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Cpethink vs. Becker CPE |
| The Last Self-Study CPE Website You Will Ever Need (Click for Subscriptions) |
As a CPA, you invest a lot of time, effort, and money in pursuing continuing professional education (CPE). Needless to say, when choosing a sponsor for CPE, you’ve to make sure that you’re joining the right one. One wrong decision can jeopardize your entire CPE plan.
If you’ve already started searching for a CPE sponsor, you’ve surely come across two names: CPE Becker and CPEThink.com. But the question is, which one should you choose?
To help you get the answer to this question, we’ve prepared this comparative analysis of Becker CPE and CPEThink.com. We’ll be evaluating what these popular sponsors have to offer in terms of CPE and what makes each of them unique.
Before we delve deeper into the comparative analysis, it may help to know a little about these sponsors.
· CPE Becker
Becker carries a lot of clouts. With an extremely impressive track record of over sixty years in this business, it has become one of the top CPE sponsors. Additionally, it’s vouched for by the ”Big 4” (the top four accounting firms in the world), which is another notable thing working in its favor.
· CPEThink.com
CPEThink.com started its journey in 2004. Despite being a much newer entrant compared to Becker, it has garnered a massive reputation among CPAs. During its relatively shorter journey, CPEThink.com has helped tens of thousands of CPAs to achieve their CPE goals.
Whether you choose Becker CPE or CPEThink.com, all of your activities need to be carried out from your account. So, the login interface of these sponsors is the first thing we’ll compare.
· CPE Becker
Everything is neatly organized on Becker’s login page. The CPE section has a dropdown menu containing links to everything related to CPE. By clicking on the CPE Becker login button, you get redirected to Becker’s CPE Learning page, where you need to enter your credentials to access your CPE courses.
· CPEThink.com
Since CPEThink.com doesn’t offer CPA review or CMA courses, you can directly access your account just by entering your credentials on its login page. One thing that keeps the CPEThink.com login interface ahead of the Becker CPE login interface is the availability of page accessibility options.
Available on the right side of the login page, it has several useful features like content adjustment, color adjustment, navigation adjustment, etc., to provide users with the best browsing experience. You can also choose your language from here to internalize the page content effortlessly.
Verdict: If you want to get a better user experience on the login page, choose CPEThink.com.
For any CPA, buying a CPE subscription is an excellent move to reduce the overall cost of CPE and avoid the hassles of joining multiple sponsors. Let’s see what these sponsors offer in terms of subscriptions.
· CPE Becker
There are three Becker CPE subscription packages available: Prime, Select, and Essentials. With the Prime subscription, you can access any CPE program available on CPE Becker’s catalog for one year. It costs $699.00.
The Select subscription comes at $399.00 with one-year access duration. However, your access to courses gets restricted with this subscription. You’ll be able to access 20+ premium courses (courses that cover hot topics, current events, and critical updates), all state-specific ethics courses available in CPE Becker’s library, 480+ webcasts, and 570+ on-demand courses.
Essentials is the cheapest Becker CPE subscription package. It costs $299.00 and comes with a validity of just 90 days. Your accessibility gets even more restricted with this package. You won’t be able to access any premium or state-specific ethics course. You’ll only be able to access 480+ webcasts and 475+ on-demand courses.
Regardless of the Becker CPE subscription you choose, you’ll have downloadable course content, a state-wise compliance tracker, the opportunity to earn partial credits for webcasts, together with the ability to earn an unlimited number of credits.
· CPEThink.com
CPEThink.com offers six subscription packages: two unlimited and four credit-based. The first unlimited package costs $299.95 and comes with a validity of two years. Under this package, you can access all its self-study courses (ethics courses included) and free webinars.
The second unlimited package comes at $199.95 with a one-year validity period. It also lets you access all self-study courses (including ethics) and free webinars.
The credit-based packages (all with a one-year duration) of CPEThink.com come with the same benefits as unlimited packages, but the maximum number of CPE credits you can earn gets restricted based on your chosen package.
Depending on your requirements, you can choose from 45 credits ($145.95), 40 credits ($129.95), 30 credits ($99.95), and 20 credits ($69.95). If you need more credits, you can buy each at $7.20 at a 20% discounted rate.
All CPEThink.com subscription packages provide downloadable course content, unlimited certificate prints, and unlimited attempts for final exams.
If we compare CPE Becker’s all-access pass (Prime subscription) with CPEThink.com’s unlimited packages, the former needs you to pay more than double the cost of the latter. And your accessibility also gets reduced by one year.
Even the cheapest Becker CPE subscription comes at nearly the same price as the most expensive CPEThink.com subscription package. The validity period comes down to just 90 days, and you cannot access any ethics or premium course.
We all know that premium and ethics CPE courses don’t come cheap. Since ethics CPE credits are mandatory requirements, your CPE cost will go up even if you sign up for CPE Becker’s cheapest subscription.
Another downside of CPE Becker is that it doesn’t offer any credit-based subscription package. No matter if you just need 20 credits, you either need to buy its Essentials package or purchase courses separately.
Perhaps the steep costs of subscription packages and lots of restrictions are two biggest reasons a large number of CPAs prefer to avoid CPE Becker and choose CPEThink.com instead.
Verdict: Undoubtedly, CPEThink.com is a clear winner here. Not only it’s substantially more cost-effective than Becker CPE, but it also gives you much more flexibility.
Promo codes are meant to bring you good discounts on your purchases. Here’s what CPE Becker and CPEThink.com offer in this context.
