Anki Daily Review Load Calculator

How Spaced Repetition Builds Up

When you add new cards every day in Anki, each card is reviewed once, then again after a short interval (1 day), then after a longer one (4 days, 10 days, 25 days, etc.). In the first few weeks, your total daily reviews stay low because few cards have come due for their second or third review. After 2 to 3 months, the deck reaches a rough steady state where due cards from all those graduated intervals start stacking up into a consistent daily pile.

The Steady-State Rule of Thumb

At approximately 90% retention (the Anki default), your daily reviews in steady state are roughly 7 to 10 times your daily new cards. The exact multiplier depends on the ease factor of your cards and how often you fail and reset them.

At 85% retention: expect about 5x daily new cards in reviews. At 90% retention: expect about 7x. At 95% retention: expect about 10x. At 97% retention: expect about 14x (very demanding).

The dramatic jump at higher retention happens because keeping a card at 97% requires reviewing it far more frequently than at 90%.

Why New Card Rate Is the Lever

The single most controllable factor in your review burden is how many new cards you add per day. Doubling new cards doubles reviews. Most language learners find 10 to 20 new cards per day sustainable for the long term. 50+ new cards per day typically leads to review burnout within a few months.

Deck Size and Maturity

A deck is considered mature when most cards have passed through several review intervals. For a 1,000-card deck with 20 new cards per day, that takes about 50 days to add all cards, then another 60 to 90 days before reviews stabilize.