Skip to content

Prompt Engineering

Practical, fast-payoff skills: structuring prompts, few-shot examples, chain-of-thought, system prompts, evaluation, and model-specific techniques for Claude, GPT, and Gemini.

7 courses1 free4 free to audit2 paid · up to $49
Side by side

Compare every option

Sorted cheapest first. Click a column header to re-sort. Anyone using AI tools daily; developers building on model APIs.

Prices and free tiers change often. Everything here was checked in November 2026; confirm the current price on the provider's page before enrolling. Many Coursera and edX courses can be audited free, with payment only for the certificate.
Course Level Duration Price Certificate
Anthropic · GitHub
intermediate 9 chapters, self-paced Free
No Visit
Google · Coursera
beginner Under 10 hours (4 courses) Paid
$49/mo
Yes Visit
Vanderbilt University · Coursera
beginner ~18 hours (6 modules) Free to audit
Free to audit · ~$49
Yes Visit
Vanderbilt University · Coursera
beginner 4 weeks at ~10 hrs/week (3 courses) Paid
~$49/mo
Yes Visit
DeepLearning.AI and OpenAI · DeepLearning.AI
beginner ~1 hour 40 minutes Free to audit
Free to audit
Yes Visit
DAIR.AI
intermediate Self-paced Free to audit
Free to audit
No Visit
Learn Prompting
beginner Self-paced Free to audit
Free to audit
No Visit

1Free

No payment required. Several of these are complete university courses.

Anthropic·GitHub
Free

Anthropic's Prompt Engineering Interactive Tutorial

Anthropic's nine-chapter tutorial with exercises on prompt structure, roles, separating data from instructions, step-by-step thinking, few-shot examples, avoiding hallucinations, and building complex prompts. The definitive hands-on resource for anyone building with Claude.

intermediate 9 chapters, self-paced

4Free to audit · pay for the certificate

Watch everything free; pay only if you want graded assignments and a credential.

Vanderbilt University·Coursera
Free to audit

Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT

Dr. Jules White teaches reusable prompt patterns (persona, template, few-shot, chain-of-thought, and more) so anyone can get reliable results from ChatGPT without coding. One of the most popular prompting courses for students, writers, and knowledge workers.

beginner ~18 hours (6 modules) Certificate
Free to audit · ~$49 Visit course
DeepLearning.AI and OpenAI·DeepLearning.AI
Free to audit

ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers

Isa Fulford (OpenAI) and Andrew Ng teach two core prompting principles plus summarizing, inferring, transforming, and expanding text via the OpenAI API in Jupyter notebooks. The classic starting point for developers who want to prompt LLMs systematically rather than by trial and error.

beginner ~1 hour 40 minutes Certificate
Free to audit Visit course
DAIR.AI
Free to audit

Prompt Engineering Guide

DAIR.AI's widely cited guide to prompting techniques (chain-of-thought, ReAct, RAG, context engineering) with model-specific notes, risks, and links to papers and notebooks. For developers and researchers who want a technical, research-grounded reference.

intermediate Self-paced
Free to audit Visit course
Learn Prompting
Free to audit

Prompt Engineering Guide: The Ultimate Guide to Generative AI

A comprehensive, open-source written course covering prompting basics, research-backed techniques, reliability, image prompting, prompt hacking, and tooling, written for non-technical readers. Use it as a free reference-style curriculum you can dip into as needed.

beginner Self-paced
Free to audit Visit course

2Paid & premium

Structured programs with instructors, cohorts, projects or formal credentials.

Google·Coursera
Paid

Google Prompting Essentials Specialization

Google's four-course series teaches a five-step prompting framework for everyday tasks, data analysis, presentations, and using AI as a creative or expert partner. Suited to professionals who want practical, tool-agnostic prompting habits and a Google certificate in a few hours.

beginner Under 10 hours (4 courses) Certificate
Vanderbilt University·Coursera
Paid

Prompt Engineering Specialization

Three Vanderbilt courses (Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT, ChatGPT Advanced Data Analysis, Trustworthy Generative AI) that take you from prompt patterns to data analysis and reliability. For learners who want a university-branded certificate and a deeper path than a single course.

beginner 4 weeks at ~10 hrs/week (3 courses) Certificate
~$49/mo Visit course
Keep going

Related categories

AI Foundations

Understand what AI is, how it works, and how to use it — no coding required.

12 courses · 11 free

Generative AI & LLMs

Transformers, large language models, fine-tuning, and building with foundation models.

13 courses · 11 free

AI Agents & Developer Tools

Build agents, use the Model Context Protocol, and ship with vendor SDKs.

30 courses · 28 free