Cengage Learning Reviews 592

TrustScore 1 out of 5

1.1

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Review summary

Created with AI, based on recent reviews

Considering 71 reviews, most reviewers were let down by their experience overall. Many customers found the pricing to be exploitative, especially for temporary access to textbooks and digital materials that often cost as much as physical copies but offer limited use. The website and product experience were frequently criticized for being dysfunctional, with issues like slow loading times, frequent logouts, and difficulty accessing purchased content. Users reported problems with the product's design, including poorly displayed textbooks, broken links, and a cumbersome navigation system that made learning inefficient and frustrating. The customer service was also a major point of dissatisfaction, with many describing it as unhelpful, unresponsive, and unwilling to issue refunds for issues like incorrect orders or double charges. Some people also felt that the grading schemes were overly specific and unfair, particularly in courses like MS Excel, making it difficult to achieve high scores even with correct results. Additionally, a few other people also felt that the platform's content was often misleading, contained outdated information, and sometimes lacked essential chapters or exercises, hindering their learning process.

What people talk about most

User experience

Reviewers express significant frustration and disappointment with the user experience, often citing issues... See more

Product

Customers had negative experiences with the product, often citing issues with accessibility and content.... See more

Website

Reviewers highlight significant dissatisfaction with the website, frequently describing it as poorly designed... See more

Price

Consumers express significant dissatisfaction with pricing, often describing it as unfair for temporary... See more

Customer service

Customers consistently note negative experiences with customer service, often describing it as shocking, a... See more

Reviews shaping this summary

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Cengage price gouges for temporary access to a book. That is an insane and predatory business practice for students, some of which are barely making ends meet. Capitalistic pigs at their finest folks.... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

I paid $200 for a new textbook directly from Cengage's website. It took 20 days for it to arrive, and it is clearly used. Pages are folded over, and gunk is spilled on the back cover. How can a publis... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Cengage is genuinely the worst platform I've ever used for learning. I'd rather crawl through 100 miles of broken glass than complete another cengage assignment. It's only used by lazy professors and... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Absolutely horrible- tried to purchase their materials for my son. The prompt asks if youre a student- if you click "No" it automatically places you into an instructor account - then you have no way... See more


Company details

Written by the company

Cengage helps higher education instructors, learners and institutions thrive with course materials built around their needs.


Contact info

1.1

Bad

TrustScore 1 out of 5

592 reviews

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1-star

No history of asking for reviews

This company hasn't invited their customers, so reviews may not be representative

Hasn’t replied to negative reviews

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Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Horrible

Cengage is absolutely horrendous. To start, universities put thier MARKED homework behind a paywall where you MUST buy the textbook to get the homework code. Secondly, their textbook is extremely poorly displayed on the site. Not as a pdf for easy access but in a way where you cannot navigate from the introduction to the chapter without having to go back into list of content, and choosing the next part. On top of that you have to navigate each page individually, with a arrow button on each page which makes it slow to use. Lastly for now., the homework isn't even good and when you need help and want to read it over in the textbook. You press the "read it" button which brings you to the list of content in the textbook and doesn't tell you where it is. ABSOLUTELY HORRENDOUS. AVOID AT ALL COST.

9 November 2025
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

I’ve spoke to Chris Pallogna and…

I’ve spoke to Chris Pallogna and Jasmine graham for months and they’re still useless, stagnant and unprofessional in November as they have been since May. This is pathetic, time consuming, useless and also ridiculous!

6 November 2025
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Struggles with Cengage

Taking Microcomputers at my college and my teacher uses Cengage for all of her assignments. For each assignment, Cengage wants it done a very specific way with hard-to-understand instructions, and if you get it wrong, there is very little feedback to tell you what you did wrong.

5 November 2025
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Pathetic Garbage

I'm not even here to complain about the Cengage assignments. I am simply here because I am just about fed up with taking 45 minutes to load my single online textbook. Why does it have to take me 67 refreshes just to open the textbook I spent $200 on. Here's what I'd suggest for the company: Everyone just hand in your things and quit, you'd be better off coding the menu item screen at a Starbucks.

