How platforms are assessed here, in the order the checks are made

Every platform on this site is read against the same six criteria in the same order, each carrying equal weight. Where all six can be filled, the score out of 100 is their mean, rounded; eight of the fourteen platforms here carry one. Nothing in it is adjusted for popularity, for how well a platform is known, or for anything commercial, because there is nothing commercial here to adjust for: no affiliate placement, no sponsored position, and no ranking that moves when a commission rate changes.

The other six (DataCamp, edX, CreativeLive, Domestika, FutureLearn and The Great Courses) are reviewed against the same criteria and left unscored, because price is one of the six and on these no price could be established for the criterion to use: on some the published figures disagree across sources, on others nothing could be verified at all, and on edX the figure moves with the awarding institution rather than with the platform. Scoring on five of six equal criteria produces a number that looks comparable and is not, so each of those reviews states its own reason rather than carrying a score.

What the criterion needs is an established price, not an annual one, which is why selling per course is not by itself a reason to withhold a score. Udemy sells single courses and is scored, because its street price is settled by a sale cycle that runs most of the year; Khan Academy is scored because free is a figure. Both sit off the price axis, since neither has an annual number to plot, and both keep a score.

The six criteria

1. Price

What an individual actually pays, in United States dollars, compared with what the platform gives access to: the annual list price where there is a subscription, the settled street price where courses are sold one at a time. A cheap subscription that opens very little does not score well merely for being cheap, and an expensive one that opens a genuine catalog is not punished for it.

2. Access

How much of the catalog the money actually opens, whether a free or audit tier exists, how long a trial runs, and whether the plan you can buy is the plan advertised. Platforms that fragment a catalog across tiers score lower than platforms that sell one thing.

3. Teaching

Who is in front of the camera and whether they can teach. Institutional standing counts, but a working practitioner who explains their decisions counts for more than a famous name reading slides.

4. Assessment

Whether anything you produce is marked, and by whom. Automated grading scores above nothing at all, peer review scores above automation, and a human who reads your work scores highest. This is the criterion that separates the market most sharply, and it is the one most comparison sites leave out.

5. Credential

Whether a certificate exists and whose name is on it. A credential issued by a university, an employer or a professional body is worth something to a stranger. A certificate a platform issues about itself is worth very little, and we say so rather than treating all certificates as equal.

6. Exit

What survives cancellation. Courses you own, certificates that remain verifiable, files you can download, records that stay on a profile, or nothing at all. It is the axis nobody advertises and the one that decides what a year of subscription leaves behind.

How prices are handled

Every price on this site is a list price for the United States, and every page that prints one carries the date it was checked. The current set was checked on August 19, 2026. Platforms price regionally and run promotional cycles for much of the year, so a figure without a date is close to meaningless, and a figure presented as permanent is worse.

A platform’s own pricing page is the primary source, and every review links the one its figures were read from, so any price on this site can be checked at the place it came from. That page is also frequently the least usable source: several serve a different currency by region, and some refuse a request outright depending on where it comes from. Where a second source exists it is used to corroborate, and where sources conflict the conflict is what gets published. Every figure carries the date of its check rather than standing as a permanent fact.

That rule produces three outcomes rather than one, and all three appear on the site. The price is settled and the figure is printed with its date and its source, on the six subscription platforms — and on Khan Academy, where the settled figure is zero. Sources disagree and the page says so and gives the range: DataCamp’s annual individual plan is published as $168, $336 and $350 depending on the source and the promotion, so it is named as disputed and left off the price axis instead of placed on a guess. Nothing could be verified and no annual figure is printed at all, for the platforms sold outright and discounted more or less permanently, where a list price is not a price anyone pays. Those carry a line saying so on their own review, and no score — except Udemy, where the street price is settled by a sale cycle that runs most of the year, which is a figure even though it is not an annual one.

The point of the date is that it expires. A figure here is a claim about one day, and prices move underneath it; a subscription that was right in August is a guess by the following spring. When one is wrong the fix is to re-check it and re-date it, never to edit the number quietly.

What is deliberately not scored

Catalog size, hours of video, number of instructors and student headcount are all recorded by the platforms and all describe volume rather than value. None of them enters the score. A platform with four thousand courses and no assessment is not ahead of one with four hundred and real marking.

How the homepage field is built

The two axes are the annual list price and what survives cancellation, so a platform appears on the field only if it has a verified annual price to place. Six of the fourteen do. The other eight (Udemy, Khan Academy, DataCamp, edX, CreativeLive, Domestika, FutureLearn and The Great Courses) sell single courses, are free, or publish no figure anyone can pin down, and placing them would require inventing one. They are listed beside the field instead, which is less tidy and more honest.

Corrections

Prices change, tiers get renamed and platforms retire products. When a figure here is wrong, the fix is to re-check it and re-date it rather than to quietly edit the number, and the check date printed on every page that carries a figure is what makes that visible.

Questions people actually ask

How are the scores calculated?

Six criteria (price, access, teaching, assessment, credential and exit), each carrying equal weight, and the score is their mean rounded to a whole number. Nothing is weighted for popularity or brand.

Is there any affiliate or commercial relationship?

No. There is no affiliate placement, no sponsored position and no ranking that moves when a commission rate changes, which is why the cheapest platforms are not automatically at the top.

How are prices verified?

Every figure is a United States list price read from the platform’s own pricing page, which each review links, with the date it was checked printed alongside it. Where sources conflict, the conflict is published and the platform is left off the price axis rather than placed on a guess.

Why are some platforms unscored?

Because price is one of the six equally weighted criteria, and on some platforms it cannot be established. Either the published figures disagree across sources, as they do on DataCamp, where annual prices differ by a factor of two, or no annual figure could be verified at all, which is the situation on the platforms sold outright and heavily discounted. A mean of five criteria is not comparable with a mean of six, so those platforms are reviewed in full and left unscored, with the reason printed on the review.

What happens when a price changes?

The figure is re-checked and re-dated rather than quietly edited, and the check date printed on every page that carries a figure is what makes that visible to a reader.