For parents of ACT students
Know what you're paying for before you pay for it.
The usual way, the money goes out in September and you find out in December whether it did anything. Aurene runs the other way round: a free diagnostic — no card, ever — that shows you, in writing, exactly which questions are costing your teen points and why the wrong answers fooled them. You decide about paying after you've read it.
- Free diagnostic · no card
- $39.99 for two months · ends by itself
- Full refund inside 7 days
One subject, 20 to 35 minutes on a phone. Take it yourself to judge the quality, or hand them the phone — it works either way. Opening the report asks for a free account (an email and a password); it never asks for a card. Student here instead? Your page is this way →
Each morning the bakers arrive before dawn to begin the early preliminary preparations for the day's bread.
Which choice is best?
See what your teen would see
Every wrong answer here was built on purpose.
A real question from the app. Pick any answer — you'll see what each wrong choice was designed to catch. This is the part other prep skips, and it's the whole reason Aurene exists.
A linear function has f(0) = 11 and increases by 7 for every 1-unit increase in x. What is f(17)?
Pick the choice you think is right ↓
Three wrong answers, three different real mistakes — named, not just marked wrong. There are 13,971 of these explanations in the app.
You've seen how this usually goes
The money isn't the risky part. Not knowing is.
A $40 book that stays on the desk. A $900 course he sits through politely. Tutoring at $50–$200 an hour you have no way to audit. None of it fails loudly — the invoice just arrives months before the evidence does.
So Aurene is built to be checked early: the first report is free and needs no card, the projected score is a range with a confidence note rather than a flattering number, and the pass you can buy is two months that ends by itself. What your teen gets is narrower than "test prep" and more useful — exactly which questions cost them points, and why the wrong answer fooled them.
- Take the diagnostic yourself, tonight. Free, no card, 20 to 35 minutes on your own phone — no teenager required in the room. That is enough to judge whether the questions are ACT-standard and whether the explanations actually teach. Most of what you are being asked to trust, you can go and check.
- Read the same report your teen reads. The diagnostic ends in a written breakdown — strengths, weak spots, what to fix first — produced before anyone has paid anything.
- The account syncs across devices. A login you both have shows you exactly what they see: the diagnostic results, accuracy and mastery by topic, and what they have worked on. Nothing in the app is hidden from either of you.
How it works
Three steps, no drama.
They take a free diagnostic.
One subject — English, Math, Reading, or Science — about 20 minutes, no card. It ends in an honest report: strengths, weak spots, and what to fix first. Opening that first report takes a free account (an email and a password, never a card).
The plan aims at what costs points.
It re-weights daily around their mistakes, so a busy school week still spends its twenty minutes where the points are. No busywork to abandon.
You check whenever you want to.
Open the Progress tab together — or on your own phone, with a login you both have: accuracy by topic, what they've worked on, and honest projected ranges rather than a flattering number. A real ACT score appears only after a full timed test.
5 questions · about 2 minutes · no account
Can you spot the trap?
Five real questions from the app — the same ones your teen would see. On every one of them, the wrong choices were built deliberately, to catch a specific mistake. Take it yourself: it is the fastest way to judge whether these are ACT-standard before you pay for anything.
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The new lighting had a positive affect on the museum exhibit.
Which choice uses the most appropriate word for the context in standard written English?
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What are the solutions to (x − 12)(x + 5) = 0?
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For the wildlife observation log, the list of questions for the interview were printed before lunch.
Which choice is best for the underlined verb?
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After a 20% discount, a backpack costs $152. What was the original price?
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By the time the adviser opened the community garden meeting, the editors submit the final outline.
Which choice is best for the underlined verb?
Real questions, checkable: eng-new-word-choice-001 · math-quadratics-205 · eng-subject-verb-agreement-161 · math-percentages-038 · eng-verb-tense-252
Trap check complete
This is what the app does on every question your teen misses — name the trap, not just the answer.
Want to see the teaching? Every wrong choice above has a written explanation of the exact mistake it was built to catch — that is what your teen reads after each miss, and it is the part other prep skips. Put in your email and they open up right here, on all five questions.
Your email, nothing else — no card, no account, and no score report goes to anyone. Unsubscribe from any email in one click.
Open. Scroll back up — every choice on all five questions now shows the mistake it was built to catch. That is what the app does on all 4,657 of them.
What your teen gets
Twenty minutes a night, aimed only at what they keep getting wrong.
- 4,657 original ACT-style questions and 13,971 wrong-answer explanations — one for every wrong choice, on every question. Your teen learns why the right answer is right and what each wrong one was built to catch.
- A daily plan aimed at their actual gaps. It re-weights around their mistakes every day, so the twenty minutes they actually have goes at the topics costing them the most — instead of at whatever the book had on page 40.
