Seven ways to put a CFA® study schedule on a calendar, from free week-by-week templates to full prep programs with a planner bundled in. Prices are approximate August 2026 list prices per level. Two of the best options here cost nothing, and they are listed first among the paid ones for that reason.
Why CFA candidates go looking for a planner
CFA Institute reports roughly 300 hours of preparation per level, and nobody schedules 300 hours in their head
The window calendar rotates levels, so a slipped date can cost months rather than weeks
Most prep programs schedule their own course and go quiet if you also own curriculum PDFs or another vendor's notes
Free week-by-week templates are generic by design — they cannot know what is in your materials
Falling two weeks behind should re-date the plan, not require rebuilding a spreadsheet
How to compare them
Does it produce actual calendar dates, or only "week 1, week 2" labels?
Does it re-date the plan when you fall behind, or do you rebuild it?
Can it schedule materials it did not sell you?
Does practice come from the pages you just read, or from a separate generic bank?
Cost per level, and whether the planner is bundled with content you may not need
The list
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 plan built from materials you already own
Pricing: Free tier, then $8/week or $30/month
The plan is built from your uploaded materials, with quizzes generated from them. Upload curriculum PDFs, provider notes, or your own summaries; the plan splits them into day-by-day readings on real calendar dates, pairs each reading with a quiz drawn from those pages, and schedules spaced review and mocks backward from your exam date. It contains no CFA Institute curriculum of its own — if you want vendor-written lectures or a large vendor question bank, buy one and point the plan at it.
Best for: A free week-by-week template and the best community on the internet
Pricing: Free
A free study planner plus free notes, a large forum, and honest comparison content. Genuinely good and genuinely free. It is a generic template: it schedules a typical candidate's weeks, not your materials, and it does not know which pages you have read.
Best for: Free scheduling with progress tracking against your exam date
Pricing: Free, with paid add-ons
A free CFA study planner with progress tracking, checklists, and a well-regarded set of free notes. Like 300Hours it schedules a standard curriculum outline rather than the specific files on your machine.
Best for: A complete program with the planner bundled in
Pricing: ~$500–$1,700 per level depending on package
The most-used CFA prep brand: condensed notes, a large question bank, mocks, and a study calendar inside the course. The planner schedules Schweser material specifically, and the premium tiers are the most expensive option on this page.
Best for: The cheapest complete package with lifetime access
Pricing: ~$199–$399 per level
Notes, video lessons, and a large MCQ bank at a fraction of Schweser pricing, with lifetime-access tiers that survive a failed attempt. Scheduling is light — a study-plan outline rather than an adaptive dated plan.
Best for: Question quality and answer explanations
Pricing: ~$500–$1,300 per level depending on package
UWorld's reputation is built on explanation quality, and the CFA bank follows the same pattern. You are buying practice and explanations; the study planning around it is thinner than Schweser's.
Best for: Long-form video instruction from one teacher
Pricing: ~$300–$500 per level
Deep video lectures with a strong following, especially for Level II and Level III. There is no planner and no question bank of Schweser's scale — most candidates pair the videos with something that schedules them.
Which one should you pick?
If…
Pick
Zero budget
300Hours or Soleadea free planner
You want one vendor to hand you everything
Kaplan Schweser
Cheapest complete package
AnalystPrep
You learn from video
Mark Meldrum + something that schedules it
You already own materials and need dates
exclam.ai
Questions
Is there a free CFA study planner?
Yes, more than one. 300Hours and Soleadea both publish free CFA study planners and free notes, and both are worth using. They schedule a generic curriculum outline rather than the specific files you study from, which is the trade-off for costing nothing.
What does a paid planner do that a free template does not?
A free template gives you week labels. The exclam.ai plan is built from your uploaded materials, with quizzes generated from them, so a task says which pages of which file you read on which date, and a weak quiz answer points back at a page you own. That difference only matters if you actually upload your materials.
How many hours should a CFA study plan cover?
CFA Institute reports that candidates typically spend around 300 hours per level. Across a 13-week runway that is about 23 hours per week; across six months it is closer to 12. Any planner that cannot show you that arithmetic against your exam date is not really planning.
Do I still need a prep provider if I use a planner?
Usually yes, for content and practice volume. A planner schedules work; it does not teach the curriculum or supply thousands of vendor-written questions. The common combination is one content provider plus something that dates the work.
Which planner handles a failed attempt best?
Whichever one lets you keep your materials and move the date. AnalystPrep's lifetime-access tiers protect the content spend; a plan built from your own uploads re-dates to the next window without repurchasing anything. Check access expiry before you buy if a retake is plausible.
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exclam.ai is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by CFA Institute, Kaplan Schweser, AnalystPrep, UWorld, Mark Meldrum, 300Hours, or Soleadea. CFA Institute does not endorse, promote, or warrant the accuracy or quality of exclam.ai. CFA® and Chartered Financial Analyst® are registered trademarks owned by CFA Institute, used here only to identify the exam being discussed. exclam.ai does not reproduce CFA Institute curriculum content, learning outcome statements, or official mock exams, and makes no claim about your result. Prices are approximate list prices checked in August 2026.