TLDR: Free tier cut-off adjusted slightly to account for the large number of words we now have. Total content taught is approximately the same as it was when we launched.
The free tier will be changed this week to be up to rank 3 instead of rank 5. We’ll update our docs and website text to reflect this change when it rolls out.
Up to rank 3 includes 90 characters, most of the sounds, ~100 components, ~100 words. All of this adds up to over 300 items in total that can be learned entirely for free, or about a month worth of content for those consistently doing 10 lessons a day.
Our previous free tier cut-off of rank 5 was from before we added any of the vocabulary words that exist today and continues to grow in number. We have adjusted the rank cut-off down from 5 to 3 to account for the large number of word items that are now taught per rank. The total content taught is approximately the same when accounting for this extra content we have added over the past months.
As always, thanks for using HanziHero! We are proud to be able to offer such a generous free tier to allow anyone to easily start learning Chinese characters at their own pace, no credit card required.