Top Hat - Better Learning
Take Charge Of Your Education
How much does Top Hat - Better Learning cost?
Prices are current as of 12 Sept 2026.
Top Hat - Better Learning has no in-app products on record in the United States.
10+ alternatives to Top Hat - Better Learning
| Top Hat - Better Learning |   Pearson+ | Study Prep & eTexts |   Transact eAccounts |   iClicker Student |   PointSolutions |   Suitable |  LockDown Browser |   Sharpen - College Exam Prep |   Coursicle |   Gradescope |   IU Mobile | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating / 5 | 4.6 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.4 | 4.5 | 4.9 | 1.2 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 1.5 | 4.0 |
| Reviews | 26K | 70K | 66K | 46K | 16K | 6K | 5.4K | 3.2K | 637 | 242 | 198 |
| Released | 2013 | 2021 | 2020 | 2014 | 2009 | 2016 | 2013 | 2022 | 2017 | 2022 | 2010 |
| Monthly price | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | $17.99 | $4.99 | — | — |
| Annual price | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | $89.99 | $29.99 | — | — |
| One-time price | — | — | — | $16.99 | — | — | — | — | $99.99 | — | — |
The going rate for each plan in United States, in its own currency, shaded from the cheapest price on the row to the dearest. Plans fewer than four in ten of the priced apps sell are left out.
Top Hat - Better Learning reviews
4.6 out of 5, based on 26,362 reviews.
What people like
- Easy to use interface overall
- Quiz timer feature works well for tests
- Helps students stay engaged in class
What they complain about
- Crashes constantly during exams and classes
- Requires constant internet connection to work
- Poor customer support ignores your issues
- Drains battery with always-on location tracking
Does crash anymore!
Great app! Doesn’t care anymore :)
App is unusable
The app is buggy and rarely works. The functionality itself is fine, but you can’t have an app that is this critical to grades and learning that just doesn’t do anything. Every time there is a question in class, I see AT LEAST 10 people being unable to sign into the app, making them lose points for no fault of their own.
Good but bells and whistles
They gave a survey ab how good the app is when I was rushing to answer a question
Terrible and buggy app.
I hate this app do not use it. This app is glitchy and will not allow you to add courses in it. If you don’t want to absolutely fail your attendance in this knockoff kahoot app you must use the web app. Terrible horrible app do not use.
Good but needs improvement
How am I paying for an app to learn but the questions don’t work.. I’m unable to choose my answers. Other than that, it is pretty efficient
Feedback
awesome !!
this program sucks
the app is fine, it’s just that the entire program is confusing, anti-intuitive, and difficult to use. Sometimes I can enter data on desktop, sometimes I can only do it on the app. The “show your work” portion of many assignment are so confusing and hard to use. I hope I never take another class that uses this awful program. I love learning and school and top hat is ruining my semester.
good app but goshdarn
good app i guess profs love seeing students give away more money for mandatory course material infuriating
Botched
I would rate this app higher if it worked consistently. What an amazing concept, executed poorly. I feel so bad for the instructors who have to fumble around with it just to make it work. Usually they just give up. Doesn’t work that great for me either. :(
Audio
Why is there no audio
Life changing!
I love this app, has completely changed college.
Useless for instructors
My program is implementing this as an eTextbook platform and it is not instructor-friendly but it IS pushing AI really hard. TopHat in general seems to have forgotten instructors exist and do things other than present in classrooms, but the app doesn’t even try. Locked out if your course access is as an instructor. PS do not respond to this with a chatbot (this will be ignored, like all feedback)
Screen split
It is great app, but it is not possible to split the screen in iPad Pro like other apps.
New update
I love top Hat, its really helped me Excel in my courses, but this new updates dosent Even let me access the class material before crashing
No video on iPhone 😢
Even with the update from 7 hours ago, my instructor’s lessons (that are only uploaded here as videos) don’t play. This really ruins any chance to study or review when I can’t be stuck sitting in front of a screen. When this basic functionality is addressed, it would also be amazing for the video to continue to play as audio when the screen is locked. There’s also video playback issues on the other devices, but I don’t have time to go into all that. Please fix these things asap and stop charging us for stuff we can’t use.
