Pricing
Top admissions consultants charge $300–$500 per hour. A typical engagement runs $2,500–$5,000 across the cycle. Our cycle plan is $199 for unlimited essays.
Single essay
One deep critique. No commitment.
$79one-time
Application cycle
Unlimited essays for one cycle (90 days).
$199one-time
Premium
Cycle access plus AI mock interview prep.
$299one-time
One-time payment, nothing renews · Refund within 7 days of purchase if you haven't generated a graded critique.
Sample essay written by our team for a fictional applicant. Critique generated by MBA Essay Critic, unedited.
Free preview
"The committee appreciates the humility and quantifiable results, viewing the applicant as a grounded leader who prioritizes team performance over personal glory."
Three simulated voices debating your essay. A simulated conversation, not a real committee.
Skeptic
"It’s a solid story, but I worry it’s a bit small-scale for HBS—is fixing a freight desk enough evidence of leadership potential?"
Advocate
"He didn't just fix a desk; he recognized his own hubris and actively stepped aside so 'Ana' could lead, which shows rare maturity."
Skeptic
"I agree the 'nobody used it' moment shows great self-awareness, but he spends a lot of time on the spreadsheet logistics."
Tiebreaker
"The quantifiable drop in missed pickups combined with the selfless act of recommending his subordinate for a lead role wins me over."
95/ 100
The essay directly addresses how the applicant invests in others by pivoting from a fixer to a facilitator. It identifies a specific experience (the freight brokerage desk) and clearly outlines how that shaped their leadership philosophy of 'building the conditions for other people's judgment.'
Keep quotes drove the score up, cut or fix pulled it down.
Weight 15%
Excellent use of names (Ana, Marcus) and specific industry details like 'trailer availability' and 'shippers who always loaded late.' The mention of Friday one-on-ones adds a tangible routine to the leadership claim.
Each note sits beside the paragraph it quotes.
In my second year at a regional freight brokerage, I was handed our worst-performing desk: four coordinators, missed pickups every week, and a manager who had just quit. My first instinct was to fix things myself. I rebuilt the routing spreadsheet over a weekend and presented it on Monday. Nobody used it.
Ana, the most senior coordinator, told me why in the break room: "You built it for you." She was right. I had treated the team as a problem to solve rather than people who already knew where the problems were.
So I changed the order of operations. Each morning for three weeks I sat at a different coordinator's desk and only asked questions. Ana knew which carriers lied about trailer availability. Marcus had a private list of shippers who always loaded late. Within a month we had rebuilt the process around what they knew, and missed pickups fell from eleven a week to two.
The bigger change was in how I spend my time. I now block Friday afternoons for one-on-ones, and I ask every new hire what they would fix first before I tell them anything. Last spring I recommended Ana for the operations lead role I had been offered; she has run the desk better than I would have.
I still catch myself reaching for the spreadsheet. But I have learned that leading means building the conditions for other people's judgment to show up, and then getting out of the way.
Locked in your free preview
Refund within 7 days of purchase if you haven't generated a graded critique.
Typical coach
$2,500
5 sessions × $500/hr
Our cycle plan
$199
Unlimited critiques, 90 days
You save
$2,301
92% less, faster turnaround
Anchor: 5 sessions with a $500/hr coach = $2,500. Cycle plan = $199.
Why $79 per essay?
The price is anchored to what a single hour of rubric-aligned feedback is worth — and priced 4–6× below it. A senior MBA admissions consultant charges $300–$500 per hour; a typical 4-school cycle with 5 iterations each runs $2,500–$5,000. Our cycle plan covers the same workload for $199, with each critique graded in the background instead of waiting days for a reply.
We are deliberately not cheaper. ChatGPT doesn't know this cycle's prompts and limits unless you paste them in. Our rubrics carry them. See the full comparison of AI Critic vs. $500/hr coach vs. ChatGPT for the head-to-head, or read a real sample critique before you commit.
Billing questions