The 6 Best TOEFL Preparation Courses Ranked for the New Adaptive Test Format

The Ranking in One Table

Regular prices in US dollars where the provider publishes one. BestMyTest prices are shown in your local currency on the plans page.

1. BestMyTest: Best TOEFL Course Overall

Best for: most test-takers on the new adaptive format, and especially anyone who loses points in Speaking or Writing. Every one of its questions is modeled on an official ETS TOEFL question, so you practice the same style, patterns, and difficulty you will meet on test day.

BestMyTest earns the top spot because it is the only course on this list that covers the whole job. Every other course does one or two of these well. BestMyTest does all of them in one place:

• Practice at the official standard, in volume. Over 6,500 questions, every one modeled on an official ETS TOEFL question so it carries the style, pattern, and difficulty of the real exam, from Complete the Words and Read in Daily Life to Listen and Repeat, Take an Interview, Build a Sentence, and Write an Email. The 50 full-length tests follow the 90-minute format, including the multistage adaptive Reading and Listening sections, so the pacing you learn is the pacing you will meet.
• Feedback on every productive answer. Each Speaking and Writing response gets a free instant AI score on every criterion instantly, with feedback. The scoring aligns with official ETS TOEFL rubrics. Any Speaking or Writing answer can go to a detailed AI review, which scores every criterion, colour-codes each word of a Speaking transcript by pronunciation accuracy, and corrects and explains every grammar mistake in an essay. The scoring aligns with official ETS TOEFL rubrics. Or it can go to a TOEFL certified teacher, who scores every criterion, returns audio feedback on Speaking, and corrects your Writing, within three business days. The scoring aligns with official ETS TOEFL rubrics. No other course on this list offers all three.
• A fix for the mistake, not only an explanation of it. The AI Tutor turns a low score into skill exercises: inference drills after a missed Reading question, relative-clause practice after a grammar flag in Writing, a drill on the exact vowel you mispronounce in Speaking. You then practice again and the next instant score tells you whether the fix held.
• Lessons that build English, not only test tactics. 200+ lessons cover reading strategy, listening for implied meaning, grammar, pronunciation, fluency, and essay organisation, backed by vocabulary training on more than 5,000 words.
• Human help on demand. Ask an Instructor answers your questions, and a score forecast tracks how your practice scores are trending toward your target band.
• Terms that respect your test date. An unlimited free trial with no credit card and no time limit, so you can use the course free for as long as you want, then a 7-day pass for a last-minute test or plans from one month to two years. Every plan carries a published score improvement guarantee, and your first practice test sets the baseline if you have never taken the TOEFL. IELTS preparation and BestMyLingo come with the subscription.

BestMyTest is also the only course here that publishes learner outcome data. The TOEFL learner performance data page shows how many learners practiced, how many answers were reviewed, and how many learners improved after reviews, with the method written out. The charts further down this page are drawn from it.

Read the full breakdown on our TOEFL preparation courses page, or compare it head to head with Magoosh and with Magoosh and Study.com together.

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2. Magoosh: Best for Retired ETS Questions

Best for: self-directed learners who want to drill real retired TOEFL questions with a video lesson for each topic.

Magoosh's advantage is the source of its questions. It licenses retired items from ETS, so the Reading passages and Listening clips you practice were once on a real TOEFL. Its plans are labelled as updated for the new adaptive test, the video lessons are clear, and the AI tutor will explain any question you get stuck on. Six months for $129 is good value for a long runway.

Keep in mind: the bank is 1,300 questions, and the full-length tests are assembled from that same bank, so Magoosh itself suggests building only two or three. Human grading covers a capped number of essays through ETS and no Speaking. The score guarantee needs a previous official score, so first-time test-takers are not eligible.

3. Study.com: Best for an AI Chat Tutor

Best for: learners who want a conversational AI to talk them through strategy, in a course developed under an ETS partnership.

ETS named Study.com its official TOEFL test prep partner in November 2025, and the course was built for the new adaptive format from the start, with a diagnostic that places you at a CEFR level per section and an AI tutor you can question at any point. The two-week plan is a sensible shape for a last-minute learner who wants guided practice.

Keep in mind: the partnership covers the course design; the questions are written by Study.com to ETS specifications rather than licensed from ETS. Feedback is AI only, with no human teacher in the product, there is no free trial, and the monthly plan renews until you cancel it. We compare it in more depth on our BestMyTest vs Magoosh vs Study.com page.

4. TST Prep: Best Low-Cost Crash Course

Best for: a test in the next one to two weeks, on a small budget, when you mainly need timed practice and a quick tour of the format.

TST Prep is the budget option and it knows it. The Emergency Course gives you the essentials in about six hours of video from founder Josh MacPherson, two or six practice tests, and a year of access for less than the price of a textbook. The 20-test pack is the cheapest way on this list to buy a large number of full-length tests, and the free new-format practice test lets you check the fit before paying.

Keep in mind: Speaking and Writing feedback is a per-evaluation purchase rather than part of the course, and the larger packages, private lessons, and group classes move the total well above the other self-paced courses here.

5. Kaplan: Best Book-Plus-Course Bundle

Best for: students who want a printed study guide, a familiar brand, and a money-back promise with clear conditions.

