Coursera is an online learning platform providing courses, Specializations, and Professional Certificates from universities and companies such as Google, IBM, and Meta, along with full accredited degrees. The bulk of Coursera's courses can be audited for free; a Coursera Plus subscription (costing $59 per month or $399 per year) gives access to over 7,000 paid courses and certificates.
Most of the video lectures and course readings are available for free through audit mode. Audit mode excludes graded assignments, peer-reviewed projects, and — most importantly — the shareable certificate itself. If your primary objective is learning the subject matter and does not involve earning some kind of credential to prove your mastery, you can make do with audit mode alone; if you need to add the certificate to your resume or LinkedIn profile, you will have to pay in one way or another.
You may apply for financial assistance on a per-course or per-Specialization basis; if you are eligible, you may receive as much as 90% of the price covered — but this aid cannot be used to get a Coursera Plus subscription, as there is no such program in existence. If cost is your main concern, and you only need one or two particular certificates, you might come out ahead paying for a few courses individually via financial aid rather than getting a Coursera Plus subscription.
Monthly subscription to Coursera Plus will cost $59 per month ($708 per year if maintained throughout the year); annual subscription will cost $399 per year (or around $33.25 per month). The break-even point is somewhere around 7 months — if you know that you'll actually be using Coursera Plus for more than 7 months, go for annual and save money; if you expect to complete your learning in 3-4 months, go for monthly and avoid paying extra for the time you aren't using.
The maximum seasonal discount for Coursera Plus annual subscription we've seen is a 40% reduction (making annual cost around $240 instead of $399), offered in certain periods, usually around November-December with occasional extension into January, although exact dates and amounts differ each year. If you are not in urgent need of a certificate right now, waiting for one of these periods to come up can greatly reduce your spending.
If you unsubscribe from the subscription or let it lapse, you will lose access to all courses and Specializations you haven't completed, along with future course access the subscription was providing. Earned certificates will remain on your profile after unsubscribing regardless; what gets removed is in-progress, incomplete content.
University degree programs (from University of London, University of Michigan, and HEC Paris among other providers) are neither included in nor discounted by a Coursera Plus subscription; they are separate, distinct, and independently priced products, typically costing a fraction of what the corresponding on-campus degree would, but still requiring their own application, tuition payments, and even additional university application fee on top of the advertised Coursera price.
If you are upskailling an organization with multiple people, you could go for the Teams plan which costs roughly $399 per year per person — the same price as individual annual subscription — but also provides reporting dashboards, learning paths, and other admin features which the individual subscription does not provide. Thus, this is a completely separate product.
No; while audit mode lets you access most of the course materials for free, the graded assignments and the certificate itself are not available in audit mode, and must be paid for — either through Coursera Plus or a purchase of that course/Specialization individually.
No; financial aid can be applied to a per-course or per-Specialization price and cover up to about 90% of it, but does not apply to the Coursera Plus subscription itself, which has no such aid program.
If you expect to be using the service for more than 7 months, annual subscription is better value — it works out to roughly $33.25/month compared to $59 per month in monthly plan. If you expect to finish your goals in 3-4 months, monthly plan avoids paying for the unused time on a long-term plan.
You will lose access to all courses and Specializations that you didn't complete, along with future access to new courses. The certificates you earned before unsubscribing will remain on your profile permanently; incomplete work becomes inaccessible until you resubscribe.
No; degree programs from university partners are completely separate purchases with independent application and tuition, separate from Coursera Plus. They cost a fraction of on-campus program price, but you should plan for additional costs from the university itself.
Seasonal discounts (sometimes reducing annual price by up to 40%) occur mostly around November-December with occasional extension into January; although exact dates and discounts vary by year, waiting for them can help reduce your expenses significantly if you are not in urgent need.
The Teams plan costs roughly the same per-person annually as the Plus subscription, but comes with additional admin features — reporting dashboard, learning paths, and other management features aimed at organizing the training of multiple people.