Frequently asked questions
The short answers. The longer versions, with links to everything, live in the help center.
What is Ella 101?
Ella 101 is a one-on-one AI tutor for students of every age. Ella teaches live, out loud, in a two-way voice conversation. She builds taught courses from any topic or PDF, reads the books your family already owns, and runs in the browser with nothing to install. It is a teaching tool for your household — not an accredited school, and it never replaces the account holder’s direction.
How does the voice conversation work?
Ella speaks with Kokoro, a neural speech engine, and she listens too. The student can push-to-talk, or switch on conversation mode and just speak — talking interrupts her mid-sentence, the way a real conversation works. As she reads, a karaoke marker follows the exact word being spoken. The microphone is only needed for talking; the reading and listening modes work without one.
Isn’t this just ChatGPT with a voice?
No. Ella teaches out loud in a two-way voice conversation, checks understanding with real questions, and remembers what your student has mastered and struggled with, so every lesson builds on the last. Afterwards you get the plain-facts account-holder report. It’s a tutor, not a chatbot.
Won’t the student just say “yes” and skip ahead?
Ella doesn’t accept a shrug as understanding — she asks your student to say the idea back in their own words before moving on. And if they peek at an answer, it isn’t counted as mastered until they can recall it unaided the next day.
What does the account holder view show me?
Minutes and sessions per student, courses and mastery, comprehension-check results from recent sessions, the concepts that needed extra tries, safety moments, and an honesty ledger — the places a generated answer was corrected or withheld rather than risk teaching it wrong. You can read any conversation transcript and save it as a text file. Every number is a plain count from your student’s real session events.
How do the free trial and cancellation work?
Nobody pays during the beta — payments are switched off in the software. When paid subscriptions arrive, each one will start with a free trial week, card on file: cancel during that week and you are never charged. After it, you can cancel anytime from your account page — the month you have paid for runs to its end, and the next one never starts.
Is the student’s data safe?
The app records only what runs the product and what fills the account-holder report — nothing is collected for advertising. Your family’s data is not sold, not shared for marketing, and not used to train AI models on your student’s words. Email support@ella101.com and the account and its data are deleted.
What devices and browsers do we need?
Any reasonably modern device with a browser — there is nothing to install. One account signs in: your student opens the lesson, you open the account holder view. For talking with Ella the device needs a microphone.
How do courses from our own books work?
Name any topic in plain words or upload a book or PDF, and Ella turns it into a taught course. Uploaded books become your family’s library in every mode — read-alongs, audiobooks, radio-play performances with a character voice cast, and comic or manga pages right in the reader. They are stored in your account and stay yours.
How do beta invite codes work?
The beta is invite-only. Email support@ella101.com and ask — codes are handed out personally by the founder, and a sentence about who will be learning helps. The account holder then creates the account with the promo code, and the full product is free while the beta runs.
What does Ella 101 cost?
It is free during the invite-only beta — no card, no trial clock, and nothing converts automatically. The planned price after the beta is one plan at $250 per month per student, everything included. The anchor is a human tutor at $40–80 an hour, not an app store.
Is $250 a month worth it?
The anchor is a private tutor at $40–80 an hour, not an app store — and daily one-on-one at those rates is out of reach for most families. Ella teaches every subject, every day, for one monthly price with no per-hour meter running. If the number feels high for your family: right now the beta is simply free, and once payments arrive every subscription opens with a free trial week — so you always get to watch a real lesson and read the transcript before you decide anything.
Isn’t this just more screen time?
Ella is voice-first — a two-way spoken lesson, eyes-up, with a beginning and an end. There is no feed to scroll, no autoplay, and no loop built to keep your student on. Work-mode even points the camera at the real paper your student is writing on. You set the length, and the account holder view shows you the exact minutes spent per student.
What if the student won’t talk to a computer?
Some students warm up in the first two minutes and some take a few sessions, so you get to find out with your own student before you commit to anything — the beta is free right now, and once payments arrive every subscription opens with a free trial week. It is a real two-way conversation: your student can interrupt Ella, ask her to slow down or go back, push-to-talk if they are not ready to speak freely, or stay in reading and listening modes with no microphone at all. There is no audience and no wrong way to answer.
I have more than one student — do I pay full price for each?
No. There is a Family plan that brings several students in together, and each additional student is added at a lower rate than the first — the more students learning, the less each seat costs. One student is the $250 anchor; a full house comes out to well under that per student. You can see the Family plan and its per-student math on the pricing grid, and right now the whole household learns free in the beta, with a free trial week covering every seat once payments arrive.
Am I locked into a contract?
No contract and no minimum term. The default is month-to-month — you cancel anytime and the next month simply does not start. A yearly option exists for families who already know they are staying — roughly two months free — never as the only door in. During the beta there is nothing to lock into at all: it is free, invite-only, and nothing converts automatically when it ends.
Where’s your proof it works?
Honestly: the beta is just beginning, so there are no testimonials and no student counts on this site — we would rather earn them than invent them, and that absence is deliberate. What we can show you is the product itself. The beta is free right now — and once payments arrive, every subscription opens with a free trial week — so sit through one real lesson with your student and read the transcript afterward. That is your evidence, generated by your own student, that no marketing page could honestly give you.
How do I get help?
Email the founder at support@ella101.com — questions, bug reports, beta codes, and deletion requests go straight to the person who can fix them. Billing questions go to support@ella101.com.
Want the fuller answers? They’re in the help center — or write to support@ella101.com and ask a human.