Best Online Course Platforms: Free vs Paid
Written By Jay
Curious about what are the Best Online Course Platforms?
If you are looking for new career opportunities, you are in good company. According to a recent poll by Monster.com, 96% of people polled were currently looking or planned on looking for a new job in 2023. With this many people active in the job market it will be more important than ever to be able showcase your skills and market your abilities.
Perhaps you love your job and would like to learn more related skills. Perhaps you would like to make a career change. Whatever your reason, learning new skills is a great way to earn more money and increase your career options. I wanted to go over some of the best online course platforms out there to help you with your goals and take your learning to the next level.
Best Online Courses: Table of Contents
What are online course platforms?
An online course platform is a place that offers a selection of materials in various mediums like videos, lectures, and discussion boards to help you learn. Just like there are many different learning styles and preferences, there are also many different styles of online course platforms to choose from to suit your personal needs and wants.
Not only can you choose depending on your learning preferences but your goals will influence which platform you chose, as well. Someone looking to learn web developing will likely need something different than someone who would like to learn a new language, or how to do geometry.
If this is starting to sound like too much to sift through, fear not! We will explore the many varieties of online course platforms together and I will help you find the perfect fit. Let us first take a look at the different types of online course platforms and what makes them different.
Different types of online course platforms – add more
When I say different “types” what exactly do I mean? I find it helpful to break things down into increasingly small chunks and in this instance, the most obvious differences between some of the more popular course platforms out there and probably the two most important things that differentiate these types of services are:
- free vs subscription based
- platforms that offer a wide range of topics to learn and those that are very specific to a particular topic
Within these broad “types” of platforms you will find that certain ones will fit better with your goals, which we will be going over next, and can make or break your experience.
What are your goals?
Yes, I am actually asking. Take a minute to really think about what your goals are and how you envision a course or series of courses will help with your goal. Once you have your answer, put it somewhere. You can write it down or store it in a mental notebook, whichever works for you.
This is important because it will determine what you need from a service. If you are looking for a certificate to show that you’ve completed a curriculum your ideal course provider will be different from someone who needs to brush up on some math.
Once you have an idea of what your goal is and what it is that you hope to get out of your education, we can take a look at some of the bigger names out there in the online course platform world. First I’ll be covering some that are completely free or offer a good portion of their content for free and will move on to those that are probably best experienced through their paid options.
Best free online course platforms
Everything listed below can be accessed for free. Some may have additional material that is only available if you subscribe to their service or purchase specific courses but most of what is available is available at no cost.
Khan Academy
For me at least, and I’m guessing most people too, Khan Academy is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about an online learning platform. What is truly incredible is that it is absolutely free, functioning as a non profit running on donations.
Sal Khan started Khan Academy way back in 2008 after tutoring family members and uploading videos to YouTube to help with an increasingly demanding tutoring schedule. Since then it has grown to offer an incredible library of courses teaching everything from math to history to science. They even offer courses covering economics and personal finance!
According to their site, their mission is to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere. They’ve continued growing and I’ve seen their course offerings expand over the years which is great to see as my wife and I have both personally used Khan Academy with great success to prepare for placement tests in college.
What is Khan Academy best for?
Khan Academy is probably best used to learn a subject in preparation for a specific exam or placement test. It is also great at honing skills that you haven’t used in a long time. Having said that, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Khan Academy for building on existing knowledge to increase your expertise in a subject or even to learn something completely new.
My experience has been that their materials are well laid out and very clear and easy to follow. As you work through a course, your progress is tracked and you will also be earning Mastery Points as part of their Mastery System. This shows what percentage of a course you have mastered. You can also see what level of proficiency you are at for a particular skill, from Familiar, to Proficient, and finally, Mastered.
This all allows you to track your progress throughout your learning journey. Essentially everything you would expect from a course is available, including unit tests, progress tracking, and recommendations for where you need improvement based on test performance.
AccountingCoach.com
In case you didn’t know, I am an accountant and, speaking from experience, this is a fantastic resource. AccountingCoach.com offers an incredible amount of free material covering just about everything you can think of when it comes to accounting.
Are you a student studying accounting and need a different perspective on a topic? Maybe you want to better understand aspects of your business or prepare for a meeting with a potential client. AccountingCoach.com covers accounting topics including accounting basics, bookkeeping, financial statements, overhead for manufacturing, and much more.
There are also two different levels of paid content. What is nice is that these two levels are not subscriptions but rather one time fees of $49 for PRO and $99 for PRO PLUS. What exactly do you get access to with PRO and PRO Plus? Both include video training, flash cards, cheat sheets, and progress tracking, and other content not offered for free.
PRO Plus includes the same content as PRO but adds 10 introductory accounting and bookkeeping certificates through AccountingCoach.com. These are earned when passing scores are achieved on their multiple choice exam. I would say that it is up to you to determine if these certificates are worth it.
Codecademy
With an always free Basic access option, Codecademy offers a lot of learning for free. Codecademy is a place where you can learn code in subjects including web development, machine learning, and data science.
There is also a useful option to choose your career path whereupon you will be shown an overview of what it is that the career involves, what you will learn on your journey toward achieving what you need to know to break into the career, and an overview of the curriculum involved. This, however, is not included in the free Basic version of Codecademy.
Basic
The Basic option is completely free access to basic courses and some advanced courses, as well. As the name implies, many of the features that are available to Plus and Pro subscription learners are limited. However, you do get access to community support and learning resources, as well as limited access to practice on Codecademy’s app.
Plus
Plus gives quite a bit more access to tools than the Basic option including access to Pro courses, unlimited practice on Codecademy’s app, quizzes, and personalized practice. On top of this, Plus has real world projects to help you build your portfolio, skill paths to help you achieve a particular skill goal, and certificates of completion to show what you’ve achieved.
