The core product
More than 40 interactive courses across maths, science, computer science, programming, data, and AI, with feedback as you work.
Reviewed evaluation
Is Brilliant worth it?
Brilliant is built around interactive problem solving in maths, science, computing, data, and AI. It is worth considering when you want to work through problems, and a weaker fit when your subject is outside that catalogue or you want passive audio.
Want to get better at something specific?
Try Cadence for a course built around your goal, with short lessons, practice, and saved progress. Start free on iPhone or request Android access.
Brilliant teaches maths, science, computer science, and data through problems you attempt before the explanation arrives. Its premium page describes more than 40 interactive courses with real-time feedback and no ads.
The learner attempts a problem and receives feedback as they work. That makes the experience more active than a video or summary, but the value still depends on whether you want these subjects and this practice format.
The short answer
Worth it if you will do the problems, and expensive if you will not.
Brilliant is worth paying for if you want to genuinely rebuild maths or computing and will sit with a problem you cannot immediately solve. It is a costly bookmark if you were hoping to absorb the subject by reading.
Worth it if
- You want maths, science, computing, or data literacy specifically.
- You are willing to be stuck for a few minutes, which is where the learning happens.
- Watching lecture videos has failed you before and you suspect passivity was the reason.
- You want something more rigorous than a summary app and shorter than a university course.
Not worth it if
- The skills you need are workplace ones such as feedback, influence, or negotiation.
- You want to learn while commuting or doing chores, since this needs your hands and attention.
- You want a credential, which Brilliant does not award.
- You know you will open it twice and then stop, which at this price is an expensive way to find out.
What you actually get
Free tier, paid tier, and the wall between them.
The product, the paid upgrade, and who gets value from it.
The method
Problem first, explanation second. This ordering is well supported by learning research and is the reason to pick Brilliant over a video course.
Ongoing access
New content added regularly and progress that follows you across devices. Premium removes ads and the daily key limit.
What is not included
Any subject outside maths, science, and computing. There is no soft-skills or humanities content, and its official pages do not claim otherwise.
How the pricing works: Brilliant Free provides two keys a day. Each key unlocks one lesson or practice set, and free users move through courses in order. Premium removes the daily limit, allows jumping ahead, removes ads, and gives full Koji access. Paid options include individual, family, gift, and group plans. Brilliant does not publish a standing amount: when we checked its pricing help article on 6 September 2026 it described annual, monthly, and family plans and sent readers to the subscription page for current prices.
See official Brilliant pricingSide by side
Brilliant against the apps people weigh it against.
What you give up and gain against the free option, the visual option, and a work-skills course. Cadence is ours.
Swipe the table to see every column.
| What you are comparing | Brilliant | Khan Academy | Imprint | Cadence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core format | Problems you solve before the explanation | Video lessons with practice sets | Illustrated lessons | Written daily lessons that can be played as audio |
| Where the content comes from | Its own maths, science, and computing courses | Its own nonprofit course library | Ideas from respected experts, courses, and books | Built for the topic or goal you enter |
| Subject range | Maths, science, computing, and data | School and early university subjects, broadly | Psychology is prominent, plus named nonfiction titles | Work and growth topics, or any topic you enter |
| Does it check what you learned | Yes, solving the problem is the lesson | Yes, with practice that shows what you missed | Daily quizzes, saved insights, and review | Lesson checks and quizzes |
| Time per sitting | As long as the problem takes | As long as the video and practice take | A short sitting | About ten minutes a day |
| Free access | Two keys a day on the free tier | Core courses and exercises are free. Khanmigo learner tutoring has separate access and pricing. | Free to install, subscription for full access | Unlimited daily lessons and audio; 2 new custom courses a month |
| Best for | Getting better at solving problems | Rebuilding a foundation for nothing | Seeing one concept clearly | Using a skill at work |
If it is not for you
What to use instead.
Each of these beats Brilliant for a specific job. Cadence is ours, and it only appears where it genuinely fits.
Swipe the table to see every column.
| Instead use | When it is the better choice |
|---|---|
| Khan Academy | You want the same subjects for nothing. A nonprofit with complete sequences and diagnostic practice is a genuinely strong free option. |
| MIT OpenCourseWare | You want real university depth and can supply your own discipline. Free, with no account. |
| Coursera or edX | You need a certificate an employer recognises, which Brilliant does not provide. |
| Anki | The actual problem is remembering formulas and definitions, where scheduled flashcards beat courses. |
| Cadence | The skills you need are workplace and growth skills, turned into an ordered daily course. This is our app. |
What a month looks like
Check whether the problems fit your goal.
Brilliant uses interactive problems as part of its teaching. Try working through them and explaining your reasoning. We have not measured its subscription drop-off or compared its learning outcomes with other apps.
Use the trial to check whether you still want to work through problems after the initial novelty. Difficulty can be part of practice, but it does not by itself prove that a course fits your level or goal.
The free tier is unusually useful for testing this. A couple of lessons a day is enough to find out whether you actually enjoy thinking this hard on a Tuesday evening, and that is the only question the price depends on.
