Reach120 vs italki: the 2026-format comparison, with its evidence attached
People weighing the two are really deciding whether their problem needs a teacher or needs repetitions, and that has a right answer per person rather than in general. The comparison is also the one place on this surface where a feature matrix would be dishonest, so there is not one: you cannot write a coverage cell against 167 independent sellers, some of whom prepare candidates for this exam full time. This page separates them on the axes you can actually check, and says where its own evidence runs out.
Who wrote this, and how to read it
Read on 2026-08-24, without an account, buying nothing and accessing no paywalled surface. Free allowances and prices change faster than pages like this one do, so treat every figure as dated evidence rather than a current quote.
- There is no score, no rating and no verdict. There are no star ratings in this page or in its structured data — Reach120 has no published review corpus, so a rating would be a number we made up.
- What italki does better is stated plainly, because a comparison that finds nothing good in the other product is an advertisement.
- Reach120 prices are not typed on this page. The pricing page is the only place they are stated, so there is one thing to keep correct rather than fourteen.
Reach120 and italki, side by side
The spine of this table is the six task types the January 2026 format introduced, because coverage is the one axis with checkable evidence: either a public page names the task or it does not. Everything else — free access, metering, price, scoring transparency — is quoted.
| 2026 task type | Reach120 | italki |
|---|---|---|
| Build a SentenceWriting | Runs it here | Not stated on the page we read |
| Write an EmailWriting | Runs it here | Not stated on the page we read |
| Academic DiscussionWriting | Runs it here | Not stated on the page we read |
| Listen & RepeatSpeaking | Runs it here | Not stated on the page we read |
| Take an InterviewSpeaking | Runs it here | Not stated on the page we read |
| Complete the WordsReading | Runs it here | Not stated on the page we read |
How the italki column was filled: No cell can be filled, and no cell should be: the six task types would have to be scored against 167 independent sellers, which is not a thing a table can honestly do. What the page itself states is another matter and it is checkable. Its own TOEFL FAQ, read on 2026-08-24, answers "How is the TOEFL test scored?" with "The TOEFL test is scored on a scale of 0 to 120, with each section (Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing) contributing a maximum of 30 points", and recommends "a collective score of 100 (25 scores for each section)". Official score reports stopped using that scale on January 21, 2026. That is the marketplace’s own guidance copy being out of date; it is not evidence about any teacher on it, several of whom advertise the current format in their own profiles.
| What you are comparing | Reach120 | italki |
|---|---|---|
| Free access | Reading, Listening and Build a Sentence practice is free with no daily limit and no lifetime limit. Write an Email and Write for an Academic Discussion give a free account 3 AI-scored writing responses to start, then one more each day, up to 10 in total; Take an Interview has 3 AI-scored Take an Interview responses in total, for the life of the account; Listen & Repeat has 8 on the account, for life. Published questions, answers, transcripts, sample responses and PDF packs need no account. | None is stated. The entry point is a paid trial lesson, priced by the teacher, and the listing offers no allowance, no free session and no unpaid diagnostic. |
| How AI use is metered | The free tier is metered by measured cost — the three tasks that spend a model on your own words carry daily allowances, Writing and Speaking counted separately because an Interview costs multiples of an essay. A paid pass carries a stated fair-use ceiling rather than an open-ended promise. | Nothing is metered and nothing is scored automatically. You buy time from an individual; what happens in it is between the two of you. |
| Price, as their page stated it | Exam passes are one-time and do not auto-renew; the current prices are on the pricing page, which this page reads rather than restates. | There is no platform price to quote, because italki does not set one: each teacher does. On the TOEFL listing read on 2026-08-24, nineteen teachers on the first page published trial-lesson rates spanning "USD 5.00 / trial" to "USD 60.00 / trial", with most between "USD 7.00" and "USD 30.00". The page names its currency explicitly rather than showing a bare dollar sign, and carries a switcher, so those are US dollars as displayed to us. A trial rate is not a lesson rate. Every figure above is what that teacher charges for a first session; what a full lesson costs is set per teacher on their own profile, and this row states none of those because they are nineteen different prices belonging to nineteen different sellers. |
| Scoring transparency | How a score is produced, and what the language model is and is not allowed to do with it, is published at /methodology. No scorer-versus-human agreement figure is published: the internal benchmark corpus is too small to publish as an accuracy claim. | Nothing is scored by the platform, so there is nothing for it to be transparent about, and the feedback you get is whatever your teacher gives you. One thing on the platform’s own page is worth checking against before you take format advice from it: its TOEFL FAQ, read on 2026-08-24, still explains the exam on the 0–120 scale with four sections worth thirty points each — the scale official reports stopped using on January 21, 2026. That is the marketplace’s guidance copy, not any teacher’s. Reach120 scores with a model, publishes no agreement figure, and publishes how a score is produced at /methodology. |
Every italki cell above is a sentence their own public page stated, read on 2026-08-24. Prices and free allowances move; check the source before you buy. Reach120's own prices are not typed here — the pricing page is the only place they are stated.
What italki does better
It sells the one thing no model in this set can sell: a person, chosen by you, who answers in real time and can be replaced without changing product. The choice is genuinely yours — 167 teachers were listed under the TOEFL filter on the day we read it, with published rates, published lesson counts and their own written specialisms, so you are picking a human being rather than accepting a vendor’s. The cheapest trial rates on that page sit below what any subscription in this set charges for a month. And because the sellers are independent, some of them prepare candidates for this exam full time and have done for years; Reach120 offers no human review of any response, at any price.
