If you drew a Venn diagram showing the best ideas from TED Talks and the high-quality production values from the best television of the past decade, the overlap would be MasterClass. MasterClass is an online learning service that takes the form of video lectures and demonstrations from top talent in many fields. It is simultaneously binge-worthy, educational, and thought-provoking. The quality alone leaves you whispering, “How is this so good?”
The cast, or rather the instructors, consists of a lineup of A-list talent, whether the subject is basketball (Steph Curry) or culinary arts (Alice Waters). Since we last reviewed MasterClass in 2020, the lineup of instructors has grown to include more top talent who are women and people of color, which was an area we had previously called out for needing improvement. This is a welcome development, and we hope it continues. MasterClass is an Editors’ Choice winner for online learning, and it gets our enthusiastic endorsement.
How Much Does MasterClass Cost?
MasterClass offers only one plan type: an all-access pass that costs $180 per year. With an all-access pass, you can watch the entire catalog of content at any time on any device. As of this writing, there are 114 courses, with a few more due out soon.
Previously, MasterClass offered a monthly subscription and also sold access to any single class for a one-time fee; but it no longer does. There isn’t a free trial, either. There is a 30-day money back guarantee, but you still have to lay down a credit or debit card and get charged $180, and then if you’re unsatisfied you can request a refund. It would be nice to see at least one other option than $180 per year or bust.
Nonprofit organizations can apply for a grant to get access to MasterClass for free. There are also group-rate discounts for organizations that buy five or more memberships at a time.
How Does the Pricing Compare?
Other similar non-degree learning courses are priced all over the map.
Unlike MasterClass, Skillshare has a free tier of service, with limited content. You can upgrade to a Premium Skillshare membership, which opens up the catalog to unlimited access, for $8 per month or $29.88 per year. In terms of what it offers, Skillshare has a little of everything. You can learn to sew or write a memoir or create 4D scenes in After Effects.
LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) gives you a month for free to try out the service. After that, it costs $29.99 per month or $299.88 per year. LinkedIn Learning’s content ranges from soft business skills, like management, to more technical ones.
The Great Courses Plus costs $20 per month, $45 for three months, or $150 per year. The Great Courses also sells some courses individually, where prices vary but start around $50 each. Khan Academy is free, though it’s much more focused on academics than any of the other learning sites mentioned so far.
What Makes MasterClass Different?
MasterClass has two defining characteristics that set it apart from any other online learning system.
First is the talent. MasterClass recruits A-listers as its instructors. Steve Martin teaches comedy. Natalie Portman teaches acting. Serena Williams teaches tennis. Frank Gehry teaches design and architecture. The lineup is awe-inspiring.
Second, the classes are supremely high quality in both production value and course composition. You can tell that the team at MasterClass spends significant time working with the instructors to create an outline and sequence for each course so that you, the learner, get the right information at the right time. Concepts build on one another. For example, you can’t learn to blanch vegetables without first getting acquainted with the tools of the kitchen. The quality of the sets, lighting, and audio are equally high. When Christina Aguilera teaches you how to use different microphones while singing, you can hear every example she makes with the mics without losing your grasp on her normal speaking voice when she’s explaining what she’s doing.
For in-depth descriptions of some of the best content from MasterClass, see PCMag’s list of the best MasterClass Courses.
Compared with other online learning sites, MasterClass has fewer courses and a limited range of topics. Skillshare, for instance, covers practically any skill you can think of. It also has recruited a few big names, like Roxane Gay on creative nonfiction and Ashley C. Ford on personal essays. (Roxane Gay was more recently recruited by MasterClass; Gay’s course on writing for social change is due out soon.) On Skillshare, you can also find people who teach much more specific or niche skills: how to increase your presence as an Etsy seller, say. That said, there’s no uniformity in the quality of the videos or structure of the class.
What (and Who) Is Inside MasterClass?
Inside MasterClass are nine categories:
- Arts and Entertainment
- Home and Lifestyle
- Writing
- Business
- Food
- Music
- Design and Style
- Sports and Gaming
- Wellness
- Community and Government
- Science and Tech
As of this writing, the Science and Tech category has just four courses. Community and Government is also light, with only five. Some courses are doubled-booked into more than one category. For example, all the Food courses are also listed in Home and Lifestyle.
The catalog showcases people at the top of their fields. As mentioned, recognition in terms of diversity has improved since MasterClass first debuted. Simone Biles is the face of expertise in gymnastics. Lynnette Marrero and Ryan Chetiyawardana teach mixology. Timbaland has a course on music production and beatmaking. Niki Nakayama teaches modern Japanese cooking.
Getting Started With MasterClass
When you start a course, you can read an overview of everything it contains, including the number of videos and any supplemental materials. You see a breakdown of the videos, each with a title and description.
How long are the videos? The runtimes appear on thumbnails of the video inside the course. What you don’t see is what year the course was filmed, which would be nice to know.
Most lessons are anywhere from 6 to 20 minutes long, and most courses are at least 18 lessons long, though some are much longer. Some courses have bonus content, too, such as David Lynch explaining transcendental meditation for 17 minutes using diagrams he draws with a Sharpie.
