Which IELTS Prep Course Is Best? BestMyTest vs Magoosh vs IELTS Online Tests

The Verdict in Brief

1. BestMyTest is our pick for most test-takers: 3,000+ questions covering every IELTS question type for Academic and General Training, 50 full-length practice tests with diagnostic reports, a free instant band score on every Speaking and Writing answer, detailed AI reviews and IELTS certified teacher reviews, AI Tutor skill exercises, 200 lessons, an unlimited free trial with no credit card, and published student outcome data.
2. Magoosh is a solid video course with 850+ expert-written questions, 120+ video lessons, unlimited AI grading, a 7-day free trial, and a clear refund policy, but a smaller bank, up to 10 mocks drawn from it, and no human reviewer.
3. IELTS Online Tests is a very large free library of mock tests with examiner evaluations at $19.99 per test, AI evaluations sold per use, and separate paid video courses; strong for measuring yourself, lighter on teaching and on feedback volume.

All three cover Academic and General Training, including Writing Task 1 letters for General Training and charts and processes for Academic.

Three Services, Three Approaches

Magoosh teaches through video and expert-written questions. It pairs 850+ questions, each with an explanation video, with 120+ video lessons, and grades your Speaking and Writing practice with AI as often as you like. You set your own schedule, with study schedules from one week to one month, and an AI tutor is on hand to explain anything you get stuck on. Grading is AI only.

IELTS Online Tests gives you a free test library and sells the extras. Run by InterGreat Education Group, it offers free mock tests in all four skills with a new one every month, reports more than 100 million test attempts, and sells examiner evaluations of Writing or Speaking at $19.99 per test, AI evaluations per use, PDF test packs, recorded lessons, MasterClass video courses from $70, and 1-on-1 coaching. The free tests are scored by answer key; teaching and feedback are separate purchases.

BestMyTest teaches through practice, review, and skill repair. You practise from 3,000+ questions covering every IELTS question type or take one of 50 full-length tests with a diagnostic score report. Every Speaking and Writing answer gets a free instant band score, and any answer can go to a detailed AI review or an IELTS certified teacher, each scored against the official IELTS band descriptors. The AI Tutor then turns the weakness found in that review into exercises, and you practise again. The whole loop is open during the free trial, which is unlimited: no credit card, no time limit, for as long as you want.

What Each One Includes

Figures are each company's own, read in October 2026.

Plans and Pricing

Compare what each price buys rather than the first number on the screen. Magoosh's $129 covers six months of everything on its plan. IELTS Online Tests is free until you want feedback or teaching, and then it is $19.99 per evaluated test and $70 and up per course, so ten human reviews alone are about $200. BestMyTest's 7-day pass suits a test next week, and its one to six month plans and one and two year plans fall in monthly cost as the term grows, with every review included and the TOEFL course and BestMyLingo on every plan. Current prices in your currency are on the BestMyTest IELTS plans page. A single IELTS retake costs more than any of these, so the course that fixes your weaknesses before test day is the one that saves money.

Practice Tests and Question Banks

IELTS runs about two hours and forty-five minutes across Listening, Reading, and Writing, with Speaking as a separate 11 to 14 minute interview, and reports a band from 0 to 9 in half-band steps. A good practice test reproduces that timing, and you need enough of them to measure progress week after week without memorising the material.

• BestMyTest: 50 full-length tests for Academic or General Training, each ending in a diagnostic score report with a band per section, a breakdown by question type, and the skills to work on next. Individual practice draws on a separate bank of 3,000+ questions covering all 14 Reading question types, all four Listening parts, Speaking Parts 1 to 3, and both Writing tasks, so taking tests never uses up your practice questions.
• Magoosh: up to 10 full-length mock tests assembled from the same 850+ questions you practise with, so each test you build uses up practice items. Each question has an explanation video.
• IELTS Online Tests: a large free library of Listening, Reading, Writing, and Speaking tests with a new mock test each month, scored by answer key, plus downloadable packs of 100+ Reading and 120+ Listening tests for $1.99 each.

