Free courses, upgrades and premium courses

In this article we'll cover

• Studying for free
• The benefits of upgrading
• Premium Courses
• Courses which ran before upgrading 

Study for free

It is free to join and study most FutureLearn courses. You can join for free wherever you see the 'join free' button.

Learners have the option to pay to upgrade a free course for some additional benefits.

If you choose to take a course for free, you’ll have access for the duration of the course plus 14 days, even if you join after the course opens.

You can see when access to your courses expires on Your Courses.

Upgrade or pay for a course for additional benefits

You can buy an upgrade at any point before, during or after the course - there's no deadline. When you upgrade you can:

• Learn at your own pace with unlimited access to the course for as long as it exists on FutureLearn
• Prove your knowledge with tests, if the course has them
• Demonstrate what you’ve learnt with a certificate as long as you meet the eligibility requirements

If you'd like additional benefits on more than one course, then you might be interested in Unlimited, which gives you benefits on hundreds of courses. You can read more about how it works in our article on Unlimited. 

Premium Courses

While most of our courses are offered with an option to learn for free, some are only offered on a paid-for basis. These courses are designed for professionals looking to advance their careers and learn with a smaller group of like-minded individuals. Categories covered include:

• Business and management
• Healthcare
• Teaching
• IT and digital skills

This lets us add new courses that we haven’t been able to in the past because they include content that we and our partners can’t make available for free. We also want to offer courses that provide a different kind of social experience for professionals, where discussion takes place in smaller groups with more hands-on support.

Courses which ran before upgrading

You can only upgrade course runs that begin after 6 March 2017. You’ll still be able to access any material, take any tests and order certificates on any of these courses if you're enrolled on them.