Brilliant app review: what 68 courses and 500 reviews show

By the edgi team Facts checked September 30, 2026

If you want to learn about the world beyond math and code, edgi is the app we'd pick: it's free, a Lesson takes 60 seconds, and every idea you finish becomes a card on a Map of what you know. Brilliant, the app this review is about, is built for practicing math and code: its 68 courses hold 2,694 lessons of interactive exercises (from fractions to Python), and the app is rated 4.73 out of 5 from 32,725 App Store ratings as of September 30, 2026. It isn't the app for science beyond physics and circuits, or for anything outside math and code, and its free plan, two lessons a day, is enough to judge it but not to learn much on.

We make edgi, a learning app that competes with Brilliant, and we built it to be the most fun way to learn something new.

What we looked at, on September 30, 2026: all 68 course pages in Brilliant's public sitemap, counted lesson by lesson; its US App Store listing with its version history, plus the 500 most recent written reviews in Apple's public feed; its Help Center, its own "Is Brilliant worth it?" page and its llms.txt. We didn't make an account, pay or use the app, and we couldn't open a lesson without signing in, so anything below about the inside of Brilliant is in Brilliant's words or its reviewers'.

What's in Brilliant: every course, counted

Brilliant's sitemap has 68 course pages. Each one lists its lessons and how many exercises they hold, so we added them up: 2,694 lessons and 33,154 exercises, sorted here by the 13 Learning Paths Brilliant files them under.

Counted from Brilliant's public course pages, September 30, 2026. Grade bands are Brilliant's own.

Most of it is math, and the biggest block is school math. The four paths Brilliant labels by grade hold 22 of the 68 courses, 41% of the lessons and 58% of the exercises. Brilliant says as much: it covers math "from grade 4 foundations through college-level topics" and is "most commonly used in grades 5-12, while advanced courses also serve college students and adults."

Code is the biggest subject after math, and it's a real shelf. Python and Programming and CS add 13 courses and 372 lessons, from Thinking in Code to Recursion in Python, and Data Analysis adds five more courses.

Science is five courses and 7% of the lessons: Circuits, Digital Circuits, Quantum Computing, Scientific Thinking (gears, balances, optics) and Science Puzzles, which Brilliant pitches as "one puzzle a day for a month" and which has one exercise per lesson. Science Puzzles is also the only course that mentions biology ("foundational mechanics, chemistry, and biology"), and one of its 59 puzzles is called "What Are the Father's Alleles?" No course is about history, art, psychology or music.

Two courses aren't finished. Limits has 27 lessons and 37 "coming soon" slots, and Derivatives has 23 lessons and 34. The other three Advanced Math courses (Calculus, Vectors, Matrices) have none.

What Brilliant does well

A Brilliant lesson is a run of exercises. Its course pages list about 12 per lesson on average, or 13.5 if you leave out the four puzzle sets, which have one each. That's what reviewers praise when they praise it:

"Really great visual approach to math. Very engaging." (App Store review, 5 stars, March 6, 2026)

"Brilliant is fun and easy to follow, which I have never experienced with math before." (App Store review, 5 stars, May 24, 2026)

Brilliant pitches itself to adults coming back to math, and its reviewers include them. The Help Center says "Curious adults use Brilliant to: Finally master subjects like algebra, calculus, or coding," with "No prerequisites required," and 20 of the 500 reviews we read use "brush up," "refresh" or "relearn."

"I use this app to brush up on my math skills during my lunch break." (App Store review, 5 stars, June 30, 2026)

Brilliant is also plain about what it isn't. Its own "Is Brilliant worth it?" page tells you to pick something else if you need "school credit or transcripts, a résumé credential, or a human who provides scheduled accountability." Its Help Center says it gives no completion certificates, and that lessons "require an internet connection" and can't be used offline.

