The best ACT prep courses online to achieve high test scores
College admission tests such as the American College Test or ACT play an important role in the lives of high school students that plan to go to college or university. Good and even great ACT scores can get you a place at your favorite college, while lower scores could mean having to accept a place at a lesser-known college.
Yes, there is competition, and this is why experts generally recommend thoroughly preparing for the ACT test. Thus, start early. In this review, we guide you through some of the most recognized and best ACT prep courses online. Get prepared.
ACT Prep Courses Online – Overview
Many students first need to decide which test to prepare for, as there is also the Scholastic Assessment or SAT that colleges will accept. However, apart from reading, writing, languages, and math, the ACT also covers science. It depends on your subject. It’s possible to sit for both tests, and many test prep course providers offer both options.
Both types of college admission tests are designed to indicate whether students are ready to attend and complete college. Most colleges, therefore, accept both tests and thus many students get both. It is important to understand that they are NOT intelligence or aptitude tests. Preparation is key to getting great results. Here are three key features of the ACT:
- ACT was introduced in 1959 by professor Lindquist as a competitor for SAT.
- Both ACT and SAT cover similar subjects. ACT also covers science.
- ACT scores range on a scale from 1 to 36.
- Roughly 2 million graduates around the US take the ACT test each year.
- Your test results are as important as your transcript, essays, extracurricular activities.
How To Study For ACT
Experts recommend starting preparing for the ACT test as early as possible. The most common mistakes include not choosing the best method to answer a question, misunderstanding a question, or trying to memorize everything.
Here are a few tips to get started. For SAT prep courses or GMAT courses and tips look here.
Take a practice test. A practice test is a valuable tool to help identify areas where you need to improve.
Sign up for an in-person ACT prep course. Attending prep classes will help you to remain focused and disciplined. You work and prepare with a tutor.
ACT Prep online. This is an excellent option for students that simply cannot attend regular ACT prep courses. Again, you may prepare with an expert tutor in real-time. The other option is self-paced ACT prep courses online with video lectures and exercises.
Get a private tutor. One-on-one tutoring is expensive but it is personalized and can be adapted to your specific needs. You may combine them with self-paced course offers.
Think outside the box. Some speed reading courses support ACT and other tests. Learn to increase reading speed and comprehension and thus become better in one of the main test subjects. Speed reading techniques also help increase your overall knowledge.
Prep over the summer. With the ACT tests scheduled for August and September, the summer break is the ideal time finalize your preparations. However, consider enrolling in an ACT prep course up to 6 months in advance to allow enough time.
How To Choose The Best ACT Prep Courses
It is not easy to decide which of the many ACT prep courses online or in-person to take. Asking yourself these questions may help you decide:
- How much assistance do you need? What type of help is best?
- How much can you afford to pay? What’s the budget?
- What type of prep course is best? Think of tutoring, online or in-person classes here.
- What is your learning style? Are you self-organized or need a strict structure?
- How much time can you spend on your test preparations each day or week?
- Do the ACT prep courses offer you a score improvement guarantee?
Best ACT Prep Courses Online 2023 – Top 5
| Magoosh ACT Prep Courses | The Princeton Review ACT | Udemy ACT Prep Courses | Kaplan ACT Prep Courses |
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |
| ★★★★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★★★☆ | ★★★★★ |
| Price: from $100 | Price: from $699 | Price: from $11.99 | Price: from $699 |
| View Website | View Website | View Website | Read Details |
*Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. Read the full disclosure at the end of this post.
So, what are the best ACT prep courses online? Below is an overview of eight classes to help you get started. Use the table of contents below for fast and easy navigation.
1. Magoosh ACT Prep Courses
Magoosh ACT prep courses (view website) offer online video lectures, practice questions, tests and tailored scheduling to prepare you effectively. Going with Magoosh gives you a 7-day money-back guarantee, SMS reminders, dashboard, and expert guidance. Students can access the course content on both their desktops or smartphone. There’s a separate ACT app for iOS and Android that you can download and learn on the go.
