1. Monetizing CodeGym
Once upon a time, when CodeGym was less than one year old, it was free. We had a small team, and we were working for an idea. By the end of its first year, CodeGym had only 20 levels, but we already had the IDEA plugin and a WordPress-based forum.
The great reviews and gratitude warmed our souls, but money was running out. It was necessary to either abandon CodeGym, or finally take money for our work. The option to abandon the project wasn't going anywhere, so we decided to start by trying to monetize the site.
A good educational product is worth a lot. Learning is hard, much harder than making money. A product makes learning many times easier is worth searching for. Learning requires money, effort, and time. As it turns out, money is the least of the problems. After all, each of us has a smartphone 🙂
Money can be set aside, saved up, and borrowed. Changing yourself is much more challenging. You can't ask someone to learn a foreign language for you or to go to the gym for you to lose weight. You have to do it yourself. What if you have small children? What if you have an irregular work schedule?
It is difficult for adults to learn. Due to their age, and due to their circumstances. Almost every one of us would agree to pay money to instantly learn something profound and somehow significantly change our life.
But Java won't learn itself. That said, CodeGym can help you learn it. Teaching a person to fish is much more important than giving him or her a fish each day.
2. Premium subscription
I think you already understand that CodeGym is monetized. The subscription price is $49/month. Less than two dollars a day. If you want to study, study. If you don't want to study, study grudgingly 🙂 What exactly do you get if you buy a Premium subscription?
Access to all levels on CodeGym.
With the free subscription, only Level 0 is available to you. The Premium subscription has no such restrictions. You will still have to proceed through the course sequentially. You cannot buy a subscription and immediately start solving tasks on Level 40.
Instant task verification
Almost all tasks can be verified in less than a second. You click, and then a second later your task has already been checked. That's super convenient. You'll never get that with a human teacher.
Detailed task verification results
After checking the task, you will see the status of each task requirement as well as the validator's recommendations for your solution. Feedback on your solution is very important when you're first getting started. And it will cut the number of hours you will want to bang your head against the wall down to just minutes 🙂
Plugin
To become a real programmer, you need to learn how to write programs in an IDE, which is a specialized program for writing programs. CodeGym has a handy plugin for IntelliJ IDEA. It lets you retrieve a task in a couple of clicks, and that submit it in one.
You can read more about this subscription in the "Subscriptions" section.
3. Premium Pro subscription
A Premium subscription gives you access to almost every CodeGym feature, and a Premium Pro subscription gives you a few additional perks.
Style check
Our validator checks your code against a Java style guide. Don't think you can write your code however you want just because it's your code. Code is written to be read by other programmers.
There are standards, strict requirements, as well as recommendations. How many spaces for indentation, whether to wrap strings, where to curly braces... There are even requirements for variable names! Not to mention names of methods and classes.
ReCheck
In general, on CodeGym you cannot submit a task for verification if it has already been solved. But if you really want to and you have a Premium Pro subscription, then you can experiment with different solutions for 3 days after you first solve a task.
Help with resume writing
This option will be useful for those who are wrapping up their CodeGym training. The IT industry has adopted its own conventions and expectations for resumes: some things need to be described in detail, it is better to not mention other things, etc. In any case, our crew will be happy to review your resume and help you rework it to meet the industry standards.
Getting your resume right is a very important point. This is something that is not obvious to many newbies. After all, if you are not invited for an interview, it means they didn't like your resume. And the more interviews you attend, the more likely you are to find a job you like and the higher your salary will be.
You can read more about this subscription in the "Subscriptions" section.
4. Promotions on CodeGym
And the last thing I'd like to mention is promotions. CodeGym usually runs promotions before the new year and usually in the summer. Annual subscriptions go on sale at half price. It's like a New Year's gift or a present under the Christmas tree.
The specifics of future promotions isn't available. Some years there was only one sale, while other years had 2-3. It all depends on the number of new CodeGym users and their activity on the website.
If you like CodeGym and feel the urge to practice, it might make sense to buy an annual subscription. Usually people buy a couple monthly subscriptions at $49, and then, after they have made sure they like CodeGym, they buy an annual subscription.
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