4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ app, but can't reply to discussion on iPhone
Can't reply to discussion on iPhone
Bad for exams
I was taking a FINAL EXAM on my ipad and it bugged out and froze my ipad, my ipad has never done this before, except during my Midterm where other classmates around me and me included were taken out of the exam multiple times this happened within the last 2-3 weeks of each other bc it’s summer courses rn. Not to mention when you’re doing work it clicks you out of the assignment for just pressing the back button or ‘Done’ instead of the X, like keep up
Amazing teaching tool
As helpful as it is it still has lots of usability problems so not a 5 star
Slow and Not Worth Your Money
My internet speed is fast (proven through google speed test) but the website is often super slow, especially if you are changing between different modes/sections. Every chapter (chemistry) has a lot of information that overwhelms you because you don’t know what is important and what is not. I would expect better paying $124 annually.
Intentionally limits access to info offline
So im a student living on barely anything while trying to support my family. I used a list provided to me by my college to access the books i needed directly. When i purchased my books i found out afterwards that after handing over $280 of money i really cant replace, for 4 separate books, that i cant access them offline… smh! How am i supposed to do my work??? I have to go to a library just to use their internet! Now i cant even do my homework or assignments outside class time because i need to be near wifi to access my paid for content. So so useless! Thanks for scathing the students and withholding needed info for a premium !!! It is sickening actually and will tell everyone i meet. I did not know the link provided to me did not include a pdf copy. Now i need to find money i dont have to buy a more expensive copy that includes the pdf…. Edit: lol half my class has the pdf and they shared it with everyone that doesn’t have one.. so i guess your system to stifle academic student progression is horribly flawed and i will also share that with everyone i meet in up coming classes. Its hard to have a study group over the phone when i cant see the info everyone else is talking about!
good
good appppppppppppppp
App is buggy and customer service is so unhelpful
This isn’t the first time that the app doesn’t keep up with presentation. I tried everything, from reinstalling, updating and even clearing cache. I spoke to customer service agent Ederlyn Q, whose only suggestion was to use the website as I am trying to troubleshoot the app. Leaves me on read and then ends the chat like the issue was solved. Spoiler, it wasn’t. I am not the only person that has had issues with the app on both my phone and tablet, I thought that because most of the negative reviews came from a few years back they would have fixed the lagging issue , but nope. The app bugs, lags and will have a stroke mid presentation
Needs highlighting ability on iPhone and iPad
Great app and a pleasure to use but would really be beneficial if you could highlight whilst reading on iPhone and iPad! Otherwise laptop is the only option. Please please include in next update.
Why
Why would there not be an option to have the brightness be the same as your phones brightness every single time I’ve read my eyes are strained and I have to take my eyes off the screen to let the illusion go away. Clicking into a setting every time you want to change the brightness is stupid if you just want to read. If it’s too bright it’s too bright and if it’s too low then it’s too low there is a middle but most people change their brightness easily as seen fit. Also there’s no page numbers
Missing some helpful functionality
Some of my professors choose to store documents in old top hat classes, which isn’t a strength of tophat. I wish there was a way to reorder the class list, as some classes will use it often and others I can basically ignore. Or an option to favorite certain classes. Not the worst app ever but not perfect either
Nice One for clAss
Love IT
Absolutely menace of an app
Every time I open my iPad and open the app, it says there is an error. I have to logout the app and login once again everyday to use it. Not only that the connection is just incredibly slow and I have missed a lot of questions from this. One of the worst apps humanly possible. Even iClicker is better than you.
good
good
Bug
After completing a question, it does not update so it looks like you haven’t completed it, you have to close the app and open again to see progress which is annoying
New update ?
Hate the new update, I don’t like the fact that I can’t see the HW question all at the same time. I have to click on them individually
Good
Good
Mobile app sucks
App is essentially useless if you are not connected to WiFi, loads about half of questions in time and the missed ones load the moment they close.
UI keeps freezing when I try to upload a file
Every time I try answering a question where you have to upload a picture, it does nothing and then grays out all “open” buttons, forcing me to restart or the whole assignment is impossible to interact with!