The free plan: two lessons a day

Free accounts get two "keys" a day, each good for one lesson or practice set, and the keys reset at midnight. Free also means occasional ads and a "Limited Koji preview." Premium lifts the cap and lets you jump to any lesson, but Brilliant puts the tutor first: "The core reason to upgrade is Koji," which it says "can see exactly what you're working on." The free plan isn't locked to one course, either. "Free users may choose and start any course, but must complete the lessons within that course in sequence," says the Help Center.

Without an account, you can use brilliant.org/practice, a beta site of arithmetic quizzes for young children. Kindergarten and grade 1 are live, 72 quizzes in all; grades 2 to 5 say "Coming soon."

The cap is the complaint that turns up at every star level. It's in 14 of the 73 one- and two-star reviews in our sample (we read and tagged all 73 by hand), and about 14 of the 47 three-star reviews mention it. About 28 of the 380 four- and five-star reviews bring it up too, often as their only complaint:

"The only feature I don’t like is having to pay for more than 2 lessons a day." (App Store review, 5 stars, August 24, 2026)

Reviewers add two things the Help Center doesn't say. Some report that a review or "warm up" spends one of the two keys:

"I can’t stand the limit of only 2 lessons a day, and that you can’t review topics without using one of those 2 lessons" (App Store review, 3 stars, April 28, 2026)

And a few say the free plan used to be three lessons a day: "the free tier was changed from 3 free lessons a day to 2" (App Store review, 3 stars, June 22, 2026). Brilliant's pages confirm neither.

What the reviews say

We read the 500 most recent written US App Store reviews, from February 1 to September 29, 2026. They run harsher than the listing: the sample averages 4.11 against the listing's 4.73, and 73 reviews (15%) are one or two stars. People who bother to write are more often the ones with a problem, and the 4.73 includes years of older ratings.

Tagged by hand; one review can make several points.

Money is the loudest complaint. Several of the billing reviews describe a free trial that became a yearly charge; others, a renewal they didn't see coming or a refund they couldn't get. Brilliant's written refund rules (below) are narrow, so these reviews describe the policy working as written. The fairest-minded of them:

"My review might be colored by the fact my trial subscription auto-renewed for a year when I thought I had cancelled it, but I recognize that’s a me problem." (App Store review, 1 star, September 10, 2026)

The tutor splits people. All 14 one- and two-star reviews about Koji or the narration are from May 6, 2026 on; the only earlier review that names Koji thanks it. Some want it gone: "What’s this new complication that I can’t switch off?" (App Store review, 1 star, May 26, 2026). Brilliant's Help Center says Koji can be muted. In four- and five-star reviews, praise for it outnumbers complaints, about 12 to 4:

"Now Koji goes back through the problems where you struggled, and walks you through it." (App Store review, 5 stars, May 29, 2026)

"Too easy" is a small complaint, and "too hard" isn't one. Eight of the 73 say the material is too basic, among them a parent whose child found it boring. None says it's too hard. A three-star reviewer put the adult version of the complaint best:

"I already know most of the material in the app. It's great for a refresher but lacks ways to meaningfully skip ahead." (App Store review, 3 stars, June 3, 2026)

The latest month is the harshest. In September, 15 of 45 reviews (33%) were one or two stars, against 7 to 17% in each earlier month. One month of 45 reviews isn't a trend. The release notes don't explain it either way: all 25 versions listed on the App Store, from March 2 to September 25, 2026, carry the same note, "Bug fixes and performance updates to help you learn on the go."

How much does Brilliant cost?

The US App Store lists ten Brilliant Premium in-app purchases from $19.99 to $191.99, checked September 30, 2026; the top one is "with Tutor." The listing doesn't say which are monthly and which are yearly. Brilliant's Help Center sends you to brilliant.org/subscribe for the price you'll pay, and that page hasn't shown us the same price on every visit, so we don't quote one.

Plans are annual or monthly, plus a family plan "for up to 6 members," and K-12 educators and their students may get Premium free. It "does not usually offer discounts" but runs "one sale a year during Black Friday/Cyber Monday."

