SoundGym has a free account and it never expires. But it is not a trial that opens up as you progress — free users get the same three games on every single workout, forever. Pro unlocks the full set with five games per workout.
That one sentence is the thing most people misunderstand before they sign up. Below is the full split, what the free tier is genuinely good for, and what to do if it isn’t enough and you’d rather not pay $142 a year. Prices and limits checked August 2026.
Is SoundGym free?
Yes, there’s a free account, and no, it isn’t time-limited. You can keep using it as long as you like without entering a card.
What’s limited is content, not time. SoundGym’s own help pages put it plainly: free accounts “get the same 3 games on each workout”, while Pro accounts get all games with five games per workout. On beat workouts, free gets one game and Pro gets three.
So the free plan is best understood as a permanent sample rather than a stage you graduate from. Nothing new appears in week six that wasn’t there on day one.
SoundGym free vs Pro: the actual difference
The gap is game variety and workout length. Everything else — the account, the daily workout format, the Audio School — is on both sides.
| Free | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0, no card | $24.95/month, $142/year, or $495 lifetime |
| Games per workout | 3 | 5 |
| Which games | The same 3 every time | All games |
| Beat workouts | 1 game | 3 games |
| Audio School | Included | Included |
| Time limit | None — free is permanent | — |
For reference, 18 games are listed on the site by name: Sonar Beast, EQ Mirror, Compressionist, Stereohead, Balance Memory, EQ Knight, Peak Master, Dr. Compressor, DB King, Filter Expert, Kit Cut, PanGirl, Bass Detective, Delay Control, Distorted Reality, Reverb Wizard, EQ Cheetah and Feedback Eliminator. The shop page says “all 21 sound games”. We’re flagging that gap as what it is: the site says 21, 18 are named.
Either way, the arithmetic is stark. On free you touch three of them. Pro is where reverb, delay, distortion, stereo and feedback drills actually live.
Is that a fair model?
Honestly, yes. A permanent free tier with a fixed slice of content is a reasonable trade, and it’s more generous than a seven-day trial that locks you out entirely.
The problem isn’t the model, it’s the expectation. People sign up assuming a free tier means “restricted for now”, train for two weeks, then wonder why they keep seeing the same three games. Nothing broke. That’s the design.
Where we’d push back is the framing. If you know going in that free is a demo rather than a starting point, you can decide properly instead of drifting. We put the full value-for-money case in our honest verdict on whether SoundGym is worth it.
Is the free Audio School worth an account on its own?
It’s genuinely useful, and it’s free with no Pro requirement. Five programs cover recording, electronic production, mix and mastering, synthesis and live sound.
The caveat is in SoundGym’s own description: the material is “curated from the best free online content”. That means organised third-party video, not original teaching. Somebody sat down and sequenced good YouTube material into a path, which has real value if you’ve ever tried to self-teach mixing from search results.
Just don’t buy Pro expecting the courses to get better. They’re the same on both plans. A paying member said in 2023 that he’d expected “a little more guidance and original content” and found the courses were curated video playlists — that’s the mismatch to avoid.
Is the free plan enough?
For a beginner, for a few weeks, yes. Three games repeated daily will still sharpen you, because ear training works through repetition and consistency more than variety.
It stops being enough at a predictable point: when you can hit those three reliably and your weak spots are somewhere else. If your problem is reverb decision-making or stereo width, and neither is in your fixed three, free SoundGym has no route to it.
It’s also worth knowing there’s no native mobile app — SoundGym’s help page says there are no iOS or Android applications, so phone training means the mobile browser. That applies to free and Pro alike.
One more thing worth checking before you compare plans: SoundGym is mixing and engineering. If what you actually want is intervals, chords and rhythm, that’s ToneGym — same operator, sold separately, no bundle, with its own free plan. We laid out the difference in SoundGym vs ToneGym.
