The current trend of consumer behaviour moving into online media is quickly becoming the new normal for many businesses. It’s no surprise that the same is true for unconventional education via the multitude of online courses now available on the Internet. It has opened more avenues of learning outside 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 associated with your expertise, there are many online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) that may help you begin. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like creating your website, while others focus mainly on helping you reach your target audience. The 1st step is finding which one can move your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your potential students.
With so many LMS to pick from, there’s one company that has stood out for its balance of reasonable pricing, customizability, ease of use, and marketing control. Teachable is the leading choice of instructors, and after pitting it against its competitors, it’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Course Cats vs Teachable
Udemy was among the leaders of LMS, which explains why and how their audience is still among the largest markets in the industry: they were there . Udemy and Teachable are currently two of the most popular options in selling online courses, but they are very distinct in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to construct their own course site and sell their brand, while Udemy is simply a market for course creators that have existing classes. 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 personalize the entirety of your course, from content editing and building to sales, which are not in any way possible on Udemy. One of 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’ information is theirs alone for whatever other purpose it might serve them. And in accordance with that, Udemy seems to care about selling courses, period; therefore it’s not just your courses, but every other class on their list. There have been testimonials that mentioned this, when even competitor’s courses have been promoted to students that the instructor brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who might need the advertising, 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 many former or possible 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 doesn’t promote the courses for its users, that responsibility is left entirely to them. In an extreme manner, Udemy markets their consumer’s courses aggressively, but with a significant price. That price is a massive chunk of control and earnings.
Udemy started with a 90% instructor 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 seem sensible to others, particularly to those whose classes were previously created for different purposes and were only shared more publicly on Udemy, but that hurt many of the instructors who were selling solely in the company’s site. On top of that, what have driven people over the edge are the limitations on pricing. In 2016, Udemy put a cap on its prices, and all courses on the system had 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 thoughts. If you combine these two policies, and have a class priced at $20 and a 50% instructor revenue, selling on Udemy becomes almost impossible as a reliable source of primary income.
So while it’s true that Udemy has a large audience that you might want to tap into, most of the topics which they offer are really quite limited to mostly Technology and Personal Development. Consider their dog-eat-dog marketing strategies and absorption of your brand’s identity, I would say Teachable is the response to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the end, nothing is more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Course Cats vs Teachable
If you’re searching for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s price, Thinkific is another terrific company that offers a great deal for less. Both offer their first tier plans for free, 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 costs extra for certain options which are already included in Teachable’s monthly flat rates. 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 that they have in common. Both allow their users to create and sell personalized courses on their hosted platforms, without the bother 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 that allows nearly all formats of content, such as video, audio, PDFs, and other multimedia. The majority of these can be uploaded to the courses by a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and track the progress of their students.
Course Cats vs Teachable
Convenience
One of the advantages 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 the ones that have built quite a few on their system; also 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 PC.
In terms of course delivery, Teachable has an iOS app that enables pupils to learn on their mobile devices, which is something that Thinkific doesn’t have.
Sales and Marketing
Following 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 goods, offer discounts and packages, or add affiliate programs, but Teachable has more options. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout procedure, which decreases customer fallout (which occurs more during obsolete, 2-step processes like Thinkific’s). It also includes a 1-click upsell upon checkout, increasing transactions per customer. Another significant benefit 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 writers (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 content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Course Cats vs Teachable
One of the online class platforms with the cheapest 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 is best suited for you.
Podia’s compact categories lets users filter out other aspects that they might not have to dip into, such as e-commerce. Its interface is simple, clean, and pretty good 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 website. Since the variety isn’t much, more advanced users may find it lacking.
Course Creation and Control
Teachable defeats Podia in design and customization tools, with options for easy uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. Those 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 that can be customized to satisfaction. 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 those that want to space the lessons offered to their students, and prevent cramming modules in one go. What’s unique to Teachable is innovative control over course compliance, like 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 conclusion of the lessons. Concerning integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are extremely important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Course Cats vs Teachable
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has exceptional creation and builder tools for designing a sleek course website, gives you control over your advertising and sales, has attributes that cut time and effort on backend paperwork, and provides the best value for money. With more upgrades and user feedback, they’re guaranteed to be a reliable choice for many years to come.
