Saygood › Comparisons

Saygood vs everything else

Eleven honest head-to-heads. Every price read off the US App Store on the same day, every platform labelled, and on every page a section listing what the other app does better than we do.

Prices verified 30 July 2026 · US iOS App Store
If you only read one paragraph

Most language apps teach. Saygood does not — it gives you someone to talk to, live, in 20+ languages, on what behaves like a phone call. If you are starting from zero, almost every app on this page is a better first purchase than we are, and each comparison says so by name. If you have done the course and still freeze the moment someone speaks to you, that gap is the only thing we built for.

What everything costs

US iOS App Store pricing, all read on 30 July 2026. Several of these apps charge less on their own websites than through the App Store — sometimes half. Always compare like for like.
AppMonthlyAnnual Free tierOpen-ended live voice
Saygood$29.99$199.99 (~$17/mo)10 minutes of calling, totalYes — the call is the whole product
DuolingoSuper: $9.99 and $12.99 SKUs both live. Max: not publishedSuper: $83.99 / $95.99 / $119.99 depending on the offer you land onGenerous — the whole course, with ads and an energy limitVideo Call with Lily — Max tier only, and a fixed set of scenarios
SpeakPremium $17.99 · Plus $39.99Premium $83.99 · Plus $164.99Limited trial of the courseAI tutor roleplays, structured around lessons
TalkPal$19.99 on iOS — the web price is lower$119.99 on iOS10 minutes per day, recurringYes — genuinely open-ended, and on the main tier
Babbel$17.99$89.99 one language · $107.99 all languagesFirst lesson of each courseNo — speech recognition on scripted prompts
LanguaCommunicate $19.99 · Unlimited $29.99Communicate $149.99 · Unlimited $199.993 minutes of calling per day, plus ~20 messages a weekYes — genuinely open-ended
Praktika$9.99 — cheapest here$49.99, $119.99 and $139.99 all listed concurrentlyLimited trialYes, with an animated avatar
HelloTalkVIP $12.99VIP $79.99Very generous — the core product is freeVoice calls with real people, when they are free and willing
Pimsleur$20.99$164.99TrialNo — you speak into a scripted pause
Busuu$23.49$138.99Limited course accessNo — recorded speaking exercises, corrected by the community
JumpspeakNot published in Apple's IAP list — check in-appLifetime $499 on iOS vs $299 on the webTrialAI conversation practice, turn-based
Memrise$24.99$61.99 · Lifetime $329.99LimitedAI chat partner, turn-based

Saygood is the most expensive app on this list — tied with Langua's Unlimited tier, and above everything else on it. That is not an accident and it is not a positioning trick: a live voice call costs money for every minute you are on it, in a way that serving lesson screens does not. If you want the cheapest way to learn a language, it is on this page and it is not us.

The comparisons

Saygood vs Duolingothe default. 500-million-download scale, a real course, and a speaking feature that is still gated and still push-to-talk.Saygood vs Speakthe most serious speaking-first competitor in the category, with a real curriculum behind it — and, by its own help centre, still not hands-free.Saygood vs TalkPalone of only two apps in this comparison set that offers genuinely open-ended AI voice on a mainstream tier — which makes it the fairest fight here.Saygood vs Babbelthe serious, grown-up course app — built by actual linguists, and now without the live human classes it used to sell.Saygood vs Languathe most feature-complete AI conversation app in this set, and the other one that genuinely does open-ended voice on a normal tier.Saygood vs Praktikathe one with animated 3D avatar tutors — visually the most ambitious app in this set, and the one with the messiest pricing.Saygood vs HelloTalknot an AI app at all — a social network of real native speakers who will correct your writing for free.Saygood vs Pimsleurthe fifty-year-old audio method, still the best thing in existence for building a spoken base while your hands are busy.Saygood vs Busuuthe app for people who want a certificate at the end — CEFR-aligned courses with corrections from a real community.Saygood vs Jumpspeakan AI-speaking app whose marketing is louder than its course catalogue, and whose reviews are dominated by one recurring complaint.Saygood vs Memrisethe vocabulary app with thousands of clips of real people saying real things — and an AI chat feature bolted on top.

How we put these together

Every price was read on the same day, 30 July 2026, from the US iOS App Store listing for that app — not from other comparison articles, which is where most of the wrong numbers in this category come from. Where an app runs several prices at once, we show the range rather than picking the flattering one. Where we could not verify something — Duolingo Max, Jumpspeak's monthly — the page says we could not verify it instead of guessing.

Claims about how a competitor's voice feature works come from that competitor's own documentation and help centre, not from our impressions. Where we mention what reviewers complain about, we are pointing at the public App Store review feed and you should go and read it rather than take our word for it.

We wrote these pages, so obviously we would like you to pick us. The way we have tried to make them worth reading anyway is by putting what each competitor does better than us above the part where we argue for ourselves, and by naming the ones you should buy instead. If you find something out of date or wrong, email [email protected] — including if you work at one of these companies.

Saygood is nearly here.

It is with Apple for review right now. Leave your email and we will send you one message on the day it goes live — nothing before, nothing after.

One email, on launch day. No newsletter, no sharing it with anyone. See our privacy policy.