The enrollment options start from $100 for one month, $119 for three months, and $129 for 12 months making Magoosh one of the cheapest ACT prep courses online. The content consists of 250+ video lessons, 1300+ practice questions (with video/text explanation for each question), four practice tests, and a curated study schedule.
Most importantly, Magoosh offers a +4 points score guarantee for their ACT prep course program. If your score doesn’t improve, they’ll give you a refund.
Rating: 4.8 ★★★★★ | Price: from $100 (self-paced). Info: View website.
2. The Princeton Review – ACT Prep Courses
The Princeton Review (visit website) is a well-known and recognized player to prepare you for all kinds of school, university, or college admission tests. They offer some of the best ACT prep courses online, self-paced, or via live classes. There are two main programs.
The Princeton Review ACT Essentials is suitable for those who have a specific score in mind and want to systematically prepare, learn test-taking strategies, and how to handle real ACT test questions. This online ACT prep course comes with 18 hours of online classes and access to more than 100 expert instructors’ lessons.
Practicing is key, so challenge yourself with scheduled and proctored practice tests. There are also multiple full-length and single-section practice tests to gain the confidence needed for your upcoming ACT. Furthermore, this program also gives access to practice tests, lessons and strategies for SAT and PSAT if you plan to sit for both tests.
Assignments, customized study plans, drills, practice questions and score reports make the Essential plan one of the most comprehensive self-paced ACT preps available. You will get feedback on your scores and advice on the specific areas to improve on. Finally, ACT Essential gives you access for 365 days which is enough time to prepare.
If you want to make sure to reach at least 31 or more than 34 points, The Princeton Review offers the ACT 31+ course and the ACT 34+ Tutoring program. As the name suggests, these ACT prep courses come with a specific score improvement guarantee. Core features include top-percentile instructors, AI-driven practice drills and tutors on demand.
Similar to ACT Essentials you will also get 36+ hours of classroom instruction, proctored practice exams and single section tests, prep books, study plans and access to SAT and PSAT prep as well as ACT Advantage. Classes start frequently and you need to enroll.
Rating: 4.9 ★★★★★
Price: ACT Essentials $749 (self-paced). ACT 31+ $1899.
ACT 34+ Tutoring from $373/hour. Private tutoring from $119/hour.
Info: View course page for info on ACT score guarantees, plans, and ACT tutoring.
3. Premium ACT Prep Course Online – Udemy
The Premium ACT prep course (view website) is a course hosted on the Udemy platform to improve your ACT scores. It consists of 9 hours of video lectures and 500 practice problems. It teaches various techniques for an outstanding ACT score for usually under $20 with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Here’s a brief overview:
- Video lessons. 56 Video lectures presented by experts over a period of nine hours cover everything tested by the ACT. Lessons can be repeated whenever you want.
- Interactive learning. The entire course is fully animated, making it fun and exciting.
- Practice tests. There are more than 500 practice problems for you to test your mettle. Each problem is thoroughly analyzed and explained.
- Test strategies. If you know exactly how the ACT is designed, you will not be surprised during the actual test. You will learn how to develop your very own test strategy.
What makes this course unique is that it’s animated. ACT content is pretty dry and adding some colors can certainly help lift the spirits. There are five sections, English, Math, reading, writing, and science. English covers sentence structure, grammar, style, and organization. Math starts with basic mathematical concepts like integers, fractions, and moves on to Geometry, Trigonometry, and Algebraic concepts.
The science section explores data representation, research summary, and conflicting viewpoints. Reading covers reading strategy, prose fiction, social science, humanities, and natural science. The class then concludes with a section on writing strategy. This is one of the best ACT prep courses online to get decent preparation for those on a low budget.
Rating: 4.7 ★★★★☆ | Price: from $11.99 95% off. | Info: View website.
4. Kaplan ACT Prep Courses
Kaplan is one of the most recognized providers for test prep courses with thousands of students successfully preparing for their admission tests. They certainly have one of the best ACT prep courses online or in-person that cover all the subjects in detail. There are three different programs and styles to choose from.
