Online Chinese courses compared: what you pay, and how much you speak

Pick the course that fits your goal

No course is best at everything. Here's our pick for each goal, at the price on its own page:

Sources: each provider's own price page, in US dollars, checked 16 October 2026.

Our advice: if you can only buy one thing, buy the course you'll open every day. Then add someone, or something, to talk to.

Eleven options side by side

We put each option's own pages side by side. Live speaking means talking in real time with a teacher, classmates or an AI teacher:

Sources: each provider's pages, linked in Sources. LTL Flexi's price comes from our tutors guide, checked five days earlier. "Not mentioned" means the pages we read don't say. Udemy, Hutong School and That's Mandarin are left out: Methods explains why.

We see two patterns. The self-paced courses are cheap but silent. The live options let you speak, but they cost more every month.

Live classes cost several times more than videos

The biggest price gap isn't between brands. It's between watching and talking.

Most self-paced courses cost $100–400 for a year, and two of them you can buy once and keep. Here's a first year on each option, at the prices we read:

Sources: each provider's price page; LTL Flexi's from our tutors guide.

A self-paced course buys you a plan for a few hundred dollars a year. What it can't buy is someone who answers when you speak.

Most courses never make you speak

Six of the 11 options include no live conversation. You can repeat after a video, but nobody answers you or hears your tones.

Some still promise speaking. Peking University's Coursera course says it "focuses on speaking skills", yet the conversation practice it describes is a bonus game. We think that's the biggest gap in self-paced learning, and it's easy to miss when you buy.

Where you can speak, the class price hides how little of the hour is yours. In one-to-one lessons, students did 44% of the talking in a large study of online tutoring.

In a model class for eight beginners of Chinese, all the students together spoke for 41% of the time. Split that among a class of five, and your share is about 8%.

In a class that size, your turn might be one sentence: I went hiking at the weekend, 我周末去爬山了 wǒ zhōumò qù páshān le.

Here's what an hour of your own speaking costs on each option that includes it:

Source: our calculation from the prices in this guide. Ranges run from 2 students at the lowest price to a full class at the highest; students share 41% of a class's talk. Nobody has measured talk time with an AI teacher, so SayMei uses the one-to-one share. The italki tutor median is from our tutors guide.

By our count, a group class is the most expensive way to buy speaking time. Buy one for the teacher, the timetable and the company, and get your speaking minutes somewhere else.

The AI figure survives a stingier assumption: if you spoke for only a quarter of a SayMei lesson, an hour of your speaking would still cost about $7. One caveat: no AI tutor has published a test of how well it hears tones, SayMei's included.

Video courses: pick the teacher you'll keep watching

Self-paced courses differ less in price than in teaching style. Our tip: choose the one whose lessons you'd still watch on a tired Tuesday evening.

• Yoyo Chinese teaches in English through short videos, from zero to upper intermediate. Its Learn plan adds flashcards and quizzes, and over 75 lessons are free. Its money-back guarantee lasts a week and covers only your first purchase on its website.
• Chinese Zero to Hero sells one video course per HSK level, which you buy once and keep. You use it with the HSK Standard Course textbooks, sold separately, and the bundle page promises your money back within 30 days. For speaking, it suggests a language-exchange partner.
• ChinesePod has over 4,000 lessons in six levels, each built around a short dialogue. It suits learners past the basics who want lots of listening.
• ChineseClass101 costs the least a month if you commit for two years. Its Premium PLUS plan adds a teacher who grades your work and gives feedback on your pronunciation. Every plan has a 60-day money-back guarantee.
• Mandarin Blueprint teaches characters through memory stories, in its own curriculum of 88 levels, and its starter levels are free. Its Fluency Lab adds a weekly half-hour with a tutor, but costs $2,000 to join. It doesn't publish the price after that, and asks you to book a call.

Here are Yoyo Chinese's plans as its price page shows them, with yearly billing selected:

If you're unsure, start on a free tier and pay monthly. Buy a lifetime plan only once you've kept the habit for a month or two.

