Gizmo AI review 2026: features, pricing, pros and cons

Short answer first: Gizmo AI is a free study app that turns your notes, PDFs, slides and YouTube videos into flashcards and quick-fire quizzes, then wraps the whole thing in Duolingo-style streaks, lives and leaderboards. It's genuinely good at the boring part of studying (making the cards). The catch is the free plan's "lives" system, which can lock you out mid-session, and a paid plan that's priced by the week.

A quick honesty note before we get going. Nobody on our team ran a hands-on test of Gizmo for this review, so I won't pretend to tell you how many minutes it took me to turn my biology notes into a deck. Instead, we reviewed Gizmo as it stands at the start of November 2026 using its App Store and Google Play listings, press coverage, other reviewers' hands-on write-ups and a stack of user reviews. When someone else did the testing, I'll say who.

Gizmo AI at a glance

• Our rating: 3.5 out of 5
• Best for: high school and college students who need a push to study every day, and anyone sitting on a pile of notes they've never turned into flashcards
• Pricing: free to download; Gizmo Unlimited is sold as in-app subscriptions listed from $6.99 to $154.99 on the US App Store (checked November 2026)
• Platforms: web, iOS and Android
• Website: gizmo.ai

About Gizmo AI

Gizmo is an AI flashcard and quiz app made by London-based GIZMO AI LTD. You feed it study material, it pulls out the key facts, and it quizzes you on them using active recall and spaced repetition. Its App Store listing sums up the pitch as "AI flashcards & quizzes" and promises you can "Import anything and turn it into flashcards fast!"

If the app shows up on your phone as "Save All", that's not a mistake. The App Store copyright line still reads Save All LTD, and the Android package name is ai.saveall.app, a leftover from the app's earlier name, as aiera.blog points out.

It's also not a tiny side project anymore. In April 2026, TechCrunch reported that Gizmo had passed 13 million users across more than 120 countries, up from about 300,000 when the outlet covered it in 2023, and had raised a $22 million Series A led by Shine Capital. CEO Petros Christodoulou told TechCrunch the company had just seven employees before the raise and planned to grow to around 30. On Google Play, the app shows 5M+ downloads and about 126K reviews, and it was updated as recently as October 30, 2026.

One more thing to clear up: "Gizmo" is a crowded name. This review covers the study app at gizmo.ai, not the science simulations from ExploreLearning or any of the other products that share the name.

Key features

AI import: notes, PDFs, YouTube and more

This is the main event. According to the App Store listing, you can convert Quizlet sets, Anki decks, YouTube videos, PDFs, notes and PowerPoint files into flashcards. iTechGuides adds recordings, photos, spreadsheets and websites to that list, and says Gizmo can produce notes and lessons as well as cards.

Does it work? The independent reviewers broadly say yes, with an asterisk. Tools for Humans says automatic card generation "saves real hours every week" for heavy memorizers, but warns that AI-generated cards sometimes miss context and you'll need to edit some of them. Techraisal, which says it used Gizmo and Knowt across a semester of biology, history and Spanish, puts Gizmo's card accuracy at roughly 85% and notes the cards "still need a review". That matches what I'd expect from any AI flashcard tool: a fast first draft, not a finished deck. I think that's a fair deal.

Scan handwritten notes

You can photograph handwritten notes and turn them into flashcards and quizzes, per the App Store listing. Handy if your best notes live in a paper notebook.

Quizzes, spaced repetition and question types

Instead of just flipping cards, Gizmo quizzes you. The listing mentions multiple-choice and written questions, and iTechGuides also lists matching, ordering and true-or-false formats, plus practice tests and progress tracking. Spaced repetition then brings weaker cards back at intervals. One caveat from Techraisal: some power users find the algorithm "skews to recent cards over older ones", so if long-term retention over many months is your priority, Anki still gives you more control.

Lives, streaks and leaderboards

Here's where Gizmo feels most like a game. TechCrunch's 2023 coverage explained the mechanic: you get 15 lives a day, lose one for each wrong answer, and when you run out you either wait 10 minutes or pay. There are also daily streaks and friend leaderboards, and the 2026 TechCrunch piece adds the ability to challenge friends. iTechGuides lists XP, levels, leagues, hearts and coins too.

Whether you'll love this probably depends on you. If you're the kind of student who abandons study apps after three days, streaks are a gift. If you're cramming for a final, getting locked out for wrong answers is the last thing you need.

AI tutor

Gizmo includes an AI tutor that, according to its Google Play listing, "Teaches you anything, solves homework problems, and teaches you how to answer exam questions." On the free plan, tutor sessions are limited, iTechGuides says. For a deeper tutoring experience, a general assistant from our best AI for studying roundup will usually go further.

Public decks and sharing

The App Store listing claims more than 1,000,000 free public flashcard decks made by other students, plus shared decks you can send to classmates. That's useful for popular exams (GCSEs, AP courses) where someone has probably already made the deck you need. I'd treat the million-deck figure as a marketing number until someone counts them, but the library seems big enough that common courses are covered.

Pricing and plans

This part was trickier than it should be. I couldn't find a public pricing page on gizmo.ai, and the company sells its paid tier, Gizmo Unlimited, as in-app subscriptions whose price, iTechGuides notes, varies by device and region. So the most reliable figures are the app store listings, plus plan details reported by third-party trackers.

