If you're weighing Barbri vs Themis bar exam prep, the honest starting point is this: our research found no independent data that settles which is better — no audited, comparable pass-rate figures and no collected list prices for either course.
What you can verify yourself is everything around them: official NCBE study aids, your board's published pass rates, and each provider's current format and price.
Here's the head-to-head on what's checkable.
How do Barbri and Themis differ?
Barbri and Themis are competing commercial bar prep providers — neither writes the bar exam, grades it, or admits anyone.
NCBE writes the exams, and admission is decided by the bar admission authority in your jurisdiction.
So every claim either company makes about results is a claim about preparation, not about the exam itself.
On independently verified facts, the two are hard to separate, because there are very few to work with.
One data point our research did verify: ACEDS — the body behind the Certified E-Discovery Specialist credential for legal staff — states that it is owned and operated by BARBRI.
Barbri's footprint in legal education runs beyond bar prep; our research verified no comparable corporate detail for Themis.
The differences that matter to a buyer are the ones you confirm at purchase time: the current price, what the enrollment includes and how long it lasts, whether lectures are live or recorded, how practice essays get graded, and what any pass guarantee actually requires.
Our research does not track either company's current catalog or offers, so each section below sets out what to verify rather than restating a brochure.
Before comparing courses, be sure of the thing they all prepare you for: the bar exam overview covers what's on the exam and who runs it.
Details change — verify before you pay
Price
Start with the honest limit: our research collected no list prices for either company, and prices change — so any dollar figure for Barbri or Themis printed months ago is stale by the time you read it.
Run the price comparison in two steps: the current total for each course, and what that total includes (access window, lectures, question bank, essay grading, guarantee terms).
The baseline you can verify is official.
As of October 2026, NCBE sold its MBE Practice Questions 1–3 and MEE and MPT practice bundles at $50 each, the MBE Complete Practice Exam at $100, and the MBE Complete Bundle of 500 questions at $200; on the NextGen side, access to all available NextGen UBE study aids cost $325, with sourcebooks at $45 each — which a law library's West Academic access may already include.
The State Bar of California also posts past exam questions and selected answers free.
The bar prep courses guide compares those official materials and the commercial course formats in detail.
Weight each course's price against what the free and official layer already covers for you.
A course earns its fee on top of that layer — structure, lectures, graded feedback — which is a fit judgment, not a list-price one.
Format and workload
Our research found no primary source — from NCBE or any bar examiner — recommending a number of bar study hours, so a schedule either company suggests is that company's own suggestion; nothing our research found ties study hours to any exam requirement.
Read hour totals in advertising the way you read pass rates: as the seller's own figure, with no independent check behind it that we could find.
The format questions to put to each provider are concrete.
Are lectures live, recorded, or both?
Does enrollment expire before your exam date?
Is the material usable offline for a commute?
How many practice essays get graded, and how quickly?
And what does a pass guarantee require if you sit and don't pass?
Our research does not track either company's current catalog, so get the answers in writing from each provider.
Then match the course's practice to the exam your jurisdiction actually gives.
A worked example of the stakes: California's written bar exam is five one-hour essays and one 90-minute performance test, typed on the applicant's own laptop or handwritten — and the MBE portion is answered on paper Scantron sheets, with no laptops.
Practice that doesn't mirror your exam day's setup is rehearsal for a different test.
Pass-rate claims
This is where the head-to-head runs out of road.
Our research found no independent source that compares or audits commercial bar-prep pass rates — the figures in each company's advertising come from the company itself.
So "Barbri's pass rate" against "Themis's pass rate" has no independent dataset behind either side, and a higher-looking number may simply be counting different people.
The pass rates anyone can check are the boards'.
In California, 54.8% of General Bar Exam takers passed in July 2025 — 69.7% of first-time takers and 12.4% of repeaters, with first-time graduates of California ABA-approved schools at 84.4%.
February 2026 was 30.8% overall: 44.0% of first-timers and 23.1% of repeaters, February's lower rate reflecting its larger share of repeat takers.
Those numbers describe the exam's takers, not any course.
Use them as your reality check: a vendor rate that can't say who was counted — first-timers only or repeaters included, which sitting, which jurisdiction — isn't comparable to your board's published figures, or to the other company's.
Which is right for working students?
With no independent dataset separating the two courses, the decision for someone studying around a job comes down to fit you can verify: whether lectures are recorded or fixed-time, how long access lasts against the weeks you actually have, whether the platform works offline, and how quickly graded essay feedback comes back.
Put those questions to both providers and compare answers, not advertising.
Plan the calendar around your jurisdiction, not around a course's.
Result dates are set state by state, not nationally: California schedules its February 2027 results for April 30, 2027, while Arizona releases February results by the second Friday in May and July results by the second Friday in October.
If you'll be working when results land, that timing matters as much as the study plan.
On employer help, our research found no primary source that quantifies bar-prep stipends or how many firms pay them — so ask the employer directly, and get the answer in writing.
Do law firms pay for bar prep? covers what our research could and couldn't verify about employer-paid prep, and how to ask.
Career information, not legal advice. Exam requirements are set by the bar admission authority in your jurisdiction — confirm details there, and confirm current course prices and terms with each provider before you enroll.