Skritter review: is the handwriting app worth it?

You learn each character by writing it

Skritter's method fits on one screen, as we saw in its demo. The word's pinyin and meaning sit at the top, and below them is a square where you write with your finger or a stylus.

We went through Skritter's free web demo, which needs no account, on 11 October. It teaches you the word for Chinese, 中文(zhōngwén), in eight short steps:

• Trace. You write each stroke over a faint outline, and a dot shows where the next one starts.
• Write from memory. The outline goes. A reveal button flashes the character's outline, and a teaching button replays the stroke order.
• Get graded. A finished character turns green when it's right and red when it isn't. You swipe up to erase and try again.
• Answer the other cards. A meaning card, a tone card and a pinyin card follow. You grade yourself on the meaning; the app checks the tone and the pinyin.

The canvas is strict about order. When we wrote the last stroke of middle, 中(zhōng), first, Skritter didn't accept it. Each correct stroke snapped into a clean, brush-like line.

If the snapping feels too kind, two settings make it harder. Raw squigs shows your strokes exactly as you drew them, and rawest squigs turns off grading so you mark yourself, as you would on paper.

Here's the rest of what we found on Skritter's own pages:

Source: Skritter's website, help pages and US store listings, checked 11 October 2026.

To us, it's a specialist tool. Everything in it serves one goal: getting characters into your hand and your memory.

Writing by hand helps you remember

Skritter began in 2008 as a website for learning to write characters. The research backs its core idea, with one catch.

In experiments with adult learners, writing characters by hand helped people recognise them and link them to meanings, more than reading alone did. Typing pinyin helped only with the sounds.

A review of the research from 2021 found the same split. Handwriting builds memory for a character's shape and meaning; typing builds memory for its sound.

Here's the catch: writing is slow, and it isn't the fastest road to reading. In one study, reading practice beat writing for remembering meanings and sounds. In a 2026 experiment, beginners who typed recognised more characters, while those who wrote by hand remembered meanings better.

Our take: write by hand if you want to write, or if similar characters keep blurring together. If you only need to read and type, we think you can learn faster without it.

Every word becomes four cards

Skritter splits each word into separate cards: one to write it, one for its tone, one for its pinyin and one for its meaning. Each card has its own schedule, so you can know a word's meaning cold and still miss its tone.

We like how thorough that is. It also multiplies your work: ten new words a day are forty new cards.

Skritter publishes how far apart it spaces a card you keep getting right:

Source: Skritter's guide to its spaced repetition, its interval table for new items.

Miss a card and it starts over. Skritter's grading guide says Forgot resets a card "as if it was brand new".

The help page still says no gap grows past a year. In August, staff wrote on Skritter's forum that the cap went up to ten years in 2025.

Skritter also sets a high bar: its help pages call 95% recall "a good target". The app has no setting to lower it; only the website does.

That costs reviews. In our flashcard model, a 95% goal meant about 60% more of them than Anki's default goal.

Set your own pace to see what that means for your day:

At five new words a day with all four card types, that's about 100 reviews a day after three months, at Skritter's 95% target.

At 15 seconds a card, that's half an hour, every day.

Learners who use it daily report the same. One Reddit learner near HSK 5 says the daily cards take "probably 1.5 hours a day".

Our advice: add fewer words than you think you can manage, and switch off the card types you don't need. Skritter lets you study writing alone, or skip tones.

Tone cards make you commit

After the writing, we think tone cards are Skritter's best idea. You draw each syllable's tone: a flat line for the first tone, a rise for the second, a dip for the third and a fall for the fourth. You tap a dot for the neutral tone.

Since version 4.0 in September, you can also tap tone buttons under the canvas instead of drawing. Either way, you have to produce the tone rather than pick it from a list, and recalling an answer teaches more than recognising one.

Tone cards are also where reviews pile up. A learner with about 1,040 words wrote on Reddit that most of their 100-plus daily cards were tone cards.

One thing they can't do is hear you. A tone card checks that you remember a tone, not that you can say it.

The HSK decks predate the new exam

Skritter has two sets of HSK word-list decks: the old exam's HSK 1–6 lists, and HSK 3.0 decks it built in June 2021 from that year's standard. The exam that starts on 13 December 2026 uses a newer list, the syllabus published in November 2025.

We compared the two lists word by word. Here's how much of the new exam's vocabulary the 2021 decks cover:

Source: our comparison of CLEC's 2025 syllabus with the 2021 standard's lists from Chinese Testing International. Covered is the share of the new list's words found in the 2021 decks up to the same level.

We found most of the new exam's words there, about seven in eight by HSK 4. But you'd also study about 1,500 words the new HSK 1–4 doesn't list.

The handwriting decks match even less. The new syllabus names its characters to write by hand, 书写字(shūxiě zì), and so did the 2021 standard. Both lists have 1,200 characters, and they share only about half of them.

Here's where the new exam's handwriting characters sit in Skritter's 2021 decks:

Source: our comparison of the 2025 syllabus's handwriting list with the 2021 standard's, which Skritter's handwriting decks follow. The other 30 HSK 4 characters are in its HSK 7–9 deck.