Plan	What you get	Price (checked November 2026)
Free	15 lives a day, up to 10 AI-generated quizzes a day, limited AI tutor, waits on imports	$0
Gizmo Unlimited (weekly)	Unlimited lives, quizzes, imports and AI tutor	$13.99/week, or $6.99/week with the student discount, per Tools for Humans
Gizmo Unlimited (yearly)	Same features, billed annually	About $155/year, or about $77/year with the student discount, per Tools for Humans
Coins (one-off)	In-app currency used in the game features	$1.99 for 1,000 up to $39.99 for 100,000 on the US App Store

For what it's worth, the US App Store lists Gizmo Unlimited purchases at $6.99, $12.99, $14.99, $24.99, $51.00, $77.99 and $154.99, which lines up with those weekly and yearly figures but doesn't label which price is which. The UK App Store lists prices from £4.99 to £154.99.

What does the free plan really include? Enough to try everything, but not enough to binge. The free-tier limits (15 lives, 10 AI quizzes a day, a roughly 10-minute refill) come from Tools for Humans and the TechCrunch description, and iTechGuides adds that free accounts get limited tutor sessions and waiting periods on imports.

Prices have also crept up. Back in 2023, TechCrunch reported the subscription cost $8.80 a month or $52.80 a year. Weekly billing at $13.99 works out far higher over a semester, which is why every reviewer we read points students to the yearly plan or the student discount. My verdict on value: the yearly student price is fair; weekly billing is, I'd say, for a single panic week before an exam and nothing more.

Performance and independent testing

Since we didn't test Gizmo ourselves, here's what the people who did found.

• Card quality: Techraisal estimated about 85% accuracy for Gizmo's AI flashcards against about 90% for Knowt, citing Mobile App Daily testing for the Knowt figure. It called Gizmo the better pick for "gamified daily-habit features, mobile-first design, and lecture-audio import", and Knowt the better pick on price and teacher tools.
• Editorial scores: iTechGuides ranks Gizmo 18th of 95 AI study tools with a 7.3/10, praising its breadth but noting it "Does not provide citation support". Tools for Humans gives it 3.5/5 and rates it positive for medical students and language learners, mixed for typical high school and college students.
• Reliability: this is the soft spot. The most-upvoted review on Google Play, with 215 people marking it helpful, complains the app "keeps bugging and lagging" when creating decks. A Trustpilot reviewer asked Gizmo to "please stop breaking down" during exam season.
• Source fidelity: another highly rated Play review says questions drifted away from the uploaded PDF: "every 2 questions change when it's not part of the lessons that I uploaded." Worth knowing if you're relying on Gizmo to stick to your syllabus.

Gizmo AI alternatives worth considering

• Knowt: the closest rival, with a more generous free tier and teacher tools. Knowt Ultra runs from $7.99/month billed annually ($95.99), or $24.99 month to month (Knowt pricing, checked October 2026). It's our top flashcard pick in both our best AI for studying guide and our free study AI roundup.
• Quizlet: the biggest library of ready-made sets. Quizlet Plus is listed at $9.99 and $44.99 on the US App Store for its shorter and annual options.
• Anki: free on desktop, Android and web, with best-in-class spaced repetition and zero gamification. AnkiMobile for iOS is a $24.99 one-time purchase (Anki). More setup, no subscriptions, ever.

If what you really need is help solving math and science problems rather than memorizing facts, read our Gauth AI review. And if you'd rather build a full study guide than a deck, see our picks for the best AI study guide makers.

Verdict: who should use Gizmo AI and who should skip it

Gizmo is good at two things: turning messy study material into a quiz in seconds, and making you want to come back tomorrow. Those are real problems, and 13 million users suggest it solves them for a lot of people.

But it's probably not the bargain it looks like. The free plan is built to nudge you toward paying, weekly pricing gets expensive fast, the AI cards need checking, and the reliability and cancellation complaints are too frequent to ignore.

Use it if you're a teen or college student who struggles with consistency, you study on your phone, and you can get the student yearly price. Skip it if you need offline study, long-term retention you control (go Anki), or the strongest free tier (go Knowt). For more context on where tools like this fit, see our guide to AI in education.

FAQ

Is Gizmo AI free?

Yes, it's free to download and use, with limits: 15 lives a day and up to 10 AI-generated quizzes a day, according to Tools for Humans. Gizmo Unlimited removes the caps.

How much does Gizmo Unlimited cost?

Prices vary by region and platform. Tools for Humans reports $13.99 a week or about $155 a year, with a student discount that roughly halves both, and the US App Store lists Unlimited purchases from $6.99 to $154.99 (checked November 2026).

Is Gizmo better than Quizlet or Anki?

It depends on what you want. Gizmo is faster to set up and more fun; Anki is free and more powerful for long-term memory; Quizlet has the biggest library of ready-made sets. Many students import their existing Quizlet or Anki decks into Gizmo to try it, which is likely the lowest-risk way to test it.

Is Gizmo AI safe for students?

It's a mainstream app with millions of users, but it collects personal data including location and contacts per its App Store privacy label, includes social and messaging features, and is rated 13+ on iOS. I'd avoid uploading anything private.

How do I cancel a Gizmo subscription?

If you subscribed on iPhone or Android, cancel in your App Store or Google Play subscription settings. Deleting the app doesn't stop billing. If you paid on the web and can't find the option, contact support@gizmo.ai, the address listed in Gizmo's Google Play replies.