The 6 Best Bar Prep Courses in 2025

You’ve gone to law school and put in the work. Now there’s just one last hurdle between you and the career you’ve worked so hard to obtain—the dreaded bar exam.

Not to worry, there is a mountain of prep courses out there, and we’ve gone through almost all of them to help you choose the perfect one for you.

Use this list of the best bar prep courses to pass the bar and finally begin the lucrative legal career of your dreams.

Overview

• Best Overall: Kaplan
• Best Premium Course: BARBRI
• Best Customized Course: Crushendo
• Best for Repeat Examinees: AmeriBar
• Best Value: Themis 
• Best for Crammers: Smart Bar Prep

Best Overall: Kaplan 

Kaplan is such a bar review expert that it can no longer offer its services in California because it’s actually taking over the writing of the California bar exam. When it comes to bar review prep, why not go to the actual source of the nation’s toughest test?

✅Pros

• Extremely high pass rate among first-time test takers
• Highest-quality instructors
• Most realistic practice tests 
• Personalized prep packages and timetables
• Excellent enrollment promotions and passing incentives
• Unlimited essay grading
• Thousands of MBE practice questions
• Pass guarantees with limited applicable conditions

❌Cons

• Some of its best features come as add-ons
• Not available in California
• High prices without promotions

🎯Why We Chose It

Too many bar exam prep courses woo you with their one best thing, but you need a course that’s best at everything. Kaplan is that course. It’s been around forever, and more than 90% of students who complete Kaplan’s program pass their bar exam.

Kaplan stands behind those numbers with a simple pass guarantee. If you do the work—watch the lectures and complete the practice tests, essays, and assignments—and fail, you can take the course again for free.

And if you pass? Kaplan will reward you with a $500 Amazon gift card to help you celebrate.

Kaplan’s quality and quantity of resources is the source of its students’ success. It has more than 5,000 MBE practice questions, many of which have been taken directly from past bar exams. It offers live, interactive webinars and more than 100 hours of on-demand instructional videos, as well as a hard copy of study materials for those who still learn the old-fashioned way.

As popular as Kaplan is, it also offers a personal touch with its excellent one-on-one add-on tutoring programs, plus access to its private law school community of other test-takers.

Another area in which Kaplan outperforms its competition is its unlimited essay grading, which is crucial if you want to pass the bar.

To help you crush the essay portion, Kaplan has embraced next-generation learning techniques. Its AI essay tutor gives you near-instant and unlimited feedback on your sample essays. By tracking your subject-matter knowledge and answer quality, it provides you with personalized performance analytics, so you know what you should be studying.

I also found the practice exams (Kaplan offers four) to be the most realistic in the business. Makes sense, right? Kaplan actually writes the test for the state of California, so of course its practice exams are the best.

And while Kaplan may seem pretty pricey, thanks to frequent promotions, its prices are actually comparable to its less comprehensive competition. For example, if you buy the Bar Review + Bar Convenience package, which comes with some truly outstanding one-on-one tutoring, you’ll get a $950 Amazon gift card just for signing up. That brings your actual costs down considerably.

Kaplan came up as my top bar exam prep course for a lot of great reasons, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect for everyone.

As I mentioned above, if you’re taking the California bar, you’re out of luck—Kaplan actually writes the exam, so it can’t provide prep materials.

There’s also the issue of price. Kaplan, even with promotions, can be pretty pricey. If you’re on a shoestring budget, you may have to try to get the best out of other courses.

This is especially true if you want to take full advantage of Kaplan’s resources, since its great one-on-one tutoring comes in the $3,950 package. That’s before the $950 Amazon gift card rebate, however, so if you use Amazon, Kaplan’s an even better value.

Kaplan Bar Review is your best overall option for passing the bar. Start today.

Best Premium Course: BARBRI

There are more than 1.4 million legal professionals out there who have successfully trusted BARBRI with their bar prep. Why so many? Because BARBRI offers excellent, extensive prep courses and tons of high-quality study materials.

