The present trend of consumer behaviour moving into online media is fast becoming the new standard for many businesses. It’s not surprising that the exact same is true for unconventional education through the multitude of online courses now available online. This has opened more avenues of learning beyond the classroom setting, and has enabled nearly anyone with an idea to share their knowledge.
Whether you wish to teach your hobbies, or something associated with your experience, there are many online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) which can help you begin. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like making your site, while others focus mainly on assisting you to reach your target audience. The 1st step is discovering which one can transfer your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your potential students.
With so many LMS to choose from, there’s one firm that has stood out because of 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 is clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Elopage vs Teachable
Udemy was among the leaders of LMS, which explains why and how their audience is still among the biggest markets in the business: they were there . Udemy and Teachable are currently two of the most popular choices in selling online classes, but they are extremely different in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to construct their own course site and sell their brand, while Udemy is simply 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 customize the entirety of your site, from content editing and building to sales, which aren’t in any way possible on Udemy. Among the more immediate consequences of this is that Teachable allows you to communicate more directly with your clientele, by giving you access to pupil’s data and information; but as soon as you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ data is theirs alone for whatever other purpose it may serve them. And in line with this, Udemy seems to care most about selling classes, period; so it is not just your courses, but every other course in their list. There have been testimonials that mentioned this, when even competitor’s courses are promoted to clients that the user brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who might need the marketing, but from the point of view of a loyal user, that business sense could seem overly spammy and unnecessary.
Marketing at a Price
It’s Udemy’s cut-throat policies which have turned off many former or potential users. They appear 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 significant price. That price is a massive chunk of control and revenue.
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 seem reasonable to others, especially to those whose classes were previously created for other purposes and were only shared more openly on Udemy, but that hurt many of the instructors who were selling solely in 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 costs, and all courses on the system had 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 these two policies, and have a class priced at $20 and a 50% creator revenue, selling on Udemy becomes nearly 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 actually very limited to mostly Technology and Personal Development. Consider that and their dog-eat-dog advertising strategies and absorption of your brand’s identity, I’d say Teachable is the response to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the end, there is nothing more satisfying than creating your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Elopage vs Teachable
If you’re looking for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s price, Thinkific is another great company that offers a lot for less. Both provide 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; however a closer look at the fine print will reveal that it costs 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 can’t go wrong with either of these two.
Beginner-Friendly
But pricing isn’t 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 site maintenance, hosting, and security.
Newbies to the biz tend to gravitate toward these firms for their easy-to-use interface that allows nearly all formats of content, including audio, video, PDFs, and other multimedia. The majority of these can be uploaded into 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.
Elopage vs Teachable
Convenience
One of the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s class builder: it allows bulk changes to courses, which can be a huge time-saver, especially for those that have built quite a number on their system; and it allows multi-format content in 1 lecture. What’s more is it can be linked to cloud providers, such as Dropbox and Google Drive, for quicker uploads from your devices.
In terms of course delivery, Teachable has an iOS app that enables 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 options. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout procedure, which decreases customer fallout (which happens more during obsolete, 2-step processes like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it includes a 1-click upsell upon checkout, raising 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 automatic payout to affiliates and authors (when applicable), taking care of tax forms and similar documentation. If you have users from the EU, it even goes as far as including EU VAT on top of course rates. That definitely gives you more value for your own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Elopage vs Teachable
Among the online course platforms with the cheapest top tier is Podia. Though it doesn’t 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 a result of 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 chose to focus 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 for you.
Podia’s compact categories lets users filter out other aspects which they may not have to dip into, like e-commerce. Its interface is simple, clean, and pretty good for novice instructors. Having said that, this is why it may not satisfy the needs of instructors 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 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 slick look of a professional site by selecting from default themes which can be customized to liking. Teachable’s editor makes it easy to create changes and push upsells, maximizing both user’s time and profitability.
Both have a drip content feature for those that want to space the lessons offered to their clients, and avoid cramming modules in one 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 certification that users can create and send to their students at the conclusion of the lessons. Concerning integrations, Teachable has improved autoresponders and analytics, both of which are very important to sales and marketing.
Recommendation Elopage vs Teachable
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has exceptional creation and builder resources for designing a slick course website, gives you control over your marketing and sales, has attributes that cut time and effort on backend paperwork, and gives the best value for money. With more updates and user feedback, they are certain to be a trusted company for many years to come.
