Gleim vs Becker CPA: price, question bank and who each is for

On September 9, 2026 three CPA courses cost exactly $2,499: Gleim Traditional, Becker Advantage, and Becker Pro on a promotion running to September 14. Gleim publishes more than 12,000 multiple-choice questions and more than 1,200 task-based simulations on every product it sells; the Becker packages page prints no headline question count at all. Buy Gleim if you are paying yourself and you want practice volume. Buy Becker if your employer reimburses it or you need live classes and a human tutor. If you are looking at Becker Advantage during a promotion, buy Pro instead, because it was the same price with more in it.

Every figure below was read from gleim.com and becker.com on September 9, 2026. That matters more than usual here, because almost every comparison of these two courses is published by a site earning a commission on whichever link you click, and because Becker discounts three of its five packages several times a year. An undated price for either of these products is not worth much.

How much does Gleim cost compared to Becker?

The two brands overlap at the bottom and separate sharply at the top. Gleim runs from $999 to $3,499. Becker runs from $2,499 to $6,349 at list. So Becker most expensive package costs $2,850 more than Gleim most expensive package, and Gleim has a product below anything Becker sells.

The row that should change someone's mind is Becker Advantage. It costs $2,499 and gives you 24 months of access. Becker Pro lists at $3,845 and was selling for the same $2,499 through September 14, with unlimited access, live online classes, one-to-one tutoring sessions and the $1,000 pass guarantee that Advantage does not carry. For that fortnight, anyone buying Advantage was paying full price for strictly less. Becker runs promotions of this size several times a year, so the practical advice is to check whether one is live before you buy the entry package. We keep a running breakdown of what Becker CPA costs at every tier.

Which has the bigger question bank?

Gleim, on published numbers, and the gap is not subtle. Every Gleim CPA product carries more than 12,000 multiple-choice questions and more than 1,200 task-based simulations. That is the same bank at $999 as at $3,499, which is unusual and is the single most useful thing to know about Gleim pricing. Becker does not print a headline multiple-choice count on its CPA packages page. It describes its assets differently: live classes, printed textbooks it values at $500, a Final Review capstone at $599, Newt, its exam review AI assistant, and between 5 and 25 one-to-one tutoring sessions depending on package.

Worth flagging while you shop: several widely-cited roundups credit Gleim with 1,600-plus simulations. We opened all four Gleim CPA product pages and every one says 1,200-plus. The figure appears to have been copied wrong once and then copied again, which tells you something about how those pages are maintained.

Does Gleim have a pass guarantee like Becker?

Not in the way most people mean. Gleim offers Access Until You Pass from its $2,999 Premium tier upward, which keeps your material live until you actually pass. It refunds nothing. Gleim Traditional at $2,499 does not include it at all, carrying instead an 18-month currency guarantee: Gleim undertakes that the material stays current for at least 18 months, and if a new edition ships for a section you bought but have not passed inside that window, you may qualify for replacement books at the cost of shipping.

Becker offers a $1,000 pass guarantee on Pro and Pro+, and reserves a full 100 percent money-back guarantee for the $6,349 Concierge package. Neither vendor refunds what your state board charges to re-sit a section, which is the cost that actually hurts. Treat both guarantees as a discount on a second purchase rather than as insurance, and read the access period instead: for a candidate working full time, four sections running past 18 months is the ordinary outcome, not the bad one.

Is Gleim as respected as Becker?

Both are 50-year-old brands and no state board or firm cares which one you used. What differs is institutional habit. Large accounting firms standardise on Becker and frequently reimburse it, which is why Becker can charge up to $6,349 while Gleim tops out at $3,499. That is a distribution advantage rather than a quality verdict. Gleim built its reputation on question volume and on explanations that cite the underlying literature, which is why it is the more common choice among self-funded candidates and among people retaking a section.

Which one should you buy?

One decision worth making before you buy rather than after: your discipline section is the one that shows up on your license, and it should follow the work you actually want to do. Candidates who pick BAR because they want to end up in reporting and assurance are choosing well, and that is increasingly where the growth is, including in newer areas like emissions reporting and assurance that barely existed when these two courses were written. Picking a discipline because a forum said it was easiest is how people end up studying material they never touch again.

Framing this as a two-horse race is also how candidates overspend. Surgent sells until-you-pass access to all six sections from $799, well under both. UWorld, the course most people still call Roger, was selling Elite-Unlimited at $2,299 against a $3,899 list. We keep the full set of CPA review courses compared, and a separate piece on UWorld against Becker if those two are your shortlist instead. The full range for the same four core sections runs from $799 to $6,349, an eight to one spread for material tested against the same AICPA blueprints.

The thing neither course sells you enough of

Whichever you buy, the thing that moves a CPA score is answered questions with explanations you actually read, and every course rations those two ways: by tier, and by clock. Twelve thousand questions is a lot until you have worked a section twice and started recognising items instead of reasoning through them, which is the point at which your practice scores stop telling you anything true.

That is the gap Aspirants.ai fills at $9 a month. It generates unlimited fresh CPA questions across AUD, FAR, REG and whichever discipline you picked, explains every answer choice including why the wrong ones were built to look right, and answers the follow-up at eleven at night when a rationale has not landed. It is not a replacement for a review course and we would not sell it as one: no printed books, no counselor, no guarantee. It is the practice volume underneath whichever course you choose, and it is worth trying on a handful of REG questions before you spend two or three thousand dollars, if only to find out which sections are actually hurting you. We have also written up the full Gleim CPA Review price picture, including the $999 product Gleim keeps off its main CPA page.