All four apps let you practise speaking English with an AI instead of a human tutor — but they are built around different ideas of what "practice" means: open conversation in many modes, talking to a face on screen, drilling pronunciation sound by sound, or long free-flowing conversations with a detailed review afterwards. This guide compares them on price, free-plan limits and published features, so you can match the app to the practice you actually need.
Premium on the 24-month plan ($149.99 upfront). 12 months is $9.99/mo; monthly billing is $19.99/mo.
Premium at $119.99/year on the US App Store. Monthly is $9.99 there; the website only shows an "about $8/mo" starting figure.
Pro at $89.99/year (US web). Premium — the plan with AI role-plays — is $99.99/year ($8.33/mo).
Standard billed annually ($149.99/year). Monthly is $19.99/mo; Unlimited is $16.67/mo billed annually.
| TalkPal | Praktika | ELSA Speak | Langua | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Learners who want many modes and languages in one app | Learners who practise better with a face to talk to | Learners whose main bottleneck is pronunciation | Intermediate learners who want deep, open conversation plus structured review |
| Core format | Chat and voice across roleplay, debate, photo-description and call modes | Conversations with animated AI tutor avatars | Listen-and-repeat pronunciation drills; AI role-plays on higher plans | Free conversation and roleplays by text, voice or hands-free Call Mode |
| Free option | Free plan: 10 minutes/day, basic chat only. Plus a 14-day Premium trial | Free version: 3 avatars and core practice; no published daily minute cap. Plus a 7-day trial | Free plan: 2 lessons/day, plus 3 AI lessons in total. Plus a 7-day Premium trial | Free plan: about 3 minutes of calls/day and about 20 chat messages/week, no card needed |
| Paid plans from | Premium $6.24/mo on 24 months ($19.99 monthly) | Premium $119.99/year (≈$10/mo; $9.99 monthly on the US App Store) | Pro $89.99/year ($7.50/mo); Premium $99.99/year ($8.33/mo) | Standard $12.50/mo billed annually ($19.99 monthly); Unlimited $16.67/mo billed annually ($29.99 monthly) |
| Paid-plan limits to know | Premium is published as unlimited practice across all modes | Premium is published as unlimited speaking practice with all avatars | Pro is pronunciation only — unlimited AI role-plays start at Premium | Standard caps you at 75 chat messages/day or 30 Call Mode minutes/day; Unlimited raises this to a 350-message/day fair-use level |
| Feedback style (per published specs) | Corrections in chat, a pronunciation assessment tool and daily AI feedback on Premium | Live corrections during conversation on pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, pace and word choice, with per-word pronunciation scoring | Per-syllable pronunciation feedback with stress and intonation; after role-plays, a summary covering vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation | Corrections during or after conversations, a written report and audio summary after each chat, transcripts with translations |
| Languages | 130+ languages | 14 languages | English only — it is an English pronunciation coach | 23 languages (some marked beta) |
| Platforms | iOS, Android, web | iOS and Android (no desktop app) | iOS and Android; Speech Analyzer also on the web | Web, iOS and Android, with progress synced across devices |
| Trade-off to know | Web and app store sell different plan lengths — and old, much lower prices still circulate in outdated reviews | Real prices appear only after onboarding, and store listings carry several promotional price points at once | The cheapest plan (Pro) does not include the AI conversations many buyers assume it does | The most expensive of the four, and "Unlimited" still has a published fair-use cap |
Prices checked November 2026 — always confirm on the vendor's site before you buy. Prices are USD, before tax where applicable, and vendors state that prices and currencies vary by country. App store and web prices can differ: TalkPal's US App Store adds a 3-month plan ($49.99) that its web pricing doesn't list, while the 24-month plan is web-only; Langua's annual totals are the same on web and store but are displayed differently; ELSA's App Store lists a $19.99 monthly item without naming its tier. Plans and promotions change — the figure at your own checkout is the one that counts.