✅Pros

• Dedicated one-on-one mentors in premium programs
• Extended payment options 
• Easy to personalize your prep
• Great pass guarantee
• Excellent, affordable supplemental materials
• Highly engaging instructional materials
• Offers programs catered to internationally educated students
• A la carte options

❌Cons

• Expensive
• Base-level “Essentials” program is light on resources
• Lots of upselling
• Mobile app could be better

🎯Why We Chose It

BARBRI has an outstanding reputation, and even if you don’t ultimately choose one of its package courses, it has the widest range of high-quality prep materials in the industry.

BARBRI offers four package options, so you can choose what best suits your needs. The Essentials plan gives you 10 weeks of prep time, a personalized study plan, practice exams, and more than 300 lectures—broken down into half-hour increments—by instructors who are great at keeping students engaged.

That’s a decent base-level course, but the real value with BARBRI is at the Premium level and above. That’s when you get access to a mind-blowing array of resources. You get strategy coaching, digital flash cards, access to the “MBE Score Maximizer,” which has more than 1,300 MBE questions plus real-time performance monitoring, and unlimited essay grading.

It only gets better as you go up the price ladder, and the Extended Bar Review is worth the price if you can afford it. It offers everything else BARBRI brings to the table plus unlimited one-on-one coaching from a personal mentor.

BARBRI offers several financing options to ease the financial burden, including its own installment plan, which requires a down payment and small monthly payments going forward.

It also has a great pass guarantee. If you fail, BARBRI offers free retakes and will pay up to $500 of your test costs.

BARBRI also has a program that focuses on the international market, offering one-on-one coaching and mentoring tailored to students educated outside the US.

BARBRI has the best premium program, but unless you choose its highest-level courses, you can get a pretty comparable product for cheaper. This is why I ranked Kaplan above BARBRI in my overall ranking.

Compare BARBRI’s Essentials review with the comparably priced Kaplan’s Plus package. Kaplan provides NCBE-licensed questions at that price point, which are only available starting at the Premium level with BARBRI.

BARBRI wants to sell you on these expensive package deals, but the truth is, you can actually get a lot of value by picking and choosing among its resources that best suit your needs. Through the AdaptiBar program, you can actually buy the MBE Score Maximizer alone for only $395.

If you’re on a budget, you can combine the Score Maximizer with a cheaper overall program and get the best of both worlds.

BARBRI Bar Review is well worth the investment. Pass the bar with BARBRI.

Best Value: Crushendo

Crushendo offers some of the cheapest prep prices you’ll find, so if you don’t think you’ll need intensive study, you can save some money and still get a fairly good product.

✅Pros

• Affordability
• Numerous course options to choose from
• Highly customizable tutoring options
• Pass or money-back guarantee for UBE Suite
• Downloadable audio and video flash cards
• Interesting memorization techniques
• Lifetime access to materials

❌Cons

• Unstructured
• No MEE practice grading
• Incomplete content
• No mobile app

🎯Why We Chose It

If you’re highly self-motivated and self-aware, Crushendo offers sufficient study materials at a very affordable price. Crescendo allows you to cherry-pick the materials you need, so you can study more efficiently and save a lot of money.

For example, for those of you struggling with your essays, the MEE practice offers 300 essay questions from previous tests, along with the corresponding NCBE grading sheets. At only $140, that’s a great value.

If you just need to study for the MBE, the MBE Practice offers 1,450 practice questions, the vast majority of which are directly from the NCBE.

The tutoring options are also highly customizable and affordable. Rather than tutors coming in with their own study plans, you are encouraged to utilize their expertise however you see fit. If you have specific questions or just need a plan of attack, they are at your disposal.

I also like Crushendo’s audio flash cards, which are available to download. If you’re not a visual learner and want to study while you take a jog or hike, this feature is awesome.

Crushendo also specializes in various mnemonic devices and memory tricks—which isn’t included with most other bar preps—to help all that info sink in.

For such low prices, I was surprised by the pass guarantee, which is very straightforward. If you buy the UBE Suite, use it, and fail, you’ll get your money back.