29 October 2025
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

slowest, unoptimized, ineffective learning platform

slowest, unoptimized, ineffective learning platform, virtual labs are always slow to load, simulation lab's error handling, what do you mean there's a difference between letter between one's capitalized by Capslock key and a letter that's capitalized by shift? and also after submitting it does not register the score quickly u have to wait or else you'll get 0/incomplete???

28 October 2025
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Misleading questions

Misleading questions, misleading answers, chapters that repeat themselves over and over and don't provide supplementary information that would actually give important context and understanding. The averaging system paired with all the misleading questions/answers makes it impossible to feel like I'm actually learning or retaining anything, even if I spend two hours reading a section.

29 October 2025
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Took two economics courses that used…

Took two economics courses that used Cengage learning as it's primary textbook/assignments. The amount of times that Cengage asked a question which then would mark you wrong followed by them giving a wrong/controversial explanation was unnerving. Dozens of their questions gave incorrect feedback or had multiple right answers and expected you to pick one. Cengage takes the fluff of economics and maximizes the amount of material they put in their textbook that doesn't actually matter/teach you anything while then asking you to answer stuff they haven't taught. You can't expect to learn anything using their textbook until you answer questions wrong before it'll actually start to explain. Drop a course if you learn it uses cengage.

27 October 2025
Unprompted review
Rated 2 out of 5 stars

User interface is not friendly

User interface is not friendly, rather it is complicated. Why does every assignment of each block in our school be shown to us when we only focus on one particular block. I don't care about the other blocks, i just need mine. it's horrible. not to mention when submitting the assignment you have so many things to click before actually submitting it. that left my other classmates "at fault" that they didn't submit their materials when in fact they didn't know that there were a LOT of buttons to press. Pretty much a waste of time, and i don't know why my school prefers this over Google Classroom instead.

12 August 2025
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Cengage is genuinely the worst platform…

Cengage is genuinely the worst platform I've ever used for learning. I'd rather crawl through 100 miles of broken glass than complete another cengage assignment. It's only used by lazy professors and institutions who don't actually want to teach their students the skills they need.

11 October 2025
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

A CRIME

This is the most disgusting awful website to have ever been created. I wish the absolute worst on whoever created it and made Chemistry professors think it is ok for their students to go through this type of torture. Not only does it not explain why you get answers wrong, IT GETS HARDER WHEN YOU MESS UP. I have never hated anything more than this platform and it needs to be wiped the way it is wiping its A** with me every week.

9 October 2025
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

I never leave reviews but I thought…

I never leave reviews but I thought this will help others from having same issues I had to go through. By far the worst product and service experienced in years.

Maintenance work is being done outside of scheduled maintenance hours, site logs you out every time you’re inactive for minutes, and can only be viewed online.

This is all just to read a textbook that I paid for, this is absolutely insane. I was trying to prepare for my exam and website just shuts down and goes into maintenance. But this was outside of their announced scheduled time.

They won’t refund or do anything for you, their customer service is a joke. Stay away.

1 October 2025
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Complete trash

Complete trash. A 4 year old could design a better interface. It's bulky, broken and oversaturated with fluff. It's clearly designed to be a money grab and institutions are buying into it to reduce overhead and the accountability of having a professor or department develop and implement a cohesive unit. I'd rate it less than 1 star if I could.

12 September 2025
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

I started my new study this year

I started my new study this year, for which I had to buy the book Chemistry form Zumdahl and Zumdahl 9th edition. When you buy a book you would expect all the chapters to be in there, but when I went to search for chapter 2 I found it not to be in the book. It said i had to go to the ebook for chapter 2. When I tried to log in to my ebook nothing worked. The book is expensive and for what? Not even all the chapters are in the book and you absolutly can not enter the ebook in which seems to be most of the information I needed for my study, such as chapter 2 and ALL OF THE EXERCISES! How am I supposed to learn now? In conclusion, I find this book and this website absolutly afwul. I hope no one else has to buy anything from here.

9 September 2025
Unprompted review

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