Sticker prices are hard to compare across products that sell different units — a subscription month versus a 25-minute lesson. The table below is simple arithmetic on published prices, using one stated assumption: a learner who practises 20 minutes a day, 30 days a month (600 minutes). It compares cost per minute of practice time, not quality — an AI conversation and a lesson with a human tutor are different services, and this math doesn't claim otherwise.
| Option | Published price used | Max practice in the price | Cost per 25 minutes (calculated) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online lesson with a human tutor (reference: a major Japanese online school, daily 25-minute plan) | ¥6,980/month incl. tax | 25 min × 30 days = 750 min (1 lesson/day) | ≈ ¥233 per 25-min lesson (≈ ¥9.3/min) |
| TalkPal Premium (annual plan) | $9.99/mo equivalent | Published as unlimited | ≈ $0.42 at 600 min/month (≈ $0.017/min) |
| Praktika Premium (annual plan) | $10.00/mo equivalent | Published as unlimited | ≈ $0.42 at 600 min/month (≈ $0.017/min) |
| ELSA Premium (annual plan) | $8.33/mo equivalent | Unlimited role-plays on Premium — but most ELSA time is short drills, not conversation, so treat this row as a rough reference only | ≈ $0.35 at 600 min/month (≈ $0.014/min) |
| Langua Standard (annual plan) | $12.50/mo equivalent | Call Mode capped at 30 min/day = up to 900 min/month | ≈ $0.52 at 600 min/month; ≈ $0.35 if you use the full cap (≈ $0.021–0.014/min) |
Calculated November 2026 from the published prices shown. At an illustrative ¥150 = $1, the AI apps above work out at roughly ¥1,250–¥1,875 per month — the same order as a few single human lessons, not a month of them. The honest reading is not "AI replaces tutors": it is that AI apps change the economics of volume (speaking every day, making mistakes without scheduling or embarrassment), while a human tutor remains the place for judgement, motivation and nuanced correction. Many learners use both: daily AI volume plus a weekly human lesson.
Reading the free plans the same way: TalkPal's free tier (10 min/day) adds up to about 300 minutes a month — real practice volume, in short daily slices. ELSA's free tier keeps the daily drills (2/day) but caps AI lessons at 3 in total, so its conversation side is a sample, not a routine. Langua's free tier (about 3 call minutes/day, about 20 messages/week) is a compatibility test. Praktika's free tier doesn't publish a numeric cap at all — you find the limit by hitting it, which is itself worth knowing before you rely on it.
TalkPal is a speaking-first AI tutor covering 130+ languages, with practice modes that go beyond open chat: roleplays, debates, character conversations, describing a photo, and a call mode for voice-only practice. The free Basic plan limits you to basic chat for 10 minutes a day, with a pronunciation assessment tool included. Premium removes the time limit, unlocks all modes and adds daily AI feedback. US web pricing is $19.99/mo monthly, $119.99 for 12 months ($9.99/mo) or $149.99 for 24 months ($6.24/mo), with a 14-day trial presented as "no payment today". TalkPal states plainly that prices and currencies vary by location — euro pricing, for example, is lower than the US list — so your checkout figure is the one to trust.
Praktika's distinguishing idea is visual: you converse with animated AI tutors who have faces, expressions and lip-sync, across scenarios from free talk to job-interview roleplays (you can even practise against your own CV, per the vendor). During conversations it publishes live corrections on pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, pace and word choice, with a pronunciation score per word. It covers 14 languages and levels it describes as A0 to C2. The free version includes 3 avatars and core practice; Premium unlocks all avatars, unlimited speaking practice and fuller feedback. US App Store pricing lists $9.99 for 1 month, $49.99 for 3 months and $119.99 for 1 year — while Praktika's own website only advertises "about $8/month" and reveals real prices after onboarding.
ELSA Speak is not primarily a conversation app. Its core is pronunciation training: short listen-and-repeat lessons with feedback on individual syllables, word stress and intonation, modelled on American, British or Australian English, drawn from a library the vendor puts at 10,000+ lessons. The plan split is the single most important thing to understand before paying. Pro ($89.99/year on US web; a 3-month option is $46.99) is pronunciation coaching only. Premium ($99.99/year) adds unlimited AI role-plays, certificate courses (IELTS, TOEFL, TOEIC, PTE) and the web-based Speech Analyzer for unscripted speech. Professional ($159.99/year) adds coaches for interviews, presentations, meetings and sales. The free plan gives 2 lessons a day plus 3 AI lessons in total, and paid plans start with a 7-day Premium trial.
