Wall Street Prep (WSP) vs Corporate Finance Institute (CFI)

Wall Street Prep vs. CFI (FMVA)

Wall Street Prep pioneered the Financial Modeling Self-Study Program in 2003 for students and professionals pursuing careers in finance. The program is now used widely at the world’s top investment banks, private equity firms and MBA programs.

Since 2003 several other companies have emerged to offer similar programs, including the Corporate Finance Institute (CFI) in 2015.

While WSP and CFI offer multiple products, both have a version of a “complete” flagship product which includes what typically represents the “core” investment banking financial modeling skill set.

In this article, I will try to lay out some of the differences and similarities between the programs and explain why Wall Street Prep remains the best choice.

Wall Street Prep vs. Corporate Finance Institute (CFI)

Full Comparison of Course Offerings

Product	Premium Package	FMVA
Price	$499 for lifetime access	$497 for 1 year
What you get	Videos + PDF + Excel Templates	Videos + PDF + Excel Templates
Access	Lifetime	1 Year
Primary Content Author	Matan Feldman Founder @ Wall Street Prep (est 2003). One of Wall Street’s most sought-after trainers (clients below).	Tim Vipond Founder @ Corporate Finance Institute (ext. 2017). Does not train in person to our knowledge.
Used by investment banks to formally train analysts and associates?	Yes	No
Program Structure	46 Courses (7 core + 39 bonus courses) Last Major Update: 2020	24 Courses (9 core + 14 bonus courses) Last Major Update: 2019
Can You Download Lessons?	Yes	No
Other Benefits	1-Month Access to PitchBook “Meet Your Instructor” Kickoff Class	6-Months Access to Pitchbook
Support	E-mail & Phone	Email & Phone
Years in Business	Since 2003	Since 2015
Certification Available?	Yes	Yes
Qualifies for CPE Credit?	Yes	Yes

You’ll be learning directly from Matan Feldman, one of Wall Street’s most sought-after trainers of new analysts and associates.

Course Quality

Given the considerations stated above, Wall Street Prep’s program provides the highest quality training out there.

Wall Street Prep invests heavily in ensuring that materials reflect current best practices and are taught in a way that is intuitive.

The training follows a very clear, step-by-step approach where trainees build models essentially from scratch, starting from a blank excel spreadsheet and working sequentially through a model.

Course Samples

When considering which financial modeling program to enroll in, factors such as price, support, content format and access to a macro toolkit are all important. But perhaps the most critical factor of all is the quality of the content – a financial modeling program is useless if it does not teach the material effectively.

There’s no better way to determine which approach works best for you than to sample the programs.

Below we’ve provided some sample videos that will allow you to compare WSP’s vs CFI’s teaching approach, the level of complexity of the model (is this a real-life model?) and how concepts are covered. (CFI does not offer samples without email registration).

A 30,000ft View of Our Model Forecasting the Income Statement Modeling Basic Shares Outstanding and RSUs	CFI does not offer samples without email registration.

Which Program Do Investment Banks Use to Train their Analysts and Associates?

Investment banks, private equity firms, and top business school programs hire Wall Street Prep to conduct analyst and associate training in-house. This enables our instructors (all former investment bankers who are also involved in the development and refinement of the self-study program) to receive continuous feedback about materials and integrate the latest best practices into the training material. Below we lay out how WSP and CFI compare in this area:

Partial list of live classroom training: Investment Banking: Goldman Sachs, RBC, JP Morgan, Lazard, Guggenheim, Centerview Partners, Evercore, Perella Weinberg, William Blair, Harris Williams, Piper Jaffrey Private Equity: KKR, Carlyle Group, Bain Capital, Summit Partners, Advent, Thoma Bravo, CVC, GTCR, Roark, AEA, CDW, Ares Management Investment Management and Other Firms: Point72, Blackrock, PIMCO, Eaton Vance, Bloomberg, American Express, the World Bank, KPMG, Deloitte, PWC, T Rowe Price Academic Institutions: Harvard Business School, Wharton, Stanford, University of Chicago, Columbia, Cornell Partner Organizations: Girls Who Invest, Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO), CFA Society of NY

Firms do not hire Corporate Finance Institute for live classroom training to our knowledge.