- Full timed tests with real ACT scoring, plus a pacing report that shows exactly where the minutes leak in each section.
- An AI tutor. At 11 p.m., when it's "I don't get this," it explains the exact question they're stuck on — not the topic in general. (It's the fourth thing on this list for a reason.)
- Honest reporting. Projected score ranges with a confidence note — and a real ACT number only after a full timed test.
Why honesty is the feature
If an app tells your teen they're already at a 34, why would they keep studying?
Inflated "projected scores" are an engagement trick, and teenagers see through flattery slower than they think. Aurene shows a range with a confidence note, updates it as real work happens, and only puts an official-style score on the board after a full timed test.
When the test date is real, honest beats flattering — for them and for you.
✕ What some apps show
A confident number, on day one, with nothing real behind it.
✓ What Aurene shows
Based on 2 of the 3 sections that make up the composite · confidence: medium. A full timed test is what turns this into a real score.
The boring questions
Answered before you have to ask.
- No third-party ads, ever. Your teen studies; nobody advertises to them inside the app.
- Student data is never sold. We collect the minimum needed to run the app — spelled out plainly in the Privacy Policy.
- Billing runs through Stripe. We never see or store the card number. The two-month pass keeps no card on file at all; on the monthly plan your exact charge date is shown in the app before it happens.
- There is nothing to cancel on the two-month pass. It's a one-time payment that expires on its own. If you're on the monthly plan instead, cancelling is Account → Manage billing — two taps, no phone call, no retention queue.
- Changed your mind? Ask for the money back. Full refund within 7 days of your first purchase — email support@aureneprep.com and it goes back to your card. No conditions about how much of it your teen got through. The Refund Policy is in plain English.
- A human answers email. Questions before you buy anything: hello@aureneprep.com.
Who's behind it
Aurene is built and run by me — I tutored students, sat the ACT myself, and got tired of prep that buries kids in busywork or flatters them with fake scores. Every question and every explanation in the app was written for it, on the principle that seeing why the wrong answer was tempting is what actually moves a score. If something's off, you email and a human answers.
Why the points matter
At some schools, one point is a published price.
Plenty of universities award merit money off a published grid: hit the score and the GPA, get the award — no essay, no committee. At the University of Alabama, the step from a 29 to a 30 is the sharpest one on it.
| ACT score | Award | Yearly value |
|---|---|---|
| 29 | Foundation in Excellence | $15,000 |
| 30–31 | UA Scholar | $24,000 |
That single point is $9,000 a year — per year, not once. Every grid differs, so check your teen's own list, but "a couple of points" is rarely just a couple of points.
Two catches. UA does not superscore these awards, so the composite has to come from one test date. And for fall 2027 the deadline is December 4 — the December 12 ACT returns scores on December 22, too late. October 17 is the last national date that makes it, and late registration for it closes September 29. Confirm with the school; policies move.
Search "[school name] automatic merit scholarship" for your teen's version — about ten minutes for a whole list.
UA's published 2027 automatic-merit charts (afford.ua.edu), checked 29 Aug 2026. Renewable each semester on a cumulative 3.0 UA GPA; UA publishes no fixed four-year term for these tiers, so we don't multiply them out.
Working backward from the date
When you actually have to decide.
Scores land about two and a half weeks after the test. Read the last column against your teen's scholarship deadlines — that's what sets the real date, not the test date.
| Test date | Register by | Scores back (paper) | Time left |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sept 19, 2026 | Late reg. closes Sept 1 (+$42 late fee) | Oct 6 | |
| Oct 17, 2026 | Sept 11 · late to Sept 29 | Oct 27 | |
| Dec 12, 2026 | Nov 6 · late to Nov 29 | Dec 22 | |
| Feb 27, 2027 | Jan 22 · late to Feb 9 | Mar 16 | |
| Apr 10, 2027 | Mar 5 · late to Mar 23 | Apr 20 | |
| Jun 12, 2027 | May 7 · late to May 25 | Jun 23 | |
| Jul 10, 2027 (New York only at first) | Jun 4 · late to Jun 22 | Jul 20 |
Deadlines close 11:59pm Central. Registration is $70 (+$5 if they add Science) and in ACT's own words all fees are nonrefundable unless otherwise noted
— fees and dates per act.org, checked 29 Aug 2026. The score column is ACT's paper initial release; online scores can land sooner.
Your date card
Not doing a check-up right now? Take the dates instead.
Pick the date you're aiming at. This pulls the real deadline out of the table above and does the arithmetic — what closes when, and how many days are actually left. Yours on the spot, nothing to hand over.
December scores don't arrive until Dec 22. A number of universities set scholarship priority deadlines earlier in December — Alabama's is Dec 4 — so for merit money this sitting lands after the door has shut, and Oct 17 is the last national date that gets a score there in time. Confirm each school's own date before you count on it; these move.
