Guild
Guild scores badly as an AI product because it barely is one: no API, no model named anywhere public, no prompt surface, and AI confined to 24/7 learner support and pathway matching. You are buying human coaches and an administration machine that moved 250,000 learners in 2025, so read the low element scores as a description, not a verdict on the company.
PRICING
| Guild Grow | Custom | Education benefit: curated learning marketplace, coaching, funding visibility |
| Guild Academy | Custom | Cohort-based, employer-customised capability programs, built on the acquired Nomadic Learning platform |
| Guild Navigator | Custom | Talent pipeline for licensed and certified roles; Guild cites learner fees at roughly 2-2.5% of salary against 15% for staffing agencies |
Every line is quoted per employer through sales, so no comparable EUR figure exists. The only public unit economics are Navigator's claimed 2-2.5% of salary in learner fees, which is Guild's own number.
checked 2026-08-24 · vendor pricing page
Element scores
Strengths
As an operations platform this is strong and long-proven: 2,000+ curated programs, credentialed human coaches, tuition payment facilitation with nothing out of pocket for the learner, and an employer system of record with cohort dashboards, compliance tracking and ROI reporting. Navigator reports 90% completion in early cohorts against a 46% national apprenticeship average and a 94 learner NPS, both Guild's own figures. The analytics side is genuinely useful for workforce planning: skills-gap and automation-risk assessment, plus the Lightcast-backed Talent Resilience Index. Coverage now runs to nearly every country and the AI-enabled support layer answers learners 24/7 in multiple languages, which is the one place the AI clearly earns its place.
Honest dings
Judged as AI, almost nothing here is inspectable. No model is named, no API or MCP surface exists, no prompt is configurable, and no customer can evaluate what the pathway recommender or the employer-side forecasting actually gets right, even though those outputs steer people's careers. The commercial picture is also not calm: peak valuation of $4.4B in 2022, secondary activity in 2024 implying $1.3-2.0B, a 25% workforce cut in May 2024, founder-CEO departure, and independent reporting of coaching being run to rigid metrics. Sacra estimates 2024 revenue at $275M, growing 6% year on year, which is slow for a platform priced like a growth story.
Sources (11) — every claim traceable
Every audit lists the research it rests on — transparency and traceability are the product. Tools evolve: each audit is a snapshot of its audit date, and re-audits supersede older versions (kept below for reference).
- guild.com — Official: three solutions (Grow, Academy, Navigator), positioning against LMS/LXP and traditional tuition reimbursement, and the statement that Guild offers AI-enabled support for 24/7 access in multiple languages alongside human coaches (accessed 2026-08-24)
- guild.com/privacy-policy — Official section 7, Guild's Use of Artificial Intelligence: AI used to identify education pathways, enhance outreach and coaching strategies, help employers forecast workforce needs and assess program effectiveness, and analyse customer interactions, with a commitment to lawful basis, human oversight and data minimisation. Last updated 07/07/2025 (accessed 2026-08-24)
- guild.com/guild-navigator — Official Navigator product page: pathway and cohort configuration, admin system of record, automated workflows and at-risk triggers, and the outcome claims (90% early-cohort completion vs 46% national apprenticeship average, 94 learner NPS, learner fees 2-2.5% of salary) (accessed 2026-08-24)
- guild.com/coaching — Official: coaching is delivered by human coaches over phone, video and text, gated to employers who include coaching in the benefit (accessed 2026-08-24)
- guild.com/pricing — Checked 24/08/2026 and serves a 404 page, confirming no published pricing (accessed 2026-08-24)
- businesswire.com/news/home/20260129709124/en/Guild-… — Official 29/01/2026 results release: 250,000+ workers supported in 2025, 90,000 role changes over the decade, Navigator described by Guild as a human-managed, AI-enhanced platform, global availability, 300,000+ Academy participants (accessed 2026-08-24)
- sacra.com/c/guild-education — Independent: 2024 revenue estimated at $275M (up 6% YoY), peak $4.4B valuation, 2024 secondary activity implying $1.46-1.98B, business model taking a share of tuition, target accounts of 10,000+ employees, 2,000+ programs, Navigator early-access partners (accessed 2026-08-24)
- highereducationinquirer.org/2025/12/guild-from-prom… — Independent critical coverage: 25% workforce reduction in May 2024, founder-CEO departure and rebrand from Guild Education to Guild, valuation decline, and employee reports of coaching run to rigid metrics (accessed 2026-08-24)
- edtechinnovationhub.com/news/guild-expands-learning… — Independent: Nomadic Learning acquisition and the Talent Advantage suite, including AI-powered talent insights covering automation and augmentation risk (accessed 2026-08-24)
- joshbersin.com/2024/10/guild-jumps-headfirst-into-t… — Independent analyst on Guild's move into corporate learning via Nomadic and the capability-academy model (accessed 2026-08-24)
- news.crunchbase.com/edtech/guild-upskilling-online-… — Independent: $175M Series F at $4.4B valuation led by Wellington, the peak reference point for the valuation decline (accessed 2026-08-24)