About us
We are trying to fix a small, annoying problem
There are more free courses online than any person could take in ten lifetimes. Almost none of the tools for finding them tell you which ones are any good. That is the whole problem we work on.
Why we exist
Abundance is not the same as access
In 2024 one of us set out to learn data analysis properly. Nine hours went into finding a course, and about four into actually taking one. Two of the three shortlisted courses turned out to be free only for a trial week. The third had been recorded against a version of the software that no longer existed.
That ratio — more time spent searching than learning — is not a personal failing. It is what happens when the only ranking signal available is a star rating, and star ratings are given out by people twenty minutes into a forty-hour course. The rating measures the trailer, not the film.
So we built the thing we wanted: an index that tracks whether people finish a course, whether the material is still current, and whether “free” survives contact with the checkout page. No hosting, no selling, no course of our own to promote. Just a straight answer to “is this worth my Saturday?”
38,400+
Courses indexed
Across 21 trusted providers
2.1M
Learners a month
In 140 countries
96%
Links verified daily
Dead enrolment links get pulled
0
Paid placements
Ranking is never for sale
Methodology
How we rank courses
Published in full, because a ranking you cannot inspect is just an opinion with a number attached.
- 40%
Completion rate
What share of people who start the course reach the end. Weighted highest because it is the only signal that reflects the whole course rather than its first twenty minutes.
- 25%
Review quality and volume
Recent reviews count for more than old ones. A thousand reviews from 2019 tell you about a course that no longer exists.
- 20%
Freshness
When the syllabus was last revised, checked against the pace of change in that subject. A 2021 CSS course is fine. A 2021 AI tooling course is archaeology.
- 15%
Access integrity
Does the enrolment link work, and does the stated price match what the provider actually charges at checkout. Verified daily.
What is deliberately absent: payment. No provider, advertiser or instructor can buy weight in this formula, purchase a badge, or be inserted into a collection. If that ever changes, it will be announced on this page before it takes effect — not discovered afterwards.
The business model
How we make money
Two sources, both of which we would rather tell you about than have you work out.
Advertising. Display ads, clearly labelled as advertisements and kept out of the results themselves. We do not run ads dressed as course recommendations, because that is the exact trick that makes these sites useless.
Affiliate commissions. Some providers pay us when a learner enrols through our link. It costs you nothing extra and it changes no price. It also changes no ranking — a meaningful share of our highest-ranked courses pay us nothing, and they outrank plenty that do.
What we do not do: sell your personal data, sell ranking positions, or accept payment to remove a bad completion score. Details in the affiliate disclosure and the privacy policy.
What we optimise for
Four commitments we actually apply
Written down so you can point at them when we fall short.
Independence over revenue
When a commercial decision and an honest ranking conflict, the ranking wins. We have turned down paid-placement deals and will keep doing it.
Specific over comprehensive
We would rather show you six courses we can defend than six hundred we cannot. Volume is easy; judgement is the product.
Minimal by default
We collect the least data that lets the site work. No account required to search, and no tracking that follows you off this domain.
Accessible to everyone
WCAG 2.2 AA is a floor, not a goal. This site has to work on a five-year-old phone, on a slow connection, with a screen reader.
The people
A small team, named and reachable
Four people, one office in Austin, and a shared inbox that a human reads.
Amara Osei
Co-founder, Product
Previously built learning tools at a large MOOC. Owns the ranking methodology.
Daniel Reyes
Co-founder, Engineering
Built the crawler that re-verifies 38,000 enrolment links every day.
Mei Tanaka
Head of Editorial
Decides what goes into a collection, and what gets pulled out of one.
Ravi Shankar
Data
Turns messy provider feeds into completion rates we can stand behind.
Think we got a ranking wrong?
Tell us which course and why. Corrections from learners are how the index stays honest.
Five worthwhile courses, every Tuesday
Hand-checked by our editors, never auto-generated. Free courses that are genuinely free, plus the week’s real discounts. No affiliate spam.
One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click. We never sell your address.