Is the HOMER Learning App Worth It?

HOMER is a friendly early-learning app that, in our use, is more educational than ABCmouse, but we hesitate to recommend it at present, due to the sign-in issues we hit. It costs $12.99 a month or $79.99 a year for up to four child profiles, with a 30-day free trial on the web (7 days in the app). HOMER, from the company Begin, covers reading, math, and other subjects for children ages 2–6 by Begin’s own page and 2–8 by its App Store listing. In our use, the app gave us no way to sign in to an account made on Begin’s website. Recent App Store reviews complain most about logins, billing, and the app failing to open.

How we reviewed it: We make a reading app ourselves, Wonster Words, so we know what to look for in one. We played HOMER several times, at settings for ages 4–6, and checked its price, ages, and claims against Begin’s own pages, its app-store listings, and the study it cites.

HOMER is broad: reading is one subject among several. If you want one app across subjects and find ABCmouse not educational enough, HOMER’s content suits that once you are signed in. If reading is the main reason you are looking, a reading app fits better, and Wonster Words is $59.99 a year for up to four children.

How much does HOMER cost, and how do you cancel it?

HOMER costs $12.99 a month or $79.99 a year, with a 30-day free trial if you sign up on the web or 7 days if you sign up in the app. One subscription covers up to four child profiles. HOMER is now sold through Begin, its owner, and these prices come from Begin’s checkout: its HOMER page shows the free trial but no price. HOMER’s original website still shows lower prices that are out of date.

In our use, the app steered us to the yearly plan. A monthly plan was there, but it was not the obvious choice.

Where you cancel depends on where you signed up. A sign-up inside HOMER’s iPhone app opens a website and pays through Begin, so it is a subscription with Begin, like one started on Begin’s website. Cancel either through Begin, not in your iPhone’s settings. Begin’s help center keeps separate instructions for subscriptions bought through the App Store, Google Play, or Amazon. Its article on canceling was last updated in July 2024 and still points web subscribers to HOMER’s older site, so find out how to cancel before the trial ends.

Is HOMER or ABCmouse better for early reading?

HOMER and ABCmouse are both broad early-learning apps, and in our use HOMER is the more educational of the two. Each covers reading, math, and other subjects for young children. HOMER’s reading path is mostly reading games, with videos, entertainment games, and books kept in its other sections. ABCmouse is a large activity library for ages 2–8. In our use, much of its hold on a child comes from reward play, such as avatar dress-up, room decoration, and pet play.

ABCmouse costs less by the year and more by the month. A year of ABCmouse is $59.99 against $79.99 for HOMER, and a month is $14.99 against $12.99. ABCmouse’s 30-day trial is on its monthly plan, for sign-ups on its website. ABCmouse also runs on a computer through its website.

ABCmouse suits a child who needs play to stay engaged and a family that wants a large library. HOMER suits a family that wants one app across subjects and finds ABCmouse not educational enough. Our guide to ABCmouse alternatives sets ABCmouse against five other apps.

If reading is the main reason you are choosing, there is a third option built for it. HOMER and ABCmouse teach reading as one subject among several. Wonster Words is a reading app: phonics, sight words, and spelling. You choose the skill your child works on, such as a vowel team, an r-controlled vowel, or the th digraph, and the lessons inside it run in teaching order. It costs $59.99 a year for up to four children. Choose ABCmouse for a large library with plenty of play, HOMER for more teaching across subjects, and a reading app when reading is the goal.

	HOMER	ABCmouse	Wonster Words
Price	$12.99 a month or $79.99 a year	$14.99 a month or $59.99 a year	$10.99 a month or $59.99 a year
Free trial	30 days on the web, 7 in the app	30 days, monthly plan, on the web	7 days
Ages	2–6 (Begin) or 2–8 (App Store)	2–8	2–8
What it covers	Reading, math, and other subjects	Reading, math, and other subjects	Reading: phonics, sight words, and spelling
How a child moves through it	A placement check, then a reading path; other subjects as an open library	A large activity library	You choose the skill; its lessons run in teaching order
Where it fits best	One app across subjects, more teaching than play	A large library, for a child who needs play	When reading is the goal, alone or beside a broad app

• HOMER: “a placement check, then a reading path” is from our use of the app.

What do you get, and how does HOMER teach?

HOMER opens with a placement check, then sets out a reading path beside an open library of other subjects. In our use, the placement asked about a child’s letters, sounds, short words such as cat, and rhymes, and different plays landed at different levels. Reading has its own path, and the other subjects sit in sections a child can open in any order.

Most of the reading path, in our use, is reading games. A daily set of five games covers a mix of general topics and is not tied to the path. The app feels friendly and fun, with cute characters and a clean design, and a progress report shows each day’s and each week’s progress.

Begin describes the reading program in its own words. Its page promises “1,000+ activities tailored to every child’s age, interest, and level.” In a white paper on its approach, Begin says HOMER “follows an explicit, systematic, and sequential approach to reading instruction,” and that “Synthetic phonics is the method we employ in HOMER’s reading program”: teaching letter sounds, then blending them into words.

