Skritter review: is the handwriting app worth it? (video)
Skritter checks every stroke you write. What that teaches, $99.99 a year, how its HSK decks match the December 2026 exam, and when Anki or Pleco is better.
Chapters
- 0:00Start
- 0:22The short answer
- 0:41How it works
- 1:35Why writing helps
- 2:05Four cards per word
- 2:44Tone cards
- 3:06The HSK decks
- 3:53Decks for your textbook
- 4:13The price
- 4:42Anki or Pleco
- 5:02Who it suits
- 5:16Where SayMei fits
- 5:33What to do next
Transcript
Start
Add five new words a day in Skritter, with all four card types. Three months later, at Skritter's 95% target, that's about 100 reviews a day. At 15 seconds a card, half an hour, every day. So is it worth it? From SayMei Guides, by Mei Lin: a Skritter review. Is the handwriting app worth it?
The short answer
The short answer: yes, if you want to write characters by hand. Skritter makes you write each word from memory, checks every stroke, and schedules your reviews. But it's narrow and slow, and its HSK lists predate the new exam. Premium costs $99.99 a year.
How it works
What does it feel like? We went through Skritter's free web demo on 11 October. It teaches you one word, 中文, Chinese. First you trace each stroke. Then the outline goes, and you write it from memory. Right turns green, wrong turns red. Then come meaning, tone and pinyin cards. The canvas is strict. When we wrote the last stroke of 中 first, Skritter didn't accept it. Each correct stroke snaps into a clean, brush-like line. Too kind? Raw squigs shows your strokes as you drew them, and rawest squigs turns grading off. The rest, from Skritter's own pages: more than 700 official decks, on iPhone, iPad, Android and the web. A few decks are free, but reviews need Premium. It's rated 4.7 on the App Store, and 4.5 on Google Play.
Why writing helps
Does writing by hand help? In experiments with adult learners, it helped people recognise characters and link them to meanings, more than reading alone. Typing pinyin helped only with sounds. The catch: writing is slow. In one study, reading practice beat writing for meanings and sounds. 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, you can learn faster without it.
Four cards per word
Here's the part that adds up. Skritter splits each word into four cards: writing, tone, pinyin and meaning. Each has its own schedule. So ten new words a day are forty new cards. Get one right every time, and it comes back about three times further away, out to nearly 300 days. Skritter's help pages call 95% recall a good target. In our flashcard model, that meant about 60% more reviews than Anki's default. One learner near HSK 5 says the daily cards take probably 1.5 hours. Our advice: add fewer words, and switch off card types you don't need.
Tone cards
Tone cards are Skritter's best idea after writing. You draw each tone: flat, rising, dipping, falling. Or, since September, tap a button. Either way, you produce the tone, and recalling teaches more than recognising. But a tone card can't hear you. It checks you remember a tone, not that you can say it.
The HSK decks
Now the HSK decks. Skritter's HSK 3.0 decks follow the 2021 lists. The exam starting 13 December 2026 uses a syllabus from November 2025. We compared them word by word. For HSK 1 to 4, the new exam lists 2,000 words. The 2021 decks hold 3,245, and cover 87% of them. The handwriting decks match even less. For HSK 3, only 129 of the 250 characters to write are in the HSK 1 to 3 deck. Those words are still worth knowing. But for the new exam, study from the 2025 lists. Skritter says new decks are a priority.
Decks for your textbook
Skritter's real strength is its library: over 12,500 lists on its website, including learners' own. If your class uses a textbook, there's probably a deck for each chapter. And Du Chinese, Maayot and The Chairman's Bao send words from their stories into Skritter. In a class? That's the best reason to pay.
The price
Which plan? Monthly is $14.99. Six months, $59.99. Yearly, $99.99, or $8.33 a month, and each starts with a seven-day free trial. Yearly costs less than seven months of monthly, so it's the one we'd buy. Over two years, though, it's $199.98, and Pleco's flashcards are $29.99, once.
Anki or Pleco
So when is Anki or Pleco the better buy? Pick Anki for free, flexible reviews, if you don't need your strokes checked. Pick Pleco if it's already your dictionary: it checks the whole character, not each stroke. Pick Skritter if you want every stroke checked, and the scheduling done for you.
Who it suits
Skritter suits you if you want to write by hand, study from a textbook, and will study most days. Skip it, or pair it, if you mainly want to speak. Skritter never hears you, and there's no grammar course.
Where SayMei fits
And SayMei? We teach mainly through spoken lessons with Mei Lin. Our free worksheet generator checks every stroke too, but it's characters only, and your progress stays in one browser. Where we're strongest is speaking, the one skill Skritter never trains.
What to do next
What to do next? Try Skritter's demo first. It takes about five minutes. Choose your card types. Start with a few words a day, and watch your reviews for a month. And read and speak the words too. Writing holds characters in memory; using them makes them yours. You can practise speaking with Mei Lin, SayMei's teacher, in a short spoken lesson at your level. The full guide, with every source, is on the page at saymei dot app.