First of all, thank you for everything you’ve built with Anki. It’s an amazing tool that has changed the way students around the world — myself included — study and retain information.
However, I’d like to raise a concern that affects many users here in Brazil. The price of the Anki iOS app is currently $24.99 in the U.S., but in the Brazilian App Store, it costs R$149.90. Due to currency exchange rates and our local economic situation, this makes the app extremely expensive for most Brazilian students. To put it in perspective, R$149.90 is a significant portion of a student’s monthly budget here.
We understand and respect that software development takes time and resources, and we want to support Anki in a fair and honest way. But we kindly ask that you consider adopting Apple’s regional pricing policy to make the app more accessible in countries with lower purchasing power, like Brazil.
Many of us are passionate about education, and we rely on tools like Anki daily. We’re not asking for it to be free — just fairly priced according to local standards, so more students can afford to use it and support your work legitimately.
Thank you for considering this, and for continuing to provide such a powerful platform for learning.
Best regards,
A grateful Brazilian student and Anki supporter
iOS users who can’t afford AnkiMobile typically make their cards with Anki for desktop and review them with the free AnkiWeb, medical student Anki users often save money that way.
One of the reasons why iOS apps are expensive is because of the high fees charged by Apple. Android apps can be developed on any laptop, with little or no fees. This allows many volunteers to participate and develop apps at a low cost.
In contrast iOS apps cannot be developed without purchasing expensive MacOS devices. Plus there is the annual Apple fee to develop apps. (Recently Apple lost a lawsuit with Epic Game about fees, so these fees may be a bit cheaper in the future, but they are still fighting.)
And the Mac market share is less than 20%, so there are few developers in the first place. Thus volunteer developers working on iOS are very rare, and it is generally difficult to develop an iOS app as cheaply as an Android app.
So if learners want to save money they need to use Android instead of iPhone, because everything from the device and apps are more expensive on iPhone. In countries where the dollar is relatively high people rarely use iPhones, in Brazil I think about 80% are Android users.
This. I sometimes see people using iPhones and they’re either very rich or bought an old iPhone at cheaper price (horrible deal but people do it for status).
The Galaxy A55 costs an average of R$2,000 in Brazil, while the iPhone 16 costs an average of R$5,000. Both have similar configurations.
50MP main camera, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, the A55’s battery is slightly better at 5,000mAh
The iPhone is extremely expensive in Brazil compared to Android, because it is not manufactured here and because of taxes.
Hmm? Maybe the size of Brazilian Anki users is very large. According to AnkiDroid data from two years ago, Brazil has the largest number of AnkiDroid users about 380,000, and about 100,000 more than the US ranked second. (also comments on Add-ons are often in Portuguese.) If so students of iOS users in Brazil may be relatively larger than in other countries.
Yes, there are a large number of Brazilians who use iPhones.
I believe your data is correct or almost correct. I would say that 70% use Android and 30% use iPhones.
Most people prefer to have an iPhone than a PC/laptop, although a reasonably quality PC is cheaper than an Android in Brazil, as long as it does not have such a powerful video card.
In the case of iPhones, most people use them only for status reasons, so they do not mind paying more or getting them as a gift from a friend/relative. That is why, when they see the price of the iPhone app, they do not understand.
In fact, Anki is a very cheap app for what it can offer. The ideal price for it should be around US$50.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts — it’s always great to have open discussions around tools we all care about, like Anki.
I just wanted to add a few points from a different perspective. While it’s true that many Brazilians use iPhones, saying that people buy them only for status doesn’t really reflect the full picture. Many choose iPhones for reasons like stability, long-term software support, security, or just personal preference. Also, entry-level iPhones are assembled in Brazil, which helps lower the price a bit — and many people buy them in installments or get help from family. Having an iPhone doesn’t mean someone has extra money to spend, especially students.
Also, it’s not really fair to compare a Galaxy A56 to an iPhone 16 — they’re completely different in terms of performance, quality, and user experience.
Now, about Anki itself: it’s an incredible app, and I have a lot of respect for the developers. I use it daily and it’s made a big difference in my learning. But it’s still hard to understand why the app costs R$149.90 in the Brazilian App Store, while it’s free on Windows — even though my Windows PC cost three times more than my iPhone. This creates a feeling of inequality between platforms.
I understand that part of the issue comes from Apple’s pricing system, which doesn’t allow full control over local pricing — developers have to choose from fixed tiers. But maybe there’s another path: services like Spotify, Netflix, and others already offer payments outside the App Store, and maybe Anki could explore something similar for iOS. That could allow more students in countries like Brazil to access the app in a fairer way.
No one’s asking for it to be free — just more aligned with local realities. In the end, we all want to support Anki and its development, and we just hope the pricing can reflect what’s fair for more people around the world.
The FAQ linked in the first response to your post – Why does AnkiMobile cost more than a typical mobile app? - Anki FAQs – explains why AnkiMobile has a cost, why the other versions of Anki don’t, why the iOS price varies from country-to-country, and why Anki isn’t pursuing alternate payment methods.
Please read that. It has the answers you are looking for.
The reason for the different prices of Anki on different platforms is that different groups have developed Anki on different platforms. Anki is developed by the official Anki and a group of volunteers. Since Anki is an open source project they share the program and cooperate to develop Anki but technically they are separate groups.
AnkiMobile is developed by official Anki and they are in the business of selling apps for a fee. AnkiDroid is developed by a group of volunteers who work with free volunteers and donations. Anki for desktop is developed by both official Anki and volunteers. Official Anki is a business and cannot receive donations, and volunteers do not want to sell their products, so they do not merge.
Official Anki does not develop AnkiDroid, and half of Anki for desktop is developed by volunteers, so official Anki cannot add a billing system to them. Volunteer groups do not develop AnkiMobile for iOS and do not have such development resources to spare, so they cannot make AnkiMobile cheaper.
You’re right to be curious, but I think the comparison misses the main point of the discussion.
In Brazil, any mid-range laptop like a Dell G15 or similar costs between R$5,500 to R$6,500, even without a top-tier graphics card. That’s the reality of our market.
On the other hand, there are many used iPhones in excellent condition for around R$2,000, and even brand new models like the iPhone SE or iPhone 13/14/16e are available for around R$3,000 to R$3,500. Not everyone uses a R$10,000 iPhone Pro.
But most importantly, this isn’t really about comparing PC and phone prices. The discussion here is about accessibility and fairness: the Anki iOS app costs $24.99 in the U.S., but R$149.90 in Brazil, which is a significant amount for students, especially when converted to our currency.
We’re simply asking for the Anki team to consider adopting Apple’s regional pricing, as many other apps do, to make it fairer for users in countries with lower purchasing power. We love Anki and want to support it — but pricing should reflect the reality of the users.
Any Mac PC costs more compared to a Windows PC, just as any iPhone compared to an Android phone will cost more with the same or similar configurations.
If you want to complain about something, it has to be Apple, which charges much more to put an app on the App Store, and also the government, which imposes abusive taxes on the population. Anki has nothing to do with that.
From a quick search of the Mac developer community, it seems to me that regional pricing is possible, so I think it is technically possible to set a lower price like for Brazil only.
However it seems to be very cumbersome to set prices by region, because developers need to manually set prices for each of over a hundred countries and update them periodically. So it seems that major companies use it but ordinary developers do not set it very often.