Does the HOMER app work?

HOMER says it is “the only app for kids 2-6 proven to increase early reading scores by 74% in just 15 minutes a day.” That figure comes from a study by Susan B. Neuman of New York University, described in a summary HOMER hosts on its own site. In it, 82 children in 7 Head Start classrooms were randomly assigned to HOMER or to a math app, for 15 minutes a day over 6 weeks. The 74% is the HOMER group’s own gain from the start of the study to the end on one test of phonological awareness, hearing the sounds in spoken words. It is not a reading score, and it is not a comparison with the children who used the math app.

The method HOMER describes has strong evidence behind it. The National Reading Panel found systematic phonics instruction significantly more effective than instruction that teaches little or no phonics. That finding is about the method, not about this app.

In any learning app, early progress shows first in letter sounds. A review of educational app studies by Kim, Gilbert, Yu, and Gale (2021) found larger effects for preschoolers than for children in kindergarten through third grade, and larger effects on constrained skills such as letter sounds than on broader ones such as comprehension. Away from the screen, the sign that HOMER is working is your child sounding out a word they have not practiced.

What are the drawbacks of HOMER?

In our use, HOMER’s main drawbacks are the sign-up, a placement that starts a child low, content spread across many subjects, and the yearly price. On each one, a reading app such as Wonster Words works differently.

Signing up was the hardest part. We made an account on Begin’s website, and the mobile app gave us no way to sign in to it, only to subscribe again. If you try it, sign up on the device your child will use.

The placement seemed to start a child low. In our use, it did not pin down a child’s level closely, and a child can end up with work that is too easy. Recent App Store reviews from parents of children who already know their letters say the same. In Wonster Words, you choose the skill your child works on, so you decide what a child who knows their letters practices next.

HOMER’s content is spread across many subjects. That suits a family that wants one app for everything. If reading is the goal, a reading app gives each skill its own lessons. In Wonster Words, vowel teams have their own lessons from first grade, and so do the five r-controlled spellings: ar, er, ir, ur, and or.

A year costs more. HOMER is $79.99 a year for up to four children, and Wonster Words is $59.99 a year for up to four.

HOMER’s privacy label links the data it collects to you, and Wonster Words’ does not. HOMER’s App Store label lists Data Linked to You, including for “Developer’s Advertising or Marketing.” Wonster Words’ label reads Data Not Linked to You. Developers write their own labels, so read one alongside the privacy policy; our guide to whether kids’ learning apps are safe explains each heading.

What do parents say about HOMER?

HOMER is rated 4.4 stars from about 25,500 ratings on the US App Store, and 4.1 stars from about 5,800 reviews on Google Play, as of November 2026. Recent App Store reviews say children enjoy it and some learned to read with it. Their most common complaints are about the app rather than the teaching: it failing to open or freezing, logins and restoring a paid subscription, and billing and canceling. Parents of children who already know their letters also say it is too easy and does not let them move ahead.

If you try HOMER, use the trial to check three things: that you can sign in on the device your child will use, that the level it places your child at fits what they already know, and how you would cancel.

What age is HOMER for?

Begin’s HOMER page says it is for kids 2–6, and its App Store listing says 2–8. It runs in five stages: Toddler, Preschool, Pre-K, Early Learner, and Growing Learner. In our use, a child who already knows their letters and sounds may find the early reading path too easy. For what to look for in an app at each age, our guide to the best reading apps by age goes year by year.

What are the alternatives to HOMER?

The right alternative to HOMER depends on why you are looking.

• You want depth in reading, or your child is ready to move on: Wonster Words. You choose the skill your child works on, and one subscription covers up to four children for $59.99 a year.
• You want a set reading path with printed materials: Hooked on Phonics. Our Hooked on Phonics review covers what its app and box plans cost.
• You want one plan that runs past second grade: Reading Eggs, whose bundle runs to age 13. Its Reading and Math plan is $13.99 a month or $99.99 a year for up to four children, with a 30-day free trial, and our Reading Eggs review covers which plan fits which family.
• You want it free: Khan Academy Kids, a broad early-learning app from a nonprofit, and several other free options. Our guide to free phonics apps and resources covers when they are enough.
• You want a large library with plenty of play: ABCmouse, at $59.99 a year.

For the wider field, our comparison of phonics apps sets the reading apps against each other.

• HOMER: the 30-day trial is for sign-ups on Begin’s website, and the 7-day trial for sign-ups in the app. Begin’s page gives ages 2–6 and the App Store 2–8.
• Reading Eggs: the 2–13 age range is the bundle’s. Reading Eggs itself runs from pre-K through second grade.
• ABCmouse: the 30-day trial is on the monthly plan, for sign-ups on its website.

Whichever app you choose, judge it away from the screen. Can your child sound out a word they have not practiced, or read a short book with less help than last month? That is the sign the app is worth what you pay for it.