I’m writing to express my deep disappointment with LingQ regarding a recent policy change that significantly affects users.
A year ago, I purchased the LingQ Lifetime plan, which was clearly advertised as offering “unlimited uploads”—a key feature that strongly influenced my decision to buy. At the time, it allowed me to upload audio files and use Whispersync to generate transcripts, which was incredibly helpful for language learning through audiobooks.
However, starting around May 2025, LingQ quietly introduced a 10-hour monthly limit on audio uploads—without any announcement. This effectively restricts users to just 20 minutes of audio per day. It is extremely limiting for serious learners who rely on audiobooks or long-form content. Honestly, it feels like a bait-and-switch.
I understand that Whispersync may incur high costs, but that is a business risk LingQ should have anticipated before promoting “unlimited uploads” to users. Now, not only has the marketing been changed, but all users—regardless of when they joined—are being affected by this new restriction.
Frankly, that’s both unfair and disappointing.
If LingQ realized that the unlimited model was not sustainable, they should have grandfathered in users who purchased their lifetime plan before May 2025. The new limitations should apply only to customers who signed up after the policy change. That’s what honoring your commitments looks like.
LingQ is a powerful tool with a strong reputation in the language learning community, and I genuinely want to continue supporting it. But trust matters. If you sell a product with “unlimited uploads,” you need to stand by that promise for those who paid in good faith.
I sincerely hope the LingQ team reconsiders this decision and restores unlimited uploads for lifetime users who subscribed before the change.
I second that. Loyal customers bring more business this is what I was taught in my marketing class. Look at me, I bought three lifetime subscriptions for three different languages. I am a profitable customer yet I face such issues. Then what is the point of using LingQ- if you can not enjoy of what you are studying. Atleast increase the limit probably from 10 hours to something like 20-30 hours of transcription. I find it 10 hours limit quite limited,
I have the same issue. I love lingQ bought a yearly subscription when language 50 introduced the discounted membership. Im learning many languages mostly with youtube and tge new limitation should A be clearly announced and B only apply to new users. It’s unfair to users who already have paid and have no option. And yes you are right serious learners have no chance… It’s basically defying the purpose of lingq which is to import your content to learn. Especially annoying when no actual content is there for a language, which is true for many of the beta languages. They never seem to get more content anyways. Also I am looking forward to Thai being added but this limit will impede the learning process bc there will probably not be much lingQown content.
@sitran We are working on adding a new tier which will allow up to 3,600 monthly hours of transcription, or 2 hours per day. We believe this should be enough for even a dedicated learner to keep importing throughout the month.
“We are working on adding a new tier which will allow up to 3,600 monthly hours of transcription, or 2 hours per day. We believe this should be enough for even a dedicated learner to keep importing throughout the month.”
How would this new tier affect people who already bought Lifetime plans?
I whole heartedly agree. I’ve recommended lingq to quite a few friends bragging about how good the lifetime is because i finally have a language app that cares about you learning a language, not just a monthly sub that does nothing like duolingo. Now its like I don’t know if i should recommend the lifetime since hitting walls/limitations is never fun when youre extremely motivated.
yep, changes should affect only new users that buy the lifetime plan, with clear rules. Don’t change it back, don’t ruin your reputation for nothing like Whoop.
For example, I don’t upload much but if one day I decide to upload 10 books that I want to read for the entire year, I shouldn’t have any limitation. Imho.
@stitchel At the moment, the limit affects Lifetime users too. When we introduce a new tier, we will see how we can properly handle users on the Lifetime plan. Thanks for pointing that out,
I hope that goes for yearly subscriptions, too.
Goes without saying that if you pay for a year for certain benefits you don’t want to be charged more after a month or two.
In my case I also can’t really afford the membership as is, I have to save up quite a long time so this hits me extra hard. If you raise your fees I need to cancel once the year runs out. Serious learner or not, I need to eat!
I know from other subscriptions that most lock in prices for already paying users. You might want to consider this so not to offend and lose users!
I can appreciate your annoyance, but we had to impose this cap to prevent the cost of all plans from rising. Both Premium and Lifetime subscribers will continue to have the same limit, which will not be altered. If you require more than 10 hours per month, we will soon include the option to purchase more time.
I am not annoyed. I just don’t think this fair. Premium and lifetime people bought their subscriptions and paid for certain features.
Now you changed something major without announcing it (notification, newsletter), and without other options.
As for “buy more”. While I still think this is hugely unfair to people who have paid longterm or lifetime memberships for me personally that’s not even a possibility. As I mentioned money’s very tight for me. I saved up for the yearly membership and was so happy I have it. Paying anything extra would mean cutting down on food. So maybe you can understand why I am sad (not annoyed)
I guess, I will see if the limit works for me. If it’s not I will turn my back on lingq and go back to readers from the library. As sad as I would be to leave, but I just can’t afford more.
The saddest thing is that I actually always felt and thought that your support was great, like when you offered Ukrainian for free, when no one else did! What happened?
So now we have to pay more just to get more import time? If lifetime users don’t pay, we’re stuck with only 10 hours per month?
I imported my audiobook on July 5, and I have just 40 minutes left to complete it. Now I have to wait a whole month just to finish importing the remaining chapters. That’s really frustrating.
When I bought the Lifetime plan for $229, I had already stretched my budget because I believed it would let me study comfortably with audiobooks. That was a key part of my learning method. Now you’re asking me to pay more—again—which was never part of the plan, not for me and probably not for many others.
If you want to introduce a paid tier for extra import time, that’s fine, but the base limit for Lifetime users should be much higher than 10 hours. At the very least, it should support one hour of learning per day—so 30 hours per month.
If you can’t honor the original promise of unlimited imports, then you should at least offer a practical alternative. Otherwise, I want my money back.
You are changing the rules for people who already purchased a membership weeks, months or even years ago.
As @Safran said, you did it without saying anything to users. What’s the point of having a forum if you are never using it to communicate about important changes? This is shady at best.
If you have miscalculated the costs, it should not be up to users who have already purchased a membership to cough up yet more money to rectify the problem. The change should affect new users only. Trust matters when you purchase a subscription and the Lifetime and Premium were advertised as coming with unlimited uploads.
I also think people would perhaps be more inclined to be understanding if the software wasn’t constantly riddled with bugs. Paying yet more money for extras and have an unstable app is not okay.
Not to get involved in the drama about LingQ’s plan, but you all are able to utilize WhisperAI outside of LingQ and generate the text on your own. You could then copy a word document the normal way you would upload a text lesson on LingQ. It’s not nearly as convenient, but if you’re wanting to upload a lot of stuff at once or struggling to maintain your daily level of content consumption in the meantime, it’s an option. I don’t like the 10 hour per month limit, but it sounds like there was a good reason to impose the limit: your costs may have increased either way. Anyway, hope this helps, and happy learning, folks.