Beginner Guide

How to use 1Percent to learn

From creating your account to earning certificates — here is how learning works on the 1% Expert Programme, step by step.

The learning flow, step by step

This is the actual flow of the platform — nothing here is theoretical.

  1. Create your free account

    Sign up with your email and a password. Every new account starts on the Free Starter plan with 10 coins — no payment required. Full sign-up guide →

  2. Complete the welcome onboarding

    After your first login, a short welcome wizard asks about your experience and what you want to build, then points you to the right starting course.

  3. Open your dashboard

    The dashboard shows your enrolled courses, daily streak, coins, and leaderboard position. It's your home base for everything you do on 1Percent.

  4. Choose a course and start the first lesson

    Begin with Programming Fundamentals if you're new. Each course is a sequence of lessons — readings, videos, and labs — ordered from basics to advanced. Browse all 1Percent courses →

  5. Work through lessons in the lab

    Lessons contain explanations, code examples, and lab exercises. Read the content, try the exercises, and mark the lesson complete when you're done. Your progress is saved automatically.

  6. Solve graded coding challenges

    Every course has coding challenges. Open the playground, write your solution, and submit it — a real code grader runs your code and tells you exactly why it passed or failed. Passing a challenge earns you coins.

  7. Keep your streak alive

    Learning daily grows your streak. Streaks earn bonus coins, and missing days can cost you coins — so a few minutes every day beats a long session once a week.

  8. Earn your certificate

    Complete all lessons in a course and pass its quiz to earn a verifiable certificate (available on Pro and Unlimited plans) with your name, a unique certificate number, and a printable PDF.

Key concepts

CoinsEarned by passing challenges and keeping streaks. Coins measure your activity on the platform.
StreakConsecutive days of learning activity. Broken streaks can cost coins — daily practice matters.
ChallengesGraded coding exercises across JavaScript, Python, HTML/CSS, SQL, Docker, Git and more.
LabThe in-browser coding environment where you complete lesson exercises.
PlaygroundWhere you write and submit code for challenges and get graded instantly.
CertificatesVerifiable PDF certificates with a unique number, issued when you finish a course.

Beyond the browser

Use 1Percent from VS Code and the terminal

Install the 1Percent VS Code extension to solve challenges without leaving your editor, or the 1Percent CLI to download lessons and manage your lab files from the terminal. Both are free. Read the installation guide →

Connect Claude as your study companion

Generate a personal token in Settings → "Connect to Claude" and an AI study companion can explain lessons and help you debug your code. It can never submit work or earn coins for you — you still do the learning. Learn more in the docs →