Great Courses Plus (Wondrium) Review: Better Than MasterClass?

Wondrium, now rebranded as The Great Courses Plus, is one of my absolute favorite platforms for learning new things.

I’m a life-long learner. I’m constantly curious about different things. So it’s no surprise that I like both Masterclass and Great Courses Plus. 

So we decided to write a review of Great Courses Plus, with a brief comparison to Masterclass, which we also have a full review of (and you can read here).

And while Masterclass is excellent in its own right, Great Courses Plus is different, and I might even say that it might actually be a bit better for writers.

But I’ll get to that…

Also keep in mind that some of the links in this article are affiliate links, but as always that costs you nothing extra, and it all goes to support the Kindlepreneur coffee fund. 

What is Great Courses Plus (aka Wondrium)?

Great Courses Plus is basically the Netflix of online learning. It’s a subscription platform with a HUGE library of educational content.

You may have heard of “The Great Courses”. In 2021, it rebranded as Wondrium in order to redefine its mission and broaden its content beyond courses, including documentaries and other shorter forms of content..

With that rebranding came a partnership with other learning platforms, including Magellan, Craftsy, and Kino Lorber.

However, soon Wondrium decided to get back to its roots: a focus on academically rigorous courses and lectures. That's when Wonderium was rebranded (again), this time as Great Courses Plus (the streaming home of “thousands of hours of engaging courses designed to enrich and improve your life”).

And yes, its catalog is a lot larger than Masterclass.

Pricing: How Much Is Great Courses Plus?

Great Coures Plus has three pricing tiers:

• $20/month billed monthly
• $45/quarter ($15/month) billed quarterly
• $150/year ($12.50/month) billed annually

Great Courses Plus also offers a 14-day free trial that you can use to see if it’s to your liking. And if you decide you don’t want it, or don’t use it enough, you can cancel before the 14 days are up.

Check Out Great Courses Plus Here

Device Availability?

Great Courses Plus has apps on a number of different platforms, including:

• Your web browser
• The iOS app
• The Android app
• An Amazon Kindle app
• Amazon Fire TV
• Roku
• Apple TV
• Google Chromecast

I personally use my phone or the web for most of my viewing, but this is mostly because I have a Roku and the Roku version doesn’t have a way to increase the speed of the lectures, which is a shame because I usually listen at 1.5 speed.

Hopefully that’s something they add soon.

Everything Great Courses Plus Gives You

Alright, so let’s actually dive into the features and offerings that you get with Great Courses Plus (I’ll get to specific courses down below).

You can browse Great Courses Plus by subject, which includes the following categories:

• Art
• Business & Finance
• Food & Drink
• Health & Mindfulness
• History
• Hobby & Personal Pursuits
• Literature
• Mathematics
• Music
• Philosophy & Religion
• Professional Growth
• Science
• Travel & Cultures

For authors, I recommend Literature, as that is where most of the writing courses are. However, many of the other courses are relevant as well, depending on the genre you write in.

For example, there are an unparalleled number of history courses, which are the perfect way to study up on ancient ways of doing things. Perfect for authors who write historical fiction or fantasy.

Or there are science and astronomy courses perfect for science fiction authors, psychology or crime-related courses for thriller writers.

I could go on and on.

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Additionally, you can also browse by Format, which includes:

• Courses
• Series
• TGC Classics
• Documentaries
• Shorts

And last but not least, you can sort by their different collections. Great Courses Plus has a lot of collections, but these four are the big ones:

1. Originals: A collection of exclusive original content made just for Great Courses Plus, like the travel show Travels with Darcy and the fiction writing course How to Write Best-selling Fiction.
2. The Great Courses: A largest collection, with dozens of in-depth programs on topics like Norse Mythology, The History and Archaeology of the Bible, and more.
3. Kino Lorber: Classic films and documentaries like Nosferatu and Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth.
4. Craftsy: Creative skills like drawing, woodworking, and metalsmithing. Great for learning hobbies.

In addition, you will also occasionally see content from other sources, those tend to come and go, so I won’t list them all here.

The Best Great Courses Plus Content for Writers

Alright, now we get to the fun part of the review, the part where I outline the best courses specifically for writers (as this is the main audience for Kindlepreneur). 

Before I get into that, I want to reiterate that while Great Courses Plus has some excellent courses just for writers, there are a lot of courses that are tangentially related to a variety of genres that are excellent for research.

For instance, when I was about to start writing my first YA Arthurian Fantasy, I watched a course on the Arthurian Legends. And it was fantastic!

The courses are incredibly thorough and give you a solid overview of a topic. It leaves you able to talk conversationally on just about any subject you want.

So with that in mind, I highly recommend the history, science, psychology, and many other courses there. They will give you a lot of background information that you might want as an author, without requiring you to get a PhD in the subject.

Here are my favorite courses that are more specifically relevant for authors:

How to Write Best Selling Fiction