SpeakBase vs Mondly
SpeakBase vs Mondly: a lesson app in 41 languages, or twenty minutes a day of actually speaking?
Quick answer
Mondly, owned by Pearson, is a lesson app: 41 languages taught from Hebrew, 50 topics, daily lessons, a chatbot that asks scripted questions and speech recognition that scores your pronunciation, for 44.90 NIS a month or 215.55 NIS a year on the offer its Hebrew site showed on 19 September 2026. SpeakBase is one thing only: a live voice conversation with an AI tutor called Kate, up to 20 minutes a day, on any topic you bring, with every mistake corrected as you say it and explained in Hebrew, for 39 NIS a month. If you want to learn Spanish or Japanese, or you want structured lessons with a curriculum, Mondly is the better product. If the problem is that you know English and cannot speak it, SpeakBase is built for exactly that and Mondly is not.
Mondly is one of the most downloaded language apps in Israel: it has a full Hebrew interface, prices in shekels, more than a million ratings on the app stores by its own count, and it was approved as a pilot in the Ministry of Education's digital catalogue for the 2022 to 2024 school years. It teaches 41 languages, so its English course is one of 41 and it is built like the rest of them: short lessons on set topics, vocabulary builders, a chatbot with scripted conversations, and a microphone that checks your pronunciation. SpeakBase teaches conversation and nothing else. Comparing lesson counts is pointless, because Mondly wins that by a mile. Comparing what happens when you open your mouth is the real comparison, and every Mondly fact on this page was read on Mondly's own sites on 19 September 2026.
Side-by-side comparison
| Feature | SpeakBase | Mondly |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A live voice conversation with Kate, an AI speaking tutor, in your browser | A lesson app from Pearson: 41 languages, 250+ lessons in 40 topics, vocabulary builders, daily lessons, quizzes and progress tests |
| How you speak | You talk, Kate answers, and the whole session is an unscripted conversation on any topic you bring, including your own CV or a real situation you are rehearsing | A chatbot that, in Mondly's words, asks you questions, understands your answers and responds, inside conversations drawn from a set list; the Hebrew site counts 41 conversations and 50 topics |
| Corrections | Every grammar and vocabulary mistake corrected as you say it, explained in Hebrew, and turned into review cards | Speech recognition that Mondly says checks your English pronunciation in real time and offers immediate improvements; the lessons grade answers right or wrong |
| Languages | English, Spanish, Italian, French, Russian, Arabic, Greek and Hebrew, explained in Hebrew, English, Arabic, Russian or Spanish | 41 languages and, by Mondly's count, 1,320 language combinations, all learnable from Hebrew |
| Hebrew interface and shekel prices | Yes: the product is in Hebrew and priced in shekels | Yes: he.mondly.com is a full Hebrew site and the Hebrew pricing page is in shekels |
| Price | Premium is 39 NIS/month or 390 NIS/year in Israel ($11.99 / $119.99 elsewhere) | On 19 September 2026 the Hebrew offer page showed 44.90 NIS/month, 215.55 NIS/year (list 538.88, marked -60%) and 107.76 NIS per quarter (list 134.70), under a limited-time countdown |
| What is free | The first lesson: five minutes of real conversation with Kate, no card | Daily Lessons, the whole Hello category and one chatbot lesson, plus a 7-day trial of Premium that bills automatically when it ends |
| How much you actually speak | Up to 20 minutes a day, 150 a month, and every one of them is you talking | As long as the speaking exercises in a lesson last; Mondly describes a 45-minute lesson at the end of which you can replay the conversation |
| Curriculum and structure | Missions and scenarios, a level check and a difficulty dial, but no textbook-style course | A real course: 2,600+ daily lessons, 320+ weekly quizzes, 60+ monthly challenges and 108 English progress tests with Pearson content |
| Extras | Flashcards, quizzes, SpeakBase Times graded news, and classroom tools for teachers | Mondly Kids, Mondly AR with 13 augmented reality lessons and a separate Mondly VR product |
What a month costs (NIS, September 2026)
Where Mondly is genuinely stronger
Mondly is the better product for almost everything that is not English conversation. If you want Spanish for a trip, Japanese for the fun of it or Arabic for work, Mondly teaches 41 languages from Hebrew and SpeakBase teaches eight. Its course is enormous and well organised: daily lessons, weekly quizzes, monthly challenges, grammar tables, and 108 English progress tests built with Pearson content, which is a real curriculum with a real publisher behind it. Its free tier is more generous than ours, its annual price on the standing offer is less than half of ours, and it has a Kids app and augmented reality lessons that a nine-year-old will actually open. It also runs on a phone in a queue with the sound off, which a voice conversation never will. For a complete beginner who does not yet have the words to hold a conversation, thirty days of Mondly before a first lesson with Kate is a perfectly sensible order of events.
The bottom line
Choose Mondly if you want lessons: a structured course, many languages, a big free tier and a low annual price, with a chatbot and pronunciation scoring as the speaking layer on top. Choose SpeakBase if you already have English in your head and it will not come out of your mouth: twenty minutes a day of unscripted conversation with a tutor who corrects you mid-sentence and explains the correction in Hebrew, on the topic you choose, including the job interview you have next week. The two are not really competitors. One builds the vocabulary, the other makes you use it, and the Israeli learner who stalls at intermediate usually has plenty of the first and almost none of the second.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Mondly cost in Israel?
On 19 September 2026 Mondly's Hebrew offer page (mondly.com/offer/he) showed three Premium plans in shekels: 44.90 NIS a month, 215.55 NIS a year (a list price of 538.88 struck through and marked -60%), and 107.76 NIS per quarter (list 134.70, marked -20%), all under a limited-time countdown. Mondly's FAQ adds that a 7-day free trial of Premium bills automatically when it ends, and that purchases in the mobile app are processed by Apple or Google rather than by Mondly.
Is Mondly free?
Partly. Mondly's own FAQ says the free version includes Daily Lessons, the entire Hello category and one chatbot lesson; everything else needs Premium or the 7-day trial. SpeakBase's free tier is different in kind: one five-minute live conversation with Kate, with no card, after which speaking time needs Premium at 39 NIS a month.
Can you learn to speak English with Mondly?
Mondly gives you a chatbot that asks questions inside set conversations and a microphone that scores your pronunciation, and it is honest about what that is: practice for the phrases in the lesson. It does not hold an open conversation on a topic you bring, and it does not correct a sentence you invented yourself. That is the whole gap between a lesson app and a speaking tutor, and it is the reason a learner can finish a Mondly course and still freeze in a meeting. SpeakBase exists for that second problem.
Does Mondly work in Hebrew?
Yes, fully. he.mondly.com is a complete Hebrew site, the pricing is in shekels, and Mondly says its 41 languages can all be learned from Hebrew, which is more than most international apps offer Israelis. SpeakBase is also built in Hebrew and priced in shekels, and Kate explains her corrections in Hebrew, so on this point the two are equal.
Is Mondly approved by the Israeli Ministry of Education?
The Ministry's digital catalogue (ecat.education.gov.il/mondly) lists Mondly Works as approved within a pilot, with an attached approval for the 2022/23 and 2023/24 school years; on 19 September 2026 the same entry carried a notice that the item had been removed from publication on the site. SpeakBase is not in that catalogue. If your child's school gave out Mondly logins, that is where they came from.
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