PrepScholar ACT and SAT Tutoring

PrepScholar’s SAT and ACT tutoring starts at $995 for four hours and runs to $4,795 for thirty-two, with every package bundling a year of their on-demand prep course. The score guarantee is 160+ points on the SAT and 4+ on the ACT.

About PrepScholar ACT and SAT

PrepScholar is known for their affordable ACT and digital SAT on-demand courses (starting at $397) and have recently bulked up their offerings by adding live online instruction. For students who were already interested in buying a live online or on-demand SAT or ACT study course, tacking on tutoring can be a no-brainer. 

See more about the course included in our PrepScholar ACT Review and SAT Review.

My Thoughts on PrepScholar ACT and SAT Tutoring

Pricing

PrepScholar advertises tutoring by the package rather than the hour, and the headline rates look steep: $248.75 an hour at the smallest package, down to $149.84 at the largest. But that’s not really what you’re paying, because every package includes a year of the Complete Online Prep course, which sells on its own for $397.

Back that out and you get the number that actually matters, what the tutoring itself costs you per hour:

Package	Tutor hours	Total price	Sticker rate	Net of the course
Monitored Prep	4	$995	$248.75/hr	$149.50/hr
Tutor-Led Prep	10	$1,995	$199.50/hr	$159.80/hr
Full Tutoring Prep	18	$2,995	$166.39/hr	$144.33/hr
Comprehensive Tutoring Prep	32	$4,795	$149.84/hr	$137.44/hr

Two things jump out. The first is that the effective rate barely moves, roughly $137 to $160 an hour whichever package you pick, so there’s no great bulk discount to chase here. The second is that the 10-hour package is the worst value of the four on a per-hour basis. If you were considering it, either drop to 4 hours or step up to 18; the middle option is the one to avoid.

For context, here’s roughly where the others sit. I’ve used sticker rates for all of them, since they bundle different things:

Provider	Hours available	Roughly
PrepScholar	4, 10, 18, 32	$150–$249/hr, course included
Kaplan (SAT)	10, 20, 30, 40	$115–$200/hr, from $1,999
Kaplan (ACT)	5, 10, 20, 30, 40	~$800 for 5 hrs up to ~$4,400 for 40
Princeton Review	10, 18	around $175/hr
Prep Expert	flexible	from $79/hr, or $199/month

The shape of it hasn’t changed since I last looked: if you want a lot of tutoring hours, Kaplan and Prep Expert are cheaper per hour, and Kaplan gets meaningfully cheaper the more you buy. PrepScholar’s pitch is the other way round – a strong self-paced course with a handful of tutoring hours attached, where the course is doing most of the work.

Tutor Quality

While I can’t vet each individual tutor for PrepScholar, their tutor requirements seem pretty legit. All tutors must have scored in the 99th percentile on the ACT or SAT and have graduated from a top 20 college. 

As you may well have discovered at this point, scoring high on a test or graduating from a top school doesn’t necessarily mean you are effective at teaching others. According to PrepScholar, their tutors must also have proven one-on-one tutoring skills and experience. There are not a lot of additional details regarding the onboarding or training for these tutors.  

Curriculum

As a reminder, the PrepScholar on demand course is included when you book an ACT or SAT tutor. Their course content is well-organized and incorporates video, text, and graphics in each lesson. 

A sample science lesson from the ACT course – video content is included with every tutoring package

The SAT course runs to about 150 hours of content and the ACT course about 60, and every lesson ends with a quiz and detailed answer explanations.

This is a high-quality on demand course and consistently ranks among our top choices for SAT prep and ACT prep courses for their video content. Again, if you’re seeking out a solid prep course and would be interested in tacking on a few hours of tutoring, this is going to be a great deal for you. 

You can learn more about what the tutors do during your sessions in PrepScholar’s blog post.

Score Increase Guarantee

The guarantee is 160+ points on the SAT and 4+ points on the ACT. There’s fine print on both that’s worth reading before you count on it: on the SAT, the 160-point promise applies if you started below 1370, and at 1370 or above you have to reach 1530 instead. The ACT works the same way, with a 34 as the bar for students already scoring 31+.

More important is what gets refunded. If you miss the target, PrepScholar refunds the $397 course, not the tutoring. Instead you get your full set of tutoring hours again, free, to have another go at it. That’s a reasonable deal if you have time before your next test date and a poor one if you don’t, so factor your timeline in.

You also have to actually complete the assigned lessons and practice tests for the guarantee to stand, and there’s a limit of one refund per household.

What’s the Refund Policy?

