Pragmatic Institute vs Reforge
Comparing Product Management Learning Platforms
What I will cover and a TLDR summary
Whether you are about to start your career as a Product Manager, or already are a seasoned veteran, the need for learning and expanding your skillset is always there. In this article, I will share my experience with the two learning platforms I used: Pragmatic Institute and Reforge. We will look at their teaching philosophies, their offerings, the pricing, and the respective course experiences.
TL;DR: Both platforms offer great content, they differ in several areas though and not just the content. What platform to choose will highly depend on your current situation and your preferred learning style. Pragmatic offers courses that are more generic, but do cover the entire product lifecycle. Courses are delivered in classroom style with an exam at the end. Reforge offers more courses, but they are geared mainly towards the SaaS segment and their content is addressing more specific problem areas. If you are a new PM, Pragmatic is your choice, same goes for PMs for non-SaaS products. Other than that, I would recommend checking out Reforges courses, I am convinced you will find something suitable.
Introduction: From Presales to Product Management
While I tried to be as neutral and generic as possible in my comparison, it is definitely influenced by how I ended up being a Product Manager. After having spent 11 years as a Presales Solution Consultant selling Enterprise Software, I was fed up with the sales world. I was happy with the company I was working for and didn’t want to leave. I walked into the office of one of the founders and, after talking about my situation, he suggested Product Management as a suitable next career step.
I have worked with several PM’s during my Presales career, and to me it appeared that what excited me in Presales, managing a split between multiple domains, was also the essence of Product Management. This and other similarities led me to believe it should be “sorta the same”. How very naïve of me… It didn’t take me long to realize how wrong I was. My manager recommended some formal training, and suggested Pragmatic Institute. I started off with their Foundations course, to lay the groundwork, and then followed up with their Focus course to go a bit deeper into the principles of Product Management.
Over the 4 years, as I gained more experience, my training needs changed. The challenges I faced became more nuanced, and I was looking for solutions, or at least approaches for specific problems areas. I was talking to a friend and colleague, a fellow PM, about my struggles and he mentioned Reforge as a good alternative.
The challenge at that time was that, after a shift in Product strategy, we needed to re-align our unit of about 50 people, across multiple domains in engineering, UX design, UX research, Analytics, and Product. Reforge’s “Product Leadership” course gave me plenty of pointers that I was able to apply right away.
The reason I am comparing these two platforms is simple: I have not used any others, but these two I know quite well. I hold the Pragmatic Product Manager certification after attending 5of their courses, including the first iteration of their Design course. I was also part of 5 live cohorts at Reforge including courses about Product Marketing. If you know any other platforms, do let me know your experience, I am always curious to try out new things.
Now it’s time to jump in and see how the two platforms compare to each other.
Different philosophies: Comparing their missions
First, let’s take a look at their respective focus areas. While both platforms are targeting Product Management, they also recognize the collaborative nature of the job and offer trainings that help bridge the gap to other disciplines like UX or Analytics.
Pragmatic
I would describe Pragmatic Institute as the online university of Product Management. Their framework spans the entire product lifecycle, from the initial inception of an addressable problem, the business case, down to the enablement of sales and the support after the release.
Pragmatic is focused on the holistic practice of Product Management, which allows for a broad offering. At the same time, holistic also means that they are not limited to any industry or type of product, making their courses rather generic.
Reforge
Reforge targets experienced Product folks, primarily in the SaaS space. Based on the content, my take is that they lean even more to the B2C side of the SaaS segment, although the coverage of B2B cases is more than sufficient.
Reforge’s philosophy is built less on the idea of offering trainings but continuous learning, accepting that at some point the incremental gains take more effort and take longer to take effect.
In addition to their Product Management courses, Reforge also has content for Marketeers and Engineering Leaders. I have attended a course for Product Marketing. This was driven by one of these situations where there is a need but nobody there to pick it up, so it falls on the PM (Guess we all have been there 😄).
What they teach: Comparing their course offerings
Getting to the essence: For my comparison I only looked at courses directly addressing Product Management needs. While Product Marketing and Design are separate functions, I would consider them to be close enough to the Product Management discipline to be relevant. I had nor have intentions to become a designer, nor a Product Marketeer, but a good understanding of both functions will help you to be successful. The same would apply to the realm of engineering, but that is a topic by itself. (And maybe another blog 😄)
Pragmatic
Pragmatic offers 8 core Product Management courses . Their extended offering includes a course about AI and 3 courses delivered by partners. It is important to know that the courses are meant for Product Managers, “Design” doesn’t teach you to become a designer but helps you collaborate with designers more effectively.
