What’s Up With Quizlet Plus? An Exclusive Interview With the CEO

The California-based company Quizlet is a widely appreciated educational app and website that allows students to create personalized study sets to review concepts from class and put their skills to the test by using Quizlet’s games and quizzes. 

At M-A, students use the free version of Quizlet to prepare for their exams in all subjects. Junior Riona Faruqi said, “It’s a pretty big part of my school life. I find it really useful because it allows me to be independent when studying since I don’t have to rely on anyone to help quiz me.”

Recently, Quizlet changed their policy regarding price, making it so that users are prompted to upgrade to Quizlet Plus to continue using features beyond “Flashcards”, at a cost of $35.99 per year (about $2.99 per month) or $7.99 per month. 

Matthew Glotzbach, the current CEO of Quizlet, addressed Quizlet Plus in an exclusive interview with the Chronicle. “You can use “Learn” and “Write” for free for up to five rounds per set, so everybody gets access to the full product. If you want to continue to use the full product, great, and if not, that’s okay too,” he said. He added that “the flashcard feature is still free and will remain so forever.”

However, many M-A students and Quizlet users have expressed their dissatisfaction with the policy change. Junior Emma Brongersma called the new fee “detrimental” to her studying, as she did not want to pay for the Plus features of the app. 

To solve these queries, Glotzbach assured that there was a workaround to the issue of cost. He explained, “If a teacher is using Quizlet, they are able to give their students all Quizlet features on that content for free. So, it doesn’t matter whether the teacher pays for Quizlet Plus or not, students using sets from that teacher will have access to all features. This is because we want to encourage teachers to use Quizlet with their students.”

Glotzbach also described Quizlet’s efforts to improve the product, saying he personally tries to talk to at least five students every week. He continued, “It helps to keep me connected to what my customer wants and needs, and it’s a great way to understand more about the competition.” 

He also has two daughters of his own at M-A, and joked that his “in-house focus groups” gave him insight into what real students are up to and understand the competition. “I give them a barrage of questions all the time. I’m constantly asking them about what kind of homework they’re doing, what they’re studying, what products their teachers are using, and what apps they’re using to study,” he said.

While the new Quizlet Plus plan may cause some roadblocks in personal studying, it continues to be a valuable resource for students to practice and learn. Glotzbach said, “In everything that we do, we really focus on students and building that technology and tools that really help students learn.”