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UWorld vs Becker CPA
Our in-depth comparison of the Roger (now UWorld) and Becker CPA review courses
Prior to UWorld’s acquisition of Roger CPA Review a couple years ago, there were some major differences between Roger and Becker. However, with the resources and backing of test prep giant UWorld, Roger CPA Review is now much more similar and closely aligned with Becker in terms of course structure, style and digital platform. That said, some differences still remain and students need to know how these prep packages vary. As such, we explore the distinctions between these two CPA review courses in this detailed side-by-side comparison.
As this is a detailed comparison, above find helpful jump-to links for easy navigation.
Video Review: UWorld Or Becker For CPA Prep?
In the video above, John from the Test Prep Insight team (who passed all four sections of the CPA exam on his first try) provides a head-to-head look at the CPA review courses from Becker and UWorld Roger. Of course, you can continue reading our full written comparison below for a more detailed analysis.
To understand which of these CPA review courses is best for you, it’s important to first identify the strengths that Becker and UWorld Roger bring to the table. With that in mind, let’s start by covering the advantages of using Becker to help prepare you for the CPA exam.
Becker Pricing And Course Options
Becker offers three different course options, each with ascending levels of features, content and access. These three prep offerings are as follows:
Advantage
Premium
Pro
Concierge
The Advantage course is Becker’s most basic offering and provides just the essentials. This includes video lessons, practice problems and 24 months of access to your content.
This package lacks some of the more important features of the upper tier packages, but comes in at a fairly reasonable price point of $2,500.
At the next level up, the Premium Becker course is the most popular. It offers the same general features as the Advantage course, but adds in hardcopy prep books, as well as unlimited access.
The inclusion of these additional aspects raises the price tag to approximately $3,100. This is slightly more affordable than UWorld’s’s best-selling course, making Becker the more ideal choice from a pricing perspective.
Unlike UWorld though, Becker provides an even higher end course with its Pro and Concierge packages. The Pro course offering has everything from the Premium course, but adds in live classes (online or in-person), as well as a few hours of private tutoring with a Becker CPA pro.
These extra features ratchet the price tag up to $3,800, which is steep, but if you want the tutoring and valuable element of in-person classes, this may well be worth it. It’s also worth mentioning that Becker’s Concierge course comes with a Pass Guarantee. Basically, the company will reimburse you $250 per section that you fail.
Course options and pricing current as of date of publication.
Our Evaluation Of Becker’s Study Materials
Becker has one of (if not the) most thorough and comprehensive curriculums in the CPA review space. Their student study plan is incredibly detailed and covers every aspect of the CPA exam.
Not only that, it covers the material from a multitude of angles, including on demand video lessons, live classes, textbooks, flashcards and more. Essentially, Becker presents their material in a variety of ways to accommodate just about every learning style.
Their instructional material is led by some very good video-based lectures. These prerecorded lessons take the form of an onscreen, interactive textbook and verbal lesson overlaying it.
The instructor takes notes in the margins, circles key points and generally highlights all the most crucial details that you need to pay attention to in a graphic form. These videos are fantastic and the combination of verbal lessons with visual text is a powerful learning tool.
One of Becker’s video lectures
Just as useful as the video lessons, Becker also offers live class sessions. More on these below, but this live class work provides significant benefit.
In addition, when you sign up with Becker you will receive copies of their textbooks in both digital and print format.
These books are thoughtfully crafted and have been clearly revised time and time again over the years resulting in a fantastic book set. In our team’s opinion, these prep books are better than UWorld Roger’s (and Yaeger’s for that matter).
Finally, Becker also offers a some very high-quality practice questions, both multiple-choice and simulations. And for those who like to keep score, Becker provides 7,000+ multiple-choice questions, and 400+ simulations to UWorld’s 300.
The biggest selling point of the Becker CPA Review course has to be their live classes. This concept of live class time is *almost* exclusive to Becker. I say “almost” because other CPA prep companies do offer live classes, but not nearly to the same extent or with the same depth that Becker does.
Becker offers 90+ hours of live classes, all taught by experts who have years of teaching to the CPA exam under their belt. These class sessions cover generally the same material that is contained in the prerecorded video lessons.
If you have the Premium course, these classes are live online, but with the Pro package you get your choice of taking the classes live online or in person.
Either way, Becker’s classes offer students who need commitment and accountability in their studies an extra nudge to keep their prep moving along. This is something that Roger CPA just doesn’t provide.
Now that you have a better idea of what Becker brings to the table in terms of CPA study materials and features, it’s only fair we now discuss the major pros of using UWorld Roger to help you prep for each section of the CPA exam.
Roger Pricing And Course Options
UWorld Roger CPA Review offers three prep packages to students: the Premier Course, the Elite Course, and Elite Plus Course. Although dubbed the “Premier Course,” this is really their basic package.
Carrying a price tag of roughly $3,500, this package offers the basics of most every CPA review course. This includes video lessons, digital textbooks and practice problems, and 18 months of access to your content. Compared to the analogous Becker starter-level offering, the Roger Premier Course has a higher MSRP.
While that price point may be attractive to some students, UWorld Roger’s more popular option is their Elite Course. In addition to everything you get with the Premier package, you also get access to live bootcamps.
These additional resources add roughly $400 to the total, pricing this course out at around $3,900. At this price point, Roger’s flagship course costs slightly more than Becker’s premium offering.
Lastly, we have UWorld Roger’s Elite Unlimited Plus Course, which includes a similar Pass Guarantee to that of Becker. That’s the big difference between their Elite and Elite Plus prep packages.
If you are looking for a lower priced CPA course, you may want to consider Surgent or Gleim for your CPA review needs.
Course options and pricing current as of date of publication.
