How does Course Hero make money?

The company offers a freemium model, where users can pay to access more content and ask questions

Course Hero is an online learning platform that provides students with access to a library of study resources. Launched in 2006 by Andrew Grauer, the company aims to help students succeed academically by offering various educational materials, including study guides, practice problems, class notes, and step-by-step explanations. 

The platform offers textbook solutions and step-by-step explanations to popular textbook questions, verified by educators, as well as a an AI proofreading tool, an AI paraphrasing tool, an AI grammar checker, and literature study guides, with in-depth literary analysis via study guides, infographics, and essays.

It also provides homework help, where users can get connected with a verified expert tutor 24/7 and receive answers and explanations in as few as 30 minutes.

Course Hero also caters to educators, allowing them to create a Verified Educator account to access sample assignments, case studies, lectures, labs, and syllabi, shared by higher education faculty and students.

So far, more than 200,000 faculty across the United States, Canada, and Australia have joined the Course Hero educator community.

Course Hero operates on a freemium model, combining free access with premium services. While users can access some content for free, most of the premium study materials and features require a paid subscription. 

A free Course Hero membership includes pay-per-question access to the company's 24/7 Homework Help, full access to its free literature infographics, as well as the ability to browse study documents in its library. These users won’t be able to fully view or download study documents, but they can earn full access to documents by contributing their own study materials to the Course Hero library.

Premium members, on the other hand, receive the benefits of a Basic membership, receive 30 unlocks per month to access resources in Course Hero’s library, and receive up to 40 Tutor Questions depending on their membership. Premier members also get access to 24/7 homework help from our expert tutors; access Course Hero's library of over 25 million course-specific study resources; and unlimited access to the company's textbook solutions.

Premier starts at $9.95 a month, while Premier Plus cost $11.95 a month and also gives users to QuillBot, which includes unlimited paraphraser, citation generator, and grammar checker, as well as Symbolab, which includes a step-by-step math solver, math word problem solver, graphing calculator, and geometry problem solver.

While free members can seek help from its online tutors at an a la carte price. Premier members may unlock up to 30 documents and/or User Questions, as well as access all Textbook Solutions and Explanations in Course Hero’s library and receive up to 40 Questions.

On top of subscription fees, Course Hero also generates revenue through its tutoring services, where students can pay for one-on-one tutoring sessions; while Premier members pay for a set number of tutor questions, free members can seek help from tutors at an a la carte price.

(Image source: coursehero.com)