The current trend of consumer behaviour moving into online media is quickly becoming the new normal for many industries. It’s no surprise that the same is true for non-traditional education through the multitude of online courses now available online. This has opened more avenues of learning outside the classroom setting, and has empowered nearly anyone with an idea to share their knowledge.
Whether you want to teach your hobbies, or something associated with your expertise, there are lots of online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) that can help you get started. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like creating your site, while others focus mainly on helping you achieve your target audience. The 1st step is discovering which one can transfer your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your prospective students.
With so many LMS to choose from, there is one firm that has stood out for its balance of reasonable pricing, customizability, ease of use, and marketing control. Teachable is the top choice of creative entrpreneurs, and after pitting it against its competitors, it’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Clickfunnels vs Teachable
Udemy was one of the pioneers of LMS, which explains why and how their audience remains among the largest markets in the industry: they were there . Udemy and Teachable are currently two of the most popular choices in selling online classes, but they’re very distinct in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course website and market their brand, while Udemy is merely a marketplace for course creators that have existing courses. At the 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 customize the entirety of your course, from content building and editing to sales, which aren’t 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 providing you with access to student’s data and information; but once you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ data is theirs exclusively for whatever other purpose it may serve them. And in line with this, Udemy seems to care about selling courses, period; therefore it’s not only your courses, but every other course in their list. There have been testimonials that said this, when even competitor’s classes 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 overly spammy and unnecessary.
Marketing at a Price
It is Udemy’s cut-throat policies that have turned off several former or possible users. They seem to be aware of the very value of their following, and have taken advantage of it, much to the detriment of the lecturer. True, Teachable doesn’t market the courses for its own users, that responsibility is left entirely to them. In an extreme manner, Udemy markets their user’s courses aggressively, but with a substantial 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, particularly to those whose classes were previously created for other purposes and were merely shared more openly on Udemy, but that hurt many of the instructors that were selling solely from the corporation’s site. On top of that, what have driven people over the edge are the restrictions on pricing. In 2016, Udemy put a cap on its prices, and all classes on the system needed to be within the $20-$50 range. This is regardless of the uniqueness or skillfulness of a program, 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 nearly impossible as a reliable source of primary income.
So while it’s true that Udemy has a massive audience that you might choose to tap into, the majority of the topics which they offer are actually very limited to largely Technology and Personal Development. Consider their dog-eat-dog advertising strategies and absorption of your brand’s identity, I’d say Teachable is the answer to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the end, nothing is more satisfying than creating your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Clickfunnels vs Teachable
If you’re looking for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s price, Thinkific is another great 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 for 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 options that are already included in Teachable’s monthly flat prices. However, those deviations are somewhat negligible, and with a range from $0-$499 per month, you really can’t go wrong with either of these two.
Beginner-Friendly
But pricing is not all they have in common. Both enable their users to create and sell personalized courses in 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 firms for their easy-to-use interface which allows nearly all formats of content, such as audio, video, PDFs, and other multimedia. The majority of these can be uploaded to the site with a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and track the progress of their pupils.
Clickfunnels vs Teachable
Convenience
Among the advantages of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s course builder: it allows bulk changes to courses, which may be an enormous time-saver, especially for those that have built quite a number on their system; and it allows multi-format content in one lecture. What’s more is it can be linked to cloud services, such as Dropbox and Google Drive, for faster uploads from your devices.
In terms of course delivery, Teachable has an iOS application that permits pupils to learn on their mobile devices, which is something that Thinkific does not have.
Sales and Marketing
After the content production comes the selling and promotion of your classes. This is where Teachable wins by a landslide. Both give the freedom to sell one-time or recurring products, offer discounts and bundles, or affiliate programs, but Teachable has more options. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout process, which reduces customer fallout (which occurs more during outdated, 2-step processes like Thinkific’s). It also comes with a 1-click upsell upon checkout, raising transactions per client. Another major benefit is Teachable’s payment gateway which 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 for your own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Clickfunnels vs Teachable
Among the online course 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 provided 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 course creator and seller, and on the other, Podia decided to concentrate on Online Course Hosting, Membership or Email Marketing, and Digital Downloads. Those will instantly help you narrow down your choice to what’s best suited to your needs.
Podia’s compact categories lets users filter out other aspects that they might not need to dip into, like e-commerce. Its interface is easy, clean, and pretty great for novice instructors. Having said that, this is also why it may not satisfy the needs of creators who want to do more with their site. Since the variety is not much, more advanced users may find it lacking.
Course Creation and Control
Teachable defeats Podia in design and personalization tools, with options for simple uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. The ones that dabble in code may also experiment with that within Teachable. Users can easily get the sleek look of a professional site by selecting from default themes which can be customized to liking. Teachable’s editor makes it effortless to create changes and push upsells, maximizing both user’s time and profitability.
Both have a trickle content attribute for the ones that would like to space the lessons offered to their students, and avoid cramming modules in 1 go. What is unique to Teachable is innovative control over course compliance, such as keeping tabs on students’ completion of lessons and quizzes. Additionally, it has built-in certificates that users can make and send to their students at the conclusion of the lessons. In terms of integrations, Teachable has improved autoresponders and analytics, both of which are very important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Clickfunnels vs Teachable
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has excellent creation and builder tools for designing a sleek course site, gives you control over your advertising and sales, has attributes that cut time and effort on backend paperwork, and gives the best value for money. With more upgrades and user feedback, they’re guaranteed to be a reliable company for years to come.
