Disclosure: We are a professional review site that receives compensation from the companies whose products we review.
By the KYI Team. Last updated 7 November 2026: every price, trial and guarantee below was checked on the platform’s own site that day.
Black Friday 2026: Our top pick, Guitar Tricks, is currently selling a year of Full Access for $99 instead of $179, with a bundle of extras, until the sale ends. See what is in the $99 Black Friday deal. TrueFire’s annual plan was also on sale, at $77.88, when we checked.
The quick picks
| Need | Our pick | Price | Trial |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for beginners overall | Guitar Tricks | $29.95 a month or $179 a year | 14 days, plus a 60-day guarantee |
| Best for intermediate and advanced | TrueFire (includes JamPlay) | $249.99 a year at list, often far less on sale ($77.88 when checked); $29 a month or $99 a year through jamplay.com | 7 days (14 through jamplay.com) |
| Best free | JustinGuitar | Free; app from $64.99 a year | n/a |
| Best cheap and casual | Fender Play | $19.99 a month or $149.99 a year | 7 days (14 on annual) |
| Best for coaching and feedback | Pickup Music | $29.99 a month or $179.99 a year | 14 days, plus a 60-day guarantee |
| Best app for kids and practice habits | Yousician | Premium+ $29.99 a month or $139.99 a year | 7 days |
| Best for serious study with a master teacher | ArtistWorks | From about $20 a month; $115.13 or $172.73 a year on the current sale | 7 days |
How we tested
We have used Guitar Tricks ourselves; the notes on its lessons, song library and instructors come from our own account. For every platform on this page we re-checked prices, trials, guarantees, instruments and instructor rosters on its own site on 7 November 2026, and compared the published beginner paths and song libraries. Where a platform did not state a guarantee, the table says so.
The full comparison
| Guitar Tricks | TrueFire + JamPlay | Fender Play | JustinGuitar | Pickup Music | Yousician | ArtistWorks | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly | $29.95 | $29 (via jamplay.com) | $19.99 | Free (app from $8.99) | $29.99 | $19.99 (one instrument) or $29.99 (Premium+) | From about $20 per school |
| Annual | $179 ($143.20 with SAVE20) | $249.99 list, $77.88 on sale when checked; $99 via jamplay.com | $149.99 | App $64.99 to $129.99 | $179.99 | $119.99 (one instrument) or $139.99 (Premium+) | $115.13 (Standard) or $172.73 (Premium) on sale |
| Trial | 14 days | 7 days (14 via jamplay.com) | 7 days (14 on annual) | Free | 14 days | 7 days | 7 days |
| Guarantee | 60 days | 14-day refund | None stated | n/a | 60 days | None stated | None stated |
| Instruments | Guitar | Guitar and bass | Guitar, bass, ukulele | Guitar | Guitar, bass, piano | Guitar, bass, piano, ukulele, singing | Guitar, bass, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, piano, ukulele, vocals and more |
| Structure | Step-by-step core path then four style courses | Learning paths over a huge catalogue | Song-based genre paths | Graded free course | Six graded pathways, daily lessons | Game levels, microphone feedback | One master teacher per school |
| Feedback | Weekly Q&A video and instructor video feedback included | None included | None | Community | Coach video feedback and live lessons included | Automatic note detection | Video Exchange with the teacher on the Premium plan |
| Apps | iOS, Android | iOS, Android | iOS, Android | iOS, Android | iOS, Android | iOS, Android | Web, iOS, Android |
1. Guitar Tricks: best for beginners
$29.95 a month or $179 a year · 14-day free trial · 60-day guarantee
The Guitar Tricks member home page from our account.
Guitar Tricks has been teaching guitar online since 1998 and has the most carefully built beginner path of anything we have tested. The Core Learning System (Guitar Fundamentals 1 and 2) assumes you have never held a guitar, moves in three-to-five-minute videos, and puts tab and notation next to every video so you never have to rewind to catch a note. After that come four full style courses (Blues, Rock, Country, Acoustic), lessons in 12 more styles, Artist Studies, and a song library of more than 1,000 songs that breaks each one into parts with single-guitar arrangements and jam tracks. Full Access now also includes a weekly instructor Q&A video and a Feedback System in which an instructor replies to a video of your playing; a custom lesson plan ($39) and live 1-on-1 lessons cost extra.
It is not the deepest platform for advanced players; past the style courses the material thins, and jazz in particular is light. But for the first year or two of playing, nothing else is as well ordered, and the annual price works out to $14.92 a month.