On volume alone, IELTS Online Tests has the most free tests to sit. On what you learn from each test, BestMyTest's diagnostic report is the difference: it tells you which question types cost you marks and opens the exercises for them, which is why the practice volume and the training around the questions carry the most weight in our ranking.

Speaking and Writing Feedback

This is where the three services separate most clearly, because it is the part of IELTS preparation that a bigger test library cannot solve on its own.

Our IELTS speaking review and IELTS writing review pages show what each kind of review contains and how students use them together.

Turning Mistakes into Band Scores

Most students who plateau on IELTS are not short of practice. They are repeating the same error in a new test. The useful test of a course is what it does the moment you get something wrong.

Magoosh shows an explanation video for the question and lets you ask its AI tutor to explain further. You then move on.

IELTS Online Tests shows you the answer key. If you want to know why your essay scored a 6, you buy an evaluation; if you want to learn the skill, you buy a course.

BestMyTest treats the mistake as data. A low grammatical range score in a Writing review opens AI Tutor exercises on the structures you misused. A run of wrong True/False/Not Given answers opens exercises on the difference between False and Not Given. A mispronounced vowel opens drills on that sound, with your recording next to the model. Then you return to practice and the next instant score tells you whether the fix held.

That loop is the reason we rank BestMyTest first. It is the only one of the three that closes the gap between "I got it wrong" and "I can now do it", and it does so for every Speaking and Writing answer you submit.

Our Student Results

Magoosh does not publish how many of its IELTS students improve or by how much; its guarantee is a refund policy rather than a result. IELTS Online Tests shows an average gain chart and result videos on its home page. BestMyTest publishes its figures with the method attached. The IELTS learner performance data is updated from our own records, explains how every figure is measured, and regenerates the charts below each time it is refreshed. Every student's before-and-after band is listed on our IELTS student score improvements page.

Among students who received three or more reviews of their answers from our AI and teachers, 91% raised their IELTS Writing band, by an average of 2.6 bands, and 82% raised their Speaking band, by an average of 2.2 bands.

Those figures sit on 62,346 reviewed Speaking answers and 21,345 reviewed Writing tasks, from 65,686 students who completed at least one full practice test section.

If Magoosh or IELTS Online Tests publish comparable outcome data with a method, we will add it here.

Our Pick for Each Situation

• Test in under two weeks: BestMyTest on the 7-day pass. Take a full practice test on day one, let the diagnostic report choose your AI Tutor exercises, and use the instant band scores on every Speaking and Writing answer until test day.
• Speaking or Writing is your weak section: BestMyTest. It is the only one of the three with an IELTS certified teacher's review included, and the only one with a word-by-word pronunciation review and a corrected rewrite of your own essay.
• You want a free mock test today: IELTS Online Tests, or the BestMyTest free trial, which includes full-length tests with diagnostic reports and has no time limit.
• You learn best from video lessons: Magoosh's 120+ videos and per-question explanation videos are its strength. BestMyTest's 200 lessons sit beside the practice they relate to.
• You want practice that matches the real test: BestMyTest, with every one of the 14 Reading question types, all four Listening parts, both Writing tasks for Academic and General Training, and Speaking Parts 1 to 3, across 3,000+ questions and 50 full-length tests.
• You want to improve your English, not only your test technique: BestMyTest, for the 200 lessons, 5,000+ IELTS words, and skill exercises, with the TOEFL course and BestMyLingo included.

Start your unlimited free trial

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources and Method

Competitor figures were read in October 2026 from Magoosh's plans, features, and score guarantee pages, and from IELTS Online Tests' home page, examiner evaluation page, and MasterClass 6 course page. BestMyTest figures are the course contents at the same date, and the student charts are generated from our published dataset.

We sell one of the three services, and this page says which one we think you should pick and why. Everything we say about the other two links to their own pages, and all three let you start free, BestMyTest with no time limit.

IELTS is a registered trademark of the British Council, IDP IELTS, and Cambridge University Press & Assessment. BestMyTest is not affiliated with them, Magoosh, or IELTS Online Tests.