Saylor vs. Study.com

[Merlin]

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of Saylor. It is hard to beat free (well, $25 for proctoring fees), but in my case I found that I got what I paid for. In my experience, the exams were not really in alignment with the study materials and much of the material used to prepare the exams were out of date, inconsistent, or just wrong. Looking back, I feel that Shmoop's learning material was superior, and that is saying something since it was terrible.

Of course, this was like 2011-12, so I have to believe that things have improved since then. Either way, it left a bad taste in my mouth all the same.

On the other hand, I consider Study.com to be one of the best resources out there... particularly for upper-division courses. There you pay more (a monthly subscription which includes 2 free exams; after that you pay like $70 extra per additional exam up to a max of 5 per month), but the proctoring fees are included.

Some people don't like the Study.com format with lots of small knowledge check tests after each section, but I found it worked well for my learning style. They don't just have you read textbooks, they provide interactive lessons (video and text) which cover all the information relevant to the subject of each section. I took nearly two-years worth of college credits, including practically all of my upper-level courses, from there.

Also keep in mind that Sophia.org is free right now and they are also one of the better providers, albeit normally quite expensive. If you have any GenEd courses you still need, you should definitely check them out ASAP to register for the courses that are relevant to you before the deal is over. OnlineDegree is also free, but their courses are less widely accepted since they are NCCRS and not ACE recommended. Get as many free courses taken as you can and then take the balance of GenEd courses wherever you want... InstantCert, Study.com, StraighterLine, etc.

For your upper-level courses, there really isn't much competition to Study.com since they have the most UL courses (and more courses in general) compared to any other alternate credit provider out there.