Chess Course Finder: Pick by Rating, Time and Goal

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Enter your rating and the one thing you want to improve, and the finder lists the courses and free options in our catalogue that fit, free options first. It matches what sellers publish about level and topic. It does not measure teaching quality, and it has not been checked against anyone's results.

The catalogue holds 205 listings from six sources, last read on 8 November 2026: Chessable (28), ChessMood (30), ChessBase (141), Modern Chess (3), Next Level Chess (1) and Lichess (2). Nobody at ChessCourseFinder has taken any of them.

How to use it

1. Enter your rating. The site default is the Chess.com rapid scale, which is approximate; sellers often do not say which system their level ranges use, and this page does not convert ratings.
2. Choose one goal, using the letters below.
3. Optionally enter your weekly study hours and a budget, to see how listed hours compare to your week and which rows are above your budget.
4. Read the reason shown with each result, then open the seller's page before paying.

The goal letters

How results are ordered

The finder applies five rules in this order, then sorts any ties by title A to Z. No score is shown or implied.

1. The level range must include your rating. A course is eligible when its stated minimum is at or below your rating and its stated maximum is at or above it.
2. The goal must match. The course must be tagged with the goal letter you chose.
3. A free option comes first. Free listings (a free plan or free site) rank above paid ones.
4. Then the closest goal match. A course tagged only to your goal ranks above a course tagged to several goals.
5. Then the narrowest level range. A tighter range around your rating ranks above a wide one.

Rows with no stated level are labelled "level not stated". They are still eligible. Within the same free or paid group, and among rows tagged to the same number of goals, they rank after the rows whose stated range matches your rating, because the seller has not said who it is for.

What the catalogue can and cannot tell you

The results reflect what sellers publish, not teaching quality. A seller's level range is its opinion, and many listings have none. In the catalogue, a stated level range appears on 33 of 205 rows, and hours on 48.

The catalogue is also lopsided. As of 8 November 2026, the goal tags break down as follows (a course can have more than one):

Most openings rows are ChessBase courses that state no level, so an openings search will often return mostly "level not stated" rows. For other goals, expect few or no results. An empty result means the catalogue has no match, not that no course exists.

The catalogue leaves out sellers whose prices we could not confirm on their own pages, for now: TheChessWorld, Udemy, Chessly and Remote Chess Academy. See the price and refund tracker for what it includes and how fresh each row is.

Related tools and guides

If you already know your opening, try the repertoire course mapper. Once you have a shortlist, compare costs with the price-per-hour calculator and the subscription break-even calculator. For the checks to run before paying, read how to choose a chess course. If you want what to work on at your level first, start at the rating bands hub, and for no-cost options see free chess training resources. The tools hub lists the rest, and how we review explains the limits of this site's evidence.