn a guess into something that reads like a guarantee. It is not unlimited, and we are not going to imply that it is.
If you do reach the cap, the app tells you plainly and tells you when it resets. Nothing is quietly degraded, and no session is cut off mid-conversation.
The trial
Every plan starts with 7 days free. Nothing is charged until the trial ends, and you can cancel any time before then at no cost. The trial has a smaller allowance than a paid plan, which is enough to have several real conversations and find out whether talking out loud suits you.
Subscriptions are handled by Apple, so cancelling happens in your iPhone settings rather than by emailing us, and we could not make it difficult even if we wanted to.
Annual, and whether it is worth it
Annual saves 17%, which is a shallower discount than most of this category offers. That is deliberate. We would rather keep the standing price honest and run occasional promotions than advertise a large permanent discount that is really just the actual price with a higher number next to it.
Take annual if you already know this is a habit you want. Take monthly if you are not sure, and switch later. Language learning has a high dropout rate and paying for a year in advance is not automatically the frugal choice.
Who should not pay for this
If you are an absolute beginner with no vocabulary at all, spend a few weeks with something free first. Duolingo is genuinely good at building the first thousand words and costs nothing, and you will get more from a conversation once you have something to say.
If cost is the binding constraint, Langua and Talkpal are both a fraction of the price and both work. And if you can face booking a human on italki, a good human teacher is still better than any of this.
Well Versed runs on iPhone and iPad, with Android coming shortly.
We would rather tell you that than take a subscription you cancel in three weeks.