Disclosure first: we build PlusEV Poker, one of the apps on this page. Read everything below with that in mind. In exchange, every price carries a date, every claim is checkable, and the section explaining who should not use our app is honest.

Which poker training app is best?

There is no single best one, because the apps do not do the same job; the right question is which leak you are fixing. Preflop leaks: PlusEV, Preflop Wizard or pokertrainer.se. Short-stack push/fold: Preflop+. Postflop: Postflop+. Tournaments: DTO. Preflop and postflop in one app: GTO Gecko. Looking things up rather than drilling: GTO Wizard. Learning the game from scratch: Upswing or Poker Trainer. Prices and store details checked 21 September 2026; DTO, GTO Gecko, Preflop Wizard, Preflop+ and DEEPFOLD checked 12 October 2026.

AppDrillsPlatformPriceFree option
PlusEV PokerPreflop, spaced repetitioniOS + Android$12.99/mo or $69.99/yrEvery preflop chart free forever; free drill hands for new players
Postflop+ GTO Poker TrainerPostflop, cash + MTT + Spin & GoiOS$14.99/mo, $99.99/yr or $199.99 once (ThinkGTO)Free download only
Poker Trainer (Learn Poker)Preflop, postflop, hand ranking, oddsiOSFree downloadYes
pokertrainer.sePreflop quizzes, basic exercisesWebFreeEverything
Poker FighterPreflop and some postflopWeb + mobileSubscriptionFree tier
GTO WizardSolver lookup, postflop trees, trainerWeb$49-$169/mo, or $39-$139/mo billed yearly (Oct 2026)Limited free tier
Preflop WizardPreflop, cash 6/8/9-max + tournamentsiOS + Android + MacFrom $6.99/wk or $89.99/yr (US App Store)Free download, paid for full features
Preflop+ (ThinkGTO)Short-stack push/fold (Nash) chartsiOS + Android$9.99/mo, $79.99/yr or $129.99 onceNash chart lookup
GTO GeckoPreflop + postflop trainers, solution libraryWeb + iOS + Android + Mac$24.99/mo or $149.99/yr per formatPreflop library, a few trainer hands a day
DTO PokerMTT, ICM spots; separate cash appWeb + iOS + AndroidCash $9.99-$39.99/mo; tournament $9.99-$99.99/moAll preflop cash solutions, simplified
DEEPFOLDAI review of your own hands; drills in PROWeb; solver on WindowsPRO $19/mo billed yearly3 hand uploads, 10 drill hands a month
Upswing PokerCourses, not drillsWeb~$99/mo or $999/yrSome free content

What is the best free poker training app?

pokertrainer.se, if you want preflop reps in a browser with nothing installed. It is free in full.

Poker Trainer (Learn Poker) is the free iOS option, rated 4.7. Five drills: preflop against GTO or custom ranges, postflop hand reading with live equity, hand ranking, best-hand identification and odds. It is aimed at beginners, which makes it the better first app if you are still learning what beats what.

Two paid apps give away more than you would expect. DTO’s free cash plan includes all of its preflop cash solutions, in simplified form, and GTO Gecko lets you browse its preflop library and play a few trainer hands a day. Postflop+ is not free: the download is, but ThinkGTO charges $14.99 a month, $99.99 a year or $199.99 once to use it.

None of these costs anything to try, so there is no argument for guessing. Install one this week and see whether drilling holds your attention before any money moves.

What is each app actually for?

PlusEV Poker

One specific player: you already know your preflop game is leaking, and you want it fixed through reps rather than explained through videos. It deals real preflop spots, scores you against the solution, and feeds every miss into a spaced-repetition queue so the ones you get wrong keep coming back. Every answer also shows what each option was worth in big blinds, how often the solver plays it, and a one-line reason why, and every preflop chart is free in the app with or without a subscription.

It does not cover postflop. It does not cover tournaments. If you need either, buy something else, and Postflop+ or DTO is where I would send you. Where its ranges come from is published: MonkerSolver, 6-max cash, 100bb, 5% rake. Every written store review of it, the critical ones included, is on our PlusEV reviews page.