Kaplan’s in-person ACT Prep courses are presented by an expert instructor, usually at a school close to you or easy to travel to. This is what you can expect:
- Students enjoy live instruction by an experienced tutor and teacher during scheduled prep classes. There are 18 hours of interactive lessons.
- You will gain access to Kaplan’s ACT Channel with ACT students getting another 14 hours of online instruction and education.
- Real practice tests are important, so ACT students will sit for four proctored tests. They will also get access to five additional tests.
- Get unlimited access to online quizzes and the Quiz Bank with this ACT prep course.
- Last but not least, there will be 25 hours worth of on-demand lessons to work on weaknesses and selected topics.
- Students are supplied with ACT Prep Books for their respective prep courses.
Kaplan’s Live Online ACT Prep courses follow the exact same format as the in-person courses, but you will receive your training on your laptop, desktop or mobile device.
If you choose Kaplan’s ACT Tutoring, you will get access to private tutoring, either in person or online. Apart from preparing with intense focus and individually, you will, of course, get access to the in-person or online ACT prep courses mentioned above.
Rating: 4.9 ★★★★★ | Price: from $299 (self-paced course).
Not the right test prep? Browse lists of other test prep courses. LSAT prep Courses, MCAT prep courses, SAT prep courses or GRE prep courses or GMAT prep courses.
5. Higher Scores ACT Prep Course
Higher Scores Test Prep is focused on two things, family and personalized learning. They offer two different pricing options, ACT quick prep and ACT complete package. That way, students can pick a course they can complete at their own pace. Along with the students, parents are also notified about the progress via weekly countdown emails.
For the ACT quick prep course, you only need to make a single one-time payment of $187. On the other hand, the complete package is available at a one-time payment of $647 or two monthly payments of $327.
The ACT quick prep course includes a 10-day self-study guide, four hours of on-demand video tutorials, downloadable ACT prep materials, and one full-length practice ACT.
ACT Complete Prep includes a 24-day ACT study guide, 80+ on-demand video tutorials, three ACT prep books (hard copies) delivered to your doorstep, and unlimited email support. You can access the course for about 12 months with this package. This is one of the best ACT prep courses online for late starters and those in a rush before a test.
Rating: 4.7 ★★★★★
Price: ACT Quick Prep $187. ACT Complete Prep $647.
Learning tips: To dive deeper into eLearning, here is an extensive overview of popular online learning providers. Furthermore, we hope these tutorials on how to be more productive or how to stop procrastination might be helpful with your prep.
6. Prep Expert ACT Prep
Another well-known provider of some of the best ACT prep courses online is Prep Expert. Only expert tutors with a top 1% ACT result will teach students how to score high on the ACT. Thousands of students have completed the ACT and other tests based on their proven preparation strategies and methods. So how does it work?
There are multiple approaches to use Prep Expert effectively. There is a 6-week Flagship program to prepare you for the ACT test from scratch with top instructors teaching you 100+ strategies. If you think learning on your own is the way to go, a self-paced program gives you access to online video lessons, tests, methods, questions, and knowledge.
There is also a weekend boot camp for those who need to repeat material or improve quickly before their exam. When it comes to success rates, Prep Expert provides a 4-point score improvement guarantee for its flagship ACT prep courses. There is a general basic improvement guarantee for the online video courses.
Rating: 4.6 ★★★★☆ | Price: Self-paced from $499. 6-week flagship from $799.
7. PrepScholar ACT Prep Course
The PrepScholar ACT Prep is an online course program led by expert instructors and perfect and 99% percentile scorers to help you achieve the ACT scores to get admission to your dream school. It works based on a student’s performance, measures progress, and creates a study and lesson plan that focuses on weaknesses and strengths.
PrepScholar claims to have the largest ACT questions library containing high-quality practice sets to prepare for all kinds of questions and topics. Their ACT prep course features more than 100 hours worth of instructions and covers all four topic sections. Enrolled students can sit up to five real ACTs to gain exam experience with real questions.
