italki Review

The thing AI still can't replace

Not a course. A marketplace for human teachers

italki states its business on the first screen: one-to-one lessons in more than 150 languages, with certified teachers. There is no course to work through here, no streak, no exercises — the product is finding a person, booking their time, and meeting them on video. Everything in the app exists to serve that one transaction, which makes it the odd one out in this ranking and the only place to get what no software can give you: someone who notices what you actually get wrong.

The filters are the real feature

With 1,277 beginner-friendly Spanish teachers on the list, choosing is the hard part, and this is where italki earns its keep. You can filter by price, availability, whether they're a certified Professional Teacher or a cheaper Community Tutor — and, unusually, by what other languages they speak. We asked for Spanish teachers who also speak Icelandic and still had results. For anyone whose first language isn't English, that single filter is worth more than any feature in a course app.

Teacher profiles tell you more than a course page ever could

Each teacher gets an intro video, their languages with proficiency bars (this one: native Spanish, plus English, French, German, Italian and Russian), lesson and student totals, credentials, personal interests, and — quietly important — where they live and what time it is there. A 'Steady choice' badge flags regular bookings. You are hiring a person, so the app shows you a person.

Ratings you can actually use

4.9 stars from 476 reviews, a 99% attendance rate and a 98% response rate — the last two matter far more than the star count, because the risk with a marketplace isn't a mediocre lesson, it's a teacher who doesn't show up or never replies. Reviews come from named students with their lesson counts attached, so you can weigh a comment from someone on their 202nd lesson differently from a first-timer.

Prices per lesson, and a calendar in your own timezone

Teachers set their own rates: this one's trial lesson is $18, while elsewhere on the list they ran from $7 to $25. Below the price sits the week's availability grid, drawn 'based on your timezone' — the detail that saves you doing mental arithmetic between Trujillo and wherever you are. Note also how little green there is: a popular teacher had one free slot that week, which is the reality of booking a popular one.

You pay per lesson — plus some new AI around the edges

There's no subscription to learn here: you top up a wallet and pay per lesson, which means the cost scales with how much you actually use it rather than lapsing quietly like a gym membership. The Today tab is also where italki's newer software ambitions show up — optional lesson transcription that produces AI summaries and vocabulary practice from what you and your teacher actually said. That's a genuinely smart use of AI: not replacing the human, but mining the hour you already paid for.