The biggest problem with Crushendo is that it’s not really a cohesive study program, so you have to be self-motivated. It will give you the tools you’ll need, but you’ll have to build your own program. In doing so, you might find gaps in your content that you’ll pay for on exam day.

If you already know what you don’t know and you’re pretty good at self-evaluation, this might not bother you so much, but it’s not the structured or comprehensive program you get from other courses.

In fact, despite the 300 example MEE essay questions, it doesn’t offer any grading, AI or otherwise. So, Crushendo gives you a ton of real MEE questions from past tests but won’t help you assess your answers. You have to do that yourself.

If you have the money, it might be best to use Crushendo as a supplement to a more structured course, like Kaplan. Even Crushendo suggests that you “inject” its outlines into other programs, which isn’t a bad idea.

If you’re self-driven and budget conscious, crush the bar by combining Crushendo with your other resources.

Best for Repeat Examinees: AmeriBar

AmeriBar has made a name for itself by significantly increasing the pass rates of those who have already failed or those who didn’t fare so well in law school. If that’s you, you can still become a successful lawyer with AmeriBar.

✅Pros

• Wealth of resources
• Solid mobile app
• Program designed specifically for “at risk examinees”
• Live daily online workshops 
• “Class ‘til you Pass” guarantee
• Unique discounts

❌Cons

• Focus on those who’ve already failed the bar
• Dull on-demand lectures
• Most courses not personalized

🎯Why We Chose It

Let’s start with the sheer volume of resources that AmeriBar offers. It has 80 full hours of on-demand lectures, more than 4,000 review questions, including 1,400 NCBE-released questions, plus 200 practice essay questions, and real, physical books that arrive by mail.

It also has a mobile app, one of my favorites of all bar review course apps. The app carries all the lectures and questions and has an attractive layout and design.

AmeriBar is pretty competitively priced as-is, but it also has some unique discounts that can save you even more money. For one, you’ll get up to $250 off if you prove you bought another course and failed. It also provides a military discount that not a lot of other programs offer.

Add in the discounts and you’ve suddenly got a great value, particularly when you consider its FREE live daily interactive workshops. These workshops cover a variety of topics and are taught by excellent instructors, they’re only included in the Complete and Personal packages.

AmeriBar puts a lot of focus on “at risk examinees”—those who have failed the bar in the past, finished in the bottom third of their law school, or went to law school a long time ago and are only now taking the bar.

If you fall into one of these categories, AmeriBar could very well put you over the top.

For first-time examinees, AmeriBar might not feel as applicable to you personally. A lot of its extra strategy sessions and programs aim to help improve on previous scores. In fact, AmeriBar suggests only repeat examinees use its tutoring program.

And in general, the course doesn’t feel very personalized unless you select the Personal program, which comes with tutoring. AmeriBar basically caters to one type of student. Even if you’re a repeat examinee, the two basic courses can feel a bit too general.

Finally, the 80 hours of on-demand lectures are meant to be broken down into memorable sessions, but I found some of them to be quite dry. If you’re looking for engaging material, BARBRI is a better option.

You can’t argue with success, however, and AmeriBar has a proven track record with repeat examinees.

Don’t give up! AmeriBar can push you over the top.

Best Discounts: Themis

Themis offers a one-size-fits-all, premium-quality bar prep course that you can buy at a great discount, provided you pay in advance.

✅Pros

• Excellent promos and limited time offers
• Comes with a three-person “Personal Success Team” 
• Video lectures are concise and well-structured
• Emphasis on overall test-taking strategies
• Extensive library of MBE questions
• Essays graded by real people, not AI
• Simple pass guarantee

❌Cons

• Only one comprehensive program
• Inconsistent help teams
• Basic lectures
• Mobile app not engaging

🎯Why We Chose It

Themis is a premium bar review course masquerading as a discount bar review course—if you buy its program well in advance, that is.

One of my favorite things about Themis is its personal touch. While a lot of other prep courses turn to AI, Themis still offers a three-PERSON team to help you pass the bar. The team consists of an attorney, a local expert to help answer specific questions about your jurisdiction, and a dedicated essay grader, who will grade up to eight practice essays.