The method
The problems are the product.
Brilliant teaches through interactive problems rather than a lecture-first format. You work through a question and receive feedback inside the lesson.
That is the main reason to choose it. The product is designed for learners who want to spend their study time solving problems in its quantitative and technical subjects.
The tradeoff is attention. This is not a listening-first product, and it is unlikely to fit a commute or any moment when your hands and focus are elsewhere.
The free option
Khan Academy covers a lot of this ground for nothing.
Anyone weighing this subscription should look at Khan Academy first. It is a nonprofit, it is free with no advertising, and it covers maths and science more completely than Brilliant does.
The difference is texture. Khan Academy is closer to a well-taught school curriculum with videos and practice sets. Brilliant is closer to a puzzle book with a teacher attached, and the puzzles are better designed.
If you have a foundation gap, start free and see whether the material is the problem. If you get through it and want something that makes you think harder, that is when Brilliant earns the money.
Where we fit
Where Cadence fits beside Brilliant.
We make Cadence, so this is a disclosure.
Choose Brilliant for calculus, quantitative problem solving, and its technical catalogue. Choose Cadence for workplace communication, decisions, and judgement. Different subjects, with an active daily-learning shape in both.
Both can sit on the same phone: Brilliant for STEM thinking, Cadence for the conversations, decisions, and judgement calls that shape work.
Put it into practice
Start it today, ten minutes at a time.
Cadence builds a course around your own goal instead of a catalogue, with short daily lessons, practice and saved progress. Cadence is our app.
Questions
Common questions.
How much does Brilliant Premium cost?
Brilliant does not publish a standing price. Its pricing help article described annual, monthly, and family plans and pointed to the subscription page for current amounts when we checked it on 6 September 2026, so the figure you see depends on your plan, term, and any live offer.
Is Brilliant worth the subscription?
It is worth considering if you want interactive practice in maths, science, computing, data, or AI and expect to complete the problems. It is a weaker fit for workplace skills, audio-first learning, or credentials.
Is Brilliant better than Khan Academy?
Khan Academy is free and offers broad course sequences with videos and practice. Brilliant centers the experience on interactive problems with feedback. Choose Khan Academy when free curriculum coverage matters most, and Brilliant when its problem-first format and catalogue are the better fit.
What does Brilliant's free version include?
Brilliant Free provides two keys a day. Each key unlocks one lesson or practice set, and free users move through courses in order. Premium removes the daily limit, allows jumping ahead, removes ads, and gives full Koji access.
Does Brilliant give you a certificate?
No. Brilliant is built for understanding and does not award a credential. If a qualification is the point, Coursera and edX run certificate tracks with university and company names attached.
Can Brilliant teach soft skills?
No, and it does not claim to. Its catalogue is maths, science, computer science, programming, data, and AI. For workplace skills such as feedback, negotiation, or managing people, you need a different app entirely.
Can you use Brilliant for free?
Yes, and the free tier is more useful than most. It provides two keys a day, each unlocking one lesson or practice set, with free users moving through courses in order. That is enough to find out whether you enjoy the difficulty before paying anything.
Is Brilliant worth it for adults going back to maths?
This is one of its strongest cases. It starts from intuition rather than notation, which is usually where adults bounced off the subject the first time. Expect it to feel harder than watching lectures, because you are being asked to think rather than follow.
See it in concrete terms
Open a real Cadence course.
If the appeal of Brilliant is thinking rigorously without a maths degree, these Cadence courses apply the same instinct to decisions at work.
Data literacy
Data literacy for non-analysts
→
Read workplace metrics, question weak evidence, explain uncertainty, and recommend a next step without learning SQL.
AI at work
AI for everyday work
→
Turn recurring work into a safe, repeatable AI workflow while keeping accuracy, privacy, and judgment in your hands.
Prioritization
Prioritization under uncertainty
→
Choose the next move when the data is incomplete, stakeholders disagree, and everything sounds important.
Method
How we reviewed this app.
We answered one question, whether Brilliant is worth paying for, by reading its current official pages and separating what the product does from what a buyer is actually paying for. We describe plan structure and give dated prices where the cited official sources publish them. Your checkout total may differ by region, platform, billing term and promotion. The facts come from the official pages linked below.
What we checked directly: We read Brilliant's current official site and its premium plans page, including the course count, the described billing structure, and its help centre's account of what free access covers. We rechecked its pricing help article on 6 September 2026.
Limits of this review: We did not buy every Brilliant tier, and we did not test its offline or signed-in behaviour. Claims about Brilliant stay attributed to the official pages linked above, and any catalogue count is the number Brilliant publishes about itself, not one we verified independently.
Sources
References.
- Brilliant official site
- Brilliant Premium plans
- Brilliant help: learning without Premium
- Khan Academy official site
- MIT OpenCourseWare official site
- Anki official site
- Cadence on the App Store
Learning Cadence is not affiliated with the other products named here. Product names belong to their owners.
Continue in Cadence
Choose a course built around your own starting point.
Cadence starts with your problem or curiosity, then builds a course you can read, listen to, and return to. Cadence is our app.