Looking for a SpellingCity Alternative?

SpellingCity (VocabularySpellingCity) has shut down, leaving a lot of families

and teachers who relied on it for weekly spelling-list practice looking for a

replacement. If that's you, here's an honest guide to what to look for — and

where SpellSprout fits.

What made SpellingCity useful

Any real replacement needs those three things. Beyond that, the apps in this

category differ on price model, privacy, and how hard they work to keep kids

engaged.

Generic word banks don't help when the Friday test is on this week's list from

the teacher. Look for apps that let parents enter custom lists quickly.

SpellSprout lets you type a list or snap a photo of the paper list — it reads the

words and builds practice games from them in under a minute.

SpellingCity was $125/year. Most replacements are subscriptions in the $3-13

per month range, which adds up whether or not your child uses it. SpellSprout is

$4.99 once. No subscription, no ads, no in-app purchases.

SpellingCity required accounts, and most alternatives sync your child's

progress to a cloud service. SpellSprout stores everything on your device: no

account, no server, and analytics are off unless a parent explicitly opts in.

The parent dashboard sits behind a PIN or Face ID.

This is the one that decides whether any app works. In SpellSprout, kids pick from

16 different mini-games to practice the same list — SpellingBee, WordScramble,

Snowman, BossBattle and more — with streaks and achievements, so practice has

a pull of its own that isn’t a parent standing over the iPad.

	SpellSprout	Typical subscription app
Your child's real school lists	Yes — type or photo-scan	Varies
Price	$4.99 once	$36-156/year
Account required	No	Usually
Data leaves the device	No (opt-in analytics only)	Usually
Ads	None	Varies
Motivation	16 mini-games, streaks, achievements	One or two drill modes

SpellSprout is coming to the App Store for iPhone and iPad. Questions? See the