Good: best beginner path; tab on every lesson; superb song breakdowns; feedback included; longest guarantee. Not so good: thin for advanced players; guitar only; monthly price is high.
Full Guitar Tricks review · Every current discount · What every plan costs
2. TrueFire (including JamPlay): best for intermediate and advanced players
$249.99 a year at list, on sale at $77.88 when we checked; $29 a month or $99 a year through jamplay.com · 7-day trial (14 through jamplay.com) · 14-day refund
A TrueFire course page from our account: video, interactive tab and the lesson list.
TrueFire bought JamPlay and now runs the combined library as JamPlay + TrueFire: 1,900+ courses and 85,000+ interactive lessons by TrueFire’s count, from players including Robben Ford, Tommy Emmanuel, Steve Vai, Marty Friedman, Andy Timmons, Larry Carlton and Eric Johnson, across guitar and bass. If you can already play and want to go deep in a style, it has more than you will ever finish. The catch is the same as it was for JamPlay: it is a catalogue, not a path. Beginners get lost. TrueFire discounts All Access constantly, so never pay list.
Good: the biggest and deepest library; famous instructors; bass as well as guitar. Not so good: overwhelming for beginners; short trial on truefire.com; no feedback included.
TrueFire review · Guitar Tricks vs TrueFire · Guitar Tricks vs JamPlay · See TrueFire
3. JustinGuitar: best free online guitar lessons
Free on the website · app with a free tier and paid plans from $8.99 a month or $64.99 a year
Justin Sandercoe’s site is the best free guitar course anywhere, and we would recommend it without hesitation to anyone with no budget. The Beginner Course runs through three grades, the intermediate material covers theory, ear training and practice routines better than most paid platforms, and the song library is large. What you give up against Guitar Tricks is structure in the song lessons (usually one video per song, no part-by-part breakdown), tab beside every video, and any instructor feedback. The app adds play-along tools and chord charts for a modest subscription.
Good: free; a brilliant teacher; strong theory. Not so good: you organise yourself; no feedback; fewer deep song breakdowns.
Guitar Tricks vs JustinGuitar · See JustinGuitar
4. Fender Play: best cheap, casual option
$19.99 a month or $149.99 a year · 7-day trial (14 on the annual plan) · guitar, bass, ukulele
Fender Play’s starter path: three short lessons to a first riff.
Fender Play is built to get you playing a riff from a song you know in the first session, and it does, in a cleaner interface than anyone else’s. Genre paths, high-quality video, and ukulele and bass included. The limit is depth: intermediate material exists but is thin and not promoted, and most people exhaust it inside a few months. There is no community and no feedback. For someone who wants to strum a dozen songs and stop there, it is the right buy; for someone who wants to become a guitarist, Guitar Tricks goes much further for similar money on the annual plan.
Good: easiest start; cheapest monthly; ukulele and bass. Not so good: runs out of road; no feedback; web-versus-app subscription confusion.
Fender Play review · Guitar Tricks vs Fender Play · See Fender Play
5. Pickup Music: best for coaching and feedback
$29.99 a month or $179.99 a year · 14-day trial · 60-day guarantee · guitar, bass, piano
Pickup Music is the most modern design in the group: six graded Learning Pathways with daily lessons and play-along workouts, a performance challenge with a live backing band at the end of each grade, weekly live lessons, and 1-on-1 video feedback from coaches included in the membership. For an intermediate player who has plateaued and wants someone to tell them what is wrong, it is the best option here. The song library is smaller and newer than Guitar Tricks’, and the grades move fast for an absolute beginner.
Good: coach feedback included; clear graded curriculum; live lessons. Not so good: fewer song lessons; brisk for total beginners.
Guitar Tricks vs Pickup Music · See Pickup Music
6. Yousician: best app for kids and practice habits
Premium+ $29.99 a month or $139.99 a year; single instrument $19.99 a month or $119.99 a year · 7-day trial
Yousician listens through your device’s microphone and scores you as you play, with streaks and levels. It is the best thing on this list for getting a child (or a lapsed adult) to pick the guitar up every day. It is weak at teaching technique, because it cannot see your hands, and players who learn only on Yousician often cannot play without the scrolling notes. Use it to build the habit, then move to a course that teaches.
Good: motivating; instant feedback; piano, bass, ukulele and singing too. Not so good: does not teach technique; limited beyond beginner.
