Flashcard Study Plan Calculator
Calculate how many flashcards to study daily using spaced repetition.
Plan your study schedule for exams and language learning.
Flashcard Study Planning uses spaced repetition principles to help you learn and retain a large number of flashcards before a deadline.
The core challenge: You need to learn N cards before an exam. Each card needs multiple review sessions to move into long-term memory.
Spaced repetition schedule (Leitner system):
- Box 1 (new cards): review daily
- Box 2: review every 2 days
- Box 3: review every 4 days
- Box 4: review every 8 days
- Box 5 (mastered): review every 16 days
How many reviews per card: On average, a card needs 5-7 successful reviews before it is considered “mastered.” Not every review is successful, so expect about 8-10 total encounters per card on average.
Daily workload formula:
New Cards Per Day = Cards Still To Learn / (Available Days × 0.7)
That 0.7 is deliberate and it is the part most planners leave out. If you introduce new cards right up to the exam, the last batch gets seen once and never reviewed, which is the same as not learning it. Holding back roughly the final 30% of your days for review only means every card gets at least a couple of passes before the exam. The calculator applies it for you, so the daily target it gives is higher than a naive total-divided-by-days, on purpose.
Daily Reviews ≈ New Cards Per Day × 2.5
As your collection grows, review load increases:
- Week 1: mostly new cards, few reviews
- Week 2-3: balanced new and review cards
- Final weeks: mostly reviews, few new cards
Recommended study intensity:
- Light study: 10-20 new cards per day
- Moderate study: 20-40 new cards per day
- Intensive study: 40-60 new cards per day
- Maximum recommended: 60 new cards per day (beyond this, retention drops significantly)
Time estimates:
- Each new card takes about 30-60 seconds to learn initially
- Each review takes about 10-20 seconds
- Total daily study time = (New cards × 45 seconds) + (Reviews × 15 seconds)
The forgetting curve: Without review, you forget approximately 50% of new information within 24 hours. The first review within 24 hours dramatically improves retention to 80%+. Subsequent reviews at increasing intervals push retention above 90%.
How we build and check this calculator
This calculator runs entirely in your browser, so the numbers you enter stay on your device. The math behind it is written by hand and tested against worked examples and standard references before the page goes live.
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