Georgia's course costs about what lunch for two costs, and no state pays the certificate back harder.
The DDS-certified 6-hour course runs roughly $20 to $30 online, with I Drive Safely currently at $29. Classroom versions of the same program run higher, up to about $95, and buy you nothing extra: DDS treats Driver Improvement and Defensive Driving as one program, and the certificate is identical either way. Online is the same credential at a third of the price.
Now the part that makes Georgia unusual. That one certificate has three separate cash values, and most Georgia drivers only ever collect one of them.
Value one, the fine. If you have a ticket pending, Georgia courts can order you to a driver improvement clinic or accept a certificate you completed on your own, and when they do, the state's own reference manual for traffic court judges says the base fine is reduced by 20 percent. On a decent-sized ticket the fine reduction alone can cover the course.
Value two, the premium. O.C.G.A. 33-9-42 ties an insurance discount to completing the course, roughly 10% on average in our data, call it $250 a year on a typical Georgia premium. That's not a one-off. It's a rate reduction.
Value three, the points. The same certificate, submitted to DDS, removes up to 7 points already on your record under O.C.G.A. 40-5-86, once every five years. If you're carrying points, that's the piece that protects your license, and it's free once you've taken the course. You just have to actually bring or mail the original certificate to DDS, because nothing happens automatically.
So the honest cost answer for Georgia: about $25 out, and if you use all three values, several hundred dollars back in the first year. There isn't another state where the math tilts this far in the driver's favor.
Every DDS-certified online course we track is compared on the Georgia page, and the full points mechanics are on our points page.