Guitar Tricks vs Yousician · See Yousician
7. ArtistWorks: best for serious study with a master teacher
From about $20 a month; $115.13 (Standard) or $172.73 (Premium) a year on the current sale · 7-day trial
ArtistWorks is a different model: you pick one teacher’s school (Paul Gilbert for rock, Martin Taylor for fingerstyle jazz, Chuck Loeb for jazz, Jason Vieaux for classical, Keith Wyatt for blues, Bryan Sutton for bluegrass, Nathan East and John Patitucci for bass), work through their course, and on the Premium plan submit videos of yourself through Video Exchange for the teacher’s personal reply. The replies are the point, and nowhere else gets you that close to a player of that level. It is academic in tone, every exchange is visible to other students, and the Premium plan that unlocks feedback costs more. For a determined player with a specific style in mind, it is worth it; for a beginner who just wants to play songs, it is overkill.
Good: world-class teachers; personal video feedback; many instruments. Not so good: one school per subscription; feedback only on Premium; public exchanges.
ArtistWorks review · See ArtistWorks
Best online guitar lessons by what you want to play
Best for complete beginners. Guitar Tricks. Fundamentals 1 and 2 are the gentlest, best-ordered start we have tested. JustinGuitar if you would rather not pay.
Best online guitar lessons for kids. Yousician for under-12s (the game keeps them going), Fender Play for a simple song-first path, Guitar Tricks for a teenager who is serious.
Best for electric guitar. Guitar Tricks for the Rock and Blues style courses and the song library; TrueFire once you want to specialise in a style or an artist.
Best for acoustic guitar. Guitar Tricks’ Acoustic style course, then TrueFire for fingerstyle depth (Tommy Emmanuel) and ArtistWorks for Martin Taylor.
Best for blues guitar. Guitar Tricks’ Blues course to get you jamming; TrueFire for Robben Ford and the deep blues catalogue after that, or Keith Wyatt’s school at ArtistWorks.
Best for jazz guitar. Not Guitar Tricks; its jazz material is a short course. TrueFire for breadth (Pat Martino is on the roster), ArtistWorks for Chuck Loeb’s school or Martin Taylor’s fingerstyle jazz.
Best for classical guitar. Guitar Tricks has classical pieces in its song library but no classical course. ArtistWorks has a classical guitar school taught by Grammy winner Jason Vieaux.
Best online bass guitar lessons. Guitar Tricks does not teach bass. TrueFire, Pickup Music and ArtistWorks (Nathan East, John Patitucci) do; Fender Play and Yousician cover the basics.
Best free online guitar lessons. JustinGuitar, by a distance. Guitar Tricks’ 14-day trial is the best free look at a paid course.
Best guitar learning app. Yousician for practice, Guitar Tricks’ app for lessons, JustinGuitar’s app for value.
Online lessons vs a teacher
An in-person teacher costs $25 to $50 a lesson in most of the US and UK. A year of Guitar Tricks costs less than four of those lessons and gives you a complete beginner course, four style courses and a song library. What you lose is someone watching your hands every week. Pickup Music, ArtistWorks and Guitar Tricks’ feedback tools narrow that gap; none of them close it. Our view: online for the first year, a few in-person lessons when you plateau, and online again for repertoire.
What online guitar lessons cost in 2026
Roughly $20 to $30 a month, or $140 to $250 a year at list, with every platform discounting around Black Friday and New Year. Guitar Tricks runs a $99-a-year deal several times a year (tracked here); TrueFire’s annual plan is on sale more often than not. The free option is JustinGuitar.
Compare Guitar Tricks with each platform
Guitar Tricks vs JamPlay · Guitar Tricks vs TrueFire · Guitar Tricks vs Fender Play · Guitar Tricks vs JustinGuitar · Guitar Tricks vs Yousician · Guitar Tricks vs Pickup Music
Frequently asked questions
What is the best online guitar course for beginners?
Guitar Tricks, for its step-by-step Core Learning System and tab on every lesson. JustinGuitar if you want free.
Are online guitar lessons effective?
Yes, if you practise. The platforms above are better organised than most private teachers; what they cannot do is watch your hands every week. Pick one with feedback if that worries you.
Which guitar learning app is best?
Yousician for building a practice habit, Guitar Tricks’ app for actual lessons.
Which is better, Guitar Tricks or JustinGuitar?
Full comparison. Guitar Tricks is more structured with better song breakdowns and included feedback; JustinGuitar is free and brilliantly taught.
Is JamPlay still available?
Its library is now part of TrueFire, sold as JamPlay + TrueFire. Details.
Last updated 7 November 2026 by the KYI Team.
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