Kaplan Vs. Khan Academy Vs. Magoosh Digital SAT 

In this article, we provide you with a comparative review of the Digital SAT prep courses from Kaplan, Khan Academy, and Magoosh to help you identify which of these budget SAT prep courses is best for you.

We compared and ranked these three Digital SAT courses according to how well they performed in the areas of lesson quality, student support, pricing, practice material quality, and customer policies.

While budget SAT courses like these three don't have the amount of student support found on some of our top Digital SAT prep courses, they are still a good fit for students who have the motivation to independently prepare for the SAT with minimal teacher support. 

To make this a fair comparison, we only looked at the self-paced courses from Kaplan and Magoosh because they both have a limited amount of student support.

Video Review

Get a behind the scenes look at how these three course platforms stack up against each other in our engaging video below. A must watch before you choose any of these three SAT prep courses! 

SAT Lesson Comparison

The video lessons on all three courses teach the general concepts tested on the Digital SAT quite well.

If you need a refresher on topics like quadratic equations, statistics, and plane geometry in the Digital SAT math section, these courses have you covered.

Magoosh and Khan Academy provide tons of video lessons.

Kaplan has only about 35 on-demand video lessons in comparison. Although Khan Academy and Magoosh have far more video lessons, the self-paced video lessons by Kaplan are highly engaging.

These three courses have one common disadvantage –  an insufficient amount of SAT-specific test-taking strategies, with Khan Academy as the worst offender. 

While Khan Academy is a good choice for covering general SAT concepts, you shouldn’t rely on Khan Academy – a course developed in partnership with the makers of the SAT – to reveal proven strategies that can help you hack the Digital SAT. 

SAT Support Comparison

There’s only so much you can get with a budget SAT prep course. Nonetheless, Magoosh is the clear winner in this category, with its on-demand email access to an instructor.

Khan Academy and Kaplan’s self-paced courses provided no direct student support at the time of this review.

However, Khan Academy’s founder recently launched a new nonprofit platform called Schoolhouse.

This platform is developing a free 4-week SAT Bootcamp run by volunteer peer tutors from around the globe. 

Price Comparison

This category is honestly an unfair competition because it’s impossible to beat Khan Academy’s free lifetime access. So, the price comparison is really between Magoosh and Kaplan.

12-month access to Magoosh’s standalone self-paced platform starts at $129, whereas 6-month access to Kaplan’s self-paced program is $199. 

With an additional $270, students can get recordings of Magoosh’s past guided SAT coaching course, with 16 hours of structured live instruction added to the self-paced program.

Compared to Kaplan that does not have this low cost add-on.

This makes Magoosh the cheaper of the two options. Magoosh also provides payment plans for its self-paced courses while Kaplan does not.

SAT Practice Material Comparison

All three contenders each provide about 1,000 online practice questions.

Although the questions on these platforms are similar to those on the real SAT, they are not official practice questions.

However, only Kaplan and Magoosh provide full-length Digital SAT practice tests.

When we reviewed the quality of answer explanations on each platform, Magoosh stood out with its detailed video and text-based answer solutions.

In fact, Magoosh has the most detailed answer explanations of all three.

Khan Academy and Kaplan only provide answer explanations in text format, which is not ideal for visual learners.

Magoosh takes the lead in this category for offering new Digital SAT practice tests and hundred of practice questions with detailed answer explanations.

Customer Policies Comparison

As Khan Academy is completely free, factors such as a money-back guarantee and free trials don’t apply.

You also can’t expect to receive a score guarantee on a free course. So, the comparison here is between Magoosh and Kaplan.

Magoosh is the winner in this category. They provide clear SAT score increase guarantees, a 7-day free trial, and a refund for unhappy customers. The customer policies on Kaplan’s self-paced course are significantly weaker.

Best Recommendations

For self-studiers looking to focus more on SAT practice, I’d recommend Khan Academy, as a good free Digital SAT option for general concept learning.

But if you want to step things up a notch with a bit more student support and more Digital SAT practice tests, Magoosh Digital SAT is the way to go.