Courses are available as in-person classrooms or online, their Foundations course can be booked on demand. Each course is followed by an exam, after passing you will earn a badge for completion. Exams require a 70% passing grade on 20 multiple choice questions, covering the courses’ content. The study book including your notes can be used during the exam.
An interesting option is the “Corporate Training” offering; you and your group of colleagues will get an exclusive course. I have not attended one of those myself, but can see the value if you have a larger product organization.
Courses are updated regularly, but I can’t attest to that as I have not attended the same course twice. They have not added any courses to their “core” offering since I booked my last training 2 years ago.
Reforge
Reforge offers (at the time of the writing) 20 live courses and 16 courses delivered on demand. Some courses, only few, are directed at other disciplines, examples are “Engineering Management” or “Brand Marketing”
The courses offered address various problems that come with the role, I would say that you can generally group them into 4 buckets: Leadership & Career Progression, Growth, Technology and Collaboration with other disciplines.
Courses are being updated regularly and new courses are added frequently. Also, their platform is continuously expanded, one example are “Artifacts”.
This capability offers a place where members can showcase their work: anything from Product Vision presentations, job descriptions or analytical work to operational values. The best thing, access to artifacts is free.
How they are priced: Comparing the cost and the pricing model
Their pricing models are quite different, but since their offerings are not exactly interchangeable, a head-to-head comparison doesn’t really make sense. You should pick the right course over what is cheaper, but that is just my take.
In short, with Pragmatic you have more flexibility as you can just book one course. With reforge, you get one course included in your subscription (the cohort pass), but since all the content is available on demand for a full year, you might find this more suitable for your situation. That said, if you don’t renew, you will lose access to it.
Pragmatic
Courses are priced per “seat”, they offer bundles for commonly combined courses. If you have a larger group of PMs that is planning to book their trainings, you can reach out and negotiate with their sales team for a discount.
I have included a short overview of the pricing they offer at the time of the writing. You can find more information directly on their course overview page. Prices don’t include tax.
Prices for On-Demand and Online courses:
- Single course: $1,295
- Bundle of two: $2,490 ($100 discount)
- Bundle of three: $3,685 ($200 discount)
- Bundle of four: $4,880 ($300 discount)
Prices for In-Person courses
- Single course: $1,495
- Bundle of two: $2,890 ($100 discount)
- Bundle of three: $4,285 ($200 discount)
Reforge
Reforge requires a membership which grants access to all On-Demand courses. The membership needs to be renewed every year, tiers are available for single PMs, but also for teams and organizations. To attend live programs an additional pass is required, which can be purchased also in bundles.
I have included an overview of their subscriptions and addons Reforge offers at the time of the writing. More information can be found on their pricing page. Prices are exluding tax.
Subscriptions:
- Individual: $1,995/year (Includes 1 cohort pass for first timers)
- Starter: $8,785/year for 2–10 seats (Includes 2 cohort passes)
- Scale: $22,765/year for 11–30 seats (Includes 6 cohort passes)
- Enterprise: For more than 30 seats, custom pricing.
Addons:
- Cohort Passes: $1,495
- Cohort Passes come with a volume discount, the second tier for example offers a price of $1,395 per pass if you take 2 or more, up to 5 passes.
How their training is run: Comparing the learning experience
Another imporant part is to check out how courses are being delivered and, ultimately, the effectiveness of their respective approach. The methods are quite different, which makes them harder to compare, and ultimately it will also come to down to personal taste and how much time one is willing to invest.
Pragmatic
I only attended online courses with Pragmatic, but some of my ex-colleagues, who have attended the in-person trainings, really praised the exchange and networking that came with it
The online courses are run in two 3.5 hour sessions on two successive days, second session includes half an hour to complete your exam. The exception is the Foundations course, which is available “On-Demand” and takes 5 hours to complete. You can either book a morning or an evening session. For us Europeans and folks in the APAC region, that meant working a bit (or a lot) longer as the morning sessions were in the Eastern timezone. As part of my research for this blog I checked their recent schedule and I noticed that they not only offer their online courses more frequently, but also have times suited better for other regions than the US.