Notifications
Unfortunately they removed the feature where you received notifications when new questions were posted. I wish this feature would be re-added, but otherwise the app usually works well.
Fix the dang connection
Everything but the question loads and can’t even see it after
crashes
likes crashing a lot whenever i have it open to the gradebook. also doesn’t update in real time so i miss some questions sometimes. could use some work
would be perfect if you could split screen multitask on ipad pro
please fix this man
Should be free
Idk why this costs money.
Poor tablet support
Fumbles tablet support. Doesn’t handle presenting content well on tablets and it was recently changed to be worse. Doesn’t support Apple Pencil. No reading offline for a textbook I’ve paid for, not even in the app. Even digital editions lets me do that. Also this is not necessarily a reflection of the app but it’s pretty poor practice to be letting professors upload what seem like literal first drafts with typos in every chapter. Reflects poorly on them as a legitimate publisher and makes them seem more like way to exploit students whose professors get to assign their own textbook on here at a relatively low cost and profit. Decently slick UI.
It works well but its a pretty useless student tool
Ive been using tophat for three course now and its honestly just a glorified attendance sheet that costs 30$ a term. My prof set the location on for his attendance which is reasonable because its not hard to trick the system into thinking you are present in class when you are not. But this app insists i turn my location on at ALL TIMES even if im not in school or not in the app. Why does tophat need to have my location at all times when it only truly needs a location snapshot at the time of my attendance marking. Moving along to the glorified attendance sheet. For small classes i dont see why the prof would use this application. Two of the three classes ive taken with tophat have been small under 30 student classes and they use tophat for not only presence but also for a glorified powerpoint too! The projectors in classes are likely large enough to accommodate the students in the class. Sure with tophat you can have live powerpoints that change slides when the prof does, woopty doo i can do that myself if the prof posts his slides in advance. Lastly the quiz part of the app is likely the only feature thats worth integrating in classrooms. Its pretty neat ill admit. Unlike other websites ive seen you can set a timer limit for all of the questions together and not necessarily individually. But 30$ a term is steep for students just to get a smoother running attendance sheet, powerpoint and socrative quiz. Maybe the more my school starts to use it the better it will get if the profs talk amongst one another to better use the software. But right now until my profs actually use the textbook feature when for one price of 30$ you can have your textbook at ur fingertip. No matter how many classes. Until i see this happen in my school i find this a poor use of my money. Also either all my profs go all in or all out. It’s annoying to pay for a service only for one class. But i suppose due to the newness of tophat here its only normal.
Don’t use
It keeps asking for a review and it will not let you answer any questions. Then it closes the app and makes you miss out on points. Dumbest app ever
It’s okay
It’s okay but my biggest issue is that you have to have location services to always on. For attendance. Why can’t it be while using the app? I feel this is not needed and changing the setting everytime is annoying. If they can explain why they need locations services all the time instead of only while using it would be appreciated
Notification
Generally the app is good with an easy to use interface. But, there's a big problem with it. It has no notification or badge for Apple products thus leaving room for absence during test, assignments and lectures. So far I've missed nine points which is an awful lot for me
Top Hat - Better Learning FAQ
- Is Top Hat - Better Learning free?
- Yes. The app is free, in all 175 countries it sells in, and it sells nothing inside it.
- Does Top Hat - Better Learning have a free trial?
- No. None of its offers (US) come with a free trial.
- What are the best alternatives to Top Hat - Better Learning?
- Pearson+ | Study Prep & eTexts (4.8 from 69,626 reviews), Transact eAccounts (4.8 from 65,648 reviews) and iClicker Student (4.4 from 46,254 reviews, premium from $5.99).
Top Hat - Better Learning download
Last updated 2 months ago.
Top Hat - Better Learning sells in 175 countries. It was released 13 years and 2 months ago, on 23 Jul 2013. It holds a 4.6 rating from 26,362 reviews.
Supports 1 language: English.
How much does Top Hat - Better Learning make?
Third-party estimates for the last 30 days, worldwide — not the store's own figures, which Apple publishes for nobody.