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 line

A course gets you your first few hundred words. Nothing on this list except us puts you in an open-ended conversation with someone who will not wait for you — and that is the part that takes years.

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, total
DuolingoSuper $9.99–$12.99 · Max not publishedSuper $83.99–$119.99Whole course, with ads and an energy limit~Max tier · 2–6 min
SpeakPremium $17.99 · Plus $39.99Premium $83.99 · Plus $164.99Limited trial of the course~around set objectives
TalkPal$19.99 (iOS; web is lower)$119.99 (iOS)10 minutes per day, recurring
Babbel$17.99$89.99 one language · $107.99 allFirst lesson of each course
LanguaCommunicate $19.99 · Unlimited $29.99Communicate $149.99 · Unlimited $199.993 minutes a day, plus ~20 messages a week
Praktika$9.99 — cheapest here$49.99 / $119.99 / $139.99, all listed at onceLimited trial
HelloTalkVIP $12.99VIP $79.99The core product is freewith real people
Pimsleur$20.99$164.99Trial
Busuu$23.49$138.99Limited course access
JumpspeakNot published in Apple's IAP listLifetime $499 on iOS · $299 on the webTrial~turn-based
Memrise$24.99$61.99 · Lifetime $329.99Limited~turn-based

Saygood is the most expensive app here. A live voice call costs real money for every minute you are on it, in a way that serving lesson screens does not — the cheaper apps are cheaper because nobody is on the other end of them.

The comparisons

Saygood vs Duolingothe default. A real course, and one conversation feature that is gated, short and turn-based.Saygood vs Speakthe most serious speaking-first competitor here — with roleplays that are Speak’s, not yours.Saygood vs TalkPalone of only two apps here with genuinely open-ended AI voice on a mainstream tier.Saygood vs Babbelthe grown-up course app — dialogue-first lessons written by linguists.Saygood vs Languathe most feature-complete AI conversation app here, and the other one doing open-ended voice.Saygood vs Praktikathe one with animated 3D avatar tutors, and the messiest pricing in the set.Saygood vs HelloTalknot an AI app at all — real native speakers who will correct your writing for free.Saygood vs Pimsleurthe fifty-year-old audio method, still the best way to build a spoken base hands-free.Saygood vs Busuuthe app for people who want a certificate at the end — CEFR courses, corrections from real people.Saygood vs Jumpspeakan AI-speaking app whose marketing is louder than its course catalogue.Saygood vs Memrisethe vocabulary app with thousands of clips of real people, and an AI chat 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 giving every page a section that names what the other app does better than we do, by scoring those rows against ourselves in the table rather than leaving them out, and by saying plainly who should buy the other one instead. If you find something out of date or wrong, email [email protected] — including if you work at one of these companies.

Try it yourself.

Ten minutes of calling, free, no card. That is enough to find out whether talking to an AI partner does anything for you.

Download on theApp Store