If one of your goals in life is to spend more time learning, let us tell you all about MasterClass.

MasterClass is an online streaming platform full of, well, masterclasses on everything from making movies and meals to playing sports and improving your mindset.

Right now, MasterClass has over 180 online lectures on the platform, taught by a roster of A-listers including Steve Martin, Samuel L. Jackson, Helen Mirren, Jodie Foster, and more.

So, we put it to the test. Is MasterClass (specifically in the entertainment categories) really worth the annual subscription price?

MasterClass is a streaming platform that offers different high-quality video lecture series taught by A-listers in their respective fields.

MasterClass currently has over 200 classes organized into 11 categories. The categories, along with an example of something you’ll find in each, are as follows:

MasterClass also offers an original series, where a group of different experts take you through a topic episode by episode, and Sessions, which let you “learn by doing” and do hands-on projects.

MasterClass offers three different plans at three different price points. Something to note about MasterClass is that all plans are billed annually, rather than monthly, so you’ll always be paying for a full year upfront.

Let us break the plans down for you.

MasterClass Standard Plan:

The MasterClass Standard plan typically costs $10/month (billed annually for $120), but right now, you can get it for $7/month. It’s the perfect choice for an individual who doesn’t plan on sharing the account with anyone else.

You’ll be able to stream on one device at a time, but offline downloads are not available as part of this place so you’ll always have to be connected to Wi-fi or cellular data to watch a MasterClass. Other than that, you get everything the other two plans have.

MasterClass Plus Plan:

For $15/month (billed annually for $180), you can upgrade to the Plus plan, which comes with access to everything MasterClass has to offer. Right now, however, the Plus plan is just $9/month.

You’ll be able to stream classes on two screens at once, and offline downloads are now included with the duo plan.

MasterClass Premium Plan:

If you plan on sharing a MasterClass account with up to six people (who can all use the platform simultaneously), the Premium plan is for you. It costs $20/month, but it’s billed annually for $240. With the current offers running, you’ll get this plan for just $10/month — the same price as the Standard plan. The only major difference between the duo and the family plan is the number of people who can use the account at the same time.

I’ll start by saying this: MasterClass is an incredibly valuable platform with an absolute wealth of knowledge at your fingertips. Whether you have a specific area of interest, or you find an instructor engaging enough to take their class despite a lack of knowledge in the subject area, it’s incredibly easy to get a lot of value out of MasterClass.

However, the kind of learner you are will make a huge difference when using the platform.

I loved school, especially when it came time to take classes that really excited and interested me, but always found that I was less of a lecture person and more of someone who preferred activities and open communication with professors and peers — to me, it’s not just absorbing information, but also putting it to use.

I found that, depending on the kind of classes you want to take on MasterClass, there are varying levels of hands-on learning. While some, like the cooking classes, take a more tangible approach — learning to cook requires cooking, after all — the classes I spent most of my time on the platform took a more lecture-based approach.

The MasterClasses I sampled were primarily from the arts and entertainment category; of course, I’m a writer, but I also have a great interest in fiction and film. Learning filmmaking from the Martin Scorsese is a dream, and I particularly enjoyed the scene discussion lectures toward the end of his course, but if you’re the kind of person who needs to do something to prove that you’re learning, these courses may not entirely work for you.

I had a similar feeling with the Shonda Rhimes Writing for Television class — it’s an incredible amount of knowledge from one of the most prominent showrunners in TV today

For these courses, I did appreciate the downloadable class guide, which is essentially a very detailed syllabus for the MasterClass, complete with each lesson, key takeaways, and any assignments. For the Rhimes class, there was the added bonus of materials discussed in the class available to download, like the original story bible and pilot script for Grey’s Anatomy.

Ultimately, with classes like these, the only thing motivating you to work alongside the course is you. If you watch Rhimes teach writing for TV, you can choose to flesh out an idea as you make your way through the chapters, or you can simply watch it and then decide later on if what you’ve learned is enough to motivate you to work on something.

Above all, I found that MasterClass is churning out incredibly well-produced classes that often feel more like the talking head portion of a documentary, rather than a lecture you’re a passive part of.

The platform also offers Sessions, which allow users to learn by doing — which is fantastic, and ties into my earlier notes about the varying degrees of hands-on education — but there aren’t Sessions available for every category of MasterClass, so if your specific area of interest doesn’t have Sessions, you’ll have to stick to the classic lecture style.

We used MasterClass, of course! While the platform has nearly 200 classes, and it’s impossible to take them all, we sampled a number of them to get a feel for the platform as a whole. Doing that, we kept in mind a few things:

At as low as $10/month, you can gain a wealth of knowledge — so in that regard, we’d say yes, MasterClass is worth it!

Your mileage may vary on how hands-on you prefer the instruction to be, and if you even learn well in a lecture setting, but I’ll say this: over four hours of Martin Scorsese talking about his own films and the movies that inspired them is priceless. You’ll likely find the same is true about any of the things you’re passionate about on MasterClass.

This article was written by Angela Tricarico, Commerce Writer/Reporter for Decider. Angela keeps readers up to date with cord-cutter-friendly deals, how to watch your favorite sports teams and movies on each streaming service and the very best in tech, like soundbars, to enhance your viewing experience. Not only does Angela test and compare the services, devices and merch she writes about, but she’s also a superfan specializing in the intersection of shopping, tech and pop culture. Prior to joining Decider and New York Post in 2023, she wrote about streaming and consumer tech at Insider Reviews. 

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