Stuck at your rating? Pick the band, pick the problem, read one page.
Chess Course Finder for Improvers
Start with the free options, then pick one route below: by rating, by weekly time or by goal. If you want the shortest path, enter your rating and one goal in the chess course finder (weekly hours and a budget are optional) and it lists free options first, with the reason shown for each result.
Pick a square, or set your rating and goal, to see the pages written for it.
Start from your rating
Use your Chess.com rapid rating, the site's default scale. Bands are approximate.
House rules
Every page says what it rests on
Public information, sample lessons or original data. The label sits at the top of the page.
No star scores, no rating promises
You get fit, price and limits. Nobody can honestly promise you a rating gain from a course.
Prices carry a date
Prices change often, so each one shows when it was last read from the vendor’s page.
Commercial links are marked
None are active yet. Any added later will be labelled where they appear. Read the disclosure.
ChessCourseFinder is an independent guide for adult improvers, roughly 800 to 2000 rated, deciding which chess course to buy, or whether to buy one at all. Everything here is based on what sellers publish and on attributed outside opinion. Nobody at the site has taken the courses, and each review says so near the top. How we review explains the labels, the dating of prices and what we cannot verify.
Route 1: by rating band
Your rating decides which problems are worth paying to fix, so start there if you know your number. The rating bands hub explains the site's default scale (the Chess.com rapid rating, which is approximate) and links to a page for each band: under 1000, 1000 to 1400 (up to about 1499), 1500 to 1800 (starting at 1500), 1800 to 2000 and above 2000. If you have been stuck around 1200, try the 90-day plan before spending anything.
Route 2: by weekly time
Time per week limits what you can use, so match the course to your hours rather than to its listed length. With about 30 minutes a day, read chess training for adults with 30 minutes a day. With more time, the 1000 to 1500 study plan lays out a weekly structure, and the weekly study planner builds one from your own hours. Listed course hours are not the time it takes to learn the material, so the price-per-hour calculator is a cost comparison, not a study schedule.
Route 3: by goal
Pick the page that matches the job you want done.
- Fix a weak skill such as tactics, endgames or blunders: the skills hub.
- Build or fix an opening repertoire: the openings hub, which also asks whether an opening course is worth buying at your level.
- Compare what to buy: buying guides organised by constraint such as budget or refunds, reviews of platforms and single courses, and side-by-side comparisons of what two sellers publish.
- Spend nothing first: free chess training resources and the page on free versus paid training by rating.
- Decide how to decide: guides on choosing a course, spotting biased reviews and coach versus course.
Check the money before you pay
Prices and refund terms change, so every figure on the site carries a date. Use the price and refund tracker to see the dated figures in one place, and confirm on the seller's checkout page before paying. Some links on the site may become affiliate links; this does not change what we recommend, and free options are named where they do the job. See the affiliate disclosure.
About the site
Read about this site for what the site is and how it works, and the corrections and updates policy for how mistakes get fixed. The privacy policy, terms and contact page cover the rest.