Every score on this site comes from the same process. It’s slow, it costs money, and it’s the only way to write a review worth reading. Here’s exactly how it works, so you can hold us to it.
We pay for our own accounts
Victoria signs up for each platform with a paid account under her own name. No press access, no free review accounts arranged through an affiliate manager. Free accounts get treated differently: better onboarding, faster support, hand-picked content. Paying customers see the real product, so that’s what we do.
Where a free trial exists, we test the trial too, because that’s how most of you will start. But the review isn’t written until we’ve paid.
Two courses minimum, chosen deliberately
On every platform, Victoria completes at least two full courses:
- One in a subject she knows well. This is how we catch shallow content. A course can impress a beginner and still teach things that are outdated or plain wrong. You need existing knowledge to spot it.
- One where she’s a complete beginner. This is how we test whether the platform can actually teach. Are the explanations clear? Does the course assume things a beginner wouldn’t know? Is there anywhere to ask questions when you’re stuck?
Completing means completing. Every lesson, every quiz, the final project if there is one, and the certificate at the end. Reviews that stop at lesson three miss everything that matters: whether the course holds up past the polished intro, and what finishing actually gets you.
What we score
Each platform is rated on five things, weighted equally:
- Content quality. Accuracy, depth, and whether the material is current. We check course publish dates and whether “updated” courses actually changed.
- Teaching quality. Not the same thing. A world-class expert can be a poor teacher. We rate how well the material transfers, not how impressive the instructor’s bio is.
- Platform experience. The course player, mobile apps, offline access, playback speed, note-taking. The small stuff you live with every day as a student.
- Value for money. Price against what you get, including how easy it is to cancel. A platform that hides its cancellation flow loses points here, every time.
- Outcomes. What you walk away with. Is the certificate recognized anywhere? Does the platform help you build a portfolio, or just a completion streak?
We document as we go
Screenshots from inside the paid account, notes on support response times, billing dates and amounts, and what the cancellation process took. When we say support took two days to reply, that’s from our inbox, not a guess.
Scores change when platforms change
Platforms update pricing, add content, and sometimes get worse. Every review shows its publish date and its last update. When a platform changes something big, we go back in, re-test the affected part, and adjust the score. A review nobody maintains is just a historical document with stars on it.
Where the money comes from
Some links on this site are affiliate links. A platform pays us a commission when you sign up through our link. It costs you nothing extra.
Here’s the tension you should know about: we earn more when we recommend platforms. The way we handle it is structural, not aspirational. Scores are set from the documented testing before any affiliate link goes into the article. We review platforms we have no affiliate deal with. And no platform sees a review before you do. Read the full affiliate disclosure if you want the detail.
Hold us to this
If you find a review that doesn’t match this process, or a score that doesn’t match your experience of a platform, tell us. Reader corrections have more value to this site than any affiliate commission. We mean that literally: trust is the only asset a review site has.