Review with bite
Pleco review: is it worth it?
The default Chinese dictionary app: free core with paid add-ons for OCR, handwriting, flashcards and premium dictionaries.
The short answer
Pleco is a Chinese-English dictionary app with handwriting input, audio and optional paid add-ons such as OCR, extra dictionaries and flashcards. The free version alone is enough for most learners.
Pricing
Freemium; One-time purchases (add-ons)
Free tier
Yes
Platforms
iOS; Android
Languages
Chinese
Best for
Every Mandarin and Cantonese learner
Skip it if
Never
Kungfucius says: If you learn Chinese and do not have Pleco, are you even suffering correctly?
Pleco is the app that almost every learner of Chinese ends up installing, usually in the first week. In Kungfucius's experience that holds everywhere, and most of all in Taiwan, where it is hard to find a language school classroom without it open on half the phones.
It is very well received for a simple reason: it does the dull work properly. The free version covers look-ups completely. The question is only how much of the rest you need to pay for.
Is Pleco free?
The dictionary is, and generously so. According to Pleco's own product page, the free app includes the full dictionary search engine, handwriting recognition, a couple of dictionaries, a simple reader for text you paste from the clipboard, basic audio, and no advertising. On Android the free version also includes a screen reader and a light version of the flashcards.
Drawing a character with your finger therefore costs nothing. What costs money is the full-screen handwriting pad, along with OCR, the complete flashcard system, the document reader, stroke order diagrams and the better dictionaries.
Pleco runs on iPhone, iPad and Android. There is no subscription. Everything is a one-time purchase tied to your account.
Which Pleco add-ons are worth buying?
Prices checked in November 2026:
| What | Price in the app stores | Price in Pleco's own web store |
|---|---|---|
| Basic Bundle (OCR, flashcards, stroke order, document reader, audio, full-screen handwriting, Oxford Chinese Dictionary) | US$29.99 | US$24.99 |
| Professional Bundle (everything in Basic plus six further dictionaries and an extra voice) | US$59.99 | US$49.99 |
| Flashcard system alone | Varies | US$9.99 |
| OCR alone | Varies | US$9.99 |
Pleco lowered the bundle prices for direct purchases in 2025, so the web store is the cheaper route. Purchases made there are linked to your registration and then activated inside the app.
Kungfucius's view on what to buy:
- Beginners: nothing. Use the free app for a few months and see which limit annoys you first.
- Anyone who keeps the words they look up: the flashcard system, or the Basic Bundle if you also want OCR. This is the purchase most learners end up making.
- Advanced learners and translators: the Professional Bundle, mainly for the larger dictionaries and the Chinese-Chinese one.
- Cantonese learners: Pleco sells Cantonese dictionaries and Cantonese voices separately. They are not part of the two bundles.
OCR, handwriting and Traditional or Simplified
Handwriting input is how you look up a character you cannot pronounce: draw it and Pleco offers candidates.
OCR does the same through the camera. Point the phone at a menu, a sign or a page, and the app recognises the characters and shows definitions as you move over them. This is the add-on that pays for itself at the first restaurant with no pictures on the menu.
Pleco handles Traditional and Simplified characters equally. You choose which set is shown first, entries display both forms, and you can search in either. For learners in Taiwan that matters, and so does the option to display Zhuyin as well as Pinyin. If you have not decided between the two scripts yet, read Simplified versus Traditional first.
Pleco flashcards versus Anki
People use Pleco to look up and catalogue new words, and then use the flashcard trainer to improve retention. In that sense it is similar to Anki: both rest on spaced repetition, which shows you a word again just before you forget it.
The difference is speed. In Pleco you tap the plus sign on a dictionary entry and the card exists, with characters, Pinyin, definition and audio already filled in. You can add words on the go in seconds: in a shop, in class, in the middle of a conversation if you are discreet. Kungfucius finds Anki a bit slow for that. Nobody builds a proper Anki card at a night market.
Anki wins on everything else: sentence cards, your own audio, images, complete control over layout and scheduling, and a desktop version.
Kungfucius says: Pleco catches the word, Anki raises it. Some words are happy with just being caught.
How to combine Pleco and Anki
Two sensible set-ups:
- Pleco only. Look up, tap plus, review for ten minutes a day. Enough for most learners in their first year or two.
- Pleco as the net, Anki as the home. Save words in Pleco all week. Once a week, pick the ones worth keeping and make proper sentence cards in Anki.
Pleco can export your saved words as a file that Anki imports, and the Android version can pass cards to AnkiDroid. Check the export options in your version first. Whichever set-up you choose, do not review the same words in both apps. That is homework done twice.
Weaknesses
- The interface is dense and looks its age. A version 4 has been in public beta testing since late 2023, with no final release date confirmed.
- It is a dictionary for phones and tablets, not a course. It will not tell you what to learn next.
What to do this week
- Install the free app and set the character set you are learning as the one shown first.
- For two weeks, tap the plus sign on every word you look up twice.
- If the list is growing, buy the flashcard system or the Basic Bundle from the web store and set a daily limit of ten minutes.
- Add Anki only when you start wanting sentences, not before.