Langua (from LanguaTalk, which also runs a human-tutor marketplace) is built for learners who find scripted dialogues too shallow: unscripted voice conversations in a hands-free Call Mode, roleplays and debates, and the ability to drop into your own language mid-conversation when you're stuck. Its review layer is the most developed here: a report and audio summary after each conversation, full transcripts with word-level translations, vocabulary saved into spaced-repetition flashcards and stories, and grammar drills generated from your recurring errors. It covers 23 languages, offers a guided course for A1–A2 levels, and syncs between web and mobile. Standard is $19.99/mo or $149.99/year ($12.50/mo) and caps you at 75 chat messages a day or 30 Call Mode minutes a day. Unlimited is $29.99/mo or $199.99/year ($16.67/mo), with a fair-use level of 350 messages a day.
Can't get words out at all → volume and low pressure (TalkPal or Praktika). Words come out but people can't understand you → pronunciation granularity (ELSA Speak). You can talk, but plateau on range and accuracy → conversation depth plus review (Langua). Buying a drill app to fix a conversation problem — or the reverse — is the most common mismatch here.
Convert each free plan into minutes: TalkPal ≈300 min/month in 10-minute slices; Langua ≈90 call minutes/month; ELSA = daily drills but only 3 AI lessons ever; Praktika = unpublished. If the free math already covers your routine, you may not need to pay yet.
ELSA's cheapest plan excludes AI conversation. Langua's cheaper plan caps call time at 30 minutes a day. TalkPal's cheapest rate locks you in for 24 months. The "from" price is never the whole story — match the tier to the feature you came for.
Trials here run 5–14 days and convert automatically. Praktika's help center uses a 24-hours-before rule; ELSA subscriptions are cancelled in the app store, not the app; Langua's web purchases have a 30-day money-back window that Apple purchases don't mirror. Put the deadline in your calendar the day you start — that one habit removes most subscription regret in this category.
They do different jobs. On published prices, daily AI practice costs roughly an order of magnitude less per minute than a daily 25-minute human lesson (see the calculation above), and it's available any time without scheduling. A human tutor adds judgement about what you specifically get wrong, real conversational unpredictability and accountability. This guide makes no claim that any app produces a particular learning outcome — it compares published prices, limits and features.
On published annual pricing, ELSA Pro ($89.99/year) is the lowest sticker price, but it is pronunciation drills only. For actual AI conversation, TalkPal Premium works out at $9.99/mo on the 12-month plan ($6.24/mo on 24 months) and Praktika Premium at about $10/mo on its annual plan, with Langua Standard at $12.50/mo billed annually. Prices checked November 2026 — always confirm on the vendor's site.
Vendors sell through both channels and don't always mirror them. TalkPal's US App Store includes a 3-month plan its web page doesn't list, while the 24-month plan is web-only. Langua's 30-day money-back guarantee applies to web and Android purchases, not Apple ones. Praktika shows promotional store prices that vary. Practical rule: subscribe through the channel whose price and cancellation/refund terms you have actually read.
Per published material, Langua offers a guided course aimed at A1–A2 levels, Praktika describes coverage from A0/A1 upward with structured missions, and TalkPal markets adaptive paths for all levels. ELSA's drills assume you are working on how English sounds rather than learning first phrases. Whichever you choose, start on the free tier or trial and check that the difficulty controls (speech speed, hints, switching to your own language) work for you — those features are published, and they matter more at beginner level than headline features do.
In this category, it converts into the paid plan you selected unless you cancel in time — Praktika's help center specifies cancelling at least 24 hours before the trial ends, and ELSA directs you to your App Store / Google Play subscription settings rather than the app itself. TalkPal presents its 14-day trial as "no payment today", but the plan you picked is the one that starts afterwards. Langua is the partial exception on risk: its web and Android subscriptions carry a 30-day money-back guarantee even after payment.
Because this guide is compiled from the vendors' published specifications, pricing pages, help centers and store listings — not from hands-on testing. Where a judgement appears (for example, that a free tier is "a sample, not a routine"), it is arithmetic on the published limits, shown next to it so you can check the reasoning yourself.