SAT Prep Pricing Teardown — August 2026

Every published price from 12 leading SAT prep providers, verified against the provider's own pricing page on 2026-08-10. Zero numbers from memory or third-party roundups — every row carries the source URL it was read from.

Data collected: 2026-08-10 · Providers checked: 12 · Products priced: 38 rows (see data.csv)

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1. Executive summary

Self-paced SAT prep spans a 5x price range: from Magoosh at $90.30 (12-month Premium, sale price; list $129) to Testmasters On-Demand at $699. The cluster center is $299–$449 (Princeton Review $299, UWorld $299–$449, PrepScholar $397–$495).
Live courses cluster at $499–$1,045, but per-hour cost varies wildly: Prep Expert's 72-hour Flagship works out to ~$14/hr while Compass's 20-hour online class is ~$52/hr — a 3.7x spread for live instruction.
Published 1-on-1 tutoring runs $89–$159/hr (Testmasters, the only major publishing transparent hourly rates). Everyone else gates tutoring behind "schedule a call" (Compass, Varsity Tutors) or publishes only a floor (Revolution Prep "starts at $1,990").
Price opacity is the norm at the premium end. Varsity Tutors publishes zero dollar amounts anywhere, including its own pricing page. Kaplan bot-blocks automated access entirely (HTTP 403). If you run a tutoring business, publishing clear rates is itself a differentiator.
Market exit: Ivy Global — still listed in most third-party pricing roundups — is closed as a business (per its own homepage, which now redirects visitors to successor brands). Dated roundups will not tell you this; a live re-verification pass does.
The free floor is real: Khan Academy's official Digital SAT prep, Varsity Tutors' free overview course, and Revolution Prep's free proctored practice tests mean paid products must sell structure and accountability, not content access.

2. Market at a glance

Format	Published price range	Notes
Self-paced	$90.30 – $699	Magoosh is the aggressive discounter; UWorld tiers by access duration
Live course	$499 – $1,999	Hours vary 10–72; per-hour is the honest comparison (see §4)
Tutoring (hourly)	$89 – $159/hr	Only Testmasters publishes; rate depends on delivery mode
Tutoring (package)	$891 – $1,990+	Floors only at most brands; details gated behind sales calls
Free	$0	Khan Academy (official), Varsity Tutors intro course, Revolution practice tests

3. Provider-by-provider detail

The Princeton Review

SAT Self-Paced: $299 (source)
SAT 1400+ (36+ hrs), Essentials (18 hrs), Bootcamp: full prices not published; pages push a "$299 to start" initial payment. Total cost requires an enrollment advisor call.

PrepScholar

Complete Online Prep: $397; with AI Learning Assistant: $495
Live Instructor-Led Classes (up to 36 hrs, ≤9 students): $895
1-on-1 Tutoring: $995 base (4 hrs, includes the $495 online product)
SAT+ACT bundle: $597
All from prepscholar.com/sat/s/

Magoosh

SAT Premium 12-month: $90.30 with code SHARPEN (list $129)
Premium + 18 hrs on-demand classes: $279.30 (list $399)
Free 7-day trial. (source)

UWorld College Prep

Tiered purely by access duration (source): - 30-day $299 · 90-day $349 · 180-day $399 ("Recommended") · 360-day $449 - SAT+ACT combos: +$200 on each tier.