The first class with your tutor is considered “risk free” – so if you aren’t happy with the tutor, you can get a full refund. There is a rating system for tutors, so you will have an opportunity to rate them after the class and also switch to a new tutor if you want. 

What are the Free Trial Options? 

You can trial out the instructor-led courses for the ACT here and the SAT here.

Enroll in a free instructor-led class

For tutoring, there is a one-hour risk-free trial that you can enjoy when you purchase the tutoring package. This means if you do not like the tutoring after the first hour, you can ask for a full refund. 

PrepScholar ACT and SAT Tutoring Options

Here are the four packages in full. They’re identical for the SAT and the ACT – same hours, same prices, same tutors – and the only real difference is which course comes bundled and which guarantee applies.

	Monitored	Tutor-Led	Full	Comprehensive
Tutor hours	4	10	18	32
Price	$995	$1,995	$2,995	$4,795
Net cost per hour	$149.50	$159.80	$144.33	$137.44
Course included	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Score guarantee	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

What the bundled course gives you

This is where most of the value sits, and it differs by test:

• SAT – 90 skill lessons, 4,100+ practice questions, 8 official College Board practice tests and around 150 hours of content.
• ACT – 54 skill lessons rebuilt for the Enhanced ACT, 3,000+ practice questions, 4 official practice tests and around 60 hours of content.

Both come with 12 months of access, a diagnostic that assesses you across 45 skills, and a weekly homework plan your tutor can work from. PrepScholar recommends at least 40 hours of study on top of your tutoring sessions – that’s a minimum, not what’s included.

Who Needs PrepScholar ACT and SAT Tutoring

The best candidate here is a student who wants a serious self-paced course and a handful of hours with a person to unstick the parts that aren’t landing. That’s where the value is: at four hours you’re paying $995 for a $397 course plus roughly $150 an hour of expert time, which is a fair price for what it is.

If you want a lot of one-on-one hours, this isn’t the cheapest way to get them. Kaplan comes down to around $110 an hour at 40 hours and Prep Expert starts at $79, and neither charges you a premium for course access you may not use.

PrepScholar ACT / SAT Tutoring Alternatives

Kaplan

Kaplan remains the one to beat on volume. SAT tutoring runs in 10, 20, 30 and 40-hour packages starting around $1,999, with rates falling from roughly $200 an hour to about $115 as you buy more. ACT packages start smaller, at about $800 for five hours, and run to roughly $4,400 for forty.

Tutoring includes access to their Live Online course and a hardcopy prep book, and Kaplan holds an official partnership with ACT – their questions include real, previously administered items, and ACT’s own fee-waiver course is powered by Kaplan. If provenance matters to you, that’s worth something.

Where PrepScholar wins is the bundled course: Kaplan’s self-paced material is thinner (500+ questions and 2 practice tests on the SAT side, against PrepScholar’s 4,100+ and 8) and access runs 6 months rather than 12.

Princeton Review

Princeton Review sits at the premium end, around $175 an hour for 10 and 18-hour packages, with full course access and 2,000+ practice questions included. Their tutoring is the most personalised of the group and their instructors are consistently well reviewed.

They also run much higher tiers – score-targeted courses with live instruction that climb into the thousands – so if budget isn’t the binding constraint, they have somewhere for you to go that PrepScholar doesn’t.

Prep Expert

Prep Expert is the budget pick, with one-on-one tutoring advertised from $79 an hour, or a $199 monthly subscription you can cancel any time. Tutors are perfect scorers or in the top 1%, and the score guarantees are the most aggressive in the industry – 200 points on the SAT, 4 on the ACT – though there is fine print worth reading.

What you don’t get is a comprehensive self-paced course thrown in. If you want structured material to work through between sessions, you’ll be buying that separately.

PrepScholar ACT and SAT FAQ

The Bottom Line on PrepScholar’s ACT and SAT Tutoring

PrepScholar tutoring makes sense if you want a strong on-demand course and a few hours of expert help to go with it. Buy it for the course and treat the tutoring as the thing that unsticks you, rather than the other way round.

• Four packages: 4, 10, 18 or 32 hours, from $995 to $4,795
• Every package bundles 12 months of the Complete Online Prep course
• Effective tutoring rate lands between $137 and $160 an hour whichever you pick
• Tutors are 99th percentile or perfect scorers from Ivy League or Top 20 schools
• 160+ SAT / 4+ ACT guarantee – the course is refunded, tutoring hours are repeated
• One free hour to try it, refundable within 60 days

Skip it if what you actually want is a lot of one-on-one time. At that end Kaplan and Prep Expert will both cost you less per hour, and you won’t be paying twice for course material.