Chess.com Premium – Monthly or Annual Membership?
Chess.com probably offers the most complete and competitive premium subscription money can buy in the chess world today. You’ll get to play as much as you want, analyse your games, use chess improvement tools and enjoy countless other benefits. But, there is one question that remains unanswered: Should you choose the annual or monthly Chess.com subscription*?
In Short: Which Premium Subscription To Choose
We’ll keep this article brief, so here’s our recommendation on whether you should opt for the monthly or annual subscription on Chess.com:
- If you are 100% serious about playing a lot of chess and are looking to improve, get the Chess.com annual premium membership*.
- If you like chess, but are more of a casual player, choose the monthly membership* for maximum flexibility.
If you’ve already decided on getting a premium Chess.com subscription, this should help you decide between annual and monthly billing. We’ll explain both billing cycles and their benefits and drawbacks below.
The Annual Membership Saves You Money
The main benefit of getting the annual Chess.com membership is saving money. Depending on the exact Membership tier – Gold, Platinum or Diamond – you can save up to 40% on an annual billing cycle, compared to the monthly membership. That’s a lot of savings! Check out the current prices of the annual memberships on Chess.com:
However, with the annual membership you have to pay your whole usage for the year upfront (hence annual billing), so you’ll have to put up a bigger sum at once. That’s a big investment, especially if you’re unsure if you’re going to play chess long-term (or are what I like to call an “on-off chess player”. If that’s the case, the monthly membership might be better suited for you.
Check out the annual Chess.com Premium Membership options.*
A Monthly Subscription Offers Flexibility
With the monthly membership, you’ll get billed – you guessed it: monthly. However, the monthly memberships are quite a bit more expensive on Chess.com, meaning you’re in a bit of a dilemma:
For a monthly billing cycle, you will pay around 40% more compared to an annual membership. That’s a hefty price premium to pay.
What do you get in return? Well, basically just flexibility. You can cancel the monthly membership anytime and only pay for the current month. This is a good option for the occasional, casual chess player. If you’re one of those players that plays intensely for a month and then does not see a chess board for another three, you should consider a monthly subscription on Chess.com. It gets you the best deal – you only pay when you actually play.
Check out the monthly Chess.com Premium Membership options.*
What Chess.com Memberships Are There?
We have a full Chess.com Premium Review right here on Chessily, but we still want to briefly cover all membership tiers here. In total, there are three options to choose from on Chess.com.
Chess.com Gold Membership
The Gold subscription is the lowest membership tier on Chess.com. It includes:
- An ad-free experience.
- Unlimited access to all lessons, as well as video library.
- Unlimited Puzzles (this includes Puzzle Rush and Puzzle Battle).
- Full use of the opening explorer and endgame positions.
- Access to all Chess.com bots and computer personalities.
- And much more.
You can sign up for a Gold Membership here*
Chess.com Platinum Membership
Besides all the benefits of a free account and a Gold Membership, a platinum membership will include:
- Unlimited game analysis and reviews.
- The abilibility to manage up to 100 daily tournaments
- Shared analysis board
- Additional vacation days
- Custom flair icons
You can sign up for a Platinum Membership here*
Chess.com Diamond Membership
The Chess.com Diamond Membership is the top-level subscription tier. It grants to access you everything Chess.com has to offer. Besides everything a free account, a Gold Membership and a Platinum Membership offer, you will get:
- Unlimited Game Analysis + natural language coach explanations for your moves
- Access to the Insights feature, which shows you interesting stats and data on all your games
- Custom analysis (allows you to set up the analysis parameters how you want them)
- More custom flairs