The current trend of consumer behavior moving into online media is fast becoming the new normal for many businesses. It’s not surprising that the same is true for unconventional education via the multitude of online courses now available online. It has opened more avenues of learning beyond the classroom setting, and has enabled nearly anyone with an idea to talk about their knowledge.
Whether you want to teach your hobbies, or something related to your experience, there are lots of online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) that may help you get started. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like creating your website, while others focus mainly on helping you achieve your target audience. The 1st step is finding which one can transfer your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your potential students.
With all these LMS to choose from, there’s one firm that has stood out for its balance of reasonable pricing, customizability, ease of use, and marketing control. Teachable is the leading choice of creative entrpreneurs, and after pitting it against its rivals, it’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Be Teachable You’re Not Always Right
Udemy was among the pioneers of LMS, which explains how and why their audience is still among the biggest markets in the business: they were there first. Udemy and Teachable are currently two of the most popular options in selling online courses, but they’re very different in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course site and market their brand, while Udemy is merely a marketplace for course creators that have existing classes. At the very surface, this means that Teachable lets you use your custom domain while Udemy will have your clients return to Udemy.com. On another level, Teachable gives you tools to create and personalize the entirety of your site, from content editing and building to sales, which are not in any way possible on Udemy. Among the more immediate consequences of this is that Teachable lets you communicate more directly with your clientele, by giving you access to student’s data and information; but once you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ information is theirs alone for whatever other purpose it may serve them. And in line with this, Udemy seems to care most about selling courses, period; therefore it is not just your courses, but every other class on their listing. There have been testimonials that mentioned this, when even competitor’s courses have been promoted to clients that the instructor brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who could use the marketing, but from the viewpoint of a user, that business sense could seem too self-serving and unnecessary.
Marketing at a Price
It is Udemy’s cut-throat policies that have turned off several former or potential users. They seem to know the very value of their following, and have taken advantage of it, much to the detriment of the lecturer. True, Teachable does not market the courses for its users, that responsibility is left entirely to them. In an extreme manner, Udemy markets their user’s courses aggressively, but with a significant price. That price is a massive chunk of control and earnings.
Udemy started with a 90% creator revenue share, but they slashed those percentages to 70%, and then again quite suddenly to 50% throughout the years. A 50% share of the course revenues may still look reasonable to others, especially to those whose courses were previously created for other purposes and were only shared more openly on Udemy, but that hurt a number of the instructors who were selling solely from the corporation’s site. In addition to that, what have driven people over the edge are the restrictions on pricing. In 2016, Udemy put a cap on its costs, and all classes on the system needed to be within the $20-$50 range. That is regardless of the uniqueness or skillfulness of a course, and it is natural for some to turn away and look for better outlets for their ideas. If you combine both of these policies, and have a class priced at $20 and a 50% creator revenue, selling on Udemy becomes almost impossible as a dependable source of primary income.
So while it is true that Udemy has a large audience which you may want to tap into, the majority of the topics which they offer are really quite limited to largely Technology and Personal Development. Consider their dog-eat-dog marketing strategies and absorption of your brand’s identity, I’d say Teachable is the answer to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the long run, nothing is more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Be Teachable You’re Not Always Right
If you’re searching for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s cost, Thinkific is another terrific company that offers a great deal for less. Both offer their first tier plans at no cost, and start charging for each higher tier thereafter. Many beginners choose Thinkific because of its generous waiving of transaction fees on all of its plans; but a closer look at the fine print will show that it charges extra for certain features which are already included in Teachable’s monthly flat prices. But, those deviations are somewhat negligible, and with a range from $0-$499 per month, you really can’t go wrong with either of these.
Beginner-Friendly
But pricing isn’t all that they have in common. Both allow their users to create and sell personalized classes on their hosted platforms, without the hassle of handling the technical aspects like website maintenance, hosting, and security.
Newbies to the biz have a tendency to gravitate toward these companies for their easy-to-use interface which allows nearly all formats of content, such as video, audio, PDFs, and other multimedia. Most of these can be uploaded to the courses with a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and monitor the progress of their students.
Be Teachable You’re Not Always Right
Convenience
One of the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s course builder: it allows bulk changes to courses, which can be an enormous time-saver, especially for those that have built quite a few on their system; and it allows multi-format content in 1 lecture. What’s more is it can be linked to cloud providers, like Dropbox and Google Drive, for quicker uploads from your devices.
In terms of course delivery, Teachable has an iOS app that permits students to learn on their mobile devices, which is something that Thinkific does not have.
Sales and Marketing
After the content creation comes the selling and promotion of your classes. This is where Teachable wins by a landslide. Both give the liberty to sell one time or recurring products, offer discounts and bundles, or add affiliate programs, but Teachable has more choices. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout process, which decreases customer fallout (which occurs more during outdated, 2-step procedures like Thinkific’s). It also includes a 1-click upsell upon checkout, increasing transactions per client. Another significant advantage is Teachable’s payment gateway that accepts credit card, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay payments. Another service included is the automated payout to affiliates and authors (when applicable), taking care of tax forms and similar documentation. For those who have users from the EU, it even goes as far as including EU VAT on top of course prices. That definitely gives you more value to your content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Be Teachable You’re Not Always Right
One of the online class platforms with the most affordable top tier is Podia. Though it does not have a free plan, and its basic plan comes at $39/month (with Teachable at $29/month), its top and only remaining plan is offered at $79 (with Teachable at $399). This price gap can be due to the vastly different things they each offer. On the one hand, Teachable is a fully customizable class creator and vendor, and on the other, Podia decided to concentrate on Online Course Hosting, Membership or Email Marketing, and Digital Downloads. Those will immediately help you narrow down your choice to what’s best suited to your needs.
Podia’s compact categories lets users filter out other aspects which they might not have to dip into, such as e-commerce. Its interface is simple, clean, and fairly good for novice instructors. Having said that, this is why it may not satisfy the needs of instructors who wish to do more with their website. Since the variety isn’t much, more advanced users may find it lacking.
Course Creation and Control
Teachable defeats Podia in design and personalization tools, with choices for easy uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. The ones that dabble in code may also experiment with that within Teachable. Users can easily get the slick look of a professional website by choosing from default themes that can be customized to satisfaction. Teachable’s editor makes it easy to create changes and push upsells, maximizing both user’s time and profitability.
Both have a trickle content attribute for those that would like to space the lessons offered to their clients, and avoid cramming modules in 1 go. What is unique to Teachable is advanced control over course compliance, such as keeping tabs on students’ completion of quizzes and lessons. Additionally, it has built-in certificates that users can create and send to their clients at the end of the course. In terms of integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are very important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Be Teachable You’re Not Always Right
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has exceptional creation and builder resources for designing a slick course site, gives you control over your marketing and sales, has attributes that reduce time and effort on backend paperwork, and gives the best value for money. With more upgrades and user feedback, they’re certain to be a reliable company for many years to come.
