7 Best CPE Courses for CPAs

Being a certified public accountant is stressful enough; finding the right continuing professional education subscription should be simple.

Listed below are the best CPE courses for CPAs, with firsthand experience and details to help you find the perfect fit for your learning style. Now, you can spend less time searching for the best match, and more time earning those credits before the deadline.

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1. Becker: Best CPE Course for CPAs

Feature Highlights

• 700+ on-demand courses and 1,000+ live webcasts, giving CPAs a strong mix of self-paced and real-time CPE options.
• Prime subscriptions include unlimited credit consumption, downloadable course materials, and access to Becker’s personalized CPE Compliance Tracker.
• Live webcasts include Q&A, partial credit availability, and weekday, weeknight, and select weekend scheduling.
• Includes 50+ approved state board ethics courses and 25+ industry-specific courses.
• Covers key CPE areas like tax, accounting, audit, government, ethics, AI, blockchain, current events, and critical updates.
• Becker Accounting Podcasts allow users to earn CPE credit through podcast-style learning.

Becker CPE Pros & Cons

✅ Proven Track Record of Success: Thousands of professionals trust Becker CPE for their continuing education needs. The high satisfaction and success rates among Becker students are a testament to the quality and effectiveness of their programs. When you choose Becker, you’re joining a community of learners who consistently achieve their career goals.
✅ Pricing Options: Becker’s subscription prices are based primarily on the format and access period of the content you’re interested in. That means that pricing is based on whether or not you want webcasts or self-study courses. Furthermore, the price can be customized based on how long you want unlimited access to your materials.
✅ Up-to-Date on Trends: Becker CPE courses are continuously updated to reflect the latest industry trends, regulations, and best practices. This commitment to current and comprehensive content means you’ll always have access to the most relevant and cutting-edge information.
✅ Live Content: Becker CPE also holds live accountancy conferences and webinars. Between the on-demand content and their expansive webcasts, it’s clear that Becker is interested in offering a more varied set of study materials.

❌ Limited Refunds: Unfortunately, Becker has a limited return policy that can only be used within the first day of purchasing. However, this is more than made up for by the great pricing system and quality of their on-demand content. While disappointing, this is hardly a deal breaker.

Becker CPE Dashboard

You can find more Becker discount codes.

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2. Illumeo CPE Training

Feature Highlights

• 3,000+ CPE courses available, with coverage across audit, tax, risk, advisory, ethics, Excel, data analysis, and other professional topics.
• 120+ live webinars per year, including expert-led sessions with live Q&A.
• Unlimited CPE credits are included with Illumeo’s individual CPE subscriptions.
• Built-in CPE Compliance Tracker helps CPAs monitor requirements across all 50 states.
• Includes instant certificate downloads, consolidated credit reporting, and course recommendations.
• Offers 100+ ethics CPE courses and 30+ specialty micro-certification programs.

Illumeo Pros and Cons

✅ Live Instruction: It’s not easy to find CPE for CPAs that can compare to the high standards of regular CPA certification courses. Fortunately, Illumeo offers some of the best continuing education study materials for public accountants that are comparable to premium CPA prep programs. This is especially true for their live webinars that are taught by instructors with the highest possible student ratings.
✅ Make Your Voice Heard: Speaking of ratings, Illumeo has an excellent feature to incentivize students who want to make their voices heard about their curriculum. Any student who leaves a course review on this platform (positive or negative) will receive full access to reuse any of their materials. You can’t find a deal like this on any other CPE platform!
✅ High Standards: You might assume that Illumeo’s large catalog of CPA continuing education courses and webinars would be for the sake of quantity at the expense of quality. However, they manage to provide both in equal measure by constantly evaluating the student ratings for each course on their platform. If any CPE review course on Illumeo receives an average under four stars, they replace it with a better one.