Trials come and go: Brilliant "sometimes offers free trial promotions." A trial needs payment details and "will automatically convert to a paid Premium plan," and Brilliant recommends cancelling "at least 24 hours before the trial ends."

How to cancel Brilliant, and refunds

From Brilliant's Help Center, as of September 30, 2026:

• Bought on brilliant.org: log in, then Subscription Settings, then Manage subscription. You keep Premium until the end of the period you paid for.
• Bought on iPhone: Settings, your name, Subscriptions, Brilliant, Cancel Subscription.
• Bought on Google Play: through Google Play's own subscription settings.

Refunds are narrow. Charges are "nonrefundable except as required by applicable law," and beyond that "any refund or credit is a courtesy at Brilliant's discretion." Some web subscribers see a "Request a refund" option in Subscription Settings ("Not everyone will see this option"); App Store and Google Play refunds "are handled by Apple or Google, not Brilliant."

Why we'd pick edgi

A Brilliant lesson is a set of exercises inside a course, and the free plan stops you at two a day. An edgi Lesson is one idea in 60 seconds, on any subject, and you play it. Finish it and the idea is yours: a card in your collection, lit up on your Map next to the ideas it connects to. The next Lesson is whatever the last one made you curious about, and you come away actually knowing things, not just having scrolled. edgi is free, on iPhone and the web, with short videos too, and there's no daily limit on Lessons. Our edgi vs Brilliant comparison goes through the rest.

On Brilliant, biology sits inside Science Puzzles, next to pulleys and buoyancy. edgi's natural selection Lesson makes you the bird: eat the moths you can spot, and ten generations later the group is pale, though no moth changed color. Then come the real peppered moths near Manchester, about 98 in 100 of them black by 1895, Kettlewell's 1953 test of whether birds did it, and bacteria in a dish that survive a drug.

Natural Selection Natural selection is the process where organisms with traits better suited to their environment survive and reproduce more successfully.

60-second Lesson

Natural Selection

No moth changed its color. Birds ate the ones they could see, and the group changed.

Play it here Read about natural selection

Pick something else only if:

• you want to practice math or learn to code, exercise by exercise;
• you need an Android app.

FAQ

Is Brilliant worth it? For math, from fractions to calculus, or for learning to code, yes: a lesson is a run of interactive exercises, and the app is rated 4.73 from 32,725 App Store ratings (September 30, 2026). For science beyond physics and circuits, or any subject outside math and code, no; its 68 courses barely touch them.

Is Brilliant free? Partly. The free plan gives you two lessons or practice sets a day, taken in order within a course, with occasional ads. Koji, its tutor, is a limited preview. You can start any course.

How much does Brilliant cost? The US App Store lists Brilliant Premium from $19.99 to $191.99 (checked September 30, 2026), without saying which items are monthly or yearly. Brilliant's Help Center sends you to brilliant.org/subscribe for the price you'll pay.

Is Brilliant good for adults? Yes, for adults who want math or code. Brilliant says most of its use is in grades 5 to 12, and 22 of its 68 courses are labeled by school grade, but its puzzles, logic, data and programming courses aren't, and adults who want to "brush up" are a common voice in its reviews.

How do I cancel Brilliant? Where you paid. On the web, it's Subscription Settings, then Manage subscription; on iPhone, Settings, your name, Subscriptions; on Android, Google Play's subscription settings. You keep Premium until the end of the period you paid for.

Can I get a refund from Brilliant? Brilliant's charges are "nonrefundable except as required by applicable law," with refunds otherwise at its discretion. Some web subscribers see a "Request a refund" option; App Store and Google Play refunds go through Apple or Google.

Does Brilliant work offline? No. Its Help Center says lessons "require an internet connection" and can't be downloaded.

Does Brilliant give certificates? No. Brilliant says it doesn't offer completion certificates, course credit or professional certifications.

Is edgi free? Yes. Lessons, cards and the Map are free, and Sets unlock with coins you earn by learning, not money. An optional Pro subscription adds extras like offline access.