Best Chess Subscriptions Compared: ChessMood, Chessly, Chess.com, TCW Academy

ChessMood is the best-documented subscription for a full video curriculum, at $948 a year as of 8 November 2026, and Chess.com's paid tiers are the choice if you want lessons plus analysis tools with a free trial. Chessly's price could not be read, so we cannot compare its cost, and we found no subscription at TCW Academy that we could verify. Before paying for any of them, work out annual versus monthly cost for the hours you will actually use.

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This page is built from seller pages, app listings and public reports read on 8 November 2026. Nobody at ChessCourseFinder has used any of these paid plans, so it compares terms and price, not teaching. How we review explains the limits. Subscriptions are the "rent" option; for one-time payment see lifetime access vs subscription.

What each subscription is, and what it costs

Subscriptions here fall into two groups: library subscriptions you study from, and tool subscriptions that analyse your games or drill you. Prices are in each seller's currency as of 8 November 2026 and are not converted.

Library subscriptions

Details: ChessMood pricing, the Chessly review, the Chess.com Premium review, the TCW Academy review and the KnightMaster review. Killer Chess Training sells live classes at euro prices (a 49 EUR 7-day trial sign-up, and 765 EUR for a continuing year, per its homepage), a different product from a library.

ChessDojo's live classes post, dated 24 November 2025, lists a Game & Profile Review class at $200 a month and workshop classes at $75 a month. A base membership of $15 a month or $120 a year appeared only in a search summary, so we leave it out of the table.

Tool subscriptions

Chessable PRO is optional: courses are bought individually on Chessable, with or without it, and our Chessable PRO review covers whether the discount pays. Aimchess and Chess.com's Insights are compared in Aimchess vs Chess.com Insights.

Annual versus monthly: the arithmetic

Yearly billing saves money only if you stay long enough, and the table shows the gap in each currency from the vendor's own figures. It is calculated; check the checkout for the real numbers.

ChessMood's monthly rate is not in its visible page text, but the script behind its pricing page lists $99 for Essential and $129 for Pro, read on 8 November 2026. At $99, $948 beats paying monthly only from the tenth month, since 9.6 months of $99 equals $948. Our pricing page and the subscription break-even calculator run this with your own numbers.

What the higher tier actually adds

Pay for a higher tier only when you can name the feature you would use each week.

ChessMood. The $240 a year between Essential and Pro ($1,188 less $948) buys weekly live events, the event recordings, a Pro forum channel, a private community and, in the words of its pricing page, a "one time one-on-one call" with a grandmaster. Because the call happens once, the recurring value has to come from the live events.

Chess.com. Its membership article, dated 21 July 2026, describes each tier by what it adds:

Diamond is not an all-courses pass. Chess.com's Courses announcement gives Diamond members 20% off courses and all Short & Sweet mini courses, so other paid courses are still bought one at a time. A Friends & Family plan shares a yearly Diamond membership among up to six people. We compare features here because the App Store shows ten unlabelled prices and we could not read the official ones.

Cost per week, and what stacking does

Dividing a yearly price by 52 shows the weekly cost, whether or not you study that week. These are calculated from the yearly prices above, in each seller's currency.

Small subscriptions add up. Aimchess, Chessable PRO and Chessbook together come to $212.97 a year, about 22% of ChessMood Essential, but none of the three is a course library, and Chessable's paid courses would still be extra. A library also repeats: two years of Essential is $1,896 at today's price, and ChessMood's refund policy says renewals are not refundable and that cancelling in time is the student's responsibility. If you only want two or three courses, see the worked comparison of single courses against a year.

What you keep when you stop paying

Check what survives cancellation before you start, because the pages we read treat it differently.

Which to choose

• A year-long video curriculum for roughly 800 to 2000: ChessMood, after using the free Basic plan. The ChessMood plans are the best-documented in this group.
• Lessons plus game tools, with a free trial: Chess.com Gold first, Diamond only if you will use Insights. A Chess.com membership converts to paid after the 7-day trial unless you cancel.
• Cheaper experiment: Chessly's trial, then read the checkout price.
• TCW Academy: nothing to compare yet; see TheChessWorld only for individual courses.
• Drilling openings: Chessbook or Chessable, which are tools and course stores, not library subscriptions.
• Live teaching from grandmasters: ChessMood Pro, or Killer Chess Training at euro prices, once you are sure you can attend.
• KnightMaster: the lowest monthly library price in the table ($5.60 as read), and we did not find a company name or refund terms on its pages. See our review for its published terms.

What to check before any subscription

1. The billing period shown at checkout, and the renewal date.
2. Whether the trial needs a payment method (Chess.com's does; Chessly's terms say its does not).
3. Whether the refund covers the first payment only, as ChessMood's does.
4. Whether you can cancel before the next billing date, and how.

Using a 7-day trial properly

Seven days at 3 hours a week is only 3 hours, so decide what you are testing before the clock starts. ChessMood Essential, Chess.com's paid tiers, Chessly and Noctie list 7-day trials, and KnightMaster lists 14 days.

1. Set a cancellation reminder for day 5, not day 7.
2. Write down the one course or feature you came for.
3. Spend your first session on exactly that, and note how long it took to find.
4. Before day 5, open your account page and find the cancellation route.
5. If you stay, write down the renewal date and the amount.

Who should skip a subscription

Skip it if you would use under two or three hours a week, want one specific opening, or have courses you have not finished. At 2 hours a week, ChessMood's $948 buys about 104 hours of study in a year, per our pricing page table. Buying one course may suit you better; see cheapest chess courses and best chess courses for adults.

The free resources that cover similar ground

Lichess is free with no paid tier, and Chess.com's Basic tier gives limited puzzles, drills and one game review a day. See Lichess studies and practice and free vs paid chess training. The best overall comparison is best chess courses, and the money-back guarantee guide lines up refunds.