Products

Pleco

We make the world's best Chinese dictionaries.

pleco.com Google Play App StoreEducation / Language Learning

AI Benchmark
Desktop
Mobile
Monthly visits
136.6K
Up1.2%MoMSep 2026
Public revenue
Undisclosed
No public revenue evidence yet
Entry price
Unknown
Freemium model, plan pricing not identified yet
Creators
Unlinked
No verified creators
Launched
11y ago
2015-06-21 · Est.

Traffic

Monthly visitsData through Sep 2026 · Oct 2026 pending

Marketing moves

Launches, search & content, referrals, promotions
  • Launched on Product HuntLaunch

    Arguably the best Chinese dictionary

    Jun 21, 2015 · 11y agoLaunch page

Store data

Google Play · App Store
Pleco Chinese Dictionary
Pleco Chinese Dictionary Google PlayvVARYEveryone

Chinese dictionary with handwriting, OCR, flashcards, audio, Cantonese, and more

PlecoBooks & Reference
Updated 6mo ago
Rating
★ 4.5844.2K ratings
Install scale
5,000,000+Min 5M installs
Price & IAP
FreeIAP $2.99 - $199.99 per item
First released
2012-01-24Store metadata
Rating Distribution (1★–5★)5★ 81% · 1★ 6%
5
81%
4
9%
3
3%
2
1%
1
6%
Store Screenshots (17)
Latest Release Notes (vVARY)

• Added updated flashcards for the 2026 HSK 3.0 to Import/Export / Install Premade Cards; these also include about 100 custom definitions to help ensure that the important HSK-relevant senses are surfaced for every word. • Overhauled our 'experimental OCR' algorithm (Settings/OCR), making it much faster, better at detecting single-character rects, supporting it in live as well as still OCR, and adding an option to bring back the old green overlay interface when it's turned on. • Bug fixes.

Pleco is the ultimate Chinese learning companion - an integrated Chinese English dictionary / document reader / flashcard system with fullscreen handwriting input and live camera-based character lookups, from a company with 17 years' experience making mobile Chinese learning software. Major features: ($ = paid add-on) • Great dictionaries: the free app comes with two dictionaries - CC-CEDICT and our in-house PLC dictionary - which together cover 130,000 Chinese words and include 20,000 example sentences with Pinyin. We offer 8 more free dictionaries as optional downloads, including a 22,000-entry Cantonese-English dictionary, and 19 other great dictionaries are available as paid upgrades. ($) • Handwriting input: lookup unknown characters by drawing them, with a best-in-class recognition engine. (basic version free, enhanced version $) • Live Optical Character Recognizer (OCR): look up Chinese words in the dictionary simply by pointing your device's camera at them, or by scrolling around a still image. ($) • Screen Reader/OCR: instantly tap-lookup Chinese words in other apps through a floating interface; works on Android 4.1 and later. (reader free, OCR $) • Flashcard System: create a card from any dictionary entry with a single button tap, import premade word lists, use advanced techniques like SRS (spaced repetition), and study in a variety of modes including fill-in-the-blanks and tone drills. (simple version free, full-featured $) • Audio Pronunciation: instantly hear male + female native-speaker audio for Chinese dictionary headwords; recordings available for over 34,000 words. (stitched-syllable free, multi-syllable $) Or listen to example sentences with text-to-speech (system TTS free, enhanced $). • Powerful search: look up words by Chinese characters, Pinyin (spaces/tones optional), or a combination, with support for wildcards and full-text search. • Cross-referencing: tap on any Chinese character / word in any dictionary entry to bring up its definition. • Stroke Order Diagrams: animations showing you how to draw each Chinese character; 500 in free app, 28,000 in paid add-on. • Voice Recognition: look up words by speaking them into your device's microphone. • Document Reader: open a Chinese-language text or PDF file and look up unknown words in the dictionary simply by tapping on them. ($) You can also look up characters on web pages through "Share" and in other documents through the clipboard. (free) • PRC- and Taiwan-friendly: supports traditional and simplified characters (in dictionary definitions, stroke order, search, OCR, and handwriting), and supports Zhuyin (with ruby support) as well as Pinyin for pronunciation display. • Cantonese: display headwords + perform searches in Jyutping/Yale romanization. We also offer Cantonese dictionary and Cantonese audio add-ons. (some $) • No ads: we won't even nag you about buying add-ons. We also offer excellent customer support - send us an email and see for yourself - and an active user community at plecoforums.com. We've been making Chinese dictionary apps since 2000, and our sales and customer base have been steadily growing for 17 years across four different platforms. We take good care of our longtime users: people who bought a dictionary on a Palm Pilot in 2001 can still use that dictionary on a new Android phone in 2020 without even paying an upgrade fee. Paid add-ons can be moved to a new device like any other paid app; just open our free app on your new device and they should reactivate. If you already own Pleco on another OS, see pleco.com/android for migration options. This app uses Accessibility services. (for our Screen Reader feature, which helps users to get by in Chinese-speaking regions without knowing Chinese) Twitter/Facebook: plecosoft