Evaluation Of Roger’s CPA Coursework
Similar to Becker, UWorld Roger CPA Review offers a very robust course curriculum. We couldn’t find any gaps in the coursework or lesson plans, ensuring you get coverage of everything you need to know for the exam.
In addition, the course is nicely structured into learning modules which align generally with the various subtopics covered on the exam.
At the heart of UWorld Roger CPA’s study plan is the video-based instruction. This is generally what you are paying for when you sign up with UWorld Roger CPA Review. There is nothing truly remarkable about the practice questions or textbooks with Roger – it’s all about the lessons.
Company founder Roger Philipp and legendary accounting professor Peter Olinto lead all the video lessons and they do a masterful job conveying otherwise dry and complex topics. They both bring a crazy level of energy to each lesson and convey concepts through anecdotes, mnemonics and jokes.
They are downright entertaining, making these the most engaging videos in the industry by far.
One of Roger’s stellar video lectures
Beyond the video lectures, the UWorld Roger CPA Review is rather average in a lot of ways. That is not to imply the course lacks in any regard, but it is more or less on par with other CPA prep providers in other respects.
Roger offers 8,000+ multiple-choice questions and 300 or so simulations, which is somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of quantity (not as much as Gleim). That said, the quality of these practice questions and simulations is very good.
They very closely mimic real CPA exam questions, and we were quite pleased with the accompanying text explanation for each problem as well.
Overall, UWorld Roger CPA Review boasts a pretty standard prep course that is buoyed by its fantastic video lessons.
Course Highlight: Engaging Video Lessons
As should be clear by now, Roger CPA Review’s video lessons make this course, and are by far and away the highlight here. Mr. Philipp (who is never called that by the way, always Roger) and Mr. Olinto are constantly in motion, drawing notes on the whiteboard, gesticulating wildly to emphasize points, and generally causing his passion to ooze through the screen.
You can tell by watching the lessons that they just plain care and want you to learn and succeed. These lively lectures are permeated with jokes, anecdotes, mnemonics and more (unlike the lessons from Surgent, for example).
Basically, if there’s a memory aid Roger and Olinto can use to improve your retention, they use it. All of this together makes it difficult to look away, which is a very good thing when it’s 10pm and you’re trying to study some nuanced FAR lesson.
And one other aspect of the video lessons that we particularly like is that the accompanying portion of the UWorld Roger CPA review textbook is displayed on screen to the right of the video portion of the lesson.
This allows you to track along in written format, though Roger’s verbal lessons go into much greater detail and provide context that you just don’t get through the book. All in all, these video lessons are absolutely top notch and are what sell this course.
Becker and UWorld Roger CPA Review are similar in many ways – namely through their top end video lectures, comprehensive curriculums, and sleek digital platforms.
But the two are also different in many regards as well, including quantity of practice problems, live class sessions and more.
Hopefully this comparison guide has been helpful in highlighting the differences between the courses so that you can make a decision on which course is best for you. But just in case you need a final verdict, here is our blow-by-blow summary:
Lessons and Coursework:Edge: Becker. Nobody provides a core curriculum and study materials that are as extensive and detailed as Becker. UWorld Roger does an admirable job and offers a great all-around package of coursework, but Becker’s video lessons, live lectures and practice problems are just too good.
Price:Edge: Becker. Becker’s CPA courses, believe it or not, are actually more affordable than UWorld’s from an MSRP perspective. Plus, Becker is quite aggressive with sales and discounts as well.
Books:Edge: Becker. The textbooks offered by Becker have been consistently updated and revised by Becker’s team of CPA experts for decades. This has resulted in a set of incredibly through, yet succinct, prep books that are artfully crafted to spoon feed you the necessary content. UWorld Roger’s books aren’t bad, but just don’t stack up here.
Practice Exams:Edge: Becker. Becker offers 8 full-length simulated exams with totally new content. Roger also provides practice exams, but their questions are recycled from their test bank and they do not have the never before seen questions like Becker. To our team, this is the difference maker when the aim is to practice under exam-like conditions.
Interface and User Experience: We have this as a tie. Prior to UWorld’s purchase of Roger CPA Review, the winner likely would have been Becker here. But now that they’re backed by a test prep giant like UWorld and have upgraded their digital platform, Roger stands toe-to-toe with Becker in this respect.
Supplemental Resources:Edge: UWorld. We like Becker’s supplemental resources a lot, but UWorld’s add-ons are simply too strong. Altogether they offer audio lectures, final review cram courses, customizable digital flashcards, a mobile app and student forums. Becker offers some of the same extras, but UWorld’s study resources are just too good not to give credit where it is due.
Online Content Access Period:Edge: Becker. Becker and Roger generally offer the same content access duration on their primary course offerings, which is unlimited. That is, when you sign up for either’s flagship course, you’re effectively getting access for life. However, one difference lies with the basic courses of each. UWorld’s basic course carries a content access period of 18 months, while Becker’s basic package gives 24 months duration.
All in all, our team gives Becker the win. If you simply want the best CPA course period to help you pass, Becker is the answer.
Which CPA review course costs more – Becker or UWorld Roger?
On average, the CPA review courses from Becker are slightly cheaper than those from UWorld Roger. Plus, Becker seems to be more aggressive with sales and discounts as well.
What’s the main difference between the UWorld Roger and Becker CPA review courses?
The primary difference between UWorld Roger and Becker revolves around lesson work. UWorld Roger is known for their awesome and engaging video lectures with founder Roger Philipp, while Becker has the beneficial feature of live classes (online or in-person).
Which company provides more study material, Becker or UWorld Roger?
Becker provides more task-based simulations than UWorld Roger. On the other hand, UWorld Roger offers slightly more multiple choice questions in comparison to Becker.