· CPE Becker
There’s a dedicated Becker CPE promo code page that lists its coupon codes and discounts. Some third-party websites also offer Becker’s discount coupons and promo codes. However, at the time of creating this post, no active Becker CPE promo code was available.
· CPEThink.com
While CPEThink.com doesn’t have a dedicated promo code page, its discount coupons can be easily found on various third-party websites. At the time of writing this comparison, several CPEThink.com discount coupons and promo codes were available on different sites.
Verdict: As it seemed, CPEThink.com tends to offer more discount coupons than CPE Becker. So, in terms of the availability of active promo codes, CPEThink.com should be a better option.
The number of CPE courses and their prices play vital roles in choosing a CPE sponsor. Here’s what these providers offer in terms of courses.
· CPE Becker
There are nearly 950 Becker CPE courses available, including on-demand programs and webcasts. However, 20+ of them are premium courses that are steeply-priced. You can also access these courses using Prime and Select subscriptions, but those are also highly expensive.
The starting price of CPE Becker’s courses stands at $29.00, which is pretty costly, especially when you get just 1 or 1.5 credits for each of them.
· CPEThink.com
CPEThink.com offers hundreds of courses, including self-study courses and webinars. There’s no such concept called premium courses. Each course is reasonably priced, and you can access any of them (excluding paid webinars) using any of its subscriptions.
The starting price of CPEThink.com’s courses is just $12.95 (1 credit), which is lower than half the cost of a course at CPE Becker. By paying $29.95, you can earn up to 3 credits from CPEThink.com.
Verdict: For any cost-conscious CPA, CPEThink.com is a better option than CPE Becker.
If we compare as a whole, Becker CPE learning cannot match CPEThink.com learning in any vital aspect. Be it the price of subscriptions, their duration, programs they let you access, or the cost of courses, CPEThink.com stays much ahead of CPE Becker.
Even if we evaluate the login interface and the availability of promo codes, CPEThink.com is a better option than Becker.
Verdict: Since CPE is a lifelong journey for CPAs, CPEThink.com provides you with a better experience than what you get with Becker CPE learning.
Customer reviews and testimonials act as pieces of social proof that any customer, including CPAs, considers valuable. Let’s see what CPE Becker and CPEThink.com have garnered in this aspect.
· CPE Becker
CPE Becker has a dedicated “Testimonials” page where it publishes a couple of reviews from its customers. However, it mentions that customers give it a nine out of ten rating in terms of content satisfaction and the expertise of its instructors.
· CPEThink.com
CPEThink.com also has a dedicated “Customer Reviews” page where it lists all the reviews it receives from the customers. It has maintained a 4.9 rating out of five, which on a 10-point scale, translates into 9.8.
Verdict: It’s evident that CPEThink.com has garnered a better reputation than CPE Becker despite being in the industry for a much shorter period of time.
We’ve already discussed the sizes of both the Becker CPE course catalog and the CPEThink.com course catalog. So, in this block, we’ll evaluate their functionalities.
· CPE Becker
Becker CPE course catalog is neatly organized. It has several filters that you can apply to find your course quickly. You can also see the courses based on titles, newest ones, prices, and the number of credits.
One downside of CPE Becker’s catalog is that it doesn’t have links to its other pages. This means if you want to see what it has got on the tenth page, you’ll have to click all the nine pages one-by-one to reach there. This doesn’t seem to be a convenient option.
· CPEThink.com
CPEThink.com course catalog is nicely organized as well. It also has several filters to help you find your course conveniently. Additionally, you can choose how many courses you want to be displayed on a single page. If you want, you can see all of its courses on a single page.
CPEThink.com catalog also has links to its other pages, saving you a good amount of time from browsing all of its pages one by one. Another notable thing is that it displays available IRS credits against each course. This isn’t available in the Becker CPE course catalog.
Verdict: Becker CPE class catalog has more filters than the CPEThink.com catalog, but in terms of usability, the latter is a better option than the former.
Here’s what we’ve got when comparing CPE Becker and CPEThink.com in terms of CPE credits.
· CPE Becker
Becker CPE credits range from 1 to 28 credits. However, the course that lets you earn 28 credits costs $329.00. You can also earn 1 to 4 credits by taking free CPE Becker courses.
· CPEThink.com
CPE credits from CPEThink.com ranges from 1 to 39 credits. To buy the course that offers 39 credits, you only need to pay $176.95. CPEThink.com also offers eight free CPE courses that let you earn one credit each.
Verdict: Again, CPEThink.com turns out to be a much better option than CPE Becker.
Both CPE Becker and CPEThink.com offers lots of on-demand courses. Let’s take a look.
· CPE Becker
Apart from its on-demand courses, there are several Becker CPE on-demand bundles available. Their costs range from $99 to $239.
· CPEThink.com
In addition to its on-demand courses, CPEThink.com offers three CPE course bundles. Their costs vary between $31.95 and $171.95.
Verdict: CPEThink.com offers a better value for your money than Becker CPE.
When it comes to online courses, website functionalities, features, and user experience become extremely important. From its login interface to website functionalities, the standards of CPEThink.com online programs are much better than those of Becker CPE online programs.
Verdict: Pick CPEThink.com if you want to get the best online learning experience.
Both CPE Becker and CPEThink.com have gained a lot of fame in the domain of CPE. But as you can see, if you want to get the most out of your CPE investment and the best possible CPE programs in the most cost-effective manner, CPEThink.com is the sponsor you need to go with.
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