PrepScholar ACT Vs. Prep Expert ACT (2025 Comparison) 

PrepScholar and Prep Expert are among the top service providers for ACT prep courses, with several features setting them apart from their competitors. As a result, selecting the best platform between these two for your student's needs may be difficult. But we’ve done all the work, so you don’t have to. 

We've personally purchased and used the PrepScholar and Prep Expert ACT prep courses for months to compare their features. After reading this article, you'll know which platform is best for your student's ACT score goals.

PrepScholar vs Prep Expert ACT Overview

PrepScholar’s ACT prep course offers three plans: Complete Online, Instructor Led Classes + Complete Online, and 1-on-1 Online Tutoring + Complete Online ACT Prep packages. These packages come with varying access to an instructor or tutor. 

Prep Expert, on the other hand, has five ACT prep course types: Unlimited Prep, 8-Week Capstone, 6-Week Flagship, Self-Paced Video, and Weekend Review. Signing up for either package gives students 1-year access to Prep Expert’s video lessons and practice material. 

Who should buy the PrepScholar ACT course?

• Students looking for ACT prep material customized to their strengths and weaknesses.
• Self-sufficient students who need more instructor support

Who should buy the Prep Expert ACT course?

• Students who need ACT-specific test-taking strategies 
• Families on a tighter budget looking for private ACT tutoring

PrepScholar vs Prep Expert ACT: Similarities and Differences 

During our review period, we identified the main similarities and differences between the two ACT prep platforms. 

Main Similarities

• Both platforms provide self-paced courses, structured live classes, and personalized tutoring.
• Their self-paced ACT prep packages have a 1-year access period.
• These platforms provide full-length official ACT practice tests.
• Neither platform has a mobile app dedicated to ACT prep.

Main Differences

• PrepScholar’s lessons and quizzes are user-adaptive, whereas those on Prep Expert are not.
• Unlike Prep Expert, a purchase of any of PrepScholar’s ACT packages comes with a freely shipped physical copy of the Official ACT Prep Guide.
• Prep Expert allows you to pick the ACT instructor whose live class or tutoring session you want to attend. PrepScholar does not have this option.
• All instructor-led ACT prep packages on PrepScholar come with 1-year access to the self-paced course material. In contrast, enrolment in Prep Expert‘s live classes only comes with 60-day access to the self-paced platform, beginning at the end of your live classes.

PrepScholar vs Prep Expert ACT: Performance Comparison

We explored the lesson quality, pricing, customer policies, student support, and practice material in the PrepScholar and Prep Expert ACT platforms. These are crucial performance areas to consider when deciding which ACT prep course will benefit you or your students the most. 

ACT Lessons

Separating PrepScholar from other ACT prep competitors by a long stretch is the delivery of their self-paced lessons. Students must complete a diagnostic quiz when they sign up. 

PrepScholar's learning algorithm then suggests lessons and practice drills based on the student’s performance in the diagnostic quiz. This system ensures that students prioritize areas with the most room for improvement. 

Prep Expert only provides a vast lesson library with a standardized plan. Thus, students without awareness of their strengths and weaknesses might feel overwhelmed by the extensive content on Prep Expert’s self-paced ACT prep platform.

The depth of ACT-specific test-taking strategies in lessons gives Prep Expert a slight edge over PrepScholar. Prep Expert primarily focuses on mastering section-specific ACT test-taking strategies during video lessons. 

Prep Expert provides a more engaging lesson experience, with on-camera instructors in every video. PrepScholar lessons have no on-camera instructor. However, Prep Expert has no option for post-lesson ACT practice – a stark contrast to PrepScholar. 

PrepScholar includes short exercises within each video lesson and directs students to an online quiz immediately after the video lesson. 

PrepScholar leads by a slight margin in this category. 

ACT Practice Material

PrepScholar has 4,000+ unofficial online ACT practice questions. However, it doesn’t provide its own full-length ACT practice tests. PrepScholar directs students to the Official ACT Prep Guidebook to complete six full-length practice tests. Prep Expert also recommends downloadable full-length official ACT practice tests. 

Prep Expert provides video answer solutions to six of the ten full-length official ACT practice tests they reference from the ACT Inc. However, these solutions are available at an additional cost.

PrepScholar, on the other hand, has detailed text- and video-based answer explanations for their online practice questions. However, they don’t provide video answer explanations for the full-length practice tests from the Official ACT Prep Guidebook.

Based on their extensive reserve of online ACT practice material and answer explanations, PrepScholar outclasses Prep Expert in this category.

Pricing

During this review, PrepScholar and Prep Expert’s self-paced courses were priced at $397 and $699, respectively. Thus, PrepScholar is the cheaper self-paced option.

Prep Expert’s 6-Week Flagship course, with 36 hours of live instruction, is priced at $1000 (equivalent to $28 per hour of live instruction). In contrast, PrepScholar has one live class package with 9 hours of classroom instruction at $900 (equivalent to $100 per hour). Thus, Prep Expert is the cheaper option for live ACT classes.

To help economically disadvantaged families, PrepScholar provides monthly payment plans on their ACT prep packages. Prep Expert offers no payment plans on their ACT packages.

Student Support

With world-class instructors in their live ACT classes and 1-on-1 ACT tutoring packages, PrepScholar and Prep Expert outperform their competitors. However, they lack on-demand access to an instructor outside their live classes.

Prep Expert provides weekly office hours to every user of their platform. The office hours enable students to get help with ACT practice questions they struggle with and learn from the questions of others. 

PrepScholar caps its class size at 12 students, allowing more student-instructor interaction. Their live classes are interactive; students can unmute their cameras and mics to ask a question.

Prep Expert’s live classes are usually larger, especially during peak ACT prep season. Moreover, students can only communicate via chat.

Prep Expert provides 36 hours of live instruction, four times more than the instruction time PrepScholar offers. Hence, Prep Expert takes the lead in this category.

Customer Policies

PrepScholar and Prep Expert offer the same ACT score increase guarantee at +4 points for students on their instructor-led ACT packages. However, Prep Expert only guarantees a +1-point improvement in their self-paced ACT package. PrepScholar promises the same +4-point increase on its self-paced course.

Prep Expert offers a full refund for live-class cancellations after 72 hours of purchasing or starting a live online course. Similarly, PrepScholar provides a full refund if you cancel their instructor-led class after the first live class or tutoring session.

PrepScholar provides a 5-day risk-free trial that begins when you complete the diagnostic ACT quiz. However, Prep Expert offers no free trial on their ACT prep packages. 

Their bolder and more generous customer policies make PrepScholar the winner in this category.

Final Recommendation

The key performance areas we evaluated point to PrepScholar as the best choice for students who are ideal candidates for a self-paced ACT prep plan. However, we recommend Prep Expert for group learning. Their packages have as many features as PrepScholar at a lower price point.