❌ Tough To Stay Focused: When you’re an established CPA looking to maintain your professional status, it’s important to keep your eyes on the prize. And while Illumeo is definitely capable of enabling you to do so, they also have a substantial catalog of supplementary CPE and microcerts that can be distracting. If you’re the type of person who finds themselves falling down a hole of Wikipedia links, beware!
❌ Lack of Recommendations: One notable drawback of Illumeo CPE is the difficulty in finding CPAs who strongly recommend their services outside of their website. An extensive search on Reddit yielded only a single comment mentioning, “Shopped around for a while. Landed on Illumeo.” This limited feedback raises concerns about the platform’s popularity and effectiveness among industry professionals.

The full roundup of Illumeo discounts is worth a look.

Need another code? See Surgent coupon codes here.

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4. Lambers CPE Credits Courses

Feature Highlights

• Offers 1-Year and 2-Years All Access Continuing Education options for CPAs and IRS Enrolled Agents.
• Course formats include on-demand video and PDF self-study, both accessible through the user account.
• Covers major IRS and NASBA fields of study, including taxes, auditing, management, personal development, ethics, information technology, and marketing.
• Courses are taught by subject matter experts with accounting and continuing education experience.
• Built for self-paced learners who want a straightforward CPE option without a heavy live webinar or interactive platform.
• Also includes AFSP tax preparer bundles for professionals who need IRS continuing education.

Lambers Pros and Cons

✅ Experienced Instructors: Lambers possesses some of the most qualified staff in the field. Each instructor is highly qualified, typically holding both a professional certification and a minimum of a four-year degree. Thanks to this extremely qualified staff, all content is designed to ensure your success.
✅ Course Content: Lambers’ content has been expertly designed to cover skill sets from a wide range of accountancy positions. This is a company that recognizes that CPAs will need to practice specialized skills based on where they work. Therefore, Lambert ensures that you’ll always have unlimited access to the courses of your choosing.
✅ Frequent Updates: Lambers is constantly working on adding new materials to their course catalog. Monthly updates add fresh, new, and cutting-edge content for all customers. As a company, Lambers never wants anyone to work off of outdated information.

❌ Price: When compared to top educational companies and prep course providers like Fast Forward Academy, it’s been a difficult task to justify paying the prices Lambers asks for to enroll in their comparably weaker CPE course. In all fairness, they’ve come a long way in recent years to address concerns from students and reviewers like us. However, they still have a ways to go before we can honestly say they’re charging a fair price for their service.
❌ Customer Service Charges: Lambers charges extra for customer service, which can be seen as a penny-pinching move. This additional cost can be frustrating for users who expect comprehensive support to be included in their subscription, especially when many competitors offer this service at no extra charge.

See the rest of the Lambers promo codes.

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5. Gleim CPE Courses

Feature Highlights

• Gleim uses credit-hour bundles instead of a traditional unlimited CPE subscription, with options ranging from 1 hour to 100 hours.
• Hours can be redeemed for any course in Gleim’s CPE catalog, so users don’t have to choose every course at checkout.
• Includes self-paced courses with audiovisual presentations, course outlines, qualified assessments, and certificates of completion.
• Users get one year to redeem bundle hours for courses, then another year to complete selected courses.
• Covers accounting and auditing, taxation, ethics, management, consulting services, information technology, and related professional topics.
• Certificates of completion are available immediately after passing each course.

Gleim Pros and Cons

✅ Bulk Pricing: Gleim’s price tag is based on how much content you’re interested in buying. Typically, prices begin at twelve dollars per hour, but larger bulk purchases push down the price per hour. However, certain package prices are even as low as six dollars per hour.
✅ Modular Study Choices: Gleim’s CPE courses are fairly customizable, thanks to on-demand materials being based on hours purchased. Consequently, you can mix and match content from over thirty-five different topics when using your purchased hours.
✅ Free Content: For anyone on the fence about Gleim, the company actually offers several different free CPE options. In addition to two free course trials, Gleim also has its own Pilot Test program. Any accredited CPA interested in testing new online CPE courses can apply to the program and earn free online CPE hours.

