LingoToGo vs. Baselang

Baselang might be popular, but does it offer the best value and teacher quality? Let’s compare them to LingoToGo and see how they stack up.

Here’s a quick summary before we dig into the details…

Baselang

• Offers unlimited Spanish lessons for $179 a month. That’s great if you’re planning on taking a ton of lessons, but it ends up being very expensive if you’re not a super freak.
• Quality of teachers varies a lot. Many of them do not speak English and have no professional training in teaching Spanish.
• Teacher availability is often poor, meaning that you cannot book lessons with the teacher you want, at the times you want.

LingToGo

• Flexible plans to match your budget and goals. No matter how many lessons you take a month, it will still be very cost effective.
• We only hire teachers who are fluent in English and have professional training in teaching Spanish as a second language. They’re all fantastic!
• We over-hire, so you’ll always be able to book lessons with the teachers you want, at the times you want.

Baselang at a Glance

Baselang attempts to market itself as convenient option with unlimited lessons, but beneath the surface lie inconsistencies in teacher quality and a lack of transparency about their business practices. Let’s delve deeper and see how they stack up.

To write this article, we dug beneath blogger reviews that provide gushy reviews in exchange for referral fees, cherry-picked testimonials and hyped claims that are not substantiated by facts. 

We searched for real feedback by real people on Reddit, TrustPilot, Facebook and Indeed.

Baselang’s Rise and Fall

Baselang launched in 2016 and has its operational base in Medellín, Colombia.

Baselang offers a subscription of $179 per month for unlimited one-on-one Spanish lessons.

When they launched, they had very high standards for hiring teachers, requiring that teachers had a degree in teaching both Spanish and English. That meant that all of their teachers were bilingual and could understand both languages deeply – a huge advantage when explaining Spanish grammar to their English-speaking students.

And it showed in their student feedback. 

They used to publish all their student feedback live and unedited after each lesson. And almost all the feedback was glowing and positive.

Baselang has very slick marketing – a beautiful website, a ton of social media presence and lots of reviews by bloggers.

All that has led to explosive growth.

The Problem with Baselang’s Growth

They now have over 450 Spanish teachers.

But unfortunately, that explosive growth seems to have come at a cost…

They now hire some teachers who only speak Spanish (no English) and have no previous training or experience in teaching languages.

Baselang: Inconsistent Quality

It’s hard to say how this has affected the quality of their service, as no up-to-date information is available.

It seems they no longer publish live and unedited student feedback on their website, as that page has not shown any new student feedback in a long time. 

And they do not allow posting feedback on their Facebook page.

It does make you wonder why they stopped publishing student feedback.

Sure, there are plenty of bloggers giving them rave reviews, but it appears that many of these receive affiliate commissions, so they may be more paid advertising rather than unbiased reviews.

As one blogger posted on Reddit:

“I wrote the BlogReview because I would get one month free, and am loving the program. Also if you do use my referral link I get another month free… which kind of sucks for you. So if you do want to sign up message me and we can work out how we both benefit.”

Baselang’s Growth: Teachers Pay the Price

As Baselang has grown so fast, employee satisfaction has suffered too. In 2019, their employee satisfaction rating on Indeed was a solid 4.0. But by 2023, it has dropped to a miserable 1.0.

Some students have posted concerns about exploitative business practices, i.e. low pay on TrustPilot, where over half of Baselang’s reviews are negative.

Apart from what you might think about teacher pay, unhappy teachers cannot give great lessons.

LingoToGo: Where quality learning meets ethical practices.

LingoToGo launched in October 2021 and has its operational base in Bogotá, Colombia.

The LingoToGo Advantage

We have a unique subscription model, where you can choose a plan that matches your budget and learning goals. 

Whether you want to take a one lesson a week or a ton of lessons every month, we have a plan that will be just right for you.

Lessons on our subscription plans come out to only $8 per lesson. Way, way cheaper than other Spanish schools, even though our teachers and availability are better than most.

LingoToGo exclusively hires professionally-trained language teachers who are fluent in English.

We only hire teachers who are also friendly and fun, because if you’re not enjoying your lessons, you’re not going to learn much. And worse, you’re not going to stick with it.

And all this shows in our student satisfaction.

100% of our students give us a perfect 5-star rating for every single lesson. You won’t find that from any other Spanish school.

And we overhire, so that we always have plenty of teachers available. 

That means that you’ll always be able to book the teachers you love at the times you want – seven days a week from 9 AM to 10 PM Eastern Standard Time.

This shows up in our ratings on other sites too:

• LingoToGo has a 5 out of 5 rating on Facebook
• LingoToGo has fantastic ratings on TrustPilot

LingoToGo: Where Learning Meets Ethics

There’s another aspect to our business that we’re particularly proud of…

We pay our teachers above the market rate, and give them a great working environment. 

Why?

Well, the market rate in Colombia is not even close to a living wage. And Colombian culture generally treats employees rather poorly.

We’re just not OK with that.

We’d rather have lower profit margins and treat our teachers right.

As a result, our employee satisfaction on Indeed is 5 Stars.

While we’re proud of the great learning experience that we’re giving our students, it’s even more important to us to give our teachers great jobs and a living wage.

You can try out LingoToGo with one week of unlimited lessons, completely free.

After the free week you’ll have the option to subscribe to one of our flexible subscription plans.

So, here’s a summary of how the three leading schools for unlimited Spanish lessons stack up…

Summary

So, what’s the bottom line on how Baselang and LingoToGo compare?

Pricing: The Real Cost per Lesson

First let’s look at pricing.

Here’s what you’ll end up paying per lesson, based on the number of lessons you take per month:

	8 lessons / mo	12 lessons / mo	20 lessons / mo
Baselang cost / lesson	$22	$14	$8
LingoToGo cost / lesson	$9	$9	$8

Unless you’re taking more than 20 lessons a month, you’re going to pay more for lessons with Baselang than with LingoToGo. If you take 30 or more lessons per month, Baselang is a bit cheaper per lesson, but if you’re that committed to learning Spanish, do you really want to waste your valuable time with mediocre teachers?

Teacher Quality: What Matters Most

Now let’s look at quality.

	Baselang	LingoToGo
Teacher Quality	Varies	Excellent
TrustPilot Rating	Poor	Excellent
Facebook Rating	Ratings blocked	5.0
Price per month	$179, unlimited private lessons	Flexible plans to match your budget and learnig goals
Book the teacher you want, when you want	Teacher availability has varied widely over time	Teacher availability is always great
Indeed Employee Satisfaction	2.0	5.0
Summary	Low quality	Best teachers, best availability, lowest price

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