The MasterClass Experience
I’ve watched a lot of MasterClass courses. I started with Penn and Teller, who teach the art of magic. Johnny Thompson, who passed away in 2019, also shows up for several lessons. He’s worth mentioning because he was one of the most respected magicians of the last 100 years and a longtime consultant and collaborator for the duo.
The course is fun, and it’s as much about storytelling and the meaning of truth as it is about sleight of hand. Plenty of the other MasterClass classes have a similar meta-narrative. The instructors often veer into a soliloquy about the meaning of their craft or the emotional draw of it.
Penn and Teller invite magic students onto the set to learn and practice alongside them. You see common mistakes that beginners make and how the pros correct them, which is incredibly helpful. Some videos in this particular series come with PDFs that summarize the lesson. For other courses, you might find recipe PDFs or an entire course booklet.
Later videos in the magic course bring in more experienced performers, and you get to watch Penn, Teller, and Thompson essentially workshop with them. Again, the benefit for you, the viewer, is to see what kind of feedback the pros give and how they collaborate with the performers. Finally, you get to watch a few acts from the Penn and Teller show. It’s the payoff moment, when you see the craft, philosophical underpinnings, and showmanship culminate on stage.
You can find versions of some of these tricks on YouTube, usually taped for television, but on MasterClass you get the full theatrical performance. Watching the craft at its most refined, while understanding the practice and care that goes into it, is true beauty. I gobbled up this course in two days.
From there I moved onto Alice Waters teaching home cooking. Her course couldn’t be better for beginner cooks who are looking for the confidence to feel comfortable in the kitchen. Waters insists on filming in her home kitchen. She brings her daughter in for a few segments. They talk about eating seasonally and share stories of different dishware and cookware in their home. You learn a lot of the “why” behind cooking. Why choose this ingredient? Why pair these flavors? I polished off this class in two days as well, though I admit I watched some of the videos on 1.5 speed. If there had been a 1.25 speed (Skillshare has that, MasterClass does not), I might have used it more, as Waters speaks slowly and easily gets sidetracked by a story she wants to tell or takes 20 minutes to wash lettuce.
In addition to speeding up the playback, you can also turn on closed captioning. It’s a saving grace for people who need it.
I watched Christina Aguilera warm up her vocal cords, a course that comes with a neat range-finder app to help you track your singing voice as your range expands. I learned from Thomas Keller that you can tourne artichokes. I listened to Shonda Rhimes tell the joke, “In film, the director fires the writer. In television, the writer fires the director” as a way to explain the difference between writing for TV and movies. Paul Krugman gave me some lessons on economic theory. Ron Finley encouraged me to upcycle household items into planters. Simone Biles tumbles, Steph Curry dribbles, Judd Apatow explains comedy writing—the topics are varied and the insight and reflection you get from these A-listers is rich.
Curation for Inspiration
MasterClass suggests to you selected videos that share a similar theme from different courses in curated lists. Formerly these playlists were called Quick Lists, but they now simply appear as suggested content. Each playlist has a name that highlights the theme, such as Creative Bock, Insecurity, Vulnerability, & Letting Go, and Understanding Ingredients.
The playlists are fantastic, as they let the MasterClass editors pull together some of the best moments from courses that have the most universal appeal. Plus, they are much shorter than a full course. They also may lead you to get interested in a course that might have not captured your attention when browsing through the MasterClass content in other ways.
MasterClass Live
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, MasterClass hosted several live online events with a few of its instructors. Paying members were invited to join the live conversation and participate virtually.
The events were recorded, and they are available to the public for free. While some of these hour-long sessions can give you insight into a particular MasterClass instructor, they aren’t at all representative of the quality of the courses that you get from the paid membership. Those videos are highly organized and produced, whereas the MasterClass Live content is off-the-cuff and informal.
Community Features and Interaction
MasterClass has built up its community features extensively. They include online spaces for learners to organize networking events and more robust messaging boards.
Each class has a dedicated community homepage with a message board and comments. Learners can also comment below each video to keep the discussion local to the content when applicable.
These community features vary in appeal and usefulness. Some of the threads seem to have been planted by MasterClass staff: “Share Your Story: How Has Anna Wintour’s Class Impacted You?” Other threads seem more typical of what you expect from online commenters, unfortunately. One annoyed learner in the economics course, for example, created the thread “Not Impressed” to accuse Krugman of spouting leftist propaganda. (The commenter is upset, too, that this course on economic history and theory doesn’t mention the status of unions in the US.) Watch the course and judge for yourself.
From time to time, there are special live broadcasted events, like a recent talk with author Dan Brown and poetry slams.
Masterfully Compelling
MasterClass is a joy to watch. While reviewing the service, I would play a video in the background while making notes or doing other work, only to find myself drawn into it or pausing it until a time when I could engage with it more fully.
The question I kept asking myself is “Could I find this content on YouTube if I really wanted it?” and the answer was always “no.” I might be able to watch interviews with Reba McEntire or Judd Apatow on YouTube or catch a glimpse insight from a celebrity on TikTok or Instagram, but I’m not going to get hours’ worth, and they won’t lay out the process of how they work in a clearly defined structure.
The meat of it is masterful, and it’s an Editors’ Choice winner for online learning.
