FreeFellow is the only CFA Institute Prep Provider I've found that gives away its entire CFA question bank rather than a trial slice: 1,800+ Level I questions, 2,337 Level II questions and 1,713 to 1,737 questions for each Level III pathway, all with step-by-step solutions. There's no trial period and no credit card. Anyone can try the sample questions, and the full bank needs a free account. CFA Institute's own Learning Ecosystem comes bundled with the $1,250 to $1,450 exam registration fee, so you pay for it as part of registering. The other providers sell paid packages with different access periods, and their free samples don't get you the full course.
I should mention that I run FreeFellow, which competes with the paid providers below.
CFA Institute Prep Providers compared
CFA Institute runs a Prep Provider Program. Companies pay an annual fee, sign the Prep Provider Agreement and agree to its content rules, and in return they can reference CFA Institute curriculum coverage in their marketing under defined conditions. The program runs by calendar year (CY2026, CY2027), and current providers are listed in the Prep Provider directory on cfainstitute.org. Being a Prep Provider means a company agreed to those content standards. It doesn't mean CFA Institute has signed off on the study materials themselves.
Brands you'll see all over r/CFA, like Mark Meldrum, IFT, Salt Solutions and Konvexity, are widely used, but their listing status changes from year to year. Listings renew every calendar year, and a brand that was a Prep Provider three years ago may not be one today, so check the directory itself rather than a provider's marketing.
Prices below are in USD. Each FreeFellow subscription covers one credential track. Check pricing for your track and country.
| Provider | Free question bank | Paid offer | Listed Prep Provider |
|---|---|---|---|
| FreeFellow | Yes: 1,800+ Level I, 2,337 Level II, 1,713 to 1,737 per Level III pathway. No trial. Samples open; full bank with a free account | $39/month or $79/quarter per track (Fellow); $199/year per track (Fellow Plus) | Yes (CY2027) |
| CFA Institute Learning Ecosystem | Bundled with $1,250 to $1,450 exam registration | Provided by CFA Institute | n/a (the issuer, not a Prep Provider) |
| Kaplan Schweser | Limited free trial only | Level I Essential $799 for one level (package page checked September 7, 2026) | Yes (long-standing) |
| AnalystPrep | Limited free trial only | Unlimited $799, lifetime access to all three levels (June 2026 price record) | Yes |
| Wiley CFA Review | Limited free trial only | Check current package availability and price | Yes |
| Bloomberg Exam Prep | Limited free trial only | Subscription pricing | Yes |
| Mark Meldrum | Some free YouTube lectures; no full free question bank | $440 to $1,630 per level (June 2026 price record) | Varies; check the directory |
| IFT (Irfanullah Financial Training) | Some free YouTube lectures | Check current package price | Varies; check the directory |
| Salt Solutions | Sample questions only | Check current package price | Varies; check the directory |
Kaplan Schweser's Level I package page lists Essential at $799 for one level (checked September 7, 2026). The AnalystPrep Unlimited and Mark Meldrum figures come from the June 2026 price record, and I've kept the all-levels bundle and the per-level prices separate, since a bundle that covers three levels shouldn't be compared with a one-level price. I haven't verified the other package prices. The listing column reflects publicly visible CY2026 and CY2027 status.
When a CFA provider says "free", it usually means a free trial on a paid site. You usually sign up with an email and get 5 to 50 sample questions or a 7 to 14 day window, and after that you pay or stop. That's useful for trying a product before you buy it, but most candidates need 2,000 to 3,000 practice questions to pass Level I, and 50 won't get you far.
The Learning Ecosystem gets called free too, with the curriculum text, end-of-reading questions and topic-level assessments. It comes with your registration ($1,250 standard, $1,450 late), so you're paying for it, just not separately. The end-of-reading questions are the closest thing to the real exam's style and every candidate should do them, but you can't get them without registering.
Then there's a bank you can practice from indefinitely without paying, without a credit card and without a time limit. Among CFA Institute Prep Providers in 2026, FreeFellow is the only one I know of that does this. It covers Level I (1,800+ questions), Level II (2,337) and all three Level III pathways (Portfolio Management 1,713, Private Wealth 1,714, Private Markets 1,737). Every question has a step-by-step solution, and most also have notes on the answer choices.