Pleco Chinese Dictionary
Pleco Chinese Dictionary App Storev3.2.839+
Pleco Inc.ReferenceEducation
Updated 3mo ago
Rating
★ 4.731,902 ratings
New ratings last mo
—
Price & IAP
FreeIAP data not synced
First released
2009-12-17114 MB
Rating Distribution (1★–5★)5★ 88% · 1★ 3%
5
88%
4
6%
3
2%
2
1%
1
3%
Store Screenshots (5)
Latest Release Notes (v3.2.83)

Fix for a crashing bug in forthcoming version of iPadOS.

Pleco is the ultimate Chinese learning companion: an integrated dictionary / document reader / flashcard system with fullscreen handwriting input and live OCR, from a company that's been making the world's best mobile Chinese learning apps since 2001. Major features: ($ = paid add-on) • Amazing dictionaries. We offer two free built-in dictionaries: the popular open-source CC-CEDICT, with over 110,000 frequently-updated entries, and our own PLC dictionary, with 125,000 entries, parts of speech, and over 25,000 example sentences (with Pinyin). More than two dozen other dictionaries are available as free and paid ($) add-ons, including licensed titles from well-known publishers like Oxford, Longman, FLTRP, Tuttle, SLPH, and Commercial Press. • Powerful merged search: look up words by Chinese characters, Pinyin (spaces / tones optional), or English, with support for wildcards and full-text search. And no need to tediously flip between all of those dictionaries to find a word - just type in your search term and instantly get a combined, frequency-sorted result list. • Links and cross-references: easily look up character components, break down words into individual characters, look up lists of words containing a particular character, and search across all dictionaries for example sentences containing a word. • Gorgeous typography: see it for yourself in our screenshots - we think we're one of the best-looking Chinese dictionaries around. Alternate Kai/Song/Xing-style Chinese fonts are also available ($). • PRC/HK/Taiwan-friendly: every part of Pleco supports both traditional and simplified, headword readings can be shown in Pinyin and Zhuyin, and some dictionaries even support Cantonese. (note: stroke order diagrams do support traditional characters, but use PRC order) • Audio: Hear Mandarin and Cantonese for words and example sentences using iOS' free built-in text-to-speech system. We also offer add-ons ($) with native-speaker Mandarin recordings and higher-quality Mandarin TTS. • Document Reader: bring in text from the clipboard and tap on words in it to instantly look them up. Upgrade ($) adds support for tap-lookups in text, HTML, DOC, DOCX, PDF, and EPUB files. We also offer graded readings ($). • OCR: look up words simply by pointing your device's camera at them, or by tapping on them in a still image. ($) • Fullscreen handwriting: use your device's whole screen instead of just a little box. Extremely accurate and highly tolerant of stroke order mistakes. (enhanced $) • Flashcards: create a card from any dictionary entry with a single button tap, import premade word lists, use advanced memorization techniques like SRS, and study in a variety of modes including fill-in-the-blanks handwriting and tone drills. ($) • Stroke Order Diagrams: animations showing you how to draw each character; 500 characters for free, 28,000 in paid ($) version. • User dictionaries: create new dictionary entries right on your device as you encounter new words. ($) • No ads. We also offer famously excellent customer support and an active user community at http://www.plecoforums.com. And we're constantly working to make our products better; our sales and customer base have been growing for two decades across 4 different platforms. You can be confident that we'll still be fixing bugs and adding features for years to come. Paid add-ons can be transferred to other devices that link to your iTunes account just like any other paid iTunes content; simply install our free app, open up the "Add-ons" screen, and tap on the "Restore Purchases" button to activate your purchase on each device. Please contact us at support@pleco.com, via the form at http://www.pleco.com/contact.html, or using the in-app "Contact Support" command with any questions - we'll be delighted to hear from you.