Courses are delivered by seasoned veterans from the Product Management and Product Marketing space. Their profiles match the companies mission described earlier, long careers with plenty of experience in different fields. All in all my experience learning from these folks was very good, they came with plenty of anecdotes. I still have Steve Gaylor’s mantra in my ear: You are not in Project Management, you are in Product Management. For someone new to the job, that left an impression.
During the course, the instructors will present using a set of slides, you receive them upfront and can use them to take notes. Some courses include a case study you need to prepare, but all of them had some form of group work baked in. Most of them were a discussion on a specific question, you’d break out in smaller teams of 4–5 people and discuss, then share back your conclusions to the entire group. In other words, active participation was required. (For those of you that prefer having the camera off and leaving the unmute button untouched 😜 )There is time for Q&A during the course and at end of each session; instructors are also available for questions via email.
I have to admit, that I rarely came back to the content of the course. I tried to use some of the methods or frameworks they teach, but I was too inexperienced to make it work. What I failed to see at that time, is that almost any (if not every) method used for Product Management needs to be adapted to the current context.
Reforge
Reforge’s programs are 4 weeks long, the course is broken down into weekly segments, with course content available online and 1 live session per week. Live sessions are offered in a morning and an evening session,
Weekly segments require self-study, which usually takes around 3–4 hours. The segments are broken down in 10–15 minute long chapters, which are easy to consume. You can either watch a narrated video of the slides they used or read through the transcript. Their online platform is quite neat, you can highlight certain parts of the text if you want to come back to it later.
Live sessions are run by an EIR, executive in residence, acting as a moderator. EIRs have extensive experience in Product Management themselves and each week they host a different guest speaker, either the person that created the course or someone else that had worked on solving this problem in their career in the past. The list of EIRs and guest speakers reads as the Who-is-who of the SaaS world. They share actual case studies from their careers; giving the context to the participants and prompt them, using the weeks content, to propose a solution. Participation is not required, but if you do respond to prompts you can be invited to share your thoughts with the group. After that, the guest speaker will reveal their approach and share how they arrived at their conclusion.
The list of creators and guests draw their experience mainly from the SaaS B2C world. Over the last months I have seen more content about how to apply growth concepts in a B2B context, which made it more relevant for me. The experience I had with guest speakers generally was great, a few highlights were the sessions I had with Elena Varna, a great storyteller, and Shaun Clowes’ stories from his time with Jira. I still remember that he told us that 300 users wrote letters to the CEO to get him fired. 😂
I frequently go back to the content of past courses, and by now have adapted some of the methods I picked up there. With an active membership you can also access and use content of courses you haven’t attended, which makes it a great tool for quick, inbetween research on finding new ways to solve a problem.
Conclusion: My take aways
This was not set out to have a winner, like in Product Management in general, making choice highly depends on the context. Let’s look at a few scenarios that might help to make a decision easier.
If you…
… are new to Product Management, starting with a few courses from Pragmatic Institute is your best bet. I recommend Foundation and Focus, if you want to do add one more, go for Build. See where this takes you.
… have experience as a Product Manager but are working on non-SaaS products, go for Pragmatic Institute. Reforge’s concept are geared towards SaaS and you will have a hard time applying their methods.
… have experience as Product Manager and work on SaaS products, Reforge would be my go-to platform. I assume that, like me, at this stage you have found enough material to get the general gist of things, and now you are faced with specific problems.
…are a Product Leader or about to become one, Reforge has great content to offer.
Courses that I took and this article is based on
This is a quick overview of the courses I took with both Pragmatic Institute and Reforge
Pragmatic (2020 — 2021)
- Foundations
- Focus
- Build
- Design
- Insight
Reforge (2022 — 2023)
- Product Leadership
- Product Strategy
- Data for Product Managers
- Product Marketing
- Product-Led Growth
Additional resources
Here are some additional resources I use frequently, next to LinkedIn, Medium or Substack.
- Lenny Rachitsky’s Newsletter (Simply a must for every Product Manager) — https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/
- Lenny’s podcasts: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/podcast
- The Pragmatic Engineer (To stay in touch with your tech side): https://www.pragmaticengineer.com/
- McKinsey Product Academy (Including a session from one of my favorites, Marty Cagan): https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/how-we-help-clients/mckinsey-academy/product-academy
- Reforge Artifacts: https://www.reforge.com/artifacts