While there are interactive lessons to get familiar with tricky content, online video lectures offer another opportunity to learn relevant topics and the best strategies to approach and solve tasks. The focus is on learning specific ACT content, strategies, apply knowledge in drills, and review performance, progress, and mistakes.
Rating: 4.8 ★★★★★ | Scores: 4+ Points Improvement Guarantee
Price: Complete ACT Online Prep $397. PrepScholar ACT Prep Classes $895.
8. ACT Prep Course Online
This program has been rated by acknowledged experts as one of the best ACT prep courses online. The course was designed with full cooperation from the designers of ACT. Let us look at some of the main features.
It is fun! Critics will say that fun is not a requirement for quality training but students are much more likely to engage with the course if they enjoy the process.
- There are comprehensive, well-written text lessons peppered with numerous practical examples were prepared by experts.
- The interactive dashboard ensures that you will always know exactly what progress you have made and where you need to improve.
- An online discussion area allows you to connect with other students to share ideas, help each other out, or ask for advice.
- In the game center, there are a variety of basic games that will help you to review your progress and to test your current ACT skills in a fun way.
- Full-length practice exams will tell you just how ready you are for the real thing and where there is room for improvement.
- Students can choose their own course structure. This unique feature allows you to choose between a structured approach where you will be presented with lessons and exercises in a pre-determined sequence or an adaptive plan.
Rating: 4.5 ★★★★☆ | Price: $29.90
Other Best ACT Prep Courses Online
- Green Test Prep
- Sylvan ACT Prep Course Online
- PreScholar ACT Prep
- Testive ACT Online Tutoring
- Varsity Tutors for ACT
- Veritas Prep
- Prep Factory
- Testmasters ACT Prep Course Online
- ePrep ACT prep
Best ACT Prep Courses Online 2023 – Verdict
Concluding our tour of the best ACT prep courses online. Good scores on the ACT are important to get admission to your college of choice. Students who take these tests seriously will develop a customized study plan that balances strengths and weaknesses and allows feedback to change direction when needed.
Experts agree that a well-structured ACT prep course, online or in-person, can help you increase your scores and also give you confidence. The ACT prep courses you choose will depend upon your learning styles, educational requirements, financial resources, and available time.
What is your ACT test prep experience? Please share your opinion, and tips in the comments below to help others score well and succeed in their tests.
What Are The Best ACT Prep Courses Online 2023?
- Kaplan ACT Prep Courses | ★★★★★
- Premium ACT Prep Course (Udemy) | ★★★★☆
- The Princeton Review ACT Prep Courses | ★★★★★
- Magoosh ACT Prep Courses Online | ★★★★★
- Higher Scores ACT Prep | ★★★★★
- Prep Expert ACT Prep Course | ★★★★★
- PrepScholar ACT Prep Course | ★★★★★
- ACT Online Prep Course | ★★★★☆
Research Questions – FAQ
What is the difference between the ACT and SAT tests?
Both tests are pretty similar but slightly differ in the type of subjects tested. The ACT test additionally includes testing on science subjects. Furthermore, scores are different. ACT scores range from 1-36 points, while SAT scores are 400 to 1600 points.
How much does an ACT prep course cost?
You can start as low as $100 for the Magoosh ACT prep courses. On average, you should expect to pay around $200-300 for self-paced programs and $600 upwards for online live classes, in-person prep classes, and private tutoring. Free resources are available too.
Is the ACT test easier than the SAT?
Both tests are similar and both need good preparation, ideally up to 6-months in advance. ACT is neither harder nor easier than SAT, and vice versa. You can sit exams as many times as you want.
Resources: Wikipedia ACT
What are the best ACT prep courses online in your opinion? We are happy to add suitable ones to this list.
Good luck with all your exams!
Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links to some providers of ACT prep courses online. courselounge may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. It does not add any extra costs. All reviews, opinions, descriptions and comparisons expressed here are our own.