❌ Extra Cost for AFSP Course: Unfortunately, if your position requires hours from the Annual Filing Season Program (AFSP), you will have to pay extra. This can mean that you might find yourself spending more than you expected to meet your requirements.
❌ Too Many Options: One notable drawback of Gleim CPE is the complexity of its multi-hour package options. Although I see it as a positive in some ways, it can be confusing for users trying to determine the appropriate amount of study time and content required to meet their specific needs. The lack of clarity in choosing the right package can detract from the otherwise high-quality learning experience that Gleim offers.
❌ Lack of Detailed Course Information: One significant con of Gleim CPE is that even after adding a course to your cart, you still can’t see much detailed information about the course beyond the number of credit hours. This lack of transparency can make it difficult to assess the course content and determine if it aligns with your learning needs and professional requirements. The limited information provided can be frustrating for users who want to make informed decisions about their continuing education options.

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6. Lorman CPE Review

Feature Highlights

• The All-Access Pass includes one year of unlimited training across Lorman’s accounting, tax, and professional development library.
• Includes 12,500+ courses and resources, with live webinars, on-demand webinars, manuals, MP3 audio courses, videos, reports, articles, and slide decks.
• Offers 120+ live online courses per month and 3,000+ on-demand online courses.
• Provides CPE/NASBA-approved training, including live webinar and QAS self-study options.
• Covers accounting, tax, payroll, sales and use tax, nonprofit accounting, estate and financial planning, Excel, office management, and legal contracts.
• Works well for CPAs who want a broader professional training library beyond standard accounting and tax CPE.

Lorman Pros and Cons

✅ Full Curriculum: When you’re already working as a professional accountant, it’s not easy to find the time to look for all the required educational material to maintain your credentials. That’s what makes Lorman’s All Access Pass so appealing; it takes the work out by providing unlimited courses for an entire year, ensuring you can get all the CPE you need in one place!
✅ Talented Instructors: Studying for the initial certification exam is one thing, but learning continuing education is another entirely. That’s why the instructors at Lorman are considerably more experienced and knowledgeable when it comes to professional accounting and business law. Just look at the credentials among the faculty teaching webinars on Carry Waivers and the instructor for their Safety Complaints course!
✅ Varied Coursework: In addition to offering live courses taught by professional instructors, Lorman CPE provides their learning materials in a wide range of formats. This is especially helpful for full-time accountants who can’t always make it to the live lectures; archived versions with accompanying reference manuals are a lifesaver in these situations.

❌ Limited Refund Policy: Sometimes, it can take a while before deciding whether or not an educational program is the right fit for you— especially if you’re also pressed for time with a day job. And although Lorman does offer a refund policy if you change your mind about their course, you only have 72 hours to do so. This means you’re going to have to decide quickly whether or not you’re interested in committing to this option!
❌ High Initial Commitment: For those unsure about their long-term needs, the requirement to purchase a full-year subscription for unlimited courses can be a significant initial commitment, potentially deterring some users from enrolling.
❌ No Middle Ground Pricing: Lorman’s pricing structure can be challenging if you are midway through your CPE credit requirements. They only offer individual course pricing or a full one-year subscription, which isn’t cost-effective for those needing just a few more credits.

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FAQs

What is CPE?

Continuing Professional Education (CPE) refers to the ongoing learning required for certified professionals—such as CPAs—to maintain their licenses and stay current with industry standards. CPAs must earn a specific number of CPE credit hours, not points, typically on an annual or biennial basis, depending on state board requirements.

What does CPE stand for?

CPE is an acronym that stands for Continuing Professional Education. It’s a term that describes the requirement that many high-skill trades have in order to maintain professional status, such as Certified Public Accountants.

What is CPE credit?

CPE credit is earned through watching or completing educational material related to your professional certification. They are required to prove that you’ve completed Continuing Professional Education.