What to do if free isn’t enough and you don’t want to pay
Get more games for free elsewhere, rather than three games forever from one place. The free ear-training field is much better than it was five years ago, and several of these cover exactly the areas SoundGym’s free three probably don’t.
| Tool | Price | Platform | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| EQ Academy (Mastering The Mix) | Free | macOS 13.3+, Windows 10/11 app | 100 levels: frequency, gain, Q width, mid/side. Monthly leaderboards, import your own songs from level 30 |
| Bedroom Producer | Free, 2 lives a day as guest, 4 with an account | Browser | EQ, compression, volume, panning on real multitracks with adaptive difficulty |
| EQ Trainer | Free | Browser | Boost identification with bypass A/B, difficulty up to “God mode”, daily challenges |
| EarQuiz Frequencies | Free, open source | Windows, macOS, Linux | Golden-Ears-style technical ear training, loads your own audio files |
| Monosounds Ear Training (ours — weigh that accordingly) | Free, permanently | Browser, phone or desktop | 500 levels, 54 exercise generators, hints when you miss |
| TrainYourEars EQ Edition 2 | EUR 49 once | macOS, Windows standalone | Deep EQ drilling on your own music. Not a plugin, so it can’t sit on a DAW channel |
Since ours is in that table, here’s the disclosure and the detail so you can judge it on the same terms. Monosounds Ear Training is free and stays free — there’s no card, no subscription, and no tier that unlocks better exercises. Which is directly relevant here: the thing SoundGym gates is exactly the thing we don’t.
It runs in a browser on a phone or a desktop, built mobile-first as a single column. There are 500 levels across 10 chapters and the first 10 levels need no account. The 54 exercise generators run in six answer formats — multiple choice, a slider you match by ear, quiz questions, ABX, ranking three clips, and a “fix it” mode with two knobs where the right values make the audio identical to the reference. Coverage runs from EQ boosts and resonance hunting through compression, gain, panning, width, mono compatibility, phase and comb filtering, saturation, reverb and filters, into synthesis by ear and a quiz on 32 classic hardware units. The audio is pulled from our own sample packs — real stems and full mixes, the same material as our free Serum 2 preset pack and the paid Serum 2 bundles.
What it doesn’t do: teach. There’s no video, no lecture, and no curriculum — it’s a game with hints, and it’s browser-only, so there’s no offline app. SoundGym has been at this far longer and claims 500,000+ members, which is what gives its leaderboard weight. Ours has a weekly and an all-time table, but it’s a smaller room.
If you want the whole field rather than a shortlist, we compared everything worth comparing in our SoundGym alternatives guide. Or just start with the first ten levels and see whether the habit sticks before anyone asks you for money.
FAQ
Is SoundGym free forever?
Yes. The free account has no time limit and requires no card. What’s limited is content: free users get the same three games on every workout and one game on beat workouts, according to SoundGym’s help pages. The restriction never lifts with time or progress.
How many games do you get on SoundGym free?
Three per workout, and they’re the same three every time. Pro accounts get all games with five per workout, and three games on beat workouts instead of one. Eighteen games are listed by name on the site, while the shop page refers to “all 21 sound games”.
What’s the difference between SoundGym free and Pro?
Game variety and workout length. Free gives you three fixed games per workout; Pro gives you the whole library with five games per workout. The free Audio School programs are identical on both plans. Pro costs $24.95 per month, $142 per year, or $495 for lifetime access, as listed in August 2026.
Is the SoundGym Audio School included for free?
Yes, all five programs — recording, electronic production, mix and mastering, synthesis and live sound — are free. SoundGym describes the material as “curated from the best free online content”, so it’s organised third-party video rather than original lessons. It doesn’t improve if you upgrade to Pro.
Can I use SoundGym free on my phone?
Only through a mobile browser. SoundGym’s help page states there are no iOS or Android applications, so there’s nothing to install and no offline mode, on either the free or the Pro plan. If phone training matters to you, test it on your own device before committing to a paid year.
What’s a good free alternative if SoundGym’s three games aren’t enough?
EQ Academy from Mastering The Mix is free and gives you 100 levels of frequency, gain, Q and mid/side work as a macOS or Windows app. Bedroom Producer runs in a browser on real multitracks with no signup to start. EarQuiz Frequencies is free and open source across Windows, macOS and Linux.
I run Monosounds.studio and make the packs myself. Ten-plus years of producing, 97+ releases, 16,000+ downloads. Every Serum 2 preset we ship passes a CPU check on a mid-range laptop and gets used in a real track before release. If it does not survive a mix, it does not go in the pack.
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