Skillshare vs MasterClass: Who Wins?
Skillshare vs MasterClass! Online learning platforms are becoming more and more popular, but which one is better? Skillshare or MasterClass? That's the question! While they're similar in many ways, there are some key differences between the two that make them stand apart from each other. Read on to find out what we think!
History
Skillshare, founded by Michael Karnjanaprakorn in 2011, was one of the first online learning platforms. It's a community with over 15 million members where anyone can offer or take classes on any topic imaginable.
MasterClass is newer - it was launched in 2015 - and offers up-close and personal video instruction from world-class professionals across various disciplines like music, cooking, business, etc. MasterClass has been dubbed as "online college for everyone".
Winner: Skillshare
Content Amount
Skillshare has over 12,000 courses at the time of writing. MasterClass offers up to 100+ courses with new ones being added every week and has partnered with top companies like Netflix so that you can watch certain classes for free if you have an account!
Winner: Skillshare
Content Quality
Although Skillshare has a huge variety of topics available, they don't cover niche areas as well as MasterClass (for example business and technology) in these areas MasterClass excels.
Master Class also allows students to learn from industry leaders who've shaped their respective fields through immersive video lessons taught by world-class educators across different disciplines.
We think this one goes to MasterClass because they seem to be updating their platform faster and including industry leaders like Jerry Seinfeld who are not on Skillshare.
Winner: MasterClass
Usability
Both Skillshare and MasterClass have great platforms and both offer mobile apps.
The courses are very well organized and both platforms are easy to navigate.
All that being said, the elegance and simplicity of MasterClass give it an edge over Skillshare.
Winner: MasterClass
Pricing
MasterClass only offers annual subscriptions, Skillshare, on the other hand, gives you the option to subscribe either monthly or annually, on top of that it also offers a free subscription plan which, naturally, has a lot of limitations.
On top of that, you can get a 1 month free trial on Skillshare if you use our promotional link, MasterClass does not offer a free trial but it does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.
In regards of the cheaper plan, Skillshare also wins.
Winner: Skillshare
Customer Support
From our experience, Skillshare's customer support was a bit slow when answering queries, their contact options are also fairly limited.
MasterClass, on the other hand, was very fast and helpful when attending to our queries, on top of that, they also offer 24/7 telephone support.
Winner: MasterClass
Skillshare vs MasterClass: Verdict
After our Skillshare vs MasterClass comparison, we came to the conclusion that both platforms are great choices for beginners and professionals alike.
If you are looking for a huge database of courses to choose from, then Skillshare is definitely the way to go, on the other hand, if you are looking for a smaller selection of courses taught by the very best professionals, then MasterClass is obviously the best choice.
Both platforms are very well established, they both have great platforms, although MasterClass's platform is considerably nicer, its customer support is also better.
If you are looking for a cheaper option, Skillshare is better as it even offers a free subscription plan.
One thing to take into consideration is the fact that MasterClass used to sell each of its courses for $100, now you can get more than 100 masterclasses for less than $200, that's a saving of more than 98% of what you'd usually pay for them!
By now you've probably understood the our comparison has come to a tie, quiet honestly, we believe that, if you can, you should get both since they complement each other very well, otherwise, if you have to choose between one of them, you should take into consideration what your priorities are and choose based on those.
Winner: Tie
Rush
I'm a filmmaker with extensive training in multiple sectors of content creation whose films have been shown all over the world. I have also served as a speaker and jury member in multiple events. Nonetheless, in recent years, I became extremely disappointed with the course of the art world in general, and as consequence, I've developed an interest in topics I believed would become crucial for the future, namely, cybersecurity, self-education, web design, and investing in various assets, such as cryptocurrencies. All those events have driven me to launch RushRadar.