What free actually gets you.
Full access to the library and reader — Mini Stories, graded courses, news feeds, books — with the hard wall at 20 saved words lifetime, not monthly, plus 5 imports. LingQ's own guidance admits you'll likely hit it "within your first lesson," and the community's longest-running complaint is exactly this: the free tier exists to show you the mechanic, then stop you mid-sentence. We'd rather you know that going in than discover it at word 21.
The 100-LingQ referral bonus — the honest workaround.
Per LingQ's own referral program, signing up through any referral link gives both sides a bonus: you receive 100 additional LingQs on top of the standard 20. That's not a full solution — 120 saved words still runs out within a couple of weeks of real reading — but it's the difference between a demo and an actual trial. Disclosure, plainly: the link on this page is BingeFluent's referral link, we earn a commission if you later go Premium, and the 100-LingQ bonus is LingQ's standard referral perk, not an exclusive we negotiated. Details: /deals/lingq-bonus
What Premium unlocks and costs.
Unlimited LingQs and imports at $14.99/month, $10/month billed annually, or $8.99/month if you'll commit to 24 months. Premium Plus (~$22.50/month annual) adds AI voices, an advanced AI chat, and AI-simplified lessons — LingQ's own recommendation, which we share, is that standard Premium covers the core reading-listening workflow.
Should you pay?
The test is your input medium. If reading and listening are where your hours go — or your language is one of the 40+ LingQ serves that subtitle tools don't — Premium annual at $10/month is fair for a content library plus import engine plus review system. If your hours go to Netflix and YouTube, spend the money on the watching stack instead (scoreboard). Full picture: LingQ review.