What We Can Learn from
Our Study.com Reviews Online

If you look up Study.com reviews online, you will likely be confused by how much they vary across different platforms. For example, the service is ranked 4.6/5 on Trustpilot yet only 1.5/5 on Sitejabber. Such a mismatch in users’ experiences with study.com warrants a more thorough investigation.

First, study.com isn’t an academic writing service. It’s more similar to platforms like Coursehero or Preply, where learners can find helpful materials for any discipline imaginable and contract a tutor to help them improve their skills and knowledge.

Study.com’s popular competitors are equally divisive: some clients love them, while others deem them utterly useless. The same seems true with study.com, at least based on the comments you can find online. Hopefully, the in-depth review, which is written based on our researchers’ experience with the platform, will bring some clarity.

What is Study.com? It’s an online learning platform where students can find courses on almost every discipline they study in high school or college and improve their knowledge. It’s equally popular among learners, teachers, parents, and tutors. Teachers and tutors use it to plan classes or share extra materials with their class. Parents can brush up on their curriculum knowledge to be more involved with their children’s studies.

The major difference between Study.com and Preply is that Study.com is more about comprehensive courses than tutors. Tutors’ services are available, sure. However, based on everything we’ve seen in online comments about Study.com, most users are primarily interested in Study.com’s courses. They cover almost the entire K-12 curriculum as general knowledge courses from the first year of the college curriculum.

Is Study.com accredited? As Study.com isn’t a college, it’s not accredited and can’t substitute for a college degree. However, it can make getting one easier because of the helpful courses you can find there. Treated as an extra source of knowledge that can help you with your studies.

If you google information about Study.com, you will see that the platform sometimes calls itself “the ultimate place for learning.” Don’t be fooled, though - it’s not an accrual educational institution and doesn’t have a physical address. A more accurate way to describe Study.com would be “a database with learning materials based on K-12 disciplines and college courses.”

When creating an account on the platform, select one of the Study.com plans. We will discuss them in more detail below. For now, you need to know that Study.com isn’t free. Looking elsewhere is better if you hope to find high-quality learning resources to help you improve your grades and knowledge but don’t want to pay. Study.com is pretty expensive, especially on a student budget.

Also, if you’re a college student further along in your academic journey than in year one, you will likely find Study.com’s materials surface-level and rudimentary. The platform caters primarily to high schoolers (including homeschoolers). The college courses you can find there are quite disappointing. They are okay for revising but hardly anything beyond that.

Before our researchers created an account to explore Study.com thoroughly, they tried to contact the platform’s customer support to ask a few questions. There’s no live chat on the website - which is uncommon and very inconvenient—so we had to text Study.com using the form on their website or the Study.com phone number.

We opted for the latter, and eventually, a customer support member answered our questions and helped us understand how the platform works. However, we had to wait for someone to respond, so our verdict on the platform’s customer service was less than complimentary.

If you have an urgent problem you need to fix ASAP, don’t count on Study.com’s support team. They aren’t very efficient or client-oriented, even more so if you’ve already paid for one of the plans. There are hundreds of negative comments online that claim that getting a refund from study.com is nearly impossible, even when the client was charged unfairly.

Similarly to online learning communities akin to Preply, Study.com offers courses and study materials and one-on-one sessions with tutors that help struggling students understand the subject they are learning. However, if you check Study.com teacher reviews, you will see that many users are unhappy with the quality of tutoring.

Most admit that Study.com is an alright platform for teaching materials (if you’re a high school teacher) and learning materials (if you’re a student) but recommend going elsewhere for tutoring services. We agree with such reviews of Study.com. Based on what we’ve seen in other people’s comments and experienced ourselves, the qualifications of Study.com’s tutors are questionable at best.

The brief answer to this question is no. Study.com is a convenient platform with well-organized learning materials and easy to find. Whether you’re a teacher, a high schooler, or a college student, you will have no problem locating something that will make your academic life easier.

However, this doesn’t justify Study.com’s price per month. The cheapest plan costs $59.99 per month, and it gives you nothing except access to Study.com’s database of learning resources (including quizzes and other self-learning exercises). Those resources can be helpful, especially if you’re new to the subject or don’t like how the material is structured in your textbook. However, they aren’t worth $60 a month. Most of what you can find on Study.com can be found online for free or almost for free.

The only payment plan we think is justified is the so-called “College Saver Edition” for $235 monthly. It gives you access to the courses for which you can earn college credits. The problem, however, is that not all colleges cooperate with Study.com. You can only earn transferable credits if you’re a student of one of the colleges that do.

Your take on the quality of study.com’s learning materials will likely depend on your expectations. If you want an entry-level course to help you understand a topic you missed or get introduced to the subject area, you’re just starting to explore, great. You will probably be satisfied with the level of Study.com’s resources. We found videos particularly helpful.

However, don't bother if you’re looking for something more in-depth that matches the argumentation and reasoning level expected from a college student, don’t bother. Study.com was designed for K-12 students. If you’re no longer a high schooler, you will almost definitely find Study.com’s materials severely lacking in depth and quality.

By the way, we keep seeing people’s comments online asking, “When was Study.com published?” The platform is confusing, so we can see where this question originated. Still, to clarify things, Study.com is an online database and tutoring platform; it’s not a published collection of resources (at least not physically). The platform was launched in 2002, so it’s a well-established business, even if it’s far from perfect.

Study.com claims to cover every discipline from the K-12 curriculum—from algebra to writing to environmental science. We mostly focus on college students, so we aren’t completely sure if that’s the case. Based on the basic K-12 curriculum one can find online, though, it’s true. If you’re still in high school, the likelihood of you finding what you’re looking for on Study.com is at least 90%.

However, if you’re already a college student, we recommend you find the courses you’re interested in before you pay for Study.com. The selection is vast, but it doesn’t cover everything a college student needs, even when it comes to general education classes. And if you’re not a freshman anymore, don’t even bother. Study.com’s materials will be too basic for your academic level.

As you probably know, Study.com isn’t unique. It combines the features of other popular learning platforms, and some are far superior. So, let’s take a look at Study.com’s main competitors. Perhaps you will like one of them way more than study.com itself.

• Preply. If you’re looking for a tutor, Preply makes more sense than Study.com, even though it isn’t perfect.
• Britannica. For free, you can find most non-interactive learning materials available on Study.com on Britannica.
• Khan Academy. We find the quality of learning materials at Khan Academy higher, at least in K-12.
• Coursehero. If you’re a teacher looking for a platform with helpful classroom and homework materials, you might prefer Coursehero over Study.com.
• quizlet.com. Quizlet has way more practice quizzes than Study.com, and it’s cheaper.

Why is Study.com so expensive? Honestly, we have no idea. There are cheaper and better alternatives out there. The unique thing that Study.com brings to the table is a chance to earn transferable college credits. But given the high price, is it worth it?

Still, not everything about Study.com is that bad. Let’s sum up the platform’s pros and cons to remain unbiased.