The math
What ACT prep costs in 2026.
Private tutoring
$50–$200 per hour
- Excellent when aimed at known gaps
- Full engagements commonly run $1,600–$6,000+
- Quality varies; scheduling is on you
Big-brand courses
$300–$2,200 one-time
- Fixed curriculum, needed or not
- Live cohorts run on the course's schedule
- Score guarantees exist — read the conditions
Aurene Prep
$39.99 for two months · one payment, no auto-renew
- Free diagnostic first — you see the honest starting point before paying anything
- Covers a test date and the weeks of prep before it — about 67¢ a day, less than one hour with most tutors
- Expires on its own. No card kept on file, nothing to cancel, no renewal to forget
- Full refund inside 7 days of your first purchase — one email, no conditions about how much got used
- Daily plan aimed at their actual gaps; every question teaches why the trap fooled them
There's also a month-to-month plan at $24.99 (first 3 days free, once per account) for families without a test date yet. That one is a subscription: it needs a card, it renews until you cancel, and cancelling is two taps from Account → Manage billing. Most families with a date on the calendar want the pass.
Tutoring and course figures are typical published 2026 ranges for major providers; your local market may differ. Aurene isn't a replacement for deep re-teaching — the free diagnostic will tell you honestly which situation your teen is in.
Questions parents ask
The honest answers.
Can I take it myself first, before I hand it to my teen?
Please do — it's the fastest way to judge this without taking our word for anything. It's free, it needs no card, and it's 20 to 35 minutes on your own phone depending on the subject you pick. You'll see the real questions and the real explanations, which is the entire product. Plenty of it can be judged at 10pm with no teenager in the room; hand it over at breakfast if you like what you saw.
How will I know if my teen is actually using it?
Honestly: we don't email you a weekly report on your teenager. That isn't built, and we won't describe it as if it were. Here's what does exist. It's one account and it syncs across devices, so a login you both have lets you open the Progress tab from your own phone and see exactly what they see — the diagnostic results, accuracy and mastery by topic, and what they've worked on. Nothing in the app is hidden from either of you. And if the answer turns out to be "he isn't touching it" — the two-month pass expires on its own and your first purchase is refundable for 7 days. The worst case here is a wasted fortnight, not a wasted four months.
What does it actually cost — and what's the catch?
The diagnostic is free and asks for no card, so nothing starts running when your teen tries it. If you want the rest, the one we'd point most families at is the $39.99 two-month pass: one payment, no card kept on file, and it ends by itself on the date shown in the account. There is nothing to cancel and no renewal to forget — the catch you're scanning for isn't in this one, because there's no mechanism for it to hide in. If you'd rather go month to month, that's $24.99/month with the first 3 days free, and that one is a subscription: it needs a card, it renews until you stop it, your exact charge date is shown in the app the whole time, and cancelling is two taps from Account → Manage billing. Either way, a full refund is yours if you ask within 7 days of your first purchase — email support@aureneprep.com; the Refund Policy is in plain English.
Is there anything that renews or auto-charges?
Not on the two-month pass: it's a one-time payment, no card is kept on file, and it stops on its own — there is nothing to cancel. The month-to-month plan does renew, and cancelling it is Account → Manage billing: two taps, self-serve, no retention call. Both are spelled out in our Terms and Refund Policy.
Is an app enough, or do we still need a tutor?
For many students the gap isn't more instruction — it's knowing which questions they miss and why. That's exactly what Aurene targets. If your teen needs a subject re-taught from the ground up, a tutor plus Aurene beats either alone. The free diagnostic tells you which case you're in — before you've spent anything.
Does it cover the new (Enhanced) ACT?
Yes — it's built for the current test. The ACT changed in 2025: it's shorter, there's more time per question, the composite now comes from English + Math + Reading, and Science is an optional section with its own score. If your older child prepped years ago, the test your teen faces is different — and prep material from that era teaches the wrong format.
Is my teen's data safe?
We collect the minimum needed to run the app, never sell student data, and show no third-party ads. Payments are processed by Stripe — the card number never touches our servers. What we store and why is in the Privacy Policy, written to be actually readable.
Whose account is it — mine or my teen's?
The account is the student's workspace, and it syncs across devices — so a login you both have lets you open the Progress tab from your own phone and see exactly what they see. Create it with whichever email works for your family; many parents use their own so billing notices come to them.
Free · no card · 20–35 minutes
Find out first. Decide after.
One free diagnostic shows you both exactly where the points are going — before you've spent a dollar on anything. Take it yourself or hand them the phone; it works either way.
Then $39.99 for two months if you want it: one payment, no card kept on file, it ends by itself, and your first purchase is refundable for 7 days. (A month-to-month plan exists too, at $24.99 with the first 3 days free — that one's a subscription.)