10 minutes a day is all it takes.
No hidden fees. No XP packs. No lives to buy. Two tiers, both honest.
No credit card required. No time limit.
Use it forever. Really.
Cancel anytime. No contracts.
30-day refund policy. No questions asked.
Teacher dashboard with student progress tracking, class analytics, and bulk invite.
Minimum 5 students
Up to 30 students
Students in your class can upgrade to Premium ($4.99/mo) for advanced analytics and exports. You earn 25% of each upgrade for up to 24 months.
Less than a single baozi from a street vendor in Taipei.
| Method | Cost |
|---|---|
| Private tutor (1 hour/week) | $120-240/mo |
| University course (per semester) | $1,500-5,000 |
| Textbook (one-time, no feedback) | $30-50 |
| Skritter | $15/mo |
| Hack Chinese | $15/mo |
| HelloChinese | $10/mo |
| Duolingo Super | $7/mo |
| Aelu (Full Access) | $14.99/mo |
44 drill types, adaptive scheduling, graded reading, listening practice, HSK projection, and encounter-based review. No per-session fees. One price, everything included.
Yes. The free tier includes HSK 1-2 content, all 44 drill types, graded reading, and listening practice with no time limit. It is not a trial. If HSK 1-2 is where you are, use it for as long as you need. There is no pressure to upgrade, and nothing gets locked behind a timer.
Your progress is never deleted. If you cancel Full Access, you keep all your data and revert to the free tier. Your HSK 1-2 drills, scores, and reading history stay exactly as they are. If you re-subscribe later, everything picks up right where you left off.
Yes. $149/year — that's about $12.42/month, saving you $30 over monthly billing. You can switch from monthly to annual anytime from your account settings.
Yes. If you are not satisfied within the first 30 days, email us and we will refund your payment in full. No hoops, no retention offers, no forms to fill out.
Payments are processed through Stripe. You can pay with any major credit or debit card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express). Apple Pay and Google Pay are also supported where available.
The web interface works on mobile browsers right now. A dedicated mobile app is on the roadmap, but the priority is getting the core learning experience right first. When it ships, it will be included in your existing plan at no extra cost.
The system adapts to you, not the other way around. When you start, you will take a short diagnostic that identifies where you actually are, which may not line up neatly with a single HSK level. Your drills are scheduled based on what you know and what you struggle with, not on a rigid curriculum boundary.
Yes. Classroom pricing starts at $8/student/month (minimum 5 students) or $200/semester for up to 30 students. Teachers get a dashboard with student progress, accuracy tracking, struggle-area analytics, and class-wide performance data. Sign up as a teacher to get started.
Those apps are built to maximize daily engagement. Aelu is built to maximize how much Chinese you retain. There are 44 drill types instead of matching exercises, encounter-based scheduling instead of fixed repetition, and graded reading with real passages instead of fabricated sentences. The system tracks what you actually struggle with and adjusts. No gamification, no social pressure.
When you read a graded passage or listen to audio, every word you look up gets logged. Your next drill session prioritizes those words. So instead of drilling a textbook list, you are drilling words you actually encountered and needed help with. That is the cleanup loop: encounter, look up, drill, retain.
If the free tier is all you need, that is genuinely fine.