Gizmo does something clever. You drop in your notes, it makes flashcards with AI, and it turns reviewing them into a game with streaks and lives. For a lot of students that's exactly what gets them to open the app.
The catch is the lives. On the free plan, reviewers describe each wrong answer costing a heart, and when they run out you're locked out of studying for a while. That's a strange mechanic for a study app, because getting things wrong is the part where you learn. If you're reviewing a hard topic, you'll run out fastest on exactly the material you most need to practise.
So if you've been looking for a Gizmo alternative, it's probably because you want the AI card-making without being punished for mistakes. The Study Mill (which I build) is the closest swap if you study from lecture slides, Knowt if you want a classic flashcard app, and Anki if you're happy to make cards yourself.
Why the lives system bothers people
Games use lives to create tension. That works when the goal is to stop you playing forever. In studying, the goal is the opposite: you want people to keep going on the cards they're getting wrong.
There's a well-known effect in learning research where struggling to recall something, and even getting it wrong before seeing the answer, helps you remember it better than an easy correct answer would. A system that rations wrong answers nudges you towards easy cards, which feels good and teaches you less.
Gizmo's paid plan removes the limits, but its pricing is unusually hard to pin down. Reviews quote very different prices, some weekly and some yearly, and vary by country and app store. Check the price and renewal terms shown in the app before you subscribe, especially if a weekly plan is offered.
What to look for instead
- Unlimited reviewing on free. Limits on AI generation are normal, since AI costs money to run. Limits on simply answering cards you already have are harder to justify.
- Cards from your own material. Gizmo's best feature is importing your notes. Keep that.
- Spaced repetition. Something should bring back what you're forgetting, on a schedule, so you don't have to remember to review. How spaced repetition scheduling works.
The alternatives
The Study Mill
Built for students studying from their own course material. You upload a week's lecture slides, PDF, Word doc, typed notes, photos of handwritten notes or a lecture recording. It builds short lessons, flashcards (some illustrated), and a quiz that mixes multiple choice with written answers the AI marks. Questions you miss come back in your daily review. There are streaks and XP if you like the game side of Gizmo, but no lives: you can get things wrong as often as you need to.
It also has Walk & Learn, which turns the week into audio with two hosts who stop and ask you questions to answer out loud. That one's useful when you can't sit at a desk.
The free plan covers 2 classes with as many weeks as you need. Pro (A$7.99 a month or A$49 a year, half price with a .edu or .edu.au email) adds unlimited classes, exam mode and cram sheets.
Pick it if your exams are on your lecturer's slides and you want quizzes as well as cards.
Knowt
A flashcard app that grew up as the free answer to Quizlet. It makes cards from notes, PDFs and videos with AI, has learn and test modes and spaced repetition, and doesn't use lives. The AI features are capped on the free plan. Knowt alternatives covers its limits.
Pick it if you want a straightforward flashcard app that feels like Quizlet.
Anki
The serious memoriser's choice, and many medical students swear by it. Its scheduling is the best there is, it's free on desktop and Android, and there's no paywall at all. The trade-off is that there's no AI built in: you make every card yourself, or rely on shared decks. AI alternatives to Anki.
Pick it if you're memorising huge volumes over years and don't mind the setup.
Quizlet
The biggest library of shared decks anywhere. If your subject is vocab-heavy and decks already exist, it's hard to beat. Learn mode and practice tests are limited on free, and the AI tools need Quizlet Plus. Is Quizlet Plus worth it?
Side by side
| Makes cards from your notes | Penalises wrong answers | Quizzes beyond flashcards | Free plan | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gizmo | Yes | Yes, lives on free | Yes | Lives and daily limits |
| The Study Mill | Yes, incl. slides, photos and recordings | No | Yes, marked written answers | 2 classes |
| Knowt | Yes | No | Yes | AI capped |
| Anki | No | No | No | Full |
| Quizlet | Limited | No | Yes | Learn and tests capped |
Try one lecture
Take the notes you last imported into Gizmo, upload them to The Study Mill, and run the quiz. Get as many wrong as you like. It's free and takes about a minute.
Other apps' prices and features are as published in October 2026 and change often. Check their own pricing pages.