Best GMAT Prep Courses in 2025

Your GMAT score can make or break your MBA application, particularly at the top programs. You want to get it as high as you can. But like other applicants, you have a busy schedule and can’t afford to spend endless hours on GMAT prep.

That’s where GMAT prep courses come in. But which firms are providing the best GMAT prep today — helping you achieve the score improvement you need within a reasonable timeframe?

Test prep is big business, and when you search for the best GMAT prep courses, you’ll find endless marketing chatter from all the big brands, aimed at convincing you that only their course can get you where you need to go. Not to mention just the same kind of uncritical hype from ostensibly independent, quietly affiliated “review” sites.

This list takes a different approach: an honest look at the pros and cons of some popular GMAT prep course options, based on the different strategies taken by each firm, the real experiences of past students, and an understanding of what kinds of prep actually work.

A lot of students look at GMAT prep as a continuous grind where the more hours of practice you put in, the higher your final score will be. That’s true up to a point, of course — with minimal practice, you’re very unlikely to do well. But sheer quantity is no guarantee of improvement, and students who fail to target their prep work effectively will quickly hit diminishing returns.

Consisting of ten 2.5-hour classes across five weeks (followed by a recommended five weeks of practice and reinforcement), Menlo Coaching’s GMAT prep course is shorter than most competitors’ offerings. But thanks to a smart curriculum and top-notch instructors, every hour makes a big difference.

Prices

Centered on the concept of “spotting the con,” Menlo’s curriculum teaches students to focus on higher-order thinking and look out for the tricks GMAT question setters play on test takers, so they can reliably seek out the counterintuitive — but correct — answer.

The focus on what makes a GMAT question a GMAT question is refreshing. Many courses use their own practice questions, which roughly mimic the form of the real thing but don’t simulate the test precisely enough to be effective prep. Menlo markets its course based on a commitment to using only official practice questions from past exams.

As one student commented, “the course challenges you to think like the test requires.” Another wrote:

The Menlo course is pitched at a high level, aiming to attract students with high score targets. As such, although the course is relatively short, it’s intensive and requires some commitment. It also requires anyone enrolling to meet a basic threshold of language and math proficiency so that they can keep up.

In other words, it’s not a course designed to build you up from zero but rather to push past score plateaus and maximize your potential. It’s best suited to students determined to get a 90th-percentile score or above.

A significant downside is that Menlo is a smaller team than the likes of Manhattan and Princeton Review, and as such runs its live courses considerably less often. You might find the course schedule just doesn’t line up with your own study timeline.

Like other firms, Menlo offers an on-demand course with video recordings of past live sessions and all the practice materials from the real thing. While there’s no substitute for the interactivity of live instruction, the on-demand course is an option if it’s not possible to attend a live one.

Fundamentally, what stands out about this prep course is its focus on official prep materials and a lack of fluff. This is a lean curriculum that emphasizes the sticking points that prevent students from achieving high scores.

In summary —

Starting from humble beginnings back in 2000, Manhattan Prep has grown to become one of the biggest and most respected names in the test prep industry.

Manhattan Prep’s GMAT prep course was formerly a separate offering from its parent company Kaplan’s course but has since been merged with it, meaning it represents the firm’s core GMAT offering and combines elements of both previous courses.

Prices

One significant change to the new Manhattan Prep course is its use of official GMAT practice questions and exams, licensed directly from GMAC itself. Manhattan is the first course to bundle in official materials in this way, although Menlo requires students to purchase those materials before enrolling.

The downside of Manhattan’s approach is that you’re paying for the Official Guide and other materials twice if you already had them.

Still, this is a welcome addition to the course, which previously focused on Manhattan’s own proprietary questions, as featured in their popular line of prep books. Those books — full of unofficial questions written by Manhattan staff — are still bundled into the course, meaning you get a mix of the two rather than an exclusive focus on the official materials.

The mix of official and proprietary materials has its pros and cons — a wider variety in itself can’t hurt, but third-party questions often have issues with quality control or accuracy to the real test, and Manhattan’s are sadly not immune to these problems. As some past students write:

Overall, Manhattan’s Quant materials have a better reputation than their Verbal ones. But in both cases, we recommend focusing primarily on official materials rather than Manhattan’s.

The coursework is well structured and presented through Manhattan’s Atlas software. Video-based live classes are also facilitated through this program.

What about the teaching itself? Manhattan’s reputation is founded on an engaging approach to instruction that brings the material to life. But the growth of the company has necessarily diluted this strength, making the in-class experience somewhat hit or miss. One review reads:

But clearly it’s not all bad. Another states:

Manhattan’s GMAT courses come in a variety of forms, which differ in price and length.

