12 months later, here's my unbiased...
Review of Reforge Growth Programs
Is Reforge worth $2000/year?
Could I, should I download Reforge for free?
Reforge vs the alternatives
An unbiased review of Reforge Growth programs
An overview of what Reforge looks like on the inside 👀
Is Reforge right for me?
I have taken seven programs from Reforge
1. Growth Series
2. Growth Marketing
3. Monetization and Pricing
4. Growth Leadership
5. Advanced Growth Strategy
6. Product Led Growth
7. Retention and Engagement
I’ve chain-smoked many MANY courses in the past
It’s more than 60+ online courses so far and I can confidently say, I’ve seen the best and the worst of online courses.
I’ve taken a little too many marketing and product courses: altMBA by Seth Godin, growth.design's psychology course, CXL, Demand Curve, Copyhackers, Common Thread Collective for FB ads, 90DaySEO, Foxwell, Chase Dimond for Email, Social Savannah Tiktok, Ahrefs and Moz courses for SEO, the super basic Hubspot and Google courses, Interface Design from Shiftnudge, Programmatic SEO from Preetam Nath, Content Marketing 201 from Amanda Natividad, Attribution and Marketing Mix Modelling from Vexpower and so many more. It’s endless, really.
The point that I’m trying to drive home is that I’ve seen enough courses to have an opinion about Reforge.
This article is 100% un-sponsored.
No affiliate links, whatsoever either. No self-promotion either.
It’s 100% unbiased and written on a whim.
No ROI on this article but hopefully I’ll get to know you and make some friends.
Anyway, let’s answer the questions you have before this starts to feel like a recipe blog that takes forever to get to the actual recipe.
Reforge pricing and costs
Membership to Reforge costs $2000 / year for unlimited access to all their programs and live cohorts. Live cohorts happen twice in a year (in April and Oct).
The teams plan is their newest addition.
Reforge Team plans give better cost structure & flexibility for groups. If you have more than 4 people, the starter plan is a better option which gives you 10 people for a similar price with added functionality. If your team size is larger than 10, there's additional group options which makes pricing cheaper per person with more expert access.
The good thing about the team plan is that your entire team levels up at the same time and it's not just one person who brings insights and moves the needle. If you're considering the team plan, I can intro you to their team for exclusive pricing and benefits should you want them. Send me a note.
Is Reforge Worth it?
Yes.
It’s worth more than $2000.
Reforge gives you access to all of their programs for an entire year.
They also add new programs twice a year. So you technically have access to 22 courses for $2000. That’s $90/program or 166/month.
Realistically, you won’t do 22 courses, nor would all 22 be relevant for you. You might end up doing 4–5 at best, even if you are pacing yourself.
That would bring us to $500/course, which is a teeny tiny bit expensive until you look at the content. I honestly had a lot more wins (see portfolio) only after I joined Reforge across full-time work and consulting projects. The level up in my skillset was tremendous.
We have a 'content creation' problem
The problem with growth as a field is that there’s too much content.
Everyone wants to produce content, and become a course creator or a ‘thought leader’.
My Twitter feed is endlessly long with incredible content but as an industry, we product more content than we can consume.
Compare this to the ML/AI industry where there just aren’t enough courses to complete or newsletters to subscribe to.
The ML industry is nascent.
Growth on the other hand is loud.
There’s a lot of content and we have to be very mindful about who we learn from and how much.
Reforge bypasses this problem. It curates content.
I don’t have to worry about where I’m sourcing my knowledge from.
I don’t have to calendar-ise my learnings or go out of my way to follow so many people and ensure that the Twitter algorithm shows the good threads to me organically (which it usually won’t).
For a fee, Reforge ensures that I get the best content that exists, all wrapped in a consumable/memorizable fashion.
What Reforge offers
1. One live program with an EIR each year
Previously, they offered two-three live programs. Now, it's brought down to one.
2. Slack Community
A vibrant and helpful Slack community.
Earlier, I get to ask questions directly to people who’ve created the "hockey stick" growth for their companies. Now, it's not really possible to do.
They've made a few changes. Slack is downgraded to the free tier so message history is covers only the last 30 days which was a bummer. Secondly, all the program cohort live discussions was moved online in their portal and it's not easy to access. I don't even know where to look for it.