Prep Expert

Weekend Review (12 hrs): $499 · Self-Paced Video (~30 hrs): $599
3-Week Fast Track: $999 · 6-Week Flagship (72 hrs): $999 (a live section page showed $1,196 pay-in-full — pricing is dynamic)
Unlimited Prep 1-yr: $1,999 promo (list $3,076), incl. 10 tutoring hrs
(source)

Revolution Prep

Small-group course (12 or 24 hrs, ≤8 students): "begins at $499"
Private tutoring: "starts at $1,990"; tier detail via advisor call only
Free proctored practice tests. (source)

Varsity Tutors

No dollar amounts published anywhere — classes and tutoring are "included with Learning Membership," priced via phone. Free SAT/ACT intro course ("a $50 value for $0"). (source)

Testmasters

The transparency outlier — full hourly rate card published (source): - 1-on-1 tutoring: $99/hr live online · $129/hr at office · $159/hr at home (2-hr min) - 10-hr packages: $891 online ($89/hr) · $1,161 office · $1,431 home - On-Demand course: $699 (4-month access) · Live Online course: varies by location (100 hrs total incl. tutorials)

Compass Education Group

Online classes "from $1,045" (20 hrs) · Bootcamps "from $625" (10 hrs)
Private tutoring: no prices; "schedule a call" (source)

Khan Academy (free baseline)

Official Digital SAT prep, free: 1,000+ lessons/videos/questions (source)

Kaplan

Unreachable for automated verification — kaptest.com returned HTTP 403 across 5 attempts on 2026-08-10. Treat any third-party Kaplan price you see as unverified.

Ivy Global

Closed as a business per ivyglobal.com (2026-08-10); operations point to successor brands. Remove from competitive sets.

4. Per-hour cost normalization

Where instructional hours are published, effective $/hr (package price ÷ hours):

Provider · product	Price	Hours	$/hr
Prep Expert 6-Week Flagship	$999	72	$13.88
Magoosh Premium + Classes	$279.30	18	$15.52
Revolution small group (24-hr, at floor)	$499	24	$20.79
PrepScholar Live Classes	$895	36	$24.86
Prep Expert Weekend Review	$499	12	$41.58
Revolution small group (12-hr, at floor)	$499	12	$41.58
Compass Online Class	$1,045	20	$52.25
Compass Bootcamp	$625	10	$62.50
Testmasters 10-hr tutoring pkg (online)	$891	10	$89.10
Testmasters hourly (online)	$99	1	$99.00
PrepScholar 1-on-1 base (4 hrs, incl. $495 product)	$995	4	$248.75

Group instruction ranges $14–$63/hr; 1-on-1 ranges $89–$249/hr effective.

5. Pricing strategy observations

"$299 to start" anchoring (Princeton Review): headline a partial payment, hide the total. Works for phone-sales funnels; erodes trust with comparison shoppers.
Duration-tier laddering (UWorld): identical content, priced by access window ($299→$449). Cleanly monetizes procrastination and long runways.
Perpetual coupon pricing (Magoosh, Prep Expert): list prices exist to be discounted (30–35% codes on the page itself). Real price = coupon price.
Opacity as segmentation (Varsity, Compass, Revolution): hiding prices filters for families who will take a sales call — a high-willingness-to-pay signal. The published-price players compete for the self-serve segment.
Bundling ACT is the standard upsell: UWorld (+$200), PrepScholar (+$200 at 50% off), Testmasters ($200 off bundle). Cross-test bundles are priced remarkably consistently at ~$200 increments.

6. If you run a tutoring business: how to use this

Price 1-on-1 against the published $89–$159/hr band. If your effective rate is inside it, say so explicitly on your site — most premium competitors won't publish, so transparency is free marketing.
Sell against the free floor: your pitch is accountability, scheduling, and a named tutor — things Khan Academy structurally cannot offer.
Consider duration tiers (UWorld-style) for any self-serve materials you sell; it's the cleanest price ladder in the market.
Re-check quarterly. One major player exited (Ivy Global) and one repriced via rotating coupons (Magoosh) within the current cycle.

Appendix: full source list

Every row in data.csv carries its source URL and the 2026-08-10 access date. Spot-check any number in under a minute: open the URL, find the price.

Caveats: prices reflect what each provider's public page displayed on 2026-08-10 from a US IP; promo codes noted where a page displayed them; "CONTACT" means no dollar figure was published. Kaplan could not be verified (HTTP 403 bot wall).