The cheapest of the live courses is branded the “Advanced” course and open only to those above a certain score threshold. It’s designed for those pursuing elite scores and is cheaper because it’s shorter (18 hours); it skips the basics in favor of high-level strategies. This will be a welcome offering for some, although you are paying a lot of money per hour.

On the other hand, the “Bootcamp” course packs the most hours of instruction (35) into the shortest timeframe, intended as an intensive course for those on a tight timeline.

At 27 hours of instruction for $1,799, the basic course (branded simply the “Live Course”) is actually the best deal in terms of price per hour. But none of Manhattan’s courses can be called a bargain.

Like other firms, Manhattan offers an on-demand course, but access to it is sold per month — again at significantly higher rates than others in this list. At these prices, we can’t recommend this option.

In summary —

The Princeton Review is one of the best-known names in test prep. It’s particularly top of mind for students who have previously used the firm for SAT or ACT prep — tests for which the firm has a very strong presence.

Because of this name recognition, many MBA hopefuls consider The Princeton Review’s GMAT prep courses. But do the courses live up to the standards of their pre-college offerings?

Prices

First off, the coursework. Like Manhattan’s course, it’s worth knowing that Princeton’s comes with GMAC’s official prep books bundled into the price — as well as Princeton’s own books. It’s great to have access to the official materials, as discussed above.

That said, they are treated as something of an afterthought in terms of the actual course design. Princeton’s courses are marketed on “exam-style questions … that mirror the GMAT’s testing style and content.” By producing questions independently, the firm is able to offer a huge bank of practice materials — they boast 4,400+ proprietary questions.

As you might expect from questions produced in bulk by a firm that also writes such practice questions for countless other tests, Princeton’s GMAT practice questions have a relatively poor reputation for quality control and accuracy to the test. As some reviewers have commented:

These questions are presented through a useful adaptive drill tool, which allows you to customize your practice by topic and adapts the difficulty continuously based on your performance, just like the real GMAT. It’s just a shame this tool is loaded up with Princeton’s questions instead of the real thing. 

As for the instructors, they are typically generalists who tutor a wide range of exams at various levels of education. Since the GMAT is really a test of critical thinking, there’s a risk associated with this approach: that instructors simply default to their usual math and vocab teaching approaches, which have limited applicability to the specifics of the GMAT.

While they’re less widely praised than Manhattan’s instructors, this isn’t to say you won’t find some great teachers working at Princeton too:

Princeton’s main offering is a 30-hour course, branded “GMAT Focus 645+,” which, as the name suggests, offers a 645+ score guarantee — although only if  your score is already 575 or higher. Otherwise, you get a guaranteed 70-point increase from your starting score.

It’s worth noting that such guarantees usually make you jump through a lot of hoops before you can actually get refunded, and many customers are surprised to find they don’t qualify even if they’re unhappy with their results.

There’s also an 18-hour “Core Concepts” course, which, unlike Manhattan’s “Advanced” option, is shorter because it cuts out, not the basics, but the advanced stuff. Marketed toward those who want to “build a strong foundation,” it doesn’t make any claims about score improvements and won’t be a good fit for those targeting anything more than an adequate score.

These are some of the cheaper options on the market compared to other live courses, although it’s not a dramatic price difference.

The on-demand course has other issues. Worryingly, Princeton is not at all transparent about the length of time you can access the course for. While other courses are advertised as subscriptions for a specific number of months, Princeton’s is sold without any time limit being specified.

But users have reported losing access to the course unexpectedly, and digging into Princeton’s (well-hidden) FAQs reveals some weaselly language about where you can “view the length of your online entitlements” and purchase extensions — notably, only after you’ve bought the course. Frankly, this lack of transparency makes it hard to recommend the course.

In summary —

As you can see above, big names in the world of GMAT prep usually offer some kind of “on-demand” (or “self-paced,” or “self-study”) course — i.e., a course consisting of written and video materials, with no live instruction — alongside their live courses.

Recognizing the demand for this kind of offering at a lower price point than live instruction, some firms make self-study courses and platforms their main offering. While they’re not prep courses in the traditional sense, it’s worth looking at a few popular brands in this domain — Magoosh, PrepScholar, and Target Test Prep (TTP) — to see what they really offer.

To avoid repeating ourselves, we’ll cover these three firms collectively, noting the differences but also the many similarities in their offerings.

Pricing

Let’s start with an obvious point: pricing. While the self-guided format undoubtedly appeals to some, the most common reason people opt for these courses over a live option is that they are usually much more affordable.

That trend holds for these three firms, but there are certainly more premium and more budget-friendly options. The table below compares prices across the three; fields are left blank when a firm doesn’t offer a specific package for that length of time.

