Is Starfall free?
Partly. Starfall has been free and ad-free since 2002, but a majority of the catalogue now sits behind a membership. Here is the actual line.
Written and checked September 2026. No affiliate links anywhere on this site — we make nothing if you choose a competitor, which is the only reason a comparison page is worth reading.
The short answer
Free: a real, usable set of activities, weighted towards the alphabet and early reading. No account, no advertising, no data collection.
Not free: most of the mathematics, the animated songs, the upper-grade content, and the bulk of the 700-plus activity catalogue. That needs a membership.
What a membership costs, September 2026
| Membership | Price | Covers |
|---|---|---|
| Home | $35 / year | One family household, all devices |
| In-app subscription | $5.99 / month (~$72 / year) | Only devices tied to that app-store account |
| Teacher | $70 / year | One teacher and their students |
| Classroom | $195 / year | A small school, one class per grade |
| School | $355 / year | A typical campus |
Do not buy the in-app subscription if you can avoid it. At $5.99 a month it costs roughly twice the $35 direct Home Membership for the same content. That gap is the app-store commission, passed to you.
What the free version is actually good for
It is genuinely good for a three- to five-year-old meeting letters for the first time. The letter-sound activities, the early word families and the read-along books are the strongest part of the product and a lot of that is free.
Where free runs out fastest is mathematics — most of it is behind the membership — and anything past about first grade.
Free alternatives worth knowing about
| Product | Cost | Ages | What it is | Pick it when… |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ladderbug | Free tier, $60/yr for 6 children, $180 once | 4–11 | Adaptive mastery ladder for phonics and K–5 math. No video, no ads, no account needed. | You want a sequence rather than a library, and you want to see real mastery rather than minutes played. |
| Khan Academy Kids | Genuinely free | 2–8 | Beautifully made, completely free, no ads and no in-app purchases. Backed by a nonprofit. | You want the best free option and you have an iPad or Android tablet. There is no web version, which rules it out on a Chromebook. |
| Teach Your Monster to Read | Web version free | 3–6 | Charming, well-sequenced early phonics from a UK charity. The browser version is free permanently. | Your child is just starting and you want something delightful at no cost. The app moved to a subscription in 2026; the web version did not. |
| Reading Eggs / Mathseeds | $99.99/yr, 4 children | 2–13 | A long, structured reading path with a lot of content and decent reporting. | You want one product to carry reading for several years and you do not mind the price. |
| ABCmouse | $45/yr promo, $14.99/mo, 3 children | 2–8 | The biggest library in the category, across many subjects, heavily gamified. | You want breadth and your child likes the reward economy. Note the FTC settlement over auto-renewal — set a calendar reminder. |
| IXL | $79–$159/yr, +$40/yr per extra child | PreK–12 | The widest standards coverage and the best analytics for a parent who wants data. | Your child is resilient and you want to track standards precisely. Many parents find it relentless. |
| Prodigy Math | Game free; $58.95–$118.95/yr | 6–14 | A genuine RPG with maths bolted into the battles. Children love it. | Motivation is your problem, not instruction. Be aware of the 2021 FTC complaint about in-game upselling to children. |
| Beast Academy | $100/yr +$64.99 per extra child | 6–13 | The most intellectually serious elementary maths available, from Art of Problem Solving. | Your child finds maths easy and is bored. It is a poor fit for a struggling learner. |
| ABCya / Funbrain | Free with ads | 4–12 | Big libraries of quick browser games, free because they are ad-supported. | You want a five-minute filler and you do not mind advertising in front of your child. |
| Epic! | $84.99/yr | 2–12 | A large digital library of real books. | You want reading volume rather than reading instruction. Watch for badge-driven page-flipping. |
| Nessy | Varies | 5–12 | Orton-Gillingham-based, built specifically for dyslexic learners. | You have a diagnosis and want a programme designed around it. |
| Time4Learning | $39.95/mo per student | PreK–12 | A full graded curriculum with automated grading and attendance records. | Your state requires records and you want a single vendor. Its Trustpilot rating is 2.2/5 across 3,000+ reviews, mostly about billing. |
The catch nobody mentions
Free or paid, Starfall keeps no record of what your child has done. There is no progress tracking, no placement, and no report. That is a privacy decision they make on purpose and it is defensible. But it means "is the $35 worth it?" is a question you cannot answer with data, because there is not any.
If knowing what your child has actually mastered matters to you, that is a different product category, and price is not the deciding variable.
Questions people actually ask
Is Starfall free?
Partly. A meaningful set of activities — concentrated in letter sounds and early reading — is free with no account. A Home Membership costs $35 a year and expands access to more than 700 activities, including most of the mathematics, the animated songs and the upper grades.
How much is a Starfall membership?
As of September 2026, from Starfall's own store: Home $35 a year, Teacher $70, Classroom $195, School $355. The in-app subscription bought through Apple or Google is $5.99 a month, which is about $72 a year — roughly double the direct price.
Does Starfall show ads?
No. Starfall states plainly that it does not display advertising and does not collect personal information from children. That is genuinely unusual and worth crediting.
Is there a completely free alternative?
Yes. Khan Academy Kids is entirely free with no ads and no purchases, though it is app-only. Teach Your Monster to Read is free on the web. The Ladderbug free tier covers the whole kindergarten and first-grade ladder with no account and no card.