3. Events
All past events are recorded. This includes workshops and case studies with operators who grew the tools you use every day. The sort of ‘behind-the-scenes’ knowledge is hard to find.
In the new UX, you can't really filter. So, it's much harder to find case studies to watch.
4. Templates and transcripts
Which seems like you won’t need it, but it is pretty helpful.
A lot of newer courses don't have the video recordings btw, so check with Reforge if there's a particular course you're interested in taking.
5. Discussions [obsolete]
This is long gone. They don't have this available. Now you can't ask educators questions related to the course directly
In the past, you could ask clarifying questions from the best operators. It is very different from asking questions to someone in a free Facebook community.
I used Reforge to help me cross that inflection point in my career, and the EIRs to help me along the way.
6. The devil is in the details
Reforge is by far the most organized, and detailed program I’ve ever taken.
It’s the little details that blow my mind, honestly.
Reforge isn’t rough around the edges. It’s painfully built and they’ve thought of so many little things.
For example:
Live events are shown in my time zone and auto-added to my calendar in bulk. No timezone madness. No missing out on events because of a tech issue.
I never have to ‘duplicate a template’ and make a copy of it. It auto-duplicates in Google docs, directly in my Google Drive.
Reforge reminds me of Zedd’s $16 million new house. Purchased because the interior designer added a little something in the kitchen.
Watch for just for a minute at around the 6:12 mark. It'll auto-play when you hit the play button.
Imagine how much thought someone would have put into the bigger picture if they cared about these minor details.
7. Reforge Certifications
Reforge doesn't offer certifications. They give letter of completions.
LoC for Live Programs (open to see)
LoC for Self-Paced Programs (open to see)
8. Reforge AI
This is a product I helped beta test and develop.
You can personalize and ask it questions.
I spent 3-4 hours helping develop the product in the initial days and it's turned out well!
8. New Design
I love the new design and the UI actually. And they even used Streamline icons for the entire redesign and all presentation slides! (Streamline's the company I work for btw).
Your time will never be cheaper
The longer you wait, the more expensive your time will be. You're either going to learn what Reforge teaches on your own, or you can shortcut and learn earlier (without the practical experience).
Everything in life is a tradeoff.
1) If you feel Reforge is expensive today, it'll be financially cheaper in the future but you won't have the time!
2) If you enroll today, you won't fully understand what they teach but you'll still know how to open the emergency exit to save everyone from a flight crash.
My POV. That's all!
Could I, should I download Reforge for free?
Members get banned if they download Reforge.
If they copy something from the platform more than three times, they can get permanently banned and will lose access. So, exporting stuff isn’t allowed.
Hard to Torrent
I had a friend who had copies of every other course but he still couldn’t get Reforge. Of all the courses that exist out there, Reforge is the hardest to find on Torrent. Second, you won’t get a certificate which can help nor do you get to meet new people.
Want free Reforge-style content?
If you’ve applied and gotten rejected or are looking for a simpler entry point, I have some ideas:
Reforge EIRs and Partners maintain their own blogs, newsletters, podcasts, books, Twitter threads, and so on.
Whether or not you take up Reforge, you should subscribe to their newsletters mentioned on this Growth Marketing Resource page.
The content is highly overlapping, and these blogs are is created by the same people who created the original Reforge content. EIRs are frequently invited as guest speakers, so keep an eye on YouTube. There will be plenty of material to look at. The disadvantage is that you must compile everything yourself.
Reforge's own blog is extremely useful.
Because Reforge’s in-app search isn’t very good, I occasionally use Google search, and more often than not, they have a blog post about the topic I was looking for. I believe that much of their premium content is available on their blog. It’s disorganised and difficult to consume, but it exists and should be a good starting point because there are so many blog posts to read.
Search like this: site:reforge.com/blog otherwise its hard to find
Request a guest pass.
If you’re stuck on a topic and really want to use Reforge, ask someone who is a paid member for a guest pass, and they might be able to send you a 7-day access to three lessons from within a program. This isn’t the best method, but if all else fails, use these.
Growth Programs Guest Passes
Product Programs Guest Passes
Admitted to Reforge but aren’t sure?
