Sophia.org Vs. Study.com

Sophia.org and Study.com are both online, third-party course providers that let you earn college credit super cheap and fast. You sign up for a monthly subscription cost and then go through courses completely online. But because either platform can save you tens of thousands on your college degree, how do you know which to use?

Let’s compare and contrast.

NUMBER OF COURSES

Currently, when you sign up for Sophia Learning, you get access to over 70 courses. But Study.com is way, way bigger. Study.com literally offers over 1,000 college courses. Now, only about 220 of those can be transferred for college credit, but still: 220 is amazing! There’s no other source of alternative college credit out there that has such a huge catalogue, and that’s probably because they started way back in 2015, while Sophia and StraighterLine are younger platforms.

VARIETY OF COURSES

The other great thing about Study.com is they have tons of course topics to choose from. Sophia is far more focused on General Education courses, though they do have a few advanced courses. Study.com, on the other hand, has a LOT of courses you can get college credit for. They’ve got business, computer science, psychology, criminal justice, history, literature, and more. Plus, a lot of their course offerings will be accepted as upper levels (300-400 level).

COURSE LEVEL

But it’s not just the number and variety of classes that are most impressive at Study.com. What’s amazing about them is that many of their courses are accepted at the hackable colleges we focus on as upper level credits.

Here’s the thing: if you want to hack a college degree as much as possible (AKA: graduate fast and cheap, if you’re new to college hacking), at some point you’re going to need upper-level credits. These are defined as 300 and 400 level, advanced, major area courses, of which most schools require a minimum of 24-30 credits out of the 120 typically needed to complete an accredited bachelors degree.

EASE OF USE

If it seems like Study.com is winning by a long shot so far, that’s just because we haven’t gotten to the categories Sophia does best in. For instance, when it comes to going through the actual courses, Sophia is sliiiiightly easier. Their interface is more modern and easier to use (better UX/UI). Their quizzes are well integrated, and everything a little fresher and more gamified. As a result, I think it’s easier to go faster through Sophia courses. BUT Study.com has just released a new app (as of October 2025) that may give Sophia a run for its money and that makes learning and earning credit easier on the go.

PROCTORING

One thing you’re sure to love about Sophia is that they don’t proctor any exams. All tests and quizzes are open book at Sophia, and it used to be the same for Study.com buuuuuut they recently removed the proctoring requirement on their courses. So now both of these services tie here.

ESSAYS

Sophia and Study courses often require essays, but not all of the time. If you’re someone who wants to avoid writing as many essays as possible, there’s not really a clear winner here. Sophia is in the process, it seems, of adding more essays to their courses. Just recently I posted a YouTube video covering the 5 fastest Sophia courses and right after I did that, they added essays to their US History I and II courses, which significantly slowed them down. Thankfully, those don’t have very many essays (or what Sophia terms “Touchstones”), but some courses have as many as 5, like their basic English courses.

TIME

Based on my experience with both services, I don’t think there’s a good way to know which service lets you finish faster. They both require essays and projects for some of their courses, but both focus on helping you get through the material as quickly as possible. Sophia still feels 5% easier to navigate, so they maybe pull ahead a little there.

But Study.com does something really cool:

A lot of their courses overlap with each other. So if you were taking two courses covering similar topics, they might actually share a few modules in common. That means finishing the modules in one course applies to the other course as well! So the more Study.com courses you take that are content related, the quicker they will be. Plus, you can test out of some portions of many of the Study.com courses by taking placement tests (as many times as you’d like) beforehand.

WAIT-TIME

With all the proctoring and essay grading involved in these courses, we’re bringing in a human element that slows things down considerably. So which platform slows you down less?

Again, this is a hard one to judge. And it’s because so many people have different experiences with this. Sophia sometimes takes too long grading, but they’ll often let you get started on the next course while you wait, and Study.com has a very fast turnaround time: two days.

Now, waiting sucks, and it’s something that makes both proctoring and essay-based alternative credit less desirable than just taking a CLEP exam. Both of those offers are pretty fast, so I think it’s nearly a tie with Sophia just eking out a small victory.

COST

This one’s complicated because Study.com just split their products in two.

First is their College Starter, which costs $95/mo, and has just about as many courses as Sophia’s only product. And then there’s their College Saver, which costs $235/mo and has the full course list and lets you take three classes at a time instead of just the two in College Starter.

Sophia costs $99 a month for a product very similar to Study.com’s $95 a month product, so Study.com wins by a hair here.

And honestly the $235/mo price for their full course list is a great deal, and I’m very excited by how they updated their product offering to let us get access to the 70ish courses in College Starter.

And both Sophia and Study.com let you take unlimited courses in a month, so if you’re going fast, either is a great deal.

(By the way, if you use this link to sign up for Study.com you’ll save 10% on your first month. That brings your base cost even lower. Sophia has yet to offer my fans such a deal.)

BONUS USE

I do want to give Study.com a bonus point in this comparison with Sophia, because their huge catalogue of courses has more uses than just earning credit directly from them.

Let’s say you’re planning to take a CLEP exam or a Thomas Edison credit exam (TECEP) but you’re having a really hard time finding study resources for those tests that you can rely on. After all, you want to take the test only once and pass it the first time. Here’s the great news:

Chances are really good that Study.com has a course you can use to study for those exams.

Plus, let’s say you’re planning to go to Western Governors in a month. Why not start studying similar courses at Study.com while you wait? Then you’ll be able to fly through the WGU courses really fast and be able to cut straight to their final tests. Even if they won’t transfer in the Study.com credit, the knowledge is transferable and can help you ensure that you’re not taking a second semester when you get to WGU, which is where 3/4ths of your overall tuition cost will come from compared to the hacking credit.

IN CLOSING

My final word on this topic is this: when I originally wrote this piece a couple years ago, Sophia was winning in a lot more categories and mostly because of their competitive pricing. Study.com has listened to what College Hackers want and have updated their offerings to be a truly excellent option. The pricing is similar enough that I don’t think it’ll be a huge factor for most College Hackers, but Study.com offers more features, and they have a higher tier product that has even more courses you’ll need for your upper levels and major areas.

Back in the day, most hackers would start with Sophia to do the majority of their hacking and then finish up the niche classes with Study.com. I believe the days of that being necessary are at an end and that Study.com can stand alone for 99% of college hacking needs and still be just a little cheaper than Sophia.

Not sure how to map it all correctly to reach your dreams? Schedule a consultation with my team today and we’ll answer every question you have about how to make this process work for you as a unique individual.