Chess.com Premium and Lessons: What You Pay For

If you want Chess.com's lessons library, Gold is the lowest tier that lists unlimited lessons, and Diamond is worth considering only if you will use its game Insights and move-by-move coach explanations. Lichess is free with no paid tier, so the real question is whether Chess.com's lessons and tools save you enough time to pay for them. Official 2026 prices could not be read, so the figures below are partial and conflicting.

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Test depth: Public information only. Nobody at ChessCourseFinder has used this paid plan. This review is based on published documentation, pricing and reports from Chess.com's support articles, its App Store listing and forum posts, read on 8 November 2026. The membership page plan section did not render for our tools, so official prices were not seen. How we review explains the limits.

This review has no star score. Fit, price and limits are set out instead, and how reviews are made is public.

What each tier adds

Chess.com's support article on membership types (dated 21 July 2026) lists Basic (free), Gold, Platinum and Diamond, plus a Friends and Family plan, which is a yearly Diamond membership shared by up to six people. The tiers stack:

So lessons come from Gold, unlimited game review from Platinum, and the analysis-style features from Diamond.

What it costs

Official Chess.com prices were not visible to us, so we cannot give you a price list. Here is what we can read, as of 8 November 2026:

• The US Apple App Store listing for the Chess.com app shows these in-app purchases without saying which is monthly or yearly: Gold $4.99, $6.99, $29.99; Platinum $6.99, $10.99, $79.99; Diamond $14.99, $16.99, $99.99, $119.99. We do not guess which is which.
• A member-written Chess.com blog (posted 12 June 2025) claims Gold is about $4.17 a month billed yearly versus $6.99 monthly, Platinum about $6.67 versus $10.99, and Diamond $10 a month ($119.99 a year) versus $16.99. Some of these figures also appear in the App Store list, but the blog is a user post, not confirmation.

Prices can vary by region, platform and promotion. Confirm the price and billing period on chess.com/membership or in the app before paying.

The trial and refund rules

Chess.com's support article on the free trial (13 July 2026) says it is 7 days, one per account, on Gold, Platinum, Diamond or Family. A payment method is required, and it converts to paid unless you cancel before the trial ends.

For refunds, an article dated 8 July 2026 says first-time credit card and Android subscriptions have a 30-day money-back guarantee, Apple purchases must be refunded by Apple, banned users are not eligible, and cancelling does not refund the current billing period.

Chess.com Courses, its separate paid-course product, has its own 30-day refund policy (support article dated 21 January 2026), and Chess.com's Courses announcement says Diamond members get 20% off those courses. That is a different purchase from a membership. See Chess.com Lessons vs Chessable.

Is Chess.com Diamond worth it?

Diamond is worth it only if you will use the features that exist only at that level, and the two forum threads we read are mixed. In the thread on paying for the site, some users said unlimited tactics and lessons and the Diamond coach explanations were the value, while one poster said nothing past Gold was worth paying for and another rated Diamond's insights and coach explanations as not useful to them. In the Diamond thread, the replies were mostly positive about the tactics trainer, lessons and game review, with caveats: it is not essential, it is not worth it for only a few weeks, try the 7-day trial first, and one user found the app unstable. These are opinions of members, posted on Chess.com's own forum.

A way to decide:

1. Stay on Basic while the 3 daily puzzles and one game review a day are enough.
2. Move to Gold if you want the lessons library and unlimited puzzles.
3. Add Platinum only if you want to analyse every game.
4. Choose Diamond if your games are the thing you want to study and you want Chess.com to explain moves and show statistics. Compare with another tool on Aimchess vs Chess.com Insights.

What the lessons library is

The lessons page shows courses by category (Openings, Strategy, Tactics, Endgames, Master Games, Attacking), level, theme and instructor. The first listing page we read showed 25 courses and about 194 lessons, but that is one page of a longer list, not a library total. Courses carry "Beginner" or "Mastery" tags, some have none, and those tags name no rating range or rating system. The page did not show which membership level each course needs, and the part we read offered filters rather than a recommended order across courses, so we cannot tell you how many lessons suit a given rating. For an older course program that a 2014 Chess.com article described, and whose current status is unverified, see Chess.com University.

What the seller's pages do not tell you

• The same tier has different refund rules depending on where you pay. The refund article gives a 30-day guarantee for first-time credit card and Android subscriptions and says Apple purchases must be refunded by Apple. If you pay through the iOS app, the rules that apply are Apple's, not Chess.com's guarantee.
• The price list has no labels in the one place we could read it. The App Store shows ten Gold, Platinum and Diamond figures (three, three and four) without saying which is monthly or yearly. Because each tier shows three or four figures, the list is not simply one monthly and one yearly price per tier, and we cannot say what the others are.
• Course-by-course gating is not shown. The tier table says Gold has "unlimited lessons", but the course cards we read did not say which tier each course needs.
• The trial and the guarantee are separate. The trial needs a payment method and converts automatically; the cancellation article says cancelling does not refund the current billing period.

Who should skip this

• You only want a few puzzles a day and occasional game review. Basic includes 3 puzzles and one full game review a day, and Lichess describes itself as entirely free, with no ads or subscriptions.
• You would pay through Apple and want an easy refund. The refund rules above send you to Apple.
• You would only use it for a few weeks. A poster in the Diamond thread said it is not worth it for only a few weeks; the 7-day trial is the cheaper test.
• You want a single curriculum in a stated order. We did not see a recommended order in the lessons listing we read, so check whether the courses you would use form a path before you pay.

The free resource that covers similar ground

Lichess describes itself as free forever with no ads or subscriptions, and offers Practice sections on checkmates, fundamental and advanced tactics, and pawn and rook endgames, plus a puzzle trainer. See Chess.com Premium vs Lichess and Lichess studies and practice. What you give up is Chess.com's video lessons and instructor-led courses; we have not compared quality.

Downsides

• Price opacity. We could not read official prices and the app list has no labels.
• Trial converts automatically. Set a reminder before day 7.

Before you pay

1. Take the 7-day trial and set a cancel reminder.
2. Check the price and billing period in the place you will buy.
3. If you are paying via Apple, remember refunds go through Apple.
4. After the trial, decide on the lowest tier that covers what you used. For courses sold separately, read our Chessable review and ChessMood's review first.

You can start a Chess.com trial once you know what you want to try.