Best Free Product Management Courses for 2025 (That Actually Work)

Tired of overpriced PM courses? These free resources actually teach you product.

Most product management courses are broken.

They teach you how to administer a backlog, write neat user stories, and memorize frameworks that don’t survive real-world pressure. But product management today isn’t about following a textbook. It’s about building the right thing, fast, with limited information, tight deadlines, and evolving tools like AI changing the game every few months.

And here’s the hard truth: the PMs who will thrive are the ones who think like founders.

Why classic PM courses fail

Traditional courses were built for PMs in big companies, where the job was mostly about coordination, alignment, and keeping Jira clean. That version of the role is fading. AI now handles much of the repetitive work. And in startups, or even modern product teams, what matters is your ability to understand problems deeply, validate fast, and make good bets with incomplete data.

Yet most courses still try to:

• Teach rigid frameworks without context
• Focus on surface-level tasks like story points and backlog grooming
• Avoid the hard, messy part of building products that people actually want

Worse, they’re often expensive, hundreds or even thousands of dollars, for content you can’t apply unless you’re in a perfectly structured team with unlimited time. Which nobody has.

What to look for instead

If you want to grow as a product creator today, skip the polished theory. Focus on sources that help you build better intuition, show you how real builders work, and give you skills you can use immediately.

Here are some of the best, and free, ways to learn modern product management:

1. Y Combinator’s Startup School (YouTube)

Even if you’re not a founder, this is gold. It teaches first principles: how to talk to users, validate problems, build MVPs, and get traction, the actual job of a good PM.

2. Lenny Rachitsky

Lenny doesn’t just share tips. He curates real experiences from builders and PMs at top companies. His interviews and advice help you develop product judgment, not just knowledge.

3. Product Therapy by Christian Idiodi

Christian cuts through the noise with stories and frameworks that are actually useful. You’ll learn what it means to solve real problems, not just manage roadmaps.

4. Sheriyas Doshi on X

One of the clearest voices on modern product thinking. Sheriyas shares practical insights for PMs who want to ship smarter, not just work harder.

5. CraftUp (the one I built)

I built CraftUp because none of the courses out there helped me when I actually had to build things. They were either too theoretical, too slow, or just designed for a different world.
CraftUp is a free mobile app that helps you build product skills through short, no-fluff lessons you can actually use.
It’s made for people who want to learn by doing. One habit at a time. No busywork. No gatekeeping. Just practical learning that sticks.

PM is not a checklist, it's a journey

Product management isn't something you master in 10 hours. It's a long journey of building, failing, learning, and adjusting. Especially now, with AI accelerating the pace and changing the tools you have at your disposal.

So instead of wasting time on another $800 course full of filler, focus on the sources that push you to think like a builder.

Start with any of the ones above. They’re free. They’re modern. And they’ll actually help you grow.

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Want to sharpen your product instincts with just 10 minutes a day?
Try CraftUp: interactive product lessons for founders and builders.
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