The CE Shop is a full online real estate school — it offers your state-required pre-licensing course plus Exam Prep Edge, covering national and state content in all 50 states, with a pass guarantee. Trelos is a focused retention engine for the national portion that teaches and auto-schedules spaced review, mobile-first. The CE Shop is broader and does your licensing course; Trelos goes deeper on retention.
The CE Shop is one of the best-known names in online real estate education, and it does considerably more than exam prep. It offers the state-required pre-licensing course in most states, post-licensing, continuing education in all 50 states, and broker courses — a genuine one-stop shop for a real estate career. For test preparation specifically, its Exam Prep Edge suite starts with an assessment to pinpoint weak areas, then delivers targeted lessons on both the national and state portions, unlimited practice tests with detailed explanations, a readiness dashboard, and a pass guarantee on qualifying packages. Its Leap learning platform is polished and engaging (text, animated video, interactive quizzes), and it's well-reviewed and affordable. Two things to note: it covers state-specific content for all 50 states, and — per reviewers — it doesn't offer a dedicated mobile study app, working instead through a mobile browser.
Trelos is narrower by design: a complete prep engine, built around retention science, focused on the national portion of the real estate exam — the standardized ~80–100 questions that are the same in every state. It teaches each concept, drills it with exam-style application questions, and then schedules your reviews using spaced repetition, hypercorrection, and interleaving, so agency, contracts, financing, disclosures, and real estate math stay locked in through test day. It's mobile-first, built for short sessions on a phone. It doesn't offer pre-licensing courses or full state-specific coverage (that's expanding), so it's a focused retention tool rather than a full school. The real estate track has 180 questions across 30 concepts on the national portion, all standard multiple choice with an explanation on every answer.
| Trelos | The CE Shop | |
|---|---|---|
| Core model | Retention engine for the national portion | Full real estate school + Exam Prep Edge |
| Pre-licensing course | No — exam prep only | Yes — satisfies state education (most states) |
| Spaced repetition | Core engine, automatic | Assessment-driven review, not full spacing |
| Coverage | National portion (state content expanding) | National + all 50 states |
| Mobile | Mobile-first installable web app | Mobile browser; no dedicated app |
| Price | Free to start · one-time purchase ($19 launch price, $39 after Nov 30) | Exam Prep Edge from ~$79; pre-licensing packages from ~$99, varies by state |
| Pass guarantee | Yes — access extends free until you pass (learn every concept, keep up reviews) | Yes (qualifying packages) |
| Best for | Locking in the national principles | One-stop licensing course + all-state prep |
Choose The CE Shop if you still need to complete your state-required pre-licensing hours, you want one provider to handle your course, exam prep, and later continuing education, and you want full state-specific coverage with a pass guarantee. For someone starting from scratch, it's an efficient, affordable, well-supported path to licensure.
Choose Trelos if you've handled (or are handling) your pre-license course elsewhere and want the national principles to genuinely stick — a retention engine that teaches, drills, and resurfaces each concept at the right moment, mobile-first. Because the real estate exam is heavy on application-style questions, durable recall of agency, contracts, and disclosures is exactly what Trelos is built to produce.
These two aren't really the same category, and that's the most useful thing to know. The CE Shop is a full real estate school, with a pass guarantee on qualifying packages — it can take you from your first pre-licensing hour through both exam portions in your state, which Trelos does not do. Trelos is a focused retention engine for the national portion, mobile-first, designed to make the standardized content stick. If you need your licensing course and all-state coverage in one place, The CE Shop is a strong, affordable choice. If your gap is retention of the national principles, Trelos is built for that. It's also worth seeing Trelos vs PrepAgent for another exam-prep angle.
Pass guarantee: learn every concept in your track and keep up your scheduled reviews, and if you still don't pass, your access is extended free — three more months per attempt — until you do. It's an extension, not a refund.
Try Trelos free for the real estate examNo credit card. Feel the retention engine work in your first session.Read the full real estate salesperson exam guide, or see Trelos vs PrepAgent.
How Trelos works · why guessing first, spaced review and mixed practice make it stick.
For organizations · group licenses for schools, programs, agencies and firms.