I had to buy Portales 1 and 2 for my college Spanish classes. Both access codes were priced north of $200. Other Spanish learning applications are much cheaper; their price gouging works because VHL likely forces professors to pay little to nothing, allowing all of the financial burden to be shifted to the students who obviously have no choice. I also do not know of any other language-learning platforms that share their features compete against them. Additionally, the lessons and activities are sometimes hard to understand and don't actually improve Spanish fluency--only immersion and interactive learning can do that.