Is Anki free on iPhone? The honest answer

Short answer: There is no free official Anki app for the iPhone. The official app is called AnkiMobile and it costs money. You can still study for free, in several ways. Each of them has a catch, and that is what this article is about.

Status: November 2026. Prices and features come from the official App Store listings and vendor websites, checked on November 4, 2026.

What AnkiMobile costs

In the German App Store, AnkiMobile Flashcards costs €29.99, and in the US store US$24.99. The developer is Anki Software, LLC. According to the App Store listing, this is a one-time purchase: no subscription, and no further fees for syncing via AnkiWeb either.

That sounds like a lot for an app. It is, compared with the App Store average. But it helps to know the "why" before you get annoyed.

Why AnkiMobile costs money

Anki Desktop is free, and so is AnkiDroid for Android. Payment is only required on the iPhone. The official Anki FAQ explains it this way: developing Desktop Anki, online sync and AnkiMobile together is a full-time job, and the revenue from AnkiMobile funds the livelihood and further development. The FAQ is written from the perspective of the original developer and is rather historical in tone. The current App Store description says the same thing more briefly: the purchase supports the open-source project and helps keep Desktop Anki free to offer.

In plain terms: with the €29.99 you are not only paying for the iPhone app, you are also helping finance the whole Anki ecosystem. If you use Anki seriously and on several devices, that is a fair deal.

Route 1: AnkiWeb in Safari

The only truly free official route. AnkiWeb is free, you just need an account. With it you can review cards online and sync between devices.

How it works on the iPhone:

1. Prepare cards in Anki Desktop or import decks there.
2. Sync Anki Desktop with AnkiWeb.
3. On the iPhone, open ankiweb.net in Safari, log in, and study.

The catches:

• AnkiWeb is a supplement, not a replacement. According to the provider, you can create and review simple text cards there. For downloaded shared decks and more advanced multimedia features, Anki refers you to the desktop version. So without a computer you won't get very far.
• It is a website, not an app. There is no explicit guarantee that AnkiWeb works perfectly with every current version of Safari and iOS.
• Storage limits. Your collection may be at most 100 MB compressed and 250 MB uncompressed. Images and audio do not count toward this, but individual media files may be at most 100 MB.
• Inactivity. After six months without use, AnkiWeb data may be deleted. A warning email comes first, after which you have 30 days to review a card or sync. Your local cards on computer and phone are kept.

Who this suits: you study mainly on a laptop and want to review on your phone now and then.

Route 2: Other apps that import .apkg

Because Anki decks are distributed as .apkg files, other apps can open them too. Three free iOS apps document the import. Important up front: the following details come from the providers themselves. How well the import works with your particular deck has not been independently verified.

Mochi is free in the German App Store. The free tier includes unlimited local use, cards, decks, and import and export. According to the documentation, the review history also comes along when importing .apkg. For syncing between devices there is an optional Pro subscription. The catch: Mochi removes CSS and JavaScript and converts HTML to Markdown. Elaborately designed decks look different afterwards.

MintDeck states on its website that it imports .apkg including media and study progress. Studying as well as import and export are free according to the provider, with unlimited cards and decks. You pay for AI features via credits; according to the provider there is no subscription. The transfer of study progress is a manufacturer's claim that no one has tested independently.

RemNote is a free iOS app whose basic plan includes unlimited notes, flashcards and synced devices. The official guide describes importing .apkg files including card scheduling. Formatting may differ, and custom CSS is not carried over. And whether the complete import works directly in the iPhone app or needs a computer is not clearly stated in the documentation.

Route 3: checkst

Yes, this is the checkst blog. That is why this section is especially sober.

checkst is a native app for iPhone and iPad. What works without a subscription:

• import .apkg decks and export them again,
• study with FSRS as the scheduling algorithm,
• sync your decks via iCloud between your Apple devices.

checkst Pro costs €4.99 for six months, intended as a semester subscription that renews automatically until you cancel it in the Apple subscription settings. Pro unlocks sync via your checkst account. Studying, .apkg import, iCloud sync and study groups do not require Pro.

The honest catches:

• No AnkiWeb sync. If you maintain cards in Anki Desktop at the same time, there is no automatic matching, only the route via .apkg file.
• No desktop add-ons. They run on no iPhone, not even in AnkiMobile.
• Apple only. checkst does not exist for Android and is not available as a web app. If your study group is mixed, that is a real problem.

How the import works in detail and what comes along is described in Importing Anki decks onto the iPhone. You can find the detailed comparison with AnkiMobile at checkst vs. Anki.

How to test a free app with your real deck

Before you entrust your semester to any app, run this test with your real deck, not a demo deck:

1. Export your most important deck from Anki Desktop as .apkg, with "Include Media" and "Include Scheduling Information" selected.
2. Import it into the app and compare the card count with Anki.
3. Look at the hardest cards: those with images, audio, cloze gaps and custom formatting. If an app strips CSS or converts HTML, you will see it here.
4. Check the study state: are cards that you would only see again in weeks in Anki also not immediately due in the app? If everything shows as new, your history did not come along.
5. Run a real session. Only then will you know whether you want to open the app every day. And in the end that is the only question that matters: the best study app is the one you actually open.

If an app fails at step 3 or 4, you have lost an evening, not your semester.

Which route suits you?

• You study on a laptop with Anki and want everything in sync: buy AnkiMobile. The €29.99 is well spent.
• You study on a laptop and only review on your phone occasionally: AnkiWeb in Safari is enough.
• You study mainly on the iPhone and do not want to pay: an app with .apkg import. Try your most important deck in two apps and see where it looks better.
• You want to study on the iPhone, create cards from lecture notes and study together with your study group: that is what checkst is built for.

And for every route the same applies: before you switch, export your deck from Anki Desktop as .apkg with media and study progress. Then you can always go back.