Consider this:
Good products cost money.
You want them to profit.
It’s in our best interests that Reforge profits so that they can invest in developing a better product.
Reforge is a learning tool.
It should be exclusive because knowledge is our most precious competitive advantage.
If you and your competitors are both using the same handbook, is it really a competitive advantage anymore?
The high price protects you.
It’s a blessing in disguise and a total silver lining.
They also used to offer a paid monthly annual contract for students from India but it seems discontinued since the past 6 months.
The Slack community
It's well worth the money if you are able to network and make a few good friends.
Reward entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship is INCREDIBLY hard.
It’s tough, and if you don’t support people who truly add value to the world, they risk going out of business, and you end up with the bottom feeders.
That’s a terrible incentive for the world we live in.
Great products deserve to win and we should help them gain attention and then some more. 😇
Reforge Program Review
Reforge is not flawless.
Don’t sign up for Reforge thinking it’s all roses and sunshine.
It’s not.
You cannot copy from Reforge, or export the lessons.
It takes two times longer than they say it will, so your weekends are booked out. If you have consulting gigs, you might have to drop them too.
Not everything is easily applicable and requires you to research on your own, bring in data scientists at times, or just roll with it.
Your subscription will not stop if you have a major life event like a marriage or a baby. You may not study for months and really get no value during those months. There’s no way to pause it. I took Amanda’s Content Marketing 201 last month and I plan to take altMBA in Jan, so I know I cannot continue with Reforge in those two months and will have to deal with my anxiety and FOMO issues.
What I hate most about Reforge
It's really hard to consume. Content is very dense so a little hard to get through.
Imagine this...
You're watching a Netflix series, and each episode is barely 10 minutes long.
Worse yet, each episode has a 3 minutes recap without a 'skip recap' button.
If you want to binge watch Reforge, it's a bit of a pain. I have to force myself to get through it.
I think they could've simplified the content, used brain-friendly language, and condensed the material by half.
I live in the age of Instagram Reels and Tiktok where dopamine hits are instant.
So I wish they made the content a little more exciting with hooks, baits, and storytelling.
I know it's not easy to make educational content entertaining but, if they fix it, I'd be encouraged to study far more often than I do today.
But that’s honestly fine, IMO.
Reforge is super into feedback, and they really try their best to improve.
Some things are business model constraints and some things are there to improve monetization.
You will hate some things about Reforge but it’s really up to you what you focus on — the value you can get out of it or the issues.
Oh and one last thing, if you have no prior experience in a certain topic, it can feel too theoretical. Some of the reviews about Reforge claim that it doesn't teach real skills and feels high-level. That's somewhat true. Reforge has an Experimentation and Testing program that I'm trying to take. But it feels like there's just too much theory, making it really difficult to consume. That's probably only because I cannot tie back the learnings to my experience to make it feel exciting. So, if you don't have tactical experience in a certain topic, and you try taking Reforge, it might feel exhausting to consume it.
Why Reforge over literally any other platform?
Very valid question. Let’s dive in.
Reforge vs CXL
CXL is more tactical and useful during the early stages of your career. Reforge is more strategic, that does NOT teach you tactical skills. Reforge will not show you how to run ads, for example, there are many courses that can do that for you.
Reforge vs Demand Curve
Demand Curve is for founders and startups. It doesn’t have a lot of depth. It covers YouTube Ads and SEO in the same course which I think is not deep enough for seasoned growth practitioners. On a more positive note, Demand Curve won't drown you in theory. It's more suited to founders who want to get started quickly.
Reforge vs Niche Programs
I do take a few of them. Vexpower is one I really like for attribution and other cool skills. But it’s not a “this or that” decision but more of a “this AND that” decision.
Every course I took added a lot of value to me. CXL helped me land my first job. Reforge will help me tip over that inflection point in my career.
And frankly, you should have a learning budget set aside and force yourself to spend it.
Reforge vs growth.design
growth.design is more specialised, and easier to consume since it's a niche program.
More alternatives
I created an interactive guide for choosing growth marketing programs. If you filter for blogs and podcasts, it'll show up high quality blogs and podcasts that have similar content like Reforge, although a bit unstructured.
If you have questions, drop them below in the comments.
Thank you,
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