CFA prep

Mark Meldrum Alternatives

Mark Meldrum is a real choice for many people, but it isn’t the only one. Here are the strongest alternatives, with honest pros and cons, and which use case each is best for.

Visit Mark Meldrum

Why people look for alternatives

  • His 2026 Level III lineup lists self-study tiers only, where Levels I and II also offer instructor-led packages
  • Package access ends with the exam period you selected — only the reading-video archive continues, inside the app
  • His subscriptions page states that quizzes are available for select readings, so practice coverage is uneven across the curriculum
  • You already own the videos and what you are actually short of is a dated schedule to get through them

What to look for in an alternative

  1. Does it give you a dated schedule, or an hour budget you still have to turn into days?
  2. Does practice cover every reading, or a selected subset of them?
  3. What happens to your materials and your progress once the exam period ends?
  4. Can it work from content you already own, or only from its own library?
  5. Does it adapt from what you scored, or from how difficult you told it something was?

The alternatives

Disclosure: exclam.ai runs this site. The other entries are real options we genuinely recommend depending on the use case.

1. exclam.ai

Our pick if you have an exam date
Best for: A dated day-by-day plan over the CFA materials you already own

Not a content vendor — the layer above one. Upload the CFA materials you have the right to use, set the exam date you registered for, and exclam.ai builds the day-by-day plan: what to read, what to review, and when to sit mocks. Every reading you upload gets its own quiz and flashcards, mastery comes from what you actually scored rather than what you rated as hard, and the plan re-cuts the remaining days when you miss one.

2. Kaplan Schweser

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Best for: The default full package: condensed notes, question bank and mocks

The most established CFA prep brand, built around condensed notes plus a large question bank and mock exams. The nearest thing to a single-vendor answer if you want notes rather than video as your primary source.

See exclam.ai vs Kaplan Schweser

3. AnalystPrep

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Best for: Lower-cost notes and question bank across CFA and FRM

Study notes, video lessons and a question bank covering CFA and FRM, positioned well below the premium packages. A common pairing for candidates who want Meldrum for teaching and a separate bank for volume.

See exclam.ai vs AnalystPrep

4. IFT (Arif Irfanullah)

Visit
Best for: The other well-known CFA video instructor, with condensed notes

The closest like-for-like alternative to Meldrum in format: video lectures paired with condensed notes across the three levels. Candidates who bounce off one instructor's teaching style often land here.

5. 300Hours

Visit
Best for: Free orientation material and an active candidate forum

Free study notes, comparison write-ups and a busy forum. Genuinely useful for working out what to buy and for sanity-checking your pace, but it is a supplement rather than a complete program.

6. Bloomberg Exam Prep

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Best for: Question-bank-first prep, often bought through an employer

Study material and a question bank with adaptive practice over its own bank. Most visible among candidates whose employer is paying, less so among self-funded self-studiers.

7. The CFA Institute curriculum itself

Visit
Best for: Candidates who want the source rather than a summary of it

Registration includes the curriculum and the official practice material. Slower going than any summary, and it is the one option that is never out of scope — which is why plenty of Level III candidates end up back on it.

Which one should you pick?

If…Pick
You have not bought anything yet and learn best from videoMark Meldrum or IFT
You would rather read condensed notes than watch lecturesSchweser or AnalystPrep
You already own the videos and keep falling behindKeep the videos, add exclam.ai for the schedule
You want practice on every reading, not a selected subsetexclam.ai over your own materials
You are on the Level III self-study tier and want structureMark Meldrum + exclam.ai
You want the source material rather than a summaryThe CFA Institute curriculum + exclam.ai

Two different searches hide behind "Mark Meldrum alternative"

The first one is about access and price. Someone is comparing packages before they have bought anything, and wants to know whether the instruction is worth it versus a notes-and-question-bank package. That is a real question, and the list above is the honest answer to it: Schweser and AnalystPrep if you would rather read than watch, IFT if you want video but a different instructor, the curriculum itself if you would rather not have a summary between you and the source.

The second one is not about the videos at all. It comes from candidates who already bought a package, like the teaching, and are still behind — because a video library ordered by the curriculum does not tell you which video is tonight. That search looks like a search for a content alternative, but no amount of extra content answers it. What is missing is a schedule.

It is worth being precise about the tools here, because the two searches get conflated. Mark Meldrum does publish a study planner, and it takes your registered exam date: you tell it how difficult you find the content and how many hours a week you have, and it works out where those hours should go. What it publishes about itself is an allocation of hours, and the signal it allocates on is a difficulty rating you supply before you have studied the reading. That is a different output from a dated task list, and if your problem is "I have 140 hours left and eleven readings I have not opened", the hour budget is not the part you are missing.

This is the one place exclam.ai belongs on this list, and only this place. It ships no CFA content and is not an alternative to anyone's teaching. It takes the materials you already own and have the right to use, plus the date you registered for, and produces the plan: this reading today, this review today, these mocks in three weeks — with a quiz behind every reading you upload, including the ones no vendor has quizzed for you. Keep whichever content vendor you chose. Use exclam.ai for the days.

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Upload your study material and get a phased plan (coverage → review → mocks) with AI flashcards, quizzes, FSRS, and per‑topic mastery, built around your exam date.

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exclam.ai is an independent study tool and is not affiliated with, authorized by, or endorsed by Mark Meldrum, MM Education, CFA Institute, or any provider listed on this page. CFA®, Chartered Financial Analyst®, and CFA Institute are trademarks owned by CFA Institute; all other names are used nominatively, to identify the products being compared. exclam.ai does not reproduce or distribute CFA Institute curriculum, Learning Outcome Statements, end-of-chapter or practice questions, mock exams, or any prep provider's content. Package contents and terms described here reflect each vendor's own published pages at the time of writing and change each exam cycle — verify on their sites before you buy. Use exclam.ai only with materials you have the right to upload.