Where Reach120 is different
The difference is what you are buying, not which is better at the same job. On italki you buy an individual’s hour and everything follows from which individual — the price, the syllabus, the currency of their advice. Reach120 is one fixed product: the six current task types, published questions, answer keys, transcripts and sample responses readable with no account, model scoring against the rubric with the method at /methodology, and unlimited free Reading and Listening practice. Plenty of candidates should use both, and this page will not pretend otherwise to win an argument.
Different is not better in the abstract. The difference matters only if it matches what you are short of — time, money, feedback, or lessons.
Where Reach120 is weaker, in its own words: This page makes no case for its own product over the others. Where Reach120 is weaker: there are no taught video lessons, no human tutor review of a response, no coverage of any exam other than the TOEFL test, fewer free AI-scored submissions a day than PrepEx states, and no published scorer-versus-human agreement figure — the internal benchmark corpus is too small to publish as an accuracy claim, so it is not published.
Which one to choose
- Choose italki if what it does better is what you are short of. That sentence is above, unedited, and it is the whole reason this section can be brief.
- Choose Reach120 if you want to read the practice material and its answers before creating anything, and you want the four sections in one place with the method published.
- Choose both if the budget allows. They are not mutually exclusive, and nobody preparing for an exam owes one vendor loyalty.
Before either: Vet the individual, not the marketplace — the counts, the badges and the ratings belong to the platform while the lesson belongs to one person, and quality on any marketplace is a distribution rather than a level. Do not take format guidance from the site’s own copy: its TOEFL FAQ still describes the retired 0–120 scale, so ask the teacher directly what they know about the January 2026 tasks before booking. And read a trial price as a trial price: the figures published on the listing are first-session rates, not what an hour will cost you in week three.
Sources, and what we could not read
- italki’s TOEFL teacher listing, which carries its own TOEFL FAQ beneath the results — https://www.italki.com/en/teachers/toefl, read 2026-08-24.
italki states the following about itself. These are their words, quoted, and this page does not verify them:
- "167 English tutors available" under the TOEFL filter, described as "A comprehensive list of highly professional and experienced TOEFL tutors".
- "The TOEFL test is scored on a scale of 0 to 120, with each section (Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing) contributing a maximum of 30 points."
- "With over 4,200 English teachers to choose from", stated in an article teaser on the same page.
Reach120 vs italki: common questions
- Is italki better than Reach120?
- This page does not answer that, and no page published by one of the two products honestly could. What it gives you instead is the evidence to answer it yourself: what each states about free access, price and 2026 task coverage, quoted from the page it was read from on 2026-08-24, plus a plain statement of what italki does better — It sells the one thing no model in this set can sell: a person, chosen by you, who answers in real time and can be replaced without changing product. The choice is genuinely yours — 167 teachers were listed under the TOEFL filter on the day we read it, with published rates, published lesson counts and their own written specialisms, so you are picking a human being rather than accepting a vendor’s. The cheapest trial rates on that page sit below what any subscription in this set charges for a month. And because the sellers are independent, some of them prepare candidates for this exam full time and have done for years; Reach120 offers no human review of any response, at any price.
- What does italki cost?
- On 2026-08-24, their own page stated: There is no platform price to quote, because italki does not set one: each teacher does. On the TOEFL listing read on 2026-08-24, nineteen teachers on the first page published trial-lesson rates spanning "USD 5.00 / trial" to "USD 60.00 / trial", with most between "USD 7.00" and "USD 30.00". The page names its currency explicitly rather than showing a bare dollar sign, and carries a switcher, so those are US dollars as displayed to us. A trial rate is not a lesson rate. Every figure above is what that teacher charges for a first session; what a full lesson costs is set per teacher on their own profile, and this row states none of those because they are nineteen different prices belonging to nineteen different sellers. Prices and sales move, so check the page itself before paying.
- Can I use Reach120 free instead of paying for italki?
- You can use a large part of it free and decide afterwards. Reading, Listening and Build a Sentence practice is free with no daily limit and no lifetime limit. Write an Email and Write for an Academic Discussion give a free account 3 AI-scored writing responses to start, then one more each day, up to 10 in total; Take an Interview has 3 AI-scored Take an Interview responses in total, for the life of the account; Listen & Repeat has 8 on the account, for life. Published questions, answers, transcripts, sample responses and PDF packs need no account.
- Does italki cover the 2026 TOEFL task types?
- Here is what we could establish rather than what we assume: No cell can be filled, and no cell should be: the six task types would have to be scored against 167 independent sellers, which is not a thing a table can honestly do. What the page itself states is another matter and it is checkable. Its own TOEFL FAQ, read on 2026-08-24, answers "How is the TOEFL test scored?" with "The TOEFL test is scored on a scale of 0 to 120, with each section (Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing) contributing a maximum of 30 points", and recommends "a collective score of 100 (25 scores for each section)". Official score reports stopped using that scale on January 21, 2026. That is the marketplace’s own guidance copy being out of date; it is not evidence about any teacher on it, several of whom advertise the current format in their own profiles. A blank cell in the table on this page means we found no public statement, not that the feature is missing.
- Who publishes this comparison?
- Reach120 does, and Reach120 is one of the two products in it. That is disclosed at the top rather than buried, every competitor fact carries the URL and date it came from, and the section stating what italki does better is mandatory on every page in this set. Nothing here is sponsored and italki did not review it. If you believe a fact on this page is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will re-read the source.