Empath Learn brings MSP courses, technical practice, role paths, your SOPs and ConnectWise PSA training tickets into one staff program. CBT Nuggets can help a technician needing a specific certification course, practice exam or virtual lab. Check that need before paying for both.
Empath makes Empath Learn and wrote this comparison from published material checked October 4, 2026. We did not test CBT Nuggets.
The staff table compares a Learn seat with a CBT Nuggets subscription. Marks reflect each product's published material.
| Staff training feature | Empath Learn | CBT Nuggets |
|---|---|---|
| Courses built for MSP work | ●Included | ○No credit from cited public pages |
| Ready-made MSP role paths | ●Included | ○No credit from cited public pages |
| Technical certification courses | ●Included | ●Included |
| Hands-on labs in the compared seat | ●Included | ●Included |
| AI roleplays in the compared seat | ●Included | ○No credit from cited public pages |
| Group assignments and reports | ●Included | ●Included |
| Assignment due dates | ●Included | ○No credit from cited public pages |
| Quizzes and custom playlists | ●Included | ●Included with CBT training |
| Build your own lessons from MSP material | ●Included | ◐Internal training on Adept requires a paid organization-wide site license |
| Paste an SOP as a text lesson | ●Included | ○No credit from cited public pages for this workflow |
| YouTube video or playlist into training | ●Public playlist becomes a course, one lesson per video | ○No video link or playlist-to-course import documented |
| Authoring without a separate upgrade | ●Included | ○No credit from cited public pages |
| Microsoft Learn progress sync | ●Included | ○No credit from cited public pages |
| ConnectWise PSA training tickets | ●Available after setup | ○No credit from cited public pages |
● Included ◐ Partly or a paid add-on ○ No credit from the cited public pages; absence is not proved. In the YouTube row, full means a public playlist becomes a course with one lesson per video; half means a single YouTube video or link can be added to a course, lesson or path.
CBT Nuggets' features page documents certification training, labs, quizzes, custom playlists and reporting. Its Learner Management page documents group assignments. Empath's MSP courses, Curated Collection and ConnectWise help article describe the other side.
Empath Grow is a separately priced client LMS an MSP can resell. CBT documents groups and admins, but not the per-client resale model.
| Client training feature | Empath Grow | CBT Nuggets |
|---|---|---|
| Each client has its own tenant that your MSP creates, manages and bills | ●Included in Empath Grow | ○This MSP client billing model is not established by the cited pages |
| Client admins, selected catalog and their own reports | ●Included in Empath Grow | ○This combined client-admin, catalog and reporting model is not established by the cited pages |
| Your price, revenue and margin per client in one view | ●Included in Empath Grow | ○This MSP client billing model is not established by the cited pages |
CBT Nuggets' IT catalog includes Cisco, Microsoft, CompTIA and Azure. Its subscription includes N2K practice exams and virtual labs for select courses. Those can justify a specialist seat.
CBT Nuggets also lists IT professional soft skills. An MSP needs more.
Empath's MSP courses cover service work, sales and account management alongside technician topics. Built for MSPs by Empath includes Introduction to Tickets and Triage, Ticket Escalations 101, and Time Tracking: What Every MSP Employee Needs to Know.
Every Learn seat includes Microsoft Learn and the Curated Collection's 14,000+ courses as of October 2026, spanning leadership, business, compliance, software and IT. See MSP help desk training.
Empath has five ready-made pathway templates: Tier 1, Account Manager, Project Delivery Basics, Cybersecurity Fundamentals and New Hire Onboarding. A manager can add the MSP's escalation rule to one.
Yes, in both. CBT team admins can assign training, group learners, track progress and run reports. Its Learner Management page also documents group admins.
Empath Learn also assigns courses and pathways, sets due dates and shows learner and group progress. A manager can assign the Tier 1 template and check completion. The technician sees assigned work in What's Next.
Yes. Empath Learn includes course authoring in every staff plan. A Content Admin can paste an SOP into a text lesson, add video and a quiz with feedback, then place the course in a pathway. A public YouTube playlist becomes an ordered draft course, one lesson per video; a single YouTube or Vimeo video becomes a lesson. See Your Own Courses. CBT Nuggets includes quizzes and custom playlists for its training. Its license agreement also offers a paid organization-wide site license to create and consume internal training on Adept. That is a separate purchase, and the published agreement does not establish SOP paste or YouTube import. Confirm its authoring tools and price with CBT.