Prices: Magoosh vs. PrepScholar vs. Target Test Prep

	Magoosh	PrepScholar	Target Test Prep
Trial period	Free (7 days)	Free (5 days)	Free (5 days)
1 month	$199	—	$249
2 months	—	$69*	—
3 months	—	$139*	—
4 months	—	$259†	$799
6 months	$249	—	$899‡
12 months	$349§	—	—

As you can see, Magoosh generally works out to be the cheapest option per month. PrepScholar’s two- and three-month packages are exceptionally cheap but are also limited in content — they cut out a lot of the materials and practice questions from the full four-month course. And that four-month option costs slightly more than Magoosh’s six-month package.

At the other end of the scale is TTP, which charges the same for just one month as Magoosh does for six. TTP positions itself at the premium end of the on-demand market. It also offers a 40-hour live course in a comparable price range to the live courses above — but most users are here for the self-study options.

PrepScholar also offers one-on-one live tutoring, although no live course. The pricing for this is dramatically higher than any of their self-study offerings, unsurprisingly. Tutoring is always a premium option.

Of the three, only Magoosh offers no live instruction options, remaining fully committed to the on-demand model.

What do you get?

So, assuming you’re not buying one of the packages with some kind of live instruction bundled in, what are you actually getting for your money? Well, all of these firms offer pretty much the same feature list:

• They all start with a diagnostic test that assesses your current level and generates a personalized study plan to work on your weaknesses.
• They provide a big bank of (unofficial) practice questions. (Magoosh claims 800+, PrepScholar 1,000+, and TTP a whopping 4,000+ questions.)
• Each firm serves its questions and lessons through a bespoke digital learning environment with features like custom drills and mocks, flash cards, and statistics tracking your performance on different question types.
• They all include instructional text and video content — question explanations and more general lessons on foundational concepts.
• In the case of Magoosh and TTP (but not PrepScholar), you get to use an “AI tutor” to explain questions and generate further examples along the same lines.

The quality of the materials provided undoubtedly varies across firms and even within the same firm. A consistent theme in both Magoosh and TTP reviews is the relative strength of the quant materials vs. the rather lackluster verbal materials:

Quantity vs. quality

The elephant in the room with self-service platforms is the implicit assumption that quantity means quality.

All these platforms prominently advertise the large number of practice questions they offer and even the large amount of time their users spend studying.

This is an approach that tends to lead users to pour hundreds of hours over many months into prep in the belief that this will necessarily lead to progress.

But a theme you can pick up on even in positive reviews is the basic, low-level nature of the material — and how little it helps with score improvement:

Why do users who admit these courses didn’t really help them still recommend them? Because no one really wants to face up to the fact that they’ve just poured a huge amount of time and effort into something that didn’t help. Call it the sunk-cost fallacy.

Users who work through thousands of questions and see little to no improvement often blame themselves, and not the course, for their lack of progress.

At heart, these companies are selling the feeling of progress that comes from working through a big curriculum — whether that progress actually materializes or not.

As mentioned above, two of these firms also market themselves these days on the strength of their “AI tutors” — LLMs that can generate enthusiastic and encouraging explanations of practice questions you’re struggling with, or any other advice you need. (This is arguably not much different than just asking ChatGPT for help, and doing that is free.)

But more than this, these firms highlight the AI tutor’s ability to generate infinite practice questions in the same vein as the one you just tried. If you’ve ever tried asking ChatGPT or other AI tools for in-depth information on a topic you happen to know a lot about, you’ll know why this is a bad idea.

You get something that looks similar to a GMAT question but simply wasn’t produced with the deep understanding of how to test higher-order thinking that goes into the real thing. It’s subtly wrong, and subtle shades of meaning are the GMAT’s stock-in-trade.

It’s the same problem you see with unofficial questions in general — turned up to 11.

Self-study is certainly a viable approach to GMAT prep. But the value proposition of on-demand courses is questionable. You’re generally not paying a really high price, but what you’re getting is essentially a big bundle of third-party prep materials and some suggested structure on how to work through them.

Something comparable is available from GMAC itself — with the key difference that here, of course, you get official materials. For free, GMAC offers a GMAT Official Starter Kit containing two mock exams, 70 practice questions, and the option to generate a personalized study plan. Getting at least this is a no-brainer.

But we’d also argue that the comprehensive paid bundle, the Premium GMAT Study Collection, is something every GMAT student should own, regardless of what other prep options they go for. This sells for $299.99 and includes:

• All the official GMAT prep books (in ebook form) — the Official Guide plus the three books for the different exam sections
• A set of 300 official practice questions (in addition to those included in the books)
• Four more official mock exams

You get a year of access to the practice questions and exams, and indefinite access to the prep books as long as you download them.

It’s true that you can get a higher quantity of practice questions elsewhere. But remember that every question in this bundle is a real question from a past GMAT exam. Authentic prep materials are invaluable; they’re the only truly effective way to get accustomed to what you’ll encounter on test day.