University platforms sell a certificate, not conversation

Coursera and edX host Chinese courses from universities and schools. Both sell you a certificate when you finish, and in the courses we read, neither gives you anyone to talk to.

Coursera. Peking University's Chinese for Beginners has about 1.5 million learners enrolled. It teaches pronunciation and everyday phrases, not characters, in about 20 hours:

Coursera's page says you buy the certificate track when you enrol, through Coursera Plus or the course itself. Some learners can start with a free trial or apply for financial aid.

edX. Its Chinese courses come from MandarinX, in four certificate programs. The beginners' program pairs two courses over about three months and prepares you for HSK 1, for $268. edX says most of its courses can be audited free.

A course certificate shows you finished a course. It isn't a language qualification: for that, employers and universities look for an HSK score.

Live classes buy you a teacher and a timetable

Live online schools cost the most. In return, you get a teacher who corrects you, classmates, and a reason to show up.

GoEast. This school in Shanghai runs 16-week group courses on Zoom. You get two 75-minute classes a week, usually with one classmate. It teaches from beginner to HSK 4, and you can try a class free or pay in four monthly instalments.

LTL's Flexi Classes. These are hour-long group classes that run round the clock, for up to five students. The free trial week turns into a paid plan unless you cancel.

italki. It sells single group classes for two to six students. When we looked, its public listing showed 20 Mandarin classes, all from two teachers. You can cancel up to a day ahead for a credit refund.

Preply. As far as we could find, it sells Chinese lessons one-to-one only. Our guide to online Chinese tutors compares it with italki.

GoEast's price page shows how the cost per week falls as you commit to more courses:

We think a class works best if you'd skip practice on your own. If you need speaking minutes more than structure, a one-to-one tutor gives you more of them for less.

Check which HSK a course teaches

If the HSK, 汉语水平考试(Hànyǔ Shuǐpíng Kǎoshì), is your goal, ask which syllabus a course follows. The exam switches to its new syllabus from the 13 December 2026 sitting.

The new syllabus asks for more words at every level up to HSK 6, so courses built for the old exam leave gaps. Our guide to HSK books found that older books cover only about 60% of the new word lists. HSK 3.0 explained shows the changes level by level.

Most course pages we read don't name a syllabus. Chinese Zero to Hero builds its HSK 1 to 6 courses on the HSK Standard Course books, which were written for the old exam. MandarinX's HSK 1 program doesn't say which syllabus it uses.

So learn from any course you like, but check your words against the new lists before you book the exam. Our guide to free HSK practice tests links the official papers.

Where SayMei fits, and where it doesn't

SayMei gives you spoken Mandarin lessons with Mei Lin, your AI teacher, for HSK 1 to 6. It isn't a video course, so it fits best next to one. It can also replace a group class you'd take only to speak.

Premium is $5.99 a month for 200 minutes with Mei Lin, and you can start free. Here's where we think it fits:

• The cheapest speaking time here. About $4 an hour of your own speaking, on the same assumptions as the classes above.
• Nothing to book. You start a lesson when you have ten minutes, at any hour.
• The new syllabus. Its lessons follow the November 2025 HSK syllabus.

And here's where it loses:

• No trained human ear. Its tone feedback has no published accuracy test, like every AI tutor's.
• No video lectures. If you like a teacher explaining grammar on screen, a course like Yoyo Chinese does that better.
• No certificate or classmates. Nobody is expecting you on Tuesday evening.
• Capped minutes, browser only. Premium gives you 200 minutes a month, and there's no phone app.

What to do next

• Start on a free tier. Use a week of free lessons before you pay for anything.
• Buy one course, not three. Pick the teaching style you'll actually open every day.
• Add speaking from week one. A video can't hear you, so book a tutor, find a partner or talk with an AI teacher.
• Check the syllabus before the HSK. Make sure your course's word lists match the new exam.
• Pay monthly first. Commit to a year or a lifetime plan once the habit sticks.

When you're ready to talk, try a lesson with Mei Lin.