Preflop Wizard

The closest app to ours. It is preflop only and built for the phone, with a daily quiz drawn from your weak spots, and it covers more formats than PlusEV: 8- and 9-max cash, tournaments and short stacks. Rated 4.8 from about 3,400 US App Store ratings. It does not say which solver its charts come from, and it has no postflop practice.

Preflop+ (ThinkGTO)

Short-stack players. Nash push/fold charts with exact EV, from 1bb up, plus an equity calculator and drills. It is one of the few apps here you can buy outright ($129.99) rather than rent. Past 25bb or so, ThinkGTO’s own guide sends you to full opening ranges.

GTO Gecko

A player who wants preflop and postflop in one subscription that works the same on web, phone and Mac. Three trainers (preflop, postflop, full hand) and a plain-English explanation of why each play is right. Cheaper than GTO Wizard; no node-locking.

Postflop+ GTO Poker Trainer

Cash players fixing postflop leaks and tournament grinders who want spots on a phone with no connection. Its stated scope is millions of pre-computed spots across cash 6-max and full ring, MTTs, Spin & Go and heads-up, filterable by flop texture, and it works offline once spots are downloaded. It is the closest thing on this list to a postflop counterpart of what we do preflop. It is paid: $14.99 a month, $99.99 a year or $199.99 once.

Poker Trainer (Learn Poker)

Beginners and improving recreational players. The five drills cover more ground than any other free app here, but each one shallower. Level progression and offline play are the features it leads with.

pokertrainer.se

Where free matters more than depth. The exercises are basic and nothing adapts to your weak spots, but as a way to confirm you care before spending money, it is honest and we have no problem recommending it.

GTO Wizard

A player who studies postflop seriously, wants to look up specific spots, or runs custom solutions. It is the most complete study tool on the market and the price reflects that. If your leaks are preflop, most of what you pay for is a library you never open. Longer breakdown in our GTO Wizard alternatives comparison.

DTO Poker

Tournament players. Its DNA is MTT: ICM spots and varying stack depths. There is now a separate cash app (6-max, 100bb) with every preflop cash solution free in simplified form. Below the top tournament plan ($99.99 a month), answers get basic grading with no EV loss.

DEEPFOLD

A player who wants their own hands reviewed rather than drilled. Upload hands from your poker site and an AI coach goes through them; PRO adds drills and a solver that runs on Windows only. The free plan is three uploads a month.

Poker Fighter

Preflop and some postflop scenarios in a drill format. The free tier is generous enough to test whether drilling works for you before committing.

Upswing Poker

A player who wants structured education and will put in the hours. The courses are deep and the instructors are credible. It is the most expensive option here by a wide margin, and for a beginner who just needs to stop open-limping, most of the library is several levels past what they need.

What does a poker training app actually do?

Three different things, depending on which one you open.

Video courses and coaching sites (Upswing, Pokercoaching, Run It Once) give you a library of strategy content from professional players. You watch, take notes, and try to apply it at the table. The format is a classroom.

Solver and study tools (GTO Wizard, PioSOLVER, Simple Postflop) let you look up what game theory says about any spot. Full decision trees, node-locking, your own solutions. The format is a reference library.

Drill trainers (PlusEV Poker, Postflop+, Poker Fighter, pokertrainer.se) deal you spots and ask you to play them. You answer, get scored, and the ones you miss come back until you stop missing them. The format is a gym.

Pairing two of them is often the right answer. A classroom and a gym are not competitors.

Why does most poker training not stick?

Because knowing the answer and producing it under pressure are different skills, and only the first one is taught.

You can study a button opening range all morning, understand why T7s is a raise, and then fold it tonight because the decision felt wrong with chips in front of you. That is not a knowledge problem. It is a retrieval problem: the information is in your head but does not surface fast enough.

Every language app on your phone solved this years ago with spaced repetition. Test, score, re-test the misses on a widening schedule until recall is automatic. The same mechanism works on the roughly 500 preflop decisions that repeat every session.