Beyond that, Themis offers a ton of MBE practice questions—more than 4,000—including all of the questions ever released by the NCBE. That’s more than just about anyone else, so if your bar prep strategy is all about practice questions, you’re covered.

The video lectures are meant to be concise and are available across all platforms, including a mobile app. Themis offers eight weeks of lectures leading up to the exam, with a first practice exam at the beginning of week four and a second at the beginning of week eight to mark your progress.

Themis is also known for its transparency and provides straightforward pass rates for all the jurisdictions they cover, as well as explaining how they calculate these rates. As you can see, the Themis pass rates are typically well above average, so long as test-takers do 75% or more of the work.

If you don’t pass, or even if you decide at the last minute not to sit for the bar, you are eligible to take the course again.

There’s a lot to like about Themis, but the fact that it offers only a one-size-fits-all course leaves little room for personalization. The daily calendar gives you some scheduling autonomy, but Themis doesn’t do a great job helping you overcome personal weaknesses.

This is also the case in the lectures, which are sometimes too basic in their approach to complicated topics because Themis designs its lectures for those with only a base-level of legal knowledge.

As much as I like the idea of the “Personal Success Teams” made up of actual humans, not bots, that does leave you open to the varying interest and knowledge of your team. Some teams are extremely supportive, but others are not. I prefer a program that’s already structured and comprehensive, like Kaplan.

Finally, Themis has put in a lot of work on its app over the last few years, but it has a really dull interface that makes it hard to stay engaged. All the content is all there, but it could be presented better.

For a personal touch, at a great prepaid rate, try Themis.

Best for Crammers: SmartBarPrep

If you’re really hurting for prep time and are also very budget conscious, SmartBarPrep offers some unique ways to prep for the bar.

✅Pros

• Affordable
• Well organized for efficient study
• Designed for last-minute studiers
• “Smart” flash cards help identify your weak spots
• Focused teaching techniques

❌Cons

• Only the Pro program offers real MBE questions
• No lectures, classroom work, or instructors
• Does not offer a California bar prep course

🎯Why We Chose It

SmartBarPrep is cheap, organized, and designed for those of you with serious time constraints.

To maximize your studying efficiency, the course is organized by topics that have appeared on previous exams. You can focus on what you’ll most likely need to know.

Another thing I like about SmartBarPrep is that it keeps things as succinct as possible. Logic being that the fewer words the materials use, the less you have to memorize. Yes, some nuance may be lost, but the hope is that you’ll retain what’s most important.

The SmartBarPrep dashboard consists of an outline and “Smart Sheets.” The outline is visually pleasing with some splashy colors and packs in a lot of information. It covers all 525 rules that have appeared in the last 62 MEE exams and then color codes them by how often they appeared.

The Smart Sheets do the same but are more focused on MBE topics. Again, the point is to dedicate more time to what is most likely to be tested.

Finally, the 650 flash cards help hammer home what you need to know. The flash cards are digital and available on the mobile site. They’re controlled by an algorithm that takes into account your weaknesses and what’s most likely to appear on your exam.

SmartBarPrep places a huge emphasis on what is most likely to appear on your bar exam, leaving you open to surprises on test day if it deviates from previous tests.

It also doesn’t offer any actual previous MBE questions, unless you get the Pro package, and even then they only offer 800, which is less than Kaplan.

SmartBarPrep also doesn’t offer any tutoring or other expert assistance, so it’s pretty much just you, some brightly colored sheets, and an algorithm. There’s no app either, so if you want to study on your phone, you’ll have to do it on your mobile browser.

SmartBarPrep is not for someone who wants to excel on the bar. It’s for someone who wants to just squeak by and has very little time in order to study to do so.

Even the guy with the lowest passing score becomes a lawyer. Cram and pass with SmartBarPrep.

Honorable Mentions

Look, there are tons of bar prep courses to choose from and they can’t all be the best of the best. That doesn’t mean they might not be the best for you. So here are our honorable mentions. These are solid, respectable courses that just didn’t rate a special category based on our research.

