How to use IT Playbook

Everything the platform can do, in one place — the lessons, the player, quizzes, how progress is tracked, your daily goal, what's free, and how billing works. Skim the contents below, or read it top to bottom.

1. Getting started

Open the catalog and pick a course. Every course begins with an Introduction that lays out what it covers, who it's for, and what you should know first — if it isn't the right fit, it points you to a course that is. You can start reading straight away; no account is needed to try a course (see What's free). To save your progress, take quizzes, and unlock everything, sign in with Google and start a free trial.

2. What's free

You can read a meaningful slice of every course without paying, and there's always one full course free for members:

• Open to everyone, no account: each course's introduction, its entire first chapter, every chapter's overview page, and the first lesson of chapters 2 and 3. Enough to judge the depth and style before you commit.
• Free course of the month: one beginner course is unlocked in full for every signed-in member each month, and it rotates — so there's always something new to work through at no cost. You'll see it in a banner on the home page and a “Free in <month>” badge on its card. Sign in to unlock it.

Everything else is part of the subscription, which starts with a 7-day free trial (see Plans & billing). Locked lessons show a small lock in the sidebar.

3. Reading & listening

Each course works like a narrated book. Every sentence is narrated by professional-grade AI voices trained on technical material, so you can read, listen, or do both at once — whatever helps it stick. As the audio plays, the current sentence is highlighted and the page scrolls to keep it in view. Illustrations are often interactive: hover or tap parts of a diagram for extra detail.

4. The player

Inside a lesson, the audio bar at the bottom is built for learning, not just playback. From it you can:

• Play / pause the narration, and jump to the previous or next sentence.
• Restart the lesson from the first sentence.
• Change the speed — slow it down to absorb, speed it up to review.
• Add a pause between sentences, so you have a beat to think before the next one.
• Toggle the sentence highlight and auto-scroll if you'd rather read undisturbed.
• Collapse the bar when you just want the page.

Every course is narrated by a professional-grade female voice today; a male voice is coming, and on courses that offer more than one you'll be able to switch right from the player. The defaults these controls start from are set in Settings.

5. Term tooltips

The first time an important term appears in a course, it's lightly underlined. Hover or tap it for a short, plain-language definition — no need to leave the page or guess what a word means. If you're listening, the narration pauses briefly so you can read the definition; you can turn that pause off from the audio bar.

6. Quizzes

Every lesson ends with a short knowledge check — a few multiple-choice questions on what you just covered. Each answer explains why it's right or wrong, so a wrong pick still teaches you something. Passing the quiz is what marks a lesson as Learned (below). Getting through a lesson and being able to prove it are two different things — the quiz is how you prove it.

7. Listened vs. Learned

When you're signed in, the platform tracks two things separately, per course:

• Listened — the lessons whose narration you've heard in full.
• Learned — the lessons where you've passed the quiz.

You always see both, because listening isn't the same as proving it. Both are measured against the course's teaching lessons (the numbered topics), so the two bars share the same scale.

8. Your dashboard

Your dashboard is home base once you sign in. It shows:

• Resume — pick up exactly where you left off, with Listened and Learned bars for that course.
• Your courses — everything you've started, with progress at a glance.
• Activity heatmap — a calendar of what you've done, coloured by listened vs. learned days.
• Streak — how many days in a row you've hit your daily goal (next section).

9. Daily goal & streak

Set a daily goal — the number of lessons (quizzes) you want to pass each day — in Settings → Learning profile. It defaults to one, and you can pick anything from 1 to 10.

Your streak is the number of consecutive days you've met that goal. A day only counts once you've passed at least your goal's worth of quizzes that day. When you hit the goal, a small ⭐ appears next to your name in the top bar (on every page) and your streak ticks up. Miss a day and the streak resets — so the goal is best set to something you can realistically keep.

10. Settings

Open Settings from the menu under your name. There you can:

• Learning profile — set your experience level and the topics you care about (this adds a Recommended sort to your catalog that leads with courses that fit you), and set your daily goal.
• Player defaults — the speed, inter-sentence pause, highlight, and auto-scroll that every new lesson starts from.
• Appearance — switch between light and dark, and size the reading text up or down.
• Account — your name, and your subscription & billing.

Study reminders are on the way; when they land you'll be able to opt in here.

11. Devices & sync

IT Playbook runs in any modern browser — phone, tablet, or desktop — with no app to install. Sign in and your progress, your place in each course, your settings, your daily goal, and your streak follow you across all of them.

12. Plans & billing

One membership unlocks every course. It's $16/month or $120/year, and both plans are launch-priced at 50% off your first year — $8/month or $60/year — applied automatically at checkout, with no code to enter. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial; cancel during the trial and pay nothing.

You can change your plan or payment method, or cancel, anytime from Settings. If you cancel, you keep access through the end of the period you've already paid for. New courses land every month and are always included — you never pay extra for them.

13. Staying current

Out-of-date tech material is worse than none, so every course is checked against the official documentation and updated whenever the tools change. Each course card shows when it was last reviewed. A fleet of AI agents helps draft and maintain the courses, but nothing ships on autopilot — every change is reviewed by a human before it reaches you.

14. Getting help

Found an error, have a suggestion, or want a course that doesn't exist yet? Signed-in members can reach us through Support — we read all of it, and corrections often ship in the next monthly update. For quick answers, the FAQ covers the common questions.

Browse the catalog →