Artist's Academy Anmeldelser 21

tl;dr
This website is limited selection of Craftsy.com’s content rebranded as Artists Academy but offers poor value as you have to purchase classes that are currently available to stream in a standard premium Craftsy membership. I suggest you search for a Craftsy coupon deal and sign up for Craftsy membership instead, or purchase Craftsy classes when they’re having a promotion. Maybe revisit Artist’s Academy once they’ve added all the Craftsy content.

I received a cheap premium membership offer on Instagram for NZ$1.50, after signing up I was immediately offered gold membership for another $9 (not sure if that was USD or NZD). I decided to purchase it even though I thought that the premium membership was supposed to include access to all videos - it does but the gold membership gives you a small number of benefits of dubious value - eight short ebooks which are actually pretty good, but I’m on an online streaming platform to watch videos not read books; and four additional courses/classes, which are good but you don’t get to choose which ones you get, and you can get those courses elsewhere (read on to find out how); plus you supposedly get discounts on content you purchase… or do you….?

Artist’s Academy is owned by TN Marketing, which also owns Craftsy and other online streaming services. The classes are Craftsy classes rebranded as Artist's Academy. There is one piece of original content - a 14 day drawing and painting beginners course which contains no actual drawing or painting demonstrations. It’s more like a drawing and painting theory lecture. It’s good, but not really what it says on the tin, and it’s only included with gold membership.

Selecting ‘all videos’ from the menu brings up just 69 videos, that’s not courses, it’s just individual videos, so there’s very little content included in your membership. The menus need work, for example the ‘browse’ function allows you to select ‘painting materials’ but to find specific media you have to type in a search box. Searching for the term ‘watercolor’ brings up just 1 video.

As the website is now you can’t view the classes/courses in series as they were originally recorded except for the two complimentary ones you got with your premium membership (or six if you upgraded to gold membership). It’s useful to have the option to watch the videos in series as the lessons in most classes build on previously taught skills. There are currently 21 classes available for purchase on Artist’s Academy, but a search for drawing and painting classes on Craftsy brings up 162 classes. My regular premium membership on Craftsy allows me to stream classes, access class materials and participate in discussion in any class on the platform.

Just like on Craftsy you can purchase classes to own forever if you don’t want to sign up for membership. If you upgraded to a gold membership you’re supposed to get a 20% discount on classes but when I added the ‘Startup library: learn to draw’ class to my cart and proceeded to checkout not only was no discount applied but $39.95 shipping was added! The class is described as “On-demand video access anytime”, there are no physical materials. I tried with another class, which didn’t add shipping, but still no sign of the 20% discount I’m entitled to with my gold membership upgrade. On that basis I’m no better off than someone who hasn’t paid for membership. Currently Craftsy is offering up to 70% off classes. I tested the startup drawing class and I could buy that for $21 today on Craftsy compared to $109.90 (including shipping) at Artist’s Academy for exactly the same class.

I’m beginning to wonder whether anyone did any website testing before going live, especially with the references to knitting and cake decorating that remain in the edited text transferred from Craftsy. Looks like someone just did a search and replace rather than actually reading the text - that’s sloppy.

Artist’s Academy has the potential to be good if they upload all of the Craftsy content and add some original content so I’ll take a look again in a few months but as it currently stands it’s hard to see the value in this platform, even at the very low membership price.

I’ve emailed them for a refund so hopefully that all goes smoothly.