Up Learn

What Up Learn is

Up Learn is a self-paced online course product for students preparing for A Level and GCSE exams. It sells to students and parents directly, and to schools, sixth forms and multi academy trusts through a separate school package. The company behind it, Up Learn Limited, is registered in England and Wales.

The site is firm that the teaching itself is written by people. The home page says "Real subject experts build every course, not AI", and the About page explains that subject specialists and examiners design, write and quality-check each course, while the technology around it (adaptive learning paths, progress tracking and guided exam practice) personalizes the route for each student. That technology does use AI: a diagnostic that finds gaps and an AI chat for support. The About page names Guy Riese as founder and CEO and says the company started from the idea that the quality of a student's exam preparation should not depend on whether the family can afford a great tutor or the student happens to attend a great school.

Subjects and exam boards

The home page lists the catalog by exam board. At A Level: Biology (AQA, OCR), Chemistry (AQA, OCR), Economics (AQA, Edexcel), Maths (AQA, CAIE, Edexcel, OCR), Physics (AQA, OCR) and Psychology (AQA). At GCSE: Combined Science, plus Biology, Chemistry and Physics as separate Triple Science courses, all on the AQA specification. The three single GCSE sciences are marked as new, and the schools page says more boards are added regularly.

Each course covers the full specification for its board. The About page puts it as "Nothing missed, nothing extra." According to the pricing FAQ, an A Level course includes both Year 12 and Year 13 content, and a GCSE course includes the Foundation and Higher tiers.

What a student gets

Teaching is by interactive video lesson followed by quizzes. The pricing FAQ explains the choice of video: it mixes visual explanation, spoken teaching, worked examples and on-screen information, and the company cites a 2009 review by Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer and Bjork to argue that matching the method to the subject matters more than matching it to a learning style. The same FAQ says that on average 16 hours of effort go into producing each minute of content.

A student can start from scratch or use a course to revise. The platform tracks understanding of each concept and topic, and the home page describes an AI-powered diagnostic algorithm that identifies gaps and adjusts the learning path, so no two students follow the same route. Refresh Knowledge and Strengthen features are there to counter forgetting, and every plan includes retrieval practice. Guided exam practice walks through each type of exam question and shows how full marks are earned, and the pricing page's comparison table counts 800+ exam-style questions.

Support depends on the plan. The home page promises unlimited 24/7 tutor support via online chat, and the About page describes support running from a "fully trained AI chat" through to tutors and marked exam papers. On the A Level plans, Up Core includes online support. Up Master adds 24/7 online support, unlimited one-to-one tutor support from an AI tutor and from tutors at universities including Oxford, Cambridge, LSE and Imperial, and two exam papers marked by experienced official examiners.

Plans and prices

Every individual plan starts with a three-day free trial that needs no payment details. After the trial a student picks a support level and a payment option for one subject. Monthly plans can be canceled anytime. Access Until Exams is a one-time payment for access through the final exams, sold until 31 July.

The pricing page lists these A Level prices:

• Up Core: £74.99 a month, £319.99 in total until the summer 2027 exams, or £549.98 until the summer 2028 exams.
• Up Master: £99.99 a month, £419.99 until summer 2027, or £694.98 until summer 2028.

And these GCSE prices:

• GCSE Combined Science: £49.99 a month, £249.99 until summer 2027, or £399.99 until summer 2028.
• GCSE Triple Science, per subject (Biology, Chemistry or Physics): £19.99 a month, £119.99 until summer 2027, or £199.99 until summer 2028.

The FAQ says GCSE is only available on the Up Core plan. After buying one subject and exam board, further courses are usually £100 off each on the Access Until Exams plan; that discount does not apply to monthly subscriptions, cannot be combined with other codes, and does not apply from February to June, when the company introduces dynamic pricing closer to the exams. A referral invitation offers £20 off a first purchase. Students can switch from monthly to Access Until Exams on their Billing page and upgrade from Up Core to Up Master through live chat. A course can be returned from the account within a 7-day return period, no questions asked, and progress is saved for a later return.

The FAQ answers the cost question head on: the courses are built by teachers and tutors typically paid £100+ per hour for one-to-one tuition, backed by illustrators, animators and video producers, and the company says hundreds of thousands of pounds go into each course.

The money-back guarantee

The guarantee is the product's headline. At A Level it is an A*/A guarantee: a student who completes the course and does not get an A* or A is refunded after sending the official exam-board results document via chat or email. The About page FAQ sets completion at 90%, says the refund covers monthly payers and one-off payers alike, and says it covers all payments toward an official exam, including an early GCSE, an AS Level, or a purchase in Year 10 or Year 12 that is renewed the following year.

For GCSE Combined Science it is an 8-8 guarantee: completing the course and then getting 8-7 or below in AQA GCSE Combined Science (Trilogy, Higher Tier) triggers the refund. The Synergy specification is not covered. Where a subject has optional Paper 3 content that differs from what Up Learn teaches, as in AQA Psychology or AQA Physics, the guarantee still applies to Papers 1 and 2. In every case the student's exam board has to match the one used on Up Learn.

The site publishes its own outcome figures: 97% of students who complete Up Learn get an A* or an A at A Level, 1 in 3 A Level students use it to build exam confidence, and the pricing page shows a 4.7 average student rating. A student story on the home page describes Darcy moving from never scoring above a C in his mocks to an A in his final Biology exam.

Scholarships

For every course purchased, Up Learn gives a free course to someone who needs it, working with access charity partners. The site says it has provided over 50,000 Up Learn Scholarships to students across the UK, and the pricing FAQ says the number of scholarships is unlimited for students on or eligible for free school meals, cross-subsidized by those who pay.

For schools and trusts

The school product is the same course content with a teacher layer on top. Teachers assign course sections as classwork or homework in a few clicks, assessment and feedback happen automatically, and the platform nudges students who have not completed work and alerts the teacher. Dashboards track progress by student, cohort, class, department, school and trust, with topic-level gap data. The schools page says Up Learn reinforces classroom teaching rather than replacing it, and lists AQA, Edexcel, OCR and Cambridge International at A Level and AQA GCSE Combined Science.

School pricing is a quote per school or trust; the site says the per-student price drops significantly at school scale, and offers an ROI calculator plus guides to Inclusive Mainstream Funding and 16 to 19 funding. A school can start with a free trial for a class or cohort, with full dashboard access to track progress and completion against its own baseline before committing. After a contract is signed, the team says a school is ready in less than a month: it sets up accounts, classes and courses, supplies training resources, webinars and launch packs, and provides 24/7 online support. The pricing page lists Wonde integration and SSO support for schools. The company publishes an Evaluation of Learning Outcomes report annually, alongside case studies from Ark Walworth Academy and Horsforth School.

Who it suits

Up Learn suits A Level and GCSE students whose subject and exam board appear on its list and who want a complete, structured course they can work through alone, with chat support behind them. Families comparing it with a private tutor get published prices, a three-day trial and a refund promise. The caveat is in the terms: the refund needs 90% completion and a matching exam board, and the FAQ says students who only use the course to patch gaps will not qualify. The catalog is also narrow, six A Level subjects and AQA-only GCSE sciences, so it only helps when a student's subject is on that list. Schools and trusts that want independent study tied to their own scheme of work, with homework set and marked automatically and gap data per class, are the second audience, and they buy on a quote after a trial.