How Far VocaX Goes Without a Subscription: The Learning Loop Is Free; Only AI Features Are Metered

The free tier is not a trial and it has no end date — you can keep using it. Learning new words, reviewing on schedule, all three practice formats, local lookup, and working through your flagged words: that entire loop is free and unmetered. Counting only happens where AI is involved: 20 translations a day, 50 AI lookups a day, five sessions a week each of scenario audio and Consolidation, five a week each of Word Music in the word page and in the radio, and your first complete Memory Insights report free. When a counter runs out, learning does not stop.

1. Is the free tier a trial? No — it has no end date

The free trial applies to the subscription, not to the free tier. The free tier has no end date; what it has is a daily ceiling. You can study from a word list, follow your schedule and practice every day, indefinitely, without making a decision on the day you download the app.

There is only one decision to make, and it comes later: when you find the AI allowances are not enough. Until then, the free tier is already a complete, usable product.

What the free tier withholds is not “whether you can study” but “how much room AI has to help you”.

2. The whole learning loop is inside the free tier

These are the pieces that make up a day of study. All of them are free and without an end date (local lookup is unmetered; AI lookups follow the quota in section 3):

• Learning new words: all the word lists available to your region are selectable, from CET-4 and CET-6 through postgraduate entrance, IELTS, TOEFL and GRE, with a daily goal setting the pace.
• Reviewing on schedule: a correct answer stretches the interval and a missed one compresses it; words come due on their own and enter the day’s queue, so you never track dates yourself.
• Three practice formats: in Translation you pick the right meaning from four options; in Dictation you hear the word and type the spelling; in Speaking you read the word aloud and see what the device heard.
• Local lookup: the main dictionary holds 70,000 to 90,000 words, and a word page carries definitions across parts of speech, collocations with examples, synonyms and antonyms, a bilingual context story, and both American and British phonetics with audio.
• Flagged words: every word you miss in practice is collected automatically; you can drill that list, resolve entries yourself, and export the whole thing.

Put simply: look it up, learn it, practice it, review it, deal with what you missed — the free tier misses none of those steps.

3. What is metered, in one table

Three details in that table are easy to misread:

• AI lookup is 50 a day whether you pay or not. If AI lookups are your bottleneck, subscribing will not raise that number.
• Subscribed translation is 1,000 a day, not unlimited. A very high ceiling, and still a number.
• The free tier is not “missing features”. Every row above exists in the free tier; apart from themes, the difference is the counter, not the capability.

4. Want to see whether paying is worth it first? Use the free trial

Before subscribing you can try the paid capabilities in full: put translation, scenario audio, Word Music, Consolidation and the weekly insights into a real day of yours and see whether you actually use them. For how to structure that time, read What Should You Test During the Free Trial?

VocaX is monthly or annual only, with no lifetime tier. Prices differ by region and are stated in the pricing section on our home page; the full terms are in how VocaX is priced.

5. How to tell whether you should upgrade

Three cases where upgrading is worth it:

• You are cramming for an exam. You move through a lot of words a day, and five Consolidation sessions a week becomes a real obstruction — that is where your review schedule is applied.
• You read a lot of English and translate heavily. Twenty translations a day goes quickly during real reading and writing. (Note that the AI lookup allowance does not change with a subscription, so what upgrading mainly buys you here is translation and Consolidation.)
• You want a weekly review of your own learning. You want a Memory Insights report for each week you study — up to one a week — and the ability to go back to earlier ones, not just that first free report.

Where you probably do not need it: you study twenty words a day or fewer, move mainly through word lists, your schedule and the three practice formats, and only look up a word now and then. On that pattern you are unlikely to exhaust the free allowances, and the free tier will carry you indefinitely.

There is only one test: has a counter ever actually interrupted your study? If it has not, do not upgrade yet.

6. The boundaries, stated up front

• Allowances reset by day or by week and do not accumulate. Translations you do not spend today do not carry into tomorrow.
• Running out does not stop your study. Nothing becomes read-only; the AI features simply rest for the day and return the next.
• AI lookup stays at 50 a day even with a subscription. It is not part of what a subscription buys and we do not count it as one.
• Whether your progress travels with you depends on signing in. Unsigned in, it stays on this device; sign in with your Apple Account and it syncs to your own iCloud.
• Prices and entitlements are stated in the pricing section on our home page. This article quotes no figures; if anything changes, that section is what counts.

FAQ

Does the free tier lock up after I have used it for a while?

No. It has no end date, and your study does not stop at any point. The only thing that happens is that the AI allowances for the day run out; those features return when the counter resets the next day, and everything else carries on.

When do the free allowances reset?

By day or by week: translation and AI lookup by day, scenario audio, Word Music and Consolidation by week. Anything you do not spend does not roll over, so there is nothing to save up.

Does subscribing remove the limits?

Translation goes to 1,000 a day, scenario audio, Word Music and Consolidation lose their weekly caps, the weekly Memory Insights report goes from the single free one to up to one a week with earlier reports browsable, and the paid themes open up. AI lookup stays at 50 a day.

Is there a lifetime plan, and what does it cost?

There is no lifetime tier — monthly or annual only. Exact pricing is stated in the pricing section on our home page. Eligible plans include a 14-day free trial, as shown on the App Store subscription page; renewal and cancellation run on Apple’s subscription rules.

I only study twenty words a day. Do I need to subscribe?

Probably not. Word lists, review scheduling, all three practice formats, local lookup and flagged words are free and unmetered; AI lookup is 50 a day. As long as that covers you, the free tier will do — and if a counter ever does get in your way, that is still time enough to upgrade.

Axiom One LLC — VocaX