Store assets, rating histograms, install tiers, and screenshots are synced from Apple App Store, Google Play, and Chrome Web Store.

Traffic sources

Sep 2026

Traffic breakdown

Channels

  • Organic Search79%
  • Direct13%
  • Referrals5%
  • Other4%

Countries

  • United States26%
  • Vietnam25%
  • Indonesia5%
  • Brazil5%
  • Singapore3%

Search

Domain authority —Domain registered 2001-04-24

KeywordMonthly volume
pleco37.4K
pleco chinese dictionary3,240
pleco software2,110
pleco dictionary650
pleco dictionary online260

Traffic data: Vaneform

Pricing

Website does not list public plan prices.

Trial: None · Observed 2026-11-03 · Source page

Pages & changes

Tracked since 2015-06-21

Key pages

Weekly snapshots
pleco.com/ Snapshot 2026-11-04

Changes

No pricing, plan, or positioning changes detected since tracking started.

Design

First-screen visual analysis & :root CSS

Vibrant Pop (Dark canvas, balanced density) featuring split copy & visual layout and product ui screenshot / component visuals.

First-screen preview · click to zoom

First-screen pitch & conversion flow

“We make the world's best Chinese dictionaries.”

Split Copy & Visual hero structure paired with download app / install extension CTA and no explicit trust bar.

Conversion path: Split Copy & Visual + Product UI Screenshot / Component → Download App / Install Extension

Palette · click to copy

5-D design score6.9 / 10
Typography
7.0
Color & Contrast
7.0
Layout & Spacing
7.0
Craft & Polish
7.0
Distinctiveness
6.0

Structure

Fonts
Source Serif 4 / Inter
Primary visual
Product UI Screenshot / Component
Social proof
No Explicit Trust Bar
Navigation
Full-Width Top Bar
Theme & density
Dark · Balanced
Corners & depth
Large Radius · With shadow
Preview full AI design brief (includes :root CSS variables & layout rules)Style tokens only; never copy brand names, logos, copy, or images
# Design Brief: Vibrant Pop (with Editorial)

Full-bleed high-saturation brand backdrops, oversized bold display type, and high-contrast buttons, common across creator tools and consumer apps.

## Design Tokens

```css
:root {
  --background: #2f6bff;
  --surface: #f3f4f6;
  --foreground: #ffffff;
  --muted-foreground: #d7e4ff;
  --accent: #111111;
  --radius: 16px;
  --font-heading: "Source Serif 4", serif;
  --font-body: "Inter", ui-sans-serif, system-ui, sans-serif;
}
```

Color area ratio: Background #2F6BFF (~52%) · Surface #F3F4F6 (~22%) · Text #FFFFFF (~12%) · Muted Text #D7E4FF (~8%) · Accent #111111 (~6%). Background and surface dominate the canvas; reserve the accent color for primary buttons and active states.

## Layout & Conversion Structure

- Hero layout: Split Copy & Visual
- Navigation: Full-Width Top Bar
- Theme & density: Dark · Balanced
- Border radius & elevation: Large Radius; use elevation shadows to separate layers
- Primary visual medium: Product UI Screenshot / Component
- Conversion CTA: Download App / Install Extension
- Headline hook: Category Positioning Anchor
- Hero components: Large Hero Product Shot
- Spatial layout notes: Split Copy & Visual hero structure paired with download app / install extension CTA and no explicit trust bar.
- Visual summary: Vibrant Pop (Dark canvas, balanced density) featuring split copy & visual layout and product ui screenshot / component visuals.

## Avoid

- Muted corporate gray palettes
- Tiny low-contrast body text
- Overly formal enterprise tables

Implement the UI following the design tokens and layout specifications above: use only these color variables, and reserve the accent color strictly for primary actions and active states. Adopt only this visual style—never copy any reference product’s brand name, logo, copy, or imagery.

Questions & evidence

How much website traffic does Pleco get?
Vaneform estimates 136.6K website visits in 2026-09. Visits can include repeat visits; this estimate measures web traffic separately from paying customers or revenue.Source
What is Pleco and what platforms does it support?
Pleco is catalogued under Language Learning: We make the world's best Chinese dictionaries.. Supported platforms: Mobile App.

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