Skritter vs Pinyinize
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Skritter
Master Mandarin characters through interactive writing practice. Learn meanings, readings, and tones with curated decks for all levels, from beginner to advanced.
- Interactive character writing practice
- Learn character meaning, reading, and tone
- Topic-based and difficulty-level decks
- HSK 1-9 study decks
- Stroke order guidance
- Review mode
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Practice Chinese writing with Skritter, whether you have a strong grasp of written Chinese and want to remember the characters better or are a beginner who doesn’t know where to start. Skritter has existed for more than 10 years, and for a good reason: our learners are amazing! They help us with feedback which allows us to create what we think is the best Chinese writing app out there! If you have seen Chinese writing before, you probably noticed that it requires us to learn characters rather than the roman alphabet we know from English. You can learn it through our “decks” (similar to a card deck) based on topics and difficulty. Popular Decks: - Ordering or making coffee or tea (so you can get your morning caffeine fix) - Chinese Stroke Order - HSK 1-6 & New HSK3.0 1-9 study decks - More advanced topics like Yoga and talking about your Emotions - The 16-episode Ultimate Chinese Character course First, you learn a character’s meaning, reading, and tone; then practice writing it! Before you know it, you’ll want to learn thousands of characters, and words like these two happy users: “If I could only keep one app on my iPod, this would be it without a doubt. Skritter will change your life!” ― Wendy Werneth, UN Translator “Learning to write characters has never been so fun. From writing zero to 2000+ characters in six months!” ― Brian Jackson, Economist Try our app and see for yourself why thousands of people use it every day. Have questions, problems, or feedback? We would love to hear from you. Reach out to us at team@skritter.com ----------- Guest accounts enjoy free access to select decks forever! Unlock Review mode, and study anything you want with a premium subscription, which is available for purchase in the app. Big savings offered on 12-month subscriptions! • One month subscription (automatically renewed until canceled) • 12-month subscription (automatically renewed until canceled) Recurring billing, cancel anytime. Within 24 hours before the subscription period ends, you will be charged through your iTunes account. Manage your subscription from your iTunes App Store settings where you can turn off auto-renewal at any time. Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription to that publication, where applicable. Privacy Policy: https://skritter.com/legal Terms of Use: https://docs.skritter.com/article/133-terms-of-use
Pinyinize
This app uses your phone's camera to instantly convert Chinese characters into phonetic Pinyin. It helps you understand menus, addresses, and other Chinese text by displaying the Pinyin with contextual grouping for accurate pronunciation.
- Camera-based character to Pinyin conversion
- Contextual grouping for accurate pronunciation
- Instant translation of Chinese text
- Useful for menus and addresses
- Supports iPhone devices
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Are you studying Chinese and proficient in pronouncing PinYin, but don't ever see any Chinese writing with accompanying PinYin? Have you ever been in a Chinese restaurant, looking at the menu, and wishing you knew how PinYin of the dishes' names to be able to order them from your server in Chinese? Have you ever been in the taxi in China or Taiwan and needed to tell your driver the destination, with the address in hand, but you could not pronounce it? Well guess what - the struggle is over! With the PinYinize, you can use your camera turn Chinese characters into phonetic PinYin at your fingertips! Simply point the in-app camera to the Chinese text you are interested in, take a photo, and the app will automatically convert them into PinYin for you. What about those pesky characters that change in pronunciation based on the change in context? We've got you covered! The PinYinize will display the Chinese characters in your photo by grouping them in helpful boxes that identifies the pertinent context they are in, and helps you pronounce the characters accurately!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Pinyinize at none against Skritter's 11. Pinyinize also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.7) and review sentiment (100% vs 83%). Skritter's advantage is ratings volume (816 vs 1) and device support (3 vs 1). On price, update cadence and ads there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Skritter sells 9 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month. Pinyinize asks for nothing beyond the download.
Pinyinize holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Skritter has 816 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 83% of Skritter's written reviews are positive against 100% of Pinyinize's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly monthly. The most recent releases landed on September 23, 2026 and June 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Skritter | Pinyinize |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (816 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 82.8% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 816 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Monthly | Monthly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 54 MB | 13 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Inkren, Inc. | Kyle Watson |
Customer experience
Skritter
Pinyinize
Bugs and requests
Skritter
Reported bugs
4 issues- Subscription issues and unauthorized charges
- App freezing and crashing
- Syncing problems across devices
- Inconsistent character recognition
Requested features
5 requests- Allow creating custom decks and word lists
- Add Cantonese support
- Improve landscape mode on iPad
- Provide more detailed performance tracking
- Add ability to focus on specific problem characters
Pinyinize
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Skritter
- Skritter Premium (1 month)7 Days trial$9.991 Month
- Skritter Premium (1 month)7 Days trial2 variants$14.991 Month
- Skritter Premium (1 month)14 Days trial$14.991 Month
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- Skritter Premium (6 month)7 Days trial$59.996 Months
- Skritter Premium (6 month)14 Days trial$59.996 Months
- Skritter Premium (6 month)7 Days trial$69.996 Months
- Skritter Premium (1 year)7 Days trial2 variants$99.991 Year
- Skritter Premium (1 year)14 Days trial$99.991 Year
- Skritter Premium (1 year)7 Days trial$119.991 Year
Pinyinize
No in-app purchases