Pro
As you might expect, the Pro option provides everything that Basic and Plus offer but also includes career paths to help you train for a specific career, professional certifications, interview prep help, access to Codecademy’s career services, and more.
Best paid for online course platforms
While a lot of learning can be had for free on the internet, there are several amazing resources that require some sort of buy in. Below are some of the best paid options out there for learning online.
However, even if the best that these platforms have to offer come with a price tag attached, there is still a lot of valuable content that can be accessed for free so they are still very much worth exploring. Many of these offer free trials, as well, so you can see if what is offered is what you are looking for.
Udemy
Founded in 2010, Udemy connects learners and instructors, offering over 213,000 courses in over 75 languages. If you want to learn it, Udemy probably has a course for it.
Buy Individual Courses – pay per course
If there are specific courses that you want to take only or maybe a specific instructor that you wish to take your course from, then paying for the individual course(s) is probably a better option than paying a monthly fee. Prices range from $19.99 to $199.99 and you only pay once for a course. What you don’t get when going with this payment option is career guides for web developers and data scientists. This comes with the Personal Plan.
Personal Plan – subscription
There are several benefits to opting to use the Personal Plan. According to Udemy, the Personal Plan gives you access to over 6,000 of the highest rated courses with an average rating of 4.4 out of 5. These courses have been selected specifically for the Personal Plan to provide you with the best courses to help you advance your career.
The Personal Plan is offered as a subscription which, when viewed as a monthly payment is a pretty good deal, however, it is billed in advance for one year at $199. There is a seven day free trial so that you can decide if this option is right for you. It may very well be worth it for your goals so I would recommend at least trying it out for the seven days. Just don’t forget to cancel if you decide it isn’t for you.
This could be a better strategy if your course will take you several months to complete or if you are comfortable paying monthly to have unlimited access to top rated courses. Remember that not all courses will be available to you, however, so I would take advantage of their free trial to make sure that what you need will be available to you.
Coursera
Coursera is an online course platform that partners with universities and various companies to provide professional certificates and even degrees. Which universities and companies you may ask? University of Michigan, University of North Texas, Google, Meta, and Intuit are among the many partnered entities offering certificates and degrees through Coursera.
When you sign up with Coursera, you set up a free account and begin by entering your relevant background information such as your educational background, work experience, and career goals to best provide recommendations for you. Once you’ve completed this you will be able to explore free courses, choose a degree or certification, and courses to help you advance your career. You can also browse all subjects which will include everything from single courses to degree programs.
Coursera Plus and other payment options
There are hundreds of free courses that you can get started with on Coursera as well as a seven day free trial for Coursera Plus. Coursera Plus is $59 per month with an option to pay for an entire year for $399, which will end up saving you over $300 over the course of the year. If you have a specific credential in mind that you are interested in, you can access all courses within that learning program for anywhere between $49 and $79 per month, depending on the program that you choose.
Coursera offers courses to help you work toward careers in project management, UX design, data science, digital marketing, and more. Whatever it is you’re looking for, Coursera is likely to have courses for it.
edX
EdX is the product of Harvard and MIT joining forces to come up with an online course platform and boasts over 160 member universities and offers boot camps, undergraduate and graduate degrees, as well as individual courses.
You can take individual courses, bootcamps, and access online undergraduate and graduate degrees
Audit vs Verified Tracks
When navigating edX you may come across the terms “Audit track” and “Verified track” and wonder exactly what these mean. Simply put, the Audit track is the free version of a course and the Verified track is the full featured version.
Many of the edX courses offer a free version that gives you access to course materials for a limited time but limits some of the course features. The biggest feature not available in the free version is the ability to obtain a certificate. This may or may not matter to you, depending on your goals, especially depending on the cost of the course.
The Verified track gives you the ability to obtain any certificate that may come from completing your coursework, as well as other features restricted in the Audit track, which include graded assignments and unlimited access to course materials. You will also be given the option to upgrade your course if you wish to during the course.
Udacity
Offering both free and paid coursework, Udacity’s courses are focused around the digital sphere with some business related coursework, as well. Something that sets Udacity apart is its career support.
Nanodegrees
Udacity’s Nanodegrees are a series of courses that are typically three to four courses in length, after which students will earn a certificate. These courses usually take about a month to complete and will usually have a project at the end of each course that showcases the student’s mastery of the topics covered.
What is really helpful is that if you take an individual course that is part of a Nanodegree program and subsequently enroll in the Nanodegree program, your completed coursework will count toward that Nanodegree so your progress is not lost.
Free vs Paid Courses
Aside from Nanodegrees, Udacity offers free and paid individual courses for you to tailor your educational experience and meet your specific goals. The big difference between free and paid courses are going to be the level of support and ability to earn a certificate. Paid courses include real world projects, student support, and depending on the course, can be applied toward a Nanodegree program certificate in the future.
Summary
With so many options out there it can be a little overwhelming to know where to start. I think the thing to remember is that options are a good thing and it gives you the opportunity to fine tune your own learning experience.
Whatever your goals are and whatever your budget is, you should be able to find the best online course platform for you with a little research and a little trial and error. I really recommend trying out the free courses available on the course platforms that appeal to you and if it feels right, try out a paid course. Many of these platforms have some sort of refund policy in place so there is little risk in giving it a try.
Learning is one of the things that makes life interesting and enjoyable and it could be the stepping stone to the next level in your life. I hope this helped and if you have any other online course platforms that you would like me to cover, please let me know. Happy learning!
DISCLOSURE: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS AND/OR PAYED PLACEMENT. PLEASE READ MY DISCLOSURE FOR MORE INFO.
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