Elevate’s paid plan costs $39.99 per year, with a 7-day free trial, or around $9.99 per month with no trial. The free tier gives you three games per day, chosen for you. At roughly $3.33 a month on the annual plan, Elevate is one of the better-value brain training apps — well under BrainHQ at $96. Lumosity appears to cost more too, though it does not publish its prices.
Which plan to pick: stay on the free version if one three-game workout a day is enough; if you want the paid plan for more than four months, the $39.99 annual plan costs less than paying $9.99 a month.
Elevate is consistently one of the most-downloaded brain training apps and a former Apple App of the Year. If you have been using the free version and wondering whether the paid plan is worth it, here is the honest breakdown.
Elevate pricing at a glance
Pricing varies somewhat by region, platform, and current promotions. Always check the in-app purchase screen for the exact price where you are.
The annual plan is the obvious choice if you are going to subscribe at all — $39.99 for the year against roughly $120 if you paid monthly. Elevate pushes the annual plan hard for this reason.
What the free version actually gives you
Elevate’s free tier is genuinely usable, which sets it apart from apps where free is just a teaser. You get three full games per day — not previews, not 30-second samples, complete exercises.
The catch is that you do not choose which three. Elevate picks them for you. So if you want to work specifically on writing or mental math on a given day, the free tier may hand you games from a different skill instead.
For a casual user who wants a few minutes of daily skill practice and does not care which skills, the free version is genuinely enough. Many people use it for months without paying. Our guide to the best free brain training apps compares it with other free versions.
What the paid plan unlocks
All games, any time. Elevate has 40+ games across writing, reading, speaking, math, and memory. The paid plan removes the three-per-day limit and lets you pick what you train.
More workout options. Elevate says its upgraded version gives you up to five games in a variety of daily workouts, while the free version gives you three games in your Recommended Workout.
Detailed performance tracking. Skill-by-skill performance over time. Weekly performance reports come with the free version too.
Advanced difficulty levels. Some games have higher tiers that only unlock with the paid plan.
Does Elevate have a free trial?
Yes. Elevate offers a 7-day free trial of its paid plan, and its US App Store listing shows it as “1 Year With 7-Day Trial” at $39.99. During the trial you get every Elevate game and feature. When the seven days are up, Elevate’s help center says the trial renews automatically into an annual subscription and you are charged. To avoid that, turn off auto-renewal at least 24 hours before the seventh day, because Apple and Google start taking payment 24 hours before a trial renews.
To cancel on iPhone or iPad: open the Settings app, tap your name or profile photo at the top, tap Subscriptions, tap Elevate, then tap Cancel Subscription.
To cancel on Android: open the Google Play Store app, tap your profile icon at the top right, tap Payments & subscriptions, then Subscriptions, select Elevate, and tap Cancel subscription. If you see “Canceled” in red instead of a cancel option, it is already cancelled.
If you signed up on the web: in the app, tap Me, then the settings gear, then Account Status, and tap Cancel service. Follow the prompts to the billing page and tap Cancel plan to confirm.
If you don’t see an Elevate subscription anywhere, you may be on the free version, which isn’t linked to a trial and can be used indefinitely. You can check under Me, Settings, Account Status. See Elevate’s cancellation steps for more detail.
How Elevate compares on price
| App | Annual price | Monthly equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Peak Pro | ~$34.99/year | ~$2.92/month |
| Elevate | $39.99/year | ~$3.33/month |
| Lumosity | Not published; top App Store item shown is $89.00 | Not published |
| BrainHQ | $96/year | $8/month |
Elevate sits comfortably at the affordable end. It appears to cost less than Lumosity, which does not publish its prices, and it is well under half of BrainHQ, while being one of the better-regarded apps in the category.
Zenelia is a brain training app made by Mindkindly’s owner, so we don’t rank or score it here. It costs $6.99 a month or $44.99 a year, has a 7-day free trial, and is iPhone only for now; read more about Zenelia or see it on the App Store.
Is Elevate’s paid plan worth $39.99?
The honest answer depends on how you will use it.
Worth it if:
- You write, present, or communicate for work and want targeted practice
- You want to choose which skills to train rather than accepting whatever the free tier offers
- You will open the app several times a week
- You are studying or preparing for exams involving reading, vocabulary, or math
- You want progress tracking to see whether the practice is actually working
Not worth it if:
- You use the app occasionally and do not mind which games you get
- You want broad cognitive training across memory, attention, and processing speed — Elevate is narrower than that
- You have not used the free version consistently for at least two weeks
That last point matters most. If the free version is not already part of your routine, paying will not change that. Use free for two weeks first. If you find yourself wishing you could pick your games or train more than three a day, that is the signal to upgrade.
For a fuller assessment of the app itself, see our Elevate review and our honest look at whether Elevate is worth it.
Does Elevate actually work?
Worth addressing since it affects whether the cost is justified.
Elevate trains practical skills rather than abstract cognitive functions — concise writing, careful reading, mental math, vocabulary in context. That keeps the practice relevant, and you will get better at Elevate’s exercises. But evidence that those gains carry over outside the app is limited: a major 2016 review of brain training research found little evidence that training improves everyday cognitive performance, and we found no controlled trial showing that Elevate’s gains carry over into daily life.
What Elevate will not do is make you broadly “smarter” or fix attention problems. It is skill practice, honestly framed. For the fuller research picture, see our guide on whether brain training apps actually work.
How to save on Elevate
Use the 7-day free trial. Enough time to genuinely test whether the paid plan’s unlocked games change your usage. Cancel at least 24 hours before it ends if you decide against it.
Choose annual over monthly. Saves roughly $80 over a year.
Watch for the lifetime option. Elevate’s help center says monthly and lifetime plans are not shown while you are in a free trial or subscription. Once a subscription is cancelled and expires, you can choose monthly, annual, or lifetime from the purchase page. Elevate does not publish the lifetime price, so compare it with the annual price in the app before buying.
Try the free tier seriously first. Three games a day is more than most people actually use.
Common questions
Is Elevate free? There is a genuinely usable free tier — three full games per day, chosen for you. The paid plan unlocks everything.
Does Elevate have a family plan? Not currently. Lumosity sells family plans for up to five people, while Peak no longer sells its Family Plan.
Can I cancel anytime? Yes. You keep access through the end of your billed period.
Is there a student discount? Not a formal one, though promotional pricing appears periodically.
Does the price differ on iOS vs Android? Occasionally, due to platform pricing and regional differences. Check the in-app screen.
The bottom line
At $39.99 a year, Elevate’s paid plan is fairly priced for what it delivers — targeted practice in skills you actually use, though evidence that the gains carry over outside the app is limited. It is far cheaper than BrainHQ, appears to cost less than Lumosity, and is only slightly more than Peak at about $34.99.
The smart approach: use the free tier for two weeks. If the three-game daily limit starts frustrating you, the upgrade is worth it. If you keep forgetting to open the app, paying would not have fixed that.
For the full comparison across brain training apps, see our best brain training apps roundup. If you are choosing between Elevate and one rival, our head-to-heads cover Peak vs Elevate, Lumosity vs Elevate, and Elevate vs BrainHQ.