Every Empath Learn seat includes the Curated Collection's more than 40 hands-on labs. The hands-on labs page groups practice around CompTIA topics, CCNA networking, Azure, AWS and programming. A technician can practice a networking or cloud task, while a new hire follows the MSP's onboarding path in the same program.
The Curated Collection also includes hundreds of AI roleplays for customer conversations, with instant, personal feedback that managers can see. It comes with every Learn seat. CBT Nuggets includes virtual labs and N2K practice exams. Check each product's exact exercises and exam coverage.
Check the exact certification code, exam version and lab before cancelling a CBT Nuggets seat. Empath's topic labs do not promise a full replacement for every exam course or practice test.
Empath can put assigned training into ConnectWise PSA after an admin sets up the integration. A weekly run creates training tickets for matching learners and assigned courses. Tracked time can be added to the previous week's ticket if that ticket still exists. This puts planned learning where a service manager already checks work.
The ConnectWise current-state guide gives the limits: the learner's email must match the ConnectWise member email exactly, one Empath tenant can use one ConnectWise company, and unassigned learning or historical Learn time does not sync. Read those details before planning ticket reporting.
Empath syncs assigned Microsoft Learn completion and time through the MSP's Microsoft 365 tenant, so managers see it beside other assignments. CBT Nuggets advertises LMS integration, but has no current integration or embedding with Empath. Its completions do not appear in Empath reports.
As checked October 5, 2026, CBT Nuggets lists $59 per learner per month or $599 per learner per year, plus applicable tax. The subscription includes its IT library, select virtual labs, N2K practice exams, quizzes, playlists and reporting. Its internal-training site license is an additional purchase with no price stated in the cited agreement. Ask CBT for that quote.
At 10 seats on yearly billing, Empath lists $300 per month, which is $30 per seat per month or $360 per seat per year. A Learn seat includes MSP courses, Microsoft Learn, the Collection's labs and roleplays, your own courses and the staff training workflow. Empath Grow has separate pricing and is not included in this comparison.
At CBT's published $59 monthly or $599 yearly per-learner rate, company-wide coverage may be expensive for many MSP budgets. A team quote could differ; its deeper labs may still justify named specialist seats.
Empath Grow is built for MSPs that want to train client employees and earn revenue from content. The MSP creates, manages and bills a separate tenant for each client, selects its catalog and can offer more courses through a supplier-catalog marketplace. Client admins have their own reports; the MSP sees its price, revenue and margin per client in one view. See the Empath Grow overview for the client offer.
CBT documents groups and admins, but its cited pages do not establish this client resale model. Ask about Grow pricing separately.
Keep CBT Nuggets where it solves a specific problem. Check a current practice exam or virtual lab against Empath's catalog before changing that seat. Let Empath Learn run onboarding and team-wide assignments.
Empath covers most skills an MSP needs, so a second subscription rarely pays off. Work with Partner Success if you feel otherwise. Empath can embed outside content in a lesson only where its provider allows framing; an MSP can request an API integration through Empath's feature-request process. No CBT Nuggets connection or completion sync is confirmed today. Plan for separate records if you use both.
Bring your team size and the exact exam or lab to an Empath demo. Ask to see the matching courses, reports and PSA workflow.
Yes. CBT Nuggets' Learner Management page says admins can assign training, create groups, designate group admins, track progress and run reports. The cited page does not state assignment due dates. Ask CBT Nuggets about that detail if due dates are part of your process.
It depends on the exam and the practice your technician needs. Empath Learn includes certification courses, Microsoft Learn and more than 40 topic labs, but no course list can promise the same exam coverage or practice experience in every case. Compare the current exam code, lessons, labs and practice tests before dropping a CBT Nuggets seat.
No current CBT Nuggets integration or embedding with Empath is available. CBT Nuggets lists an LMS integration in its product features, but that does not establish a working connection to Empath. If the connection would help your MSP, send Empath a feature request. For now, treat the two completion records as separate.
CBT Nuggets lists $59 monthly or $599 yearly per learner, plus applicable tax, and asks teams to contact sales. Empath lists $300 per month for 10 Learn seats on yearly billing, or $360 per seat per year. Check each plan's included content and your actual seat count before comparing totals.
Make Empath Learn your MSP staff program for role paths, SOPs, included practice and training accountability. Keep CBT Nuggets for a named exam or deep lab. Discuss client training through Empath Grow separately. Book a demo with your role list and certification needs.