BarMax

BarMax makes my list for two reasons: It offers my favorite app and excels at prep for the California bar.

The entire BarMax course is on the app, including 50 hours of lectures, an analytics screen to track your progress, tons of flash cards, and 1,950 real MBE questions. And all of BarMax’s questions come from previous bar exams, so there’s no fluff.

If you’re studying for the notoriously difficult California Bar, BarMax is particularly valuable. BarMax students from ABA-accredited law schools taking the California Bar for the first time had a pass rate 11% higher than the average.

Here’s why: California test takers get 50 more practice essays (180 in total) and 900 more flash cards (1,500 in total). That’s in addition to the two practice exams and 75 performance tests offered in all of its programs.

Beyond the general UBE program and the California program, I didn’t find much value with BarMax. The tutoring seems subpar and expensive. Better tutors are much cheaper at Kaplan and others.

For app-based review, go with BarMax.

Helix Bar Review

Helix Bar Review is the youngest company on my list and the only nonprofit. It has a lot of interesting ideas and is gearing up for the release of the NextGen Bar Exam, which is coming soon to many states.

Helix throws you into the fire immediately with a practice test made up of 100 NCBE questions to identify your strengths and weaknesses. Use that knowledge to choose from its in-depth webinars that address your blind spots.

Helix also does a good job of trying to make studying more enjoyable. Its “game center” provides six different games that offer rewards, incentives, and a little fun to keep you engaged.

Helix is very much a forward-looking company, for better or worse. The NextGen bar exam will be implemented in many jurisdictions starting in 2026, and Helix seems focused on this future roll-out.

That might explain why it offers only 1,650 MBPE practice questions, which is thousands less than programs like Kaplan.

To be a part of the future of bar review prep, sign up with Helix.

BarPrepHero

If your study plan requires no lecturing or tutoring, just repetitive practice questions and flash cards, BarPrepHero is probably your cheapest quality course.

BarPrepHero offers 1,300 practice questions directly from the NBCE plus another 600 questions. All come with detailed answers, including case citations. Add to that the new AI feature, which goes into even more detail, and BarPrepHero can really help you master any topic.

Its 15-minute targeted quizzes will immediately assess your understanding and hopefully give you a quick confidence boost. There are also more than 1,000 MBE flash cards, and although there’s no mobile app, they still work well on the mobile site.

BarPrepHero is a little light on MEE prep, so you may want supplemental MEE prep from another company. BarPrepHero provides old NBCE essay questions with the answer keys but doesn’t provide any other coaching.

BarPrepHero is very different from Kaplan, which offers classroom lectures and video courses. BarPrepHero expects you to pass the bar by flash card and practice problem repetition. If you’re confident that this is all you need, it’s an easy choice. If you’re expecting more, go elsewhere.

For the cheapest quality questions, start with BarPrepHero.

Quimbee

Quimbee doesn’t have the bells and whistles of some of its competitors, but it offers a lot of great resources considering its low pricing.

Quimbee is designed for those who may be studying in between other responsibilities. It offers two different timelines for each course: a part-time, six-month program, or a full-time 10-week program. It also has a decent app that’s better than BARBRI’s, with more than 1,400 questions from past bar exams and 300 videos.

Quimbee’s performance-tracking dashboard is also among the best. It’s a great motivator, and identifying your weak points allows you to study much more efficiently.

While it does offer a lot for a relatively cheap price, there is a noticeable difference between Quimbee and top-tier bar prep courses. Kaplan offers twice as many practice questions, and more of them are licensed by the NCBE. Quimbee also doesn’t offer the same level of coaching or mentoring as the marquee programs.

For a decent app, straightforward guarantee, and good prices, get started with Quimbee.

Methodology: How I Chose the Best Bar Prep Courses

You are about to make a crucial decision that may mean the difference between practicing law or hitting the books again, so you should know how I made these rankings.