Kaplan's Self-Paced for TOEFL iBT course runs for three months and pairs video lessons with a course book and four full-length tests. Its guarantee is spelled out: take at least two Kaplan practice tests, watch every strategy video, answer 200 book questions, sit the TOEFL within 30 days of finishing, and if your score does not rise you choose a refund or a free repeat. The Premium Plus 2026 book has been updated online for the new format and is a cheap companion to any course.

Keep in mind: the course price is not shown on Kaplan's page, four practice tests is the smallest paid set on this list, and Speaking feedback is not part of the package.

6. ETS Official Prep: Best Free Starting Point

Best for: every test-taker, on day one, before spending anything.

ETS writes the TOEFL, so its free sample and full-length practice test are the most exact preview of the new adaptive test's interface, timing, and task types you can get. The free eight-week planner is a reasonable backbone for a study schedule. Take the free test first, note your weakest section, and choose a course from this list to work on it.

Keep in mind: the official materials show you the test; they do not teach it. There are no lessons, the paid TOEFL Practice Online tests are single-attempt and return a score without question review, and nothing in the official set gives you feedback on what you said or wrote.

Six Things a TOEFL Course for the New Adaptive Format Must Do

These are the criteria behind the ranking. Use them on any course, including ours.

1. Cover every task type on the new adaptive format by name. Complete the Words, Read in Daily Life, Read an Academic Passage, Listen and Choose a Response, Listen to a Conversation, Listen to an Announcement, Listen to an Academic Talk, Listen and Repeat, Take an Interview, Build a Sentence, Write an Email, Write for an Academic Discussion. If a course page lists Independent Speaking or Integrated Writing, it is describing the old test. Our new TOEFL format guide walks through each task.
2. Simulate the adaptive sections. Reading and Listening change difficulty after the first stage. A fixed-form practice test teaches the wrong pacing.
3. Give feedback on Speaking and Writing from more than an answer key. At minimum an AI score per criterion on every answer. Ideally a human teacher as well, because rubric scores do not catch everything a listener does.
4. Turn mistakes into exercises. An explanation tells you what was right. An exercise on the skill you missed is what changes your next answer.
5. Let you try the real course first. A free trial of the actual platform, not a sample PDF or a timed window, with no card on file. BestMyTest's is unlimited.
6. Sell access that matches a test date. A one-week option for the last-minute learner and a long plan for a six-month runway, with terms that end when they say they end.

Scored against that list, BestMyTest is the only course that meets all six, and because every question is modeled on an official ETS TOEFL question, the practice itself feels like the real exam in style, pattern, and difficulty. Magoosh meets five, with a smaller bank and capped human grading. Study.com meets four and has no trial. TST Prep, Kaplan, and ETS each cover part of the list well and are best used alongside a full course.

Our Learner Results

Every course on this list quotes happy students. Only one publishes figures you can check. The BestMyTest TOEFL learner performance data is refreshed from our own records, explains how each figure is measured, and the charts below are regenerated from it on each refresh.

Among BestMyTest learners who received three or more reviews of their answers from our AI and teachers, 93% raised their Writing band, by an average of 2,6 bands, and 91% raised their Speaking band, by an average of 2,2 bands.

Behind those figures, 78.777 learners have completed at least one full practice test section on BestMyTest, for 223.191 completed sections in total, and our AI and teachers have reviewed 205.095 Speaking answers and 181.664 Writing responses.

Matching a Course to Your Test Date

• Test in one to two weeks. Take the free ETS sample to see the format, then start the unlimited BestMyTest free trial or the 7-day pass, where every question is modeled on an official ETS TOEFL question: one adaptive test on day one, AI Tutor exercises on the two weakest skills, and instant AI scores on every Speaking and Writing answer until test day. TST Prep's Emergency Course is the budget alternative if you only need timed practice.
• Test in one to two months. A one or two month BestMyTest plan gives you time for a practice test every week, a teacher review of your Speaking and Writing each week, and lessons for the grammar or pronunciation gaps those reviews expose. Magoosh's one-month plan fits if you specifically want retired ETS questions.
• Test in three to six months. Follow a structured TOEFL study plan: build English skills first, then test technique, then timed simulations. BestMyTest's longer plans cover the whole arc with 50 tests to spread across it, and the included IELTS prep and BestMyLingo add general English work. Magoosh's six-month plan is the other long-runway option.
• Not sure yet. Start with the free materials: the ETS sample test, TST Prep's free practice test, and the unlimited BestMyTest free trial. Whichever shows you the clearest picture of your weaknesses is the one to keep.

Whatever the timeline, learn the 1 to 6 TOEFL score scale early and confirm each school's requirement on it, including any minimum section band.

Frequently Asked Questions

How We Ranked These Courses

We scored each course on the six criteria above, using features and regular prices published on the provider's own site in October 2026: Magoosh's plans and score guarantee pages; Study.com's pricing page and course comparison, with the ETS partnership announcement; TST Prep's TOEFL store; Kaplan's TOEFL page and guarantee policy; and ETS's prepare page. Sale prices were ignored. BestMyTest figures are the course contents at the same date, and the learner charts are generated from our published dataset.

BestMyTest is our course. We ranked it first because it is the only one that meets all six criteria, and we have linked every competitor fact to its source so you can check the comparison yourself. The unlimited free trial is the fastest way to test our claim.

TOEFL is a registered trademark of ETS. BestMyTest is not affiliated with ETS, Magoosh, Study.com, TST Prep, or Kaplan.