That is what people mean when they look for a Duolingo for poker. Duolingo itself teaches only languages, but the method transfers, and PlusEV applies it to preflop: short daily sessions scored against solver ranges, with the misses brought back until they stick.

Does drilling actually improve your game?

Measured, in our case. We tracked 1M+ recorded training hands across intermediate cash game players. After 30 days of spaced-repetition training, preflop accuracy improved by +0.061 BB per training decision on average, measured on the same spots before and after. The full methodology, sample definition, and exclusions are in the study. To see what that gain does to downswings and bankroll at your own win rate, the variance calculator has it built in as a comparison.

What that is worth at the table depends on how many of your hands reach a spot you trained. If every hand did, +0.061 BB a decision would be about 30 big blinds over a 500-hand session, $60 at $1/$2. That is an upper bound: many hands are routine folds that training does not change, so the real gain is smaller.

The argument is not that drilling replaces study. It is that study without drilling leaves the improvement on the table. Here is one of the ranges PlusEV trains you on, and every cell is a decision you will face tonight:

UTG opening range, 6-max 100bb. The tightest open in the game, and the one players butcher most.
AAAKsAQsAJsATsA9sA8sA7sA6sA5sA4sA3sA2s
AKoKKKQsKJsKTsK9sK8sK7sK6sK5sK4sK3sK2s
AQoKQoQQQJsQTsQ9sQ8sQ7sQ6sQ5sQ4sQ3sQ2s
AJoKJoQJoJJJTsJ9sJ8sJ7sJ6sJ5sJ4sJ3sJ2s
AToKToQToJToTTT9sT8sT7sT6sT5sT4sT3sT2s
A9oK9oQ9oJ9oT9o9998s97s96s95s94s93s92s
A8oK8oQ8oJ8oT8o98o8887s86s85s84s83s82s
A7oK7oQ7oJ7oT7o97o87o7776s75s74s73s72s
A6oK6oQ6oJ6oT6o96o86o76o6665s64s63s62s
A5oK5oQ5oJ5oT5o95o85o75o65o5554s53s52s
A4oK4oQ4oJ4oT4o94o84o74o64o54o4443s42s
A3oK3oQ3oJ3oT3o93o83o73o63o53o43o3332s
A2oK2oQ2oJ2oT2o92o82o72o62o52o42o32o22
FoldRaise 2.5

The small blind is where most players leak the most money. UTG is where they leak the most confidence: you know the range should be tight, but under pressure you either play too many hands or too few.

What should you look for in a poker training app?

Five things separate the useful ones from the noise, whichever category appeals to you.

The content comes from solvers, not from someone’s opinion. GTO solutions are reproducible. “My coach says” is not. Any app worth your time either runs its own solutions or licenses them from a reputable source, and tells you which. Most of the apps on this page do not say.

It addresses your actual format. A 6-max cash range is meaningfully different from a 9-max range, and both are different from a tournament range at 20 big blinds. An app that trains all three without distinguishing them is training you to play all of them slightly wrong.

Free content exists so you can test before you pay. Every app in the table offers something before the paywall. Use it. If the free version does not feel useful after a week, the paid version will not either.

It explains each answer. An app that only marks answers right or wrong teaches you to memorise. The useful ones show what each option was worth, so you learn how big the mistake was as well as which way it went.

It measures something about your play. Tracking accuracy over time is the minimum. If an app cannot show you whether you are getting better, it is a quiz, not training.

The bottom line

The right poker training app depends on what is actually broken in your game. If you do not know yet, track before you train: Poker Stack logs your live sessions by game, stakes and venue, and a few weeks of results show where the money goes. If you do not understand strategy yet, start with a course or a free app like Poker Trainer. If you understand it but cannot reproduce it under pressure, a drill trainer built for that is the better spend. If you are already profitable and want to study edge cases, a solver is the tool.

PlusEV Poker is the drill trainer for preflop. It does one thing, and the case study is where we prove it works rather than claim it. New players get a generous number of free hands to try it, no card required, and every preflop chart in the app’s Ranges tab is free forever. Pro, which removes the daily drill limit, costs $12.99 a month or $69.99 a year.