I ranked each Bar prep course on a scale of 1 to 10 in the following eight categories, giving equal weight to each category and averaging the total.

Availability and Variety of Resources

Even those who have dedicated themselves to 40+ hours a week of bar prep, there’s still errands to run and real life to attend to. For those with jobs or other responsibilities, the time crunch is even worse.

I looked for programs that had the most resources when you need them and how you need them. I awarded the highest points to the courses that make it easy to learn in the office, at home, or on the go. That means flash cards, on-demand lectures, mobile apps, and flexible scheduling.

Pass rates

Not all programs publish pass rates, and those that do may use an advantageous methodology to make their numbers look the best, but I did my best to compare apples to oranges.

What I discovered was that anyone who completes more than 75% of any course’s materials has a much higher chance of success. The lesson is: No matter what course you choose, put in the work.

Value

You’ve already invested a great deal of time and money into law school, so it makes sense to splurge on an expensive course to make sure that investment pays off. However, price doesn’t always equal quality, so I looked for the prep courses that offered the most bang for your buck.

NCBE, UBE, MBE, MEE, MPT

As you probably already know, those aren’t just random letters. The NCBE (National Conference of Bar Examiners) helps states administer the bar, but different states give different weights to the components of the UBE (Universal Bar Exam)—the essay examination (MEE), the multiple-choice portion (MBE), and the two-question legal case study (MPT).

I looked for programs that offered substantial guidance on all three.

Quality of the Lecturers

This doesn’t apply to every program. Many bar review courses don’t offer lectures, live, on-demand or otherwise.

For those that do, I graded them based on relevance and organization of material and how engaging it was, plus the qualifications and charisma of as many of the instructors as I could.

Practice Exams

Unfortunately, knowledge and the ability to prove that knowledge under the stress of a critical test can be two different things.

I looked for practice exams that best recreated the conditions you will be in when you actually sit for the bar. I also looked for those that offered the most realistic questions, specifically questions that had appeared on past exams.

Pass Guarantee

A lot of bar prep courses offer some sort of pass guarantee, but not all are created equal. For example, some only apply their guarantees if you purchase their premium programs. I read the fine print to determine the best guarantees.

Enjoyability/Engagement

I haven’t met a whole lot of people who enjoy studying for the bar, and the study materials are notoriously dry. That doesn’t mean you have to suffer.

I looked for engaging lecturers (when applicable), the most relevant flash cards and many of the little things (even stuff like color schemes) that make the material even marginally easier to digest.

Additional Resources

• Fellow law students: Attending law school is also about building a network or community, and now is the time to use it. Pick the brains of those who have already taken the bar and compare notes with those who are also currently studying.
• Online communities: Sites like Facebook and Reddit have communities and forums based on the state and the month when you’ll be taking the bar. Share tips, keep each other motivated, and exchange resources.
• Physical books/flash cards: Amazon is filled with flash card sets and books that you can use to augment your study program. Many come from the programs listed above, but others are from independent authors. It is always beneficial to diversify the sources of your study materials, so long as they’re from reputable sources.

Your Next Steps

With this guide, you have all the information you need to make the best, most informed choice for a bar prep program.

For most of you, Kaplan offers the best overall program to pass the bar and begin your career.

If you’ve got a little extra to invest in yourself (or if your firm is paying), BARBRI’s Extended Bar Review is worth the cost. And if you’re pinching pennies, you can still get good bar prep with Crushendo.

After you’ve chosen your perfect bar prep plan, come up with a realistic study plan, follow through, and take the bar with confidence. You’ve got this!

FAQs

What is the hardest bar exam to pass?

California is notorious for having the hardest bar exam to pass. Overall, only 54% of test-takers pass, and re-takers only pass at a 24% rate.

What is the easiest bar exam to pass?

The easiest bar exam to pass can be measured in two ways. The state with the highest passing rate is Utah, which saw 90% of its first-time test takers pass. The state with the lowest required score for passing is Wisconsin, with a 258.

How long are most bar prep courses?

Most bar prep courses last between 8–10 weeks and suggest around 40 hours per week of study time.