Codecademy recently switched to the unfortunate business tactic of having brand new users enter their credit card info before even getting to TRY the pro courses, aka the courses that would actually help them and near what is being taught in classrooms.

My Take

Codecademy recently switched to the unfortunate business tactic of having brand new users enter their credit card info before even getting to TRY the pro courses, aka the courses that would actually help them and near what is being taught in classrooms.

Basically, that way they bag a few extra dollars from anyone who tries the class, would otherwise decide against purchasing their service and forgets to go through the process to un-enroll. Furthermore, they “recommend” and by default select you on the pay for one year option, and offer no refunds. So imagine on day 8 you get charged hundreds of dollars for a site you are just trying out? These extra dollars from those who would otherwise not continue are the reason for this despicable business decision. Those interested will still buy pro, which I have always recommended in the past, and the freeloaders will just cancel same as they did before. This goes to show you how codecademy has changed over the years, putting more and more in the paid Pro section, even some just basic programming languages now, and now this.

I teach an entry level data science course and used to recommend codeacademy to all my students, many of which I’m sure went on to pay for excellent content that exists on this site. However, I can’t justify even one of my students coming up to me asking why they lost out on hundreds of dollars and can’t get a refund. These are busy students! And sometimes they don’t listen so well. However, this blatantly greedy business practice will lead myself and other teachers to steer people away from codeacademy on this and other forums.