Elevate vs. Lumosity: Which brain training app should you use?

Picture this: Your building slips a two-page notice under the door. All you need from it is the day the water will be shut off. Finding that one line fast is a reading skill, and it's the kind of everyday skill Elevate's games practice. Lumosity takes a different route, with quick puzzles for memory, attention, and speed. If you want the reading, writing, math, and memory in your day to come easier, Elevate is the one to choose.

Quick answer: Elevate or Lumosity?

• Elevate shapes each workout around the focus you set, and its games are built from everyday moments, like remembering what someone told you or reading a long report quickly. Lumosity starts with a 10-minute Fit Test, then gives you quick puzzles for core skills like attention, speed, and flexibility.

• Elevate suits you if you want to see the practice show up at work and at home, in a sharper memory, clearer writing, a bigger vocabulary, and quicker math. It also has its own published research on those skills.

• Both apps are free to start, and Elevate's monthly plan costs less than Lumosity's.

How does each app decide what you play?

Elevate builds your workout around what you want to work on. You set your daily training focus and choose whether a workout has three, four, or five games, and Elevate fills it from its 40+ games with the skills you need most. As your scores rise, the games get harder, so the challenge keeps pace with you. Your Performance tab shows the skill groups you're strongest in and where you rank against other Elevate members in your age group.

Lumosity starts with a test. Its free, 10-minute Fit Test sets your baseline scores and shows how they compare with others in your age group. After that, Lumosity gives you a fresh set of games each day, picked based on your training habits and preferences, and Lumosity Premium unlocks full five-game workouts.

That focus setting is what to look at if you came with a skill in mind: In Elevate, you can aim each day's workout straight at it.

What will you actually practice in each app?

Elevate's games practice each skill the way you'll use it. So start from the moment you'd like to handle better.

Retention and Synthesis are two of the memory games in Elevate Premium. One player described the payoff in a five-star App Store review: "I can add grocery prices again much quicker bc my memory has improved since consistently using this app." On the US App Store, Elevate is rated 4.8 stars from more than 540,000 ratings. For more to practice between workouts, try our memory training exercises.

Lumosity says it takes established cognitive tasks, or creates new ones, and turns them into games and puzzles that challenge core cognitive skills. In Memory Matrix, you memorize where tiles appear on a grid. In Lost in Migration, you work out which way the lead bird in a flock is headed while ignoring the birds around it. Speed Pack has you fold items in your head to fit them into a packed suitcase, and Brain Shift has you switch between two rules depending on where a letter-number pair appears. In Raindrops, a math game, you solve arithmetic problems quickly, and Lumosity likens it to calculating a tip.

Elevate starts from everyday moments instead. If it's the long notice or the sale sign you'd like to handle better, get Elevate free and play your first workout tonight.

Does Elevate work?

Yes, for the skills its games train. Here's what Elevate's own research found.

• Elevate's 2025 peer-reviewed study found that the more weeks people had played, the more likely they were to say their memory, reading, writing, speaking, and math had improved. In the survey behind it, 81% of players said they felt mentally sharper, and 70% said they processed information faster.

• Elevate's 2015 study tested players on grammar, writing, listening, and math with a test separate from the games, so it checked the skills themselves, not game scores. After four weeks, people who played Elevate improved more than a comparison group that didn't.

Elevate's 2025 study asked players to report their own progress, and its 2015 study compared players with a group that wasn't chosen at random. For more on what brain training can do, see our guide to whether brain training apps work.

How much does Premium cost on each app?

As of October 2026 on the US App Store, Elevate Premium costs $9.99 a month or $39.99 a year, and the yearly plan comes with a seven-day free trial. To skip the trial and use Elevate's free version, tap the X in the upper left corner after you sign up. Lumosity lists a one-month Premium subscription at $14.99 on the App Store and shows its yearly, two-year, lifetime, and family plans on its purchase page. Prices can vary by country.

Frequently asked questions

Is Elevate actually worth it?

Yes, if you'll play most days. Start with the free workout for a week. If you find yourself wanting the memory games or the freedom to play any game whenever you like, that's what Elevate Premium adds, and the yearly plan costs about the same as four months of the monthly one.

Can you cancel Elevate after the free trial?

Yes. The seven-day free trial comes with the yearly plan, and you can turn off auto-renewal in your app store account settings. Turn it off at least 24 hours before the trial ends, and you won't be charged for the year.

Does Elevate help with ADHD?

Elevate is daily practice for skills that take focus, like reading closely, listening for details, and doing math in your head. It isn't a treatment for ADHD or any other condition, so think of it as a workout for everyday skills alongside the care you already have.

Sources

1. Prices, free versions, ratings, and how each app sets up your training: the Elevate and Lumosity US App Store listings, Elevate's app page, and Lumosity's help center articles on free and Premium accounts and subscription types (October 2026).

2. Lumosity's games: Lumosity brain games (October 2026).

3. Elevate's games and Performance tab: The Mind Company, October 2026, and its posts on memory training exercises, reading faster, analogies, and shopping smarter.

4. Elevate's 2025 study: McAlister K. et al., "User Engagement With and Perceived Impact of a Digital Cognitive Training App on Cognition, Daily Functioning, and Mental Fitness: Secondary Analysis of Cross-Sectional Survey Data," JMIR Formative Research, October 2025. A survey of 3,367 active US adult Elevate users. The three outside authors work at Fit Minded, Inc. Anna Braunsdorf, who wrote this article, is a coauthor, and The Mind Company supported the study. The 81% and 70% figures: The Mind Company, "Elevate White Paper 2025," from the same June 2025 survey of more than 4,200 adult players.

5. Elevate's 2015 study: The Mind Company, "Elevate Effectiveness Study," October 2015, analyzed by Dana Nakano, PhD. The 146 Elevate players who finished, against a recruited comparison group of 125, on 33-question tests.

6. Player quote: an Elevate review on the US App Store by NedraJ, October 2026.