Free alternatives to Praktika for English speaking practice, compared
Praktika’s avatar tutors are good company, but the free part is a seven-day trial that asks for your card first. These are the apps you can talk with for free and keep using, what each gives you, and what it corrects.
Every figure in the table was read on each app's own pricing page or store listing, on the date above. Prices and free tiers move; this table is re-checked and re-dated when they do.
| App | What it is | What is free | What it costs after | What it corrects |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Praktika | AI avatar tutors | 7-day trial that asks for a card first | Around $8 a month billed yearly | Pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, at the end of each turn |
| Gliglish | AI conversation partner | 10 minutes a day, no sign-up | Paid plans remove the cap | Feedback on the conversation; pronunciation feedback is paid |
| ChatGPT (voice mode) | General assistant with voice conversation | Voice included on the free plan, with a daily and monthly cap on minutes | Plus, around $20 a month | Whatever you ask for, if you ask each session; no memory of your mistakes |
| Fluvia | Spoken conversation with 18 AI voices in seven accents, correcting you as you speak | Conversations free with no expiry, no account and no card; listening tests, dictation, writing correction, idioms, phrasal verbs and vocabulary unlimited | From US$5 a month, billed yearly | Grammar, vocabulary and phrasing the moment you slip; the mistakes you repeat come back |
| ELSA Speak | Pronunciation coach, with sample conversations | Limited daily lessons and sample AI conversations | Premium, around $13 a month billed yearly | Sounds and accent, sound by sound; grammar barely |
| TalkPal | AI tutor for 130+ languages, English among them | 10 minutes a day on the free plan, with an account; 14-day Premium trial | Premium, monthly or yearly; prices vary by country | Chat feedback and a pronunciation assessment tool; daily AI feedback is Premium |
| Speak | Guided speaking course with AI | 7-day trial; no permanent free tier | Premium, around $18 a month or around $84 a year | Inside its lessons, sentence by sentence |
| Loora | AI English tutor by voice | Short trial, then a subscription | $19.99 a month or $119.99 a year | One coached conversation a day, corrected at the end |
| HelloTalk | Language exchange with real people | Most of the app | VIP, around $7 a month | Whatever your human partner chooses to correct |
Why people look for a Praktika alternative
Two reasons come up again and again. The first is the trial: seven days, card required before you start, and the full plan charged when it ends unless you cancel. If you only wanted to see whether talking to an AI works for you, that is a lot of commitment for a test. The second is that after the trial there is no free tier at all; Praktika is a subscription, around $8 a month billed yearly.
So the question is not whether Praktika is good. It is whether there is something you can open today, talk with, and keep using without a card. There is.
Free with a daily cap, or a trial that ends
The first family has a permanent free tier with a cap: ChatGPT (voice minutes per day), Gliglish (ten minutes a day), TalkPal (ten minutes a day, with an account), HelloTalk (nearly everything) and Fluvia (first conversations with no expiry, and everything that is not speaking unlimited). You can use them every day without ever paying; what you buy is the removal of the cap.
The second is “try, then pay”: Speak, Praktika and Loora. The trial lasts a few days and after that nothing is free. Praktika and Loora also ask for a card before you start and charge the full plan when the trial ends unless you cancel.
If your question is “what can I talk with every day without spending anything”, the answer is only in the first family.
What Praktika does better
The avatars. A consistent tutor character with a face and a voice makes role-play feel less like talking to a box, and its lessons are built around scenarios. If that is what keeps you practising, the subscription may be worth it, and nothing below replaces the avatar itself.
What the alternatives replace is the conversation and the correction, which is the part that improves your English.
Which alternative for which problem
Try talking to an AI right now, no card, no account: Gliglish or Fluvia. Both open in the browser and start in a minute.
Free-form conversation on anything: ChatGPT’s voice mode with a teacher prompt.
Pronunciation: ELSA Speak. Sound by sound, which Praktika does only at the end of a turn.
A course with an order to it: Speak. The closest to Praktika’s lesson structure.
Correction while you talk, with your repeated mistakes brought back: Fluvia. First conversations free with no expiry, then a plan from US$5 a month, which is less than Praktika’s.
How we compared
Frequently asked questions
- Is there a free alternative to Praktika?
- Yes, and permanently free rather than a trial: Gliglish gives ten minutes a day with no sign-up, ChatGPT includes voice minutes on its free plan, and Fluvia gives its first conversations free with no expiry, no account and no card.
- Does Praktika have a free plan?
- No. It has a seven-day trial that asks for a card before you start, and charges the full plan when the trial ends unless you cancel. After that it is a subscription, around $8 a month billed yearly.
- Which alternative is closest to Praktika?
- For scenario role-play with a tutor, Speak and Loora are the closest, both subscriptions. For a voice conversation with correction that you can start without a card, Fluvia and Gliglish.
- Which is cheaper than Praktika if I end up paying?
- Fluvia’s annual plan is US$5 a month; Praktika is around $8 billed yearly; Gliglish’s paid plans remove its daily cap. Prices vary by country, so check on the day.