We checked the other way too. Of the 300 characters in the HSK 1–3 handwriting deck, 171 aren't on the new exam's handwriting list at any level, including eat, 吃(chī), and water, 水(shuǐ).

We don't think this makes the 2021 decks bad. Their words are common and worth knowing, and you'll still want to write 吃(chī). But for the new exam, study from the 2025 lists.

Skritter said on 24 September that 2026 editions of its HSK decks, with writing decks, are now a priority. Until they arrive, you can paste the official list into a custom deck, or use our free HSK word lists to check what each level needs.

You can study almost any textbook

In our view, Skritter's real strength is its library. Its App Store page promises more than 700 official decks, and its website counts over 12,500 lists, including ones learners made.

If your class uses a textbook, there's probably a deck that follows it chapter by chapter. Skritter's staff say decks for the new official HSK course books, levels 1 to 3, are already in the app, with 4A and 4B on the way.

You can build your own decks too, or let words flow in from reading apps. Du Chinese, Maayot and The Chairman's Bao send words from their stories into Skritter decks, and LingQ joined in July. Pleco has no direct link: you export your bookmarks and paste them in.

If you're in a class, we think this is the best reason to pay. Your homework list is probably already there.

The yearly plan is the one to buy

Skritter Premium is a subscription, and the longer you commit, the less each month costs:

Source: skritter.com, checked 11 October 2026. Each plan starts with a 7-day free trial.

The yearly plan costs less than seven months of the monthly one. If you'll use Skritter for more than half a year, it's the plan we'd buy.

Over time, the gap with apps you buy once keeps growing:

Sources: skritter.com, Pleco's bundles page and the App Store, checked 11 October 2026. Anki is also free on computers. Neither Pleco nor Anki checks your strokes, so this isn't like for like.

Before you pay, we'd check what's free. Guest accounts can study a few decks for as long as they like, but spaced-repetition reviews need Premium. If a subscription lapses, you can still test yourself on words you've learned, but you can't add or review new cards.

Two more things. In the apps, Apple and Google also list other Premium prices, from $9.99 to $119.99, so check the price before you subscribe. And there's no lifetime plan: learners asked for one on Skritter's forum in June, with no reply.

Teachers can buy a class licence instead. Skritter's schools page prices one at $450 a year for up to 30 students.

When Anki or Pleco is the better buy

Anki and Pleco also review Chinese words on a schedule, and both charge once. Neither checks your strokes the way Skritter does.

Here's how the three compare for characters:

Sources: each app's website, manual or store listing, checked 11 October 2026, and our comparison of Chinese flashcard apps.

Here's how we'd choose, depending on what you want checked:

• Pick Anki if you want free, flexible reviews and don't need your strokes checked. The free xiě hànzì deck covers the 2025 HSK lists, with a stroke-practice grid on each card.
• Pick Pleco if it's already your dictionary. Its flashcards can ask you to write a word into its handwriting recognizer, which checks the character but not each stroke. Our Pleco review covers the rest.
• Pick Skritter if you want every stroke checked and the scheduling done for you.

Who Skritter suits, and who should skip it

We'd pick Skritter if:

• You want to write by hand. For a class, an exam with handwriting, or the pleasure of it.
• You study from a textbook. Your chapter lists are probably ready-made.
• Similar characters keep blurring together. Writing makes you notice every part. Our guide to Chinese radicals shows which parts matter most.
• You'll study most days. The schedule only works if you keep up.

We'd skip it, or pair it with something else, if:

• You mainly want to speak. Skritter never hears you.
• You only need to read and type. Anki or Pleco reviews words without the writing, and charges once.
• You want the new HSK lists today. Build a custom deck, or wait for Skritter's new decks.
• You want one app for everything. There's no grammar course and no conversation.

One learner who memorised about 1,200 characters with it put the gap plainly: it "makes me memorize the characters but not the pronunciation".

Where SayMei fits, and where it doesn't

SayMei isn't a handwriting app. We teach Chinese mainly through spoken lessons with Mei Lin. But two of our free tools overlap with Skritter:

• Writing practice. Our worksheet generator has a Practice tab: you watch a character, trace it twice and write it from memory, and it checks every stroke. It's free, with no sign-up.
• The new exam's handwriting list. Our HSK handwriting page lists all 1,200 characters on the 2025 list, by level, with sheets to print.

Where we lose to Skritter:

• No tone, pinyin or meaning cards. Our writing practice is characters only; Skritter drills all four.
• Progress stays in one browser. There's no account sync and no app.
• No textbook decks. You type or pick the characters yourself.
• A simpler schedule. Ours has two grades and basic spacing; Skritter also adjusts for cards you keep missing.

Where we're strongest is speaking, the one skill Skritter never trains.

What to do next

• Try Skritter's demo first. It takes about five minutes and needs no account.
• Choose your card types. Switch off tones or pinyin if they aren't your goal.
• Start with a few words a day. Watch your reviews for a month before adding more.
• Use the 2025 lists for the new exam. Make a custom deck until Skritter's new decks arrive.
• Read and speak the words too. Writing holds characters in memory; using them makes them yours.

For the rest of your toolkit, see the best apps to learn Chinese.