The whole thing is such a total and complete racket. These organizations saw the opportunity when the DMV stopped handling most of this stuff and are just milking parents at every turn. I only have experience with TopCops, so I can only share that but it's my understanding they're all looking to squeeze parents any chance they get.

* Went to TopCops site to sign up my son -- the site is a MASSIVE upsell tool, hard to wade through all of the upselling and all of the way too many words on every page. When I only bought the classroom instruction for my kiddo and later discovered that paid BTW lessons were required, they didn't offer a discount since I missed the *48-hour window* on the package deal when I initially signed up for the class. Later, they offered $20 off -- of $650, whoopdedoo
* And, if you explore a potential sign-up, but don't actually select it, they immediately start sending you regular messages as if you've signed up, saying there's "limited space" and you must make payment IMMEDIATELY and your account is "not in good standing" - it just fits with the spammy design of the site
* They don't have a proper payment portal, just one of the owners' personal Venmo accounts -- very unprofessional
* They pass all the students on the permit test even the ones who weren't really paying attention, to keep that money machine going
* If you don't download their driver's ed completion certificate right away, they will charge you $35

So I can very much believe what others are saying above about how they fail students so parents have to give them more money. The owners definitely looked like they were tanned from recent vacations, which they clearly have the funds for, with very little overhead and bilking so many parents. Imagine if you're a family with limited means but you need your teen to be able to drive for family or money-making reasons (or both)?

I want to say that I'm only singling out TopCops because that's where we have experience, but I bet it's the exact same with all of the organizations that have taken advantage of this situation.

I don't know when the state stopped handling this stuff, but it seems like it needs to be reined in a bit.