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 the most demanding app in this category and the one most likely to actually teach you something. It is also priced at the top of the market and covers a narrow band of subjects, so the question is whether you are in it.
Disclosure: Learning Cadence publishes this article and makes Cadence, one of the apps listed. We have a commercial interest in Cadence. Every other app is described from its official pages, linked in each entry, and we say plainly where a different app is the better choice.
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.
That ordering is the product. Being made to try something and get it wrong is harder work than watching a clear explanation, and it is the reason people who stick with Brilliant tend to actually retain it.
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.
Last reviewed
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.
Taken from Brilliant's own pages on the review date shown above.
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, no advertising, and progress that follows you across devices.
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's premium page describes an annual plan billed as one payment that renews yearly and can be cancelled at any time, with gift and group options sold separately. The free tier is limited, and its help pages describe free access as covering the opening chapter of a course. The amount you pay varies by region, platform, and offer, so read the checkout total on the official page.
See official Brilliant pricingIf 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 the workplace kind, turned into an ordered daily course. This is our app, and it does not teach maths. |
The method
Why struggling first is the point.
The instinct when learning something hard is to find the clearest possible explanation and read it. It feels efficient and it mostly does not work, because a clear explanation you had no stake in is easy to follow and easy to lose.
Attempting a problem before you are ready changes what the explanation is for. You arrive at it with a specific confusion, so the explanation lands on something. This effect has a long research history and is the single strongest thing Brilliant has going for it.
The cost is that it is uncomfortable and slow. Most people who cancel Brilliant did not decide it was bad. They decided they did not want to feel stupid for ten minutes a day, which is an understandable and expensive thing to discover after subscribing annually.
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
What Cadence does, and what we do not.
We make Cadence, so this is a disclosure.
We do not compete with Brilliant and would not pretend to. If you want to understand calculus or how a neural network works, Brilliant is built for that and we are not.
Cadence covers the other half of getting better at your job: the conversations, the decisions, and the judgment calls. Same daily shape, different subject entirely, and both can sit on the same phone.
Questions
Common questions.
Is Brilliant worth the subscription?
It is worth it if you want maths, science, or computing and you will actually attempt the problems. The method depends on you being briefly stuck, so if you plan to read the explanations and move on, you are paying a premium price for something a free site does just as well.
Is Brilliant better than Khan Academy?
Khan Academy is free, covers more ground, and is excellent at rebuilding a foundation. Brilliant's problems are better designed and its interactive format makes you think harder. Start with Khan Academy, and move to Brilliant if you want more difficulty than it offers.
What does Brilliant's free version include?
Brilliant's help material describes free access as unlocking the opening chapter of each course, with the rest behind premium. What free covers can change, so check the official pages before assuming you can learn a whole subject without paying.
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.
Last reviewed
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.
How we reviewed
What we checked, and what we did not.
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 the plan structure rather than quoting a price, because the amount shown varies by region, platform, billing term, and current promotion. Everything here was checked on the review date shown on this page.
Direct checks: 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.
Testing limits: 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.
Disclosure: Learning Cadence publishes this article and makes Cadence, one of the apps listed. We have a commercial interest in Cadence. Every other app is described from its official pages, linked in each entry, and we say plainly where a different app is the better choice.
Sources reviewed
Official pages, checked 8 August 2026.
- 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 any other product named on this page. Product names belong to their respective owners. Prices and free tiers change, so open the official page before you buy.