Estimating Chess.com Diamond Value (The Results Might Surprise You)

Unlimited Puzzles (research pending; either $63.53 a year or $0)

One popular tactics training software is CT-ART. Several grandmasters have recommended it. The cheapest cost for the full version of it is $25. CT-ART is often cited to be of a higher quality than Chess.com since the puzzles are not engine-generated but hand-picked. So lets say that if Chess.com had the same number of puzzles as CT-ART, it would be worth $17.50. However, let's say that the average user, with a membership, solves 3653 puzzles a year. That's 3.63 times as many puzzles as CT-ART, and 17.5*3.63 is 63.525. Therefore, this feature alone is for $63.53, which I did not expect when I first came up with the idea of this post.

Lichess and Other Databases

While it's true that Lichess also offers millions of puzzles for free, in my opinion, Lichess's puzzles aren't as good as Chess.com's for 2 reasons.

Bad Rating Selection

I don't know how their algorithm rates the puzzles, but somehow, I've had puzzles requiring around 10 moves of calculation for each side, and my puzzle rating is only around 1900.

Positional Moves

There have been a few puzzles where the correct move is positional i.e. there is no tactical reason for that move and there are some subjectively equal moves to it.

Other Databases

The only other large database is ChessTempo, and several people online have said it's really good. I have yet to test the validity of these claims, but I'm planning to later this week. If these claims are valid, and ChessTempo is as good as or better than Chess.com, then that makes Chess.com's puzzle's value the same as ChessTempo: $0. I'll get back to you.

Puzzle Rush and Puzzle Battle ($0)

Lichess has Puzzle Streak for Puzzle Rush Survival, Puzzle Storm for Puzzle Rush 3 Min, and Puzzle Racer for Puzzle battle. They may not be the exact same, but that's okay.

Unlimited Lessons (Up to $62.61 a year for most)

I think 3 lessons a week is more than enough for those studying under 1.5 hours a day. Even those who are training longer than that should pick lessons that have the same "focus" rather than lessons with similar but different topics. I genuinely believe that 5 lessons is the maximum for any topic. The only exception to this is calculation, which is pretty decentralized and can be done as much as you want in my opinion. However, on Chess.com they only have calculation lessons for advanced players, who should probably have multiple focuses a week anyway.
In the table below, I've detailed the value of lessons for different groups, assuming that 5 lessons are worth $2 and that the first lesson is free.

Unlimited Bots ($0)

There is absolutely no benefit of playing full games against bots. If you want to spar a specific position, all 25 levels of Komodo are available for free.

Play Coach ($0)

I tried this feature out. It's completely useless.

No Ads ($0)

You fall into one of three groups:

Those Who Can Tune to Ads Out

This feature has no value for those people. In fact, maybe once every 100 ads, there's one for a product that they will actually get, arguable benefitting them.

Those Who Are Distracted by the Ads

Those people need to get ad blockers.

Those Who Use Ad Blockers

I use an ad blocker called Pie. It's 100% free and effective. I am not affiliated with or sponsoring Pie in any way. Don't worry, it also completely legal as Chess.com's ToS does not forbid it.

Game Review ($2 per game)

When Game Review first came out, it was hurting players more than it helped. In the past few months, an update was made to make it more human. I'm not sure how good it is now, but I will try it out on my next Classical game and update you on that. If it's actually helpful, I'll give this feature $2 per game. It wastes too much time to do it for every single Rapid or slower game, so the value of this is dependent on the number of Classical games you play per year.

Exclusive Courses (too many too count)

There are several free Chess.com Diamond courses. I've estimated the value of them below, based on rating groups. I've factored in that some courses are too advanced for each level and that opening repertoires are useless below 1200. Note that all of this is strictly my opinion.

If you're studying courses, you don't need lessons, so this brings the value down for the lessons.

Insights ($0)

Chess.com allows you to view GM Nakamura's stats for free, and based on that, I've come up with the following conclusions.
The "Games" section seems pretty useless to me. While it does have pretty cool stats, there is no actionable data to help one improve.
The "Tactics" section looks really helpful, as it can tell you where you're weakest. However, you can pull this data yourself by looking at a few of your most recent games, which I have done. However, I will say that this is easily worth $5.
There is an "Opening" section which could give useful advice to those who are advanced enough to need to study openings. I'll give it $3 because openings are not as important as tactics.
The "Move Quality" section is based on the engine accuracy and move type system, which is very inaccurate.
The "Calendar" section tells you when the best time is to play, but this is easy to figure out yourself.
The "Geography" section is useless.
I would like to note that ChessMonitor has several features for free. I haven't tried it out because I'm unsure of how helpful it'll be, but it's an option. This makes the value of insights $0.

Conclusion

There were so many "ifs" to this that we cannot add everything up to one, definite number. However, we did discover that most features are either useless or can be found for free elsewhere. There are only 3 features that may have actual monetary value.

Outro

What did you think of my writing style? Are there some things I can improve? What do you think of Chess.com Dimaond based on what I've said? Do you have any counterarguments (I'm happy to debate)? What is its value for you, whether you're using my framework or you're basing on your own estimates? Is there any inaccurate information here? Please let me know if you have any thoughts on these questions or anything else I've discussed in the comments.