Brainscape - Study Flashcards review: price, free version and privacy

Our verdict

Brainscape is a strong pick for students preparing for a professional or standardized exam who want ready-made, expert-written decks. If you only need free cards for class tests or prefer games and matching modes, a cheaper app fits better.

What Brainscape - Study Flashcards is

Brainscape is a flashcard app built on spaced repetition. After each card you rate your confidence from 1 to 5, and the app decides when to show it again, focusing on the cards you know least. You can study expert-made collections for exams such as the MCAT, NCLEX, MBE (bar exam), Series 7, GRE and AP courses, browse millions of community cards, or create your own cards, including with AI from notes, PDFs and images.

Who it suits

• Professional and standardized exams
• Expert-made decks

Strengths

• Expert-made decks for nursing, medical, legal, finance and graduate exams, according to the description.
• A simple 1 to 5 confidence rating drives the review schedule, and a recent update lets you adjust the repetition intervals.
• Creating and sharing text flashcards is free, per the description.
• Billing periods are clearly stated in the description, with a lifetime option.
• No tracking on the privacy label, and rated 4.8 from about 21,600 ratings.

Limits

• Full access to expert and community decks needs Pro, and image cards cost extra, according to the description.
• English only, per the listing.
• The $199.99 lifetime plan is a high one-time cost for a flashcard app.
• Fewer game-like study modes than Quizlet-style apps.

What the free version does

The description says creating and sharing text flashcards is free. Pro is needed for unlimited access to all user-generated and expert-curated content, image cards, bookmarks, card reversibility and private decks.

Price

The description gives Brainscape Pro at $19.99 monthly, $59.99 every 6 months and $95.99 annually, and the price list on the US App Store in November 2026 matches. A lifetime plan costs $199.99 once.

Privacy

The privacy label declares no tracking. Contact info, identifiers and usage data are linked to your identity.

What the screenshots show

The screenshots show a card with the "How well did you know this?" row of 1 to 5 buttons, and a desktop deck table (Biology: Cells) with question and answer columns next to a "17,000 cards mastered" badge.