What's free on FreeFellow, and what Fellow adds
The full original question bank is free with an account, subject to usage limits. Worked solutions, written lessons, mixed practice, and your readiness score stay free. For CFA Level I, the free tier includes:
- 1,800+ practice questions across all 10 topics, each with a step-by-step solution
- 105 written lessons
- Mixed practice across topics
- The readiness score
- A printable formula sheet (PDF, no signup)
- A glossary of 34 Level I terms with definitions and formulas
Level II (2,337 questions) and the three Level III pathways (1,713 to 1,737 questions each) get the same. Level III also has a copy-to-AI prompt builder: you paste the scenario, the question, your answer, the published rubric and a reference solution into your own ChatGPT or Claude and get essay feedback at no cost.
Fellow costs $39 a month or $79 a quarter per track. It adds timed full-length mock exams weighted to the CFA Institute blueprint, spaced-repetition flashcards (SM-2), topic-level analytics, a study plan keyed to your exam date, and AI grading on Level III constructed-response essays, with a score for each criterion of the published rubric and written notes. Fellow gets five graded attempts a day. The $199 annual plan is Fellow Plus, which lifts that limit and adds licensed curriculum practice and common traps. One CFA subscription covers Levels I, II and III, including every Level III pathway. If your employer reimburses prep costs, you can expense it. If you're paying yourself, the free tier covers most of what you need.
People ask why it's free. The CFA material is reviewed by a CFA charterholder, and serving one more candidate costs a few hundred kilobytes of HTML and a database query. The Fellow tier covers infrastructure for the candidates who want mocks, flashcards, analytics and a study plan. Roughly 70 percent of the value (questions, solutions, lessons, mixed practice, readiness scoring) is free, and the other 30 percent is the paid tier. I built FreeFellow because I paid four-figure prep fees for my own three CFA exams and didn't want the next group of candidates to hit the same wall. It's a one-person project with no venture funding, and most of the work happens on evenings and weekends.
What the paid providers do well, and which I'd pick
Kaplan Schweser's orange SchweserNotes have been on candidates' desks for over 25 years. The OnDemand video library is extensive, the QBank is large (roughly 4,000 questions), and the live online classes in the Premium and PremiumPlus tiers help if you learn best in a scheduled class. If your employer is paying and you learn well from video, Schweser is a reasonable choice.
AnalystPrep costs less than Schweser and has a clean interface and a strong question bank. Many candidates use it alongside the curriculum and report passing without anything else. Wiley CFA Review has a long track record, a full video library and a study planner that works across levels. Bloomberg Exam Prep is newer, with content tied to Bloomberg's analytics platform, and its bundled access to Bloomberg-style data is something no other provider has.
Mark Meldrum and IFT get a lot of praise on r/CFA for their video lectures, both on YouTube and inside their paid courses. Both post some content for free and keep the full courses behind a paywall, and like the rest of this list, neither offers a fully free standalone question bank.
Here's what I'd pick, depending on your situation:
- Paying out of pocket on a first attempt: FreeFellow Fellow Plus ($199 a year for the CFA track) plus the curriculum that comes with your CFA Institute registration. That's $199 on top of the exam fees, and it's what I'd pair with 250 to 300 hours of steady study.
- Working full time with employer reimbursement: Kaplan Schweser Premium, plus FreeFellow's free bank for extra drilling. The reimbursement covers Schweser, your time is the scarce part, and the OnDemand videos are good if you learn visually.
- Needing video instruction: Kaplan Schweser Premium or a Mark Meldrum video package as your main teaching source, with FreeFellow's free bank for more questions.
- Retaking and already knowing the material: FreeFellow Fellow. Another round of lectures won't help much. More practice, mock exams and analytics will, because they find the gaps that got you last time.
- Coming from outside finance: Kaplan Schweser Premium for the structured teaching, plus FreeFellow's free bank for volume. Video matters more when you're learning concepts from scratch.
Start with free CFA Level I practice on FreeFellow. The pricing page covers mock exams, flashcards, analytics, AI essay grading and the study plan.