The current trend of consumer behavior moving into online media is quickly becoming the new standard for many industries. It’s no surprise that the same is true for unconventional education via the multitude of online courses now available on the Internet. This has opened more avenues of learning beyond the classroom setting, and has empowered nearly anyone with an idea to talk about 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 get started. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like making your site, while others focus mainly on assisting you to achieve your target audience. The 1st step is finding which one can move your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your prospective students.
With all these LMS to choose from, there’s one company that has stood out because of 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 rivals, it’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Glassdoor Teachable
Udemy was one of the pioneers of LMS, which explains how and why their audience is still among the largest markets in the business: they were there first. Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular options in selling online courses, but they’re extremely distinct in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to construct their own course site and market their brand, while Udemy is simply a market for course creators that have existing courses. At the surface, this means that Teachable allows you to use your custom domain while Udemy will have your clients keep coming back to Udemy.com. On another level, Teachable gives you tools to create and customize the entirety of your course, 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 as soon as you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ data is theirs alone for whatever other purpose it might serve them. And in line with that, Udemy seems to care about selling classes, period; therefore it is not just your classes, but every other class on their list. There have been testimonials that said this, when even competitor’s classes are promoted to students that the instructor brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who might use the advertising, but from the point of view of a user, that business sense could seem overly spammy and unnecessary.
Marketing at a Price
It’s 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 own users, that responsibility is left entirely to them. In an extreme manner, Udemy markets their consumer’s courses aggressively, but with a substantial price. That price is a massive chunk of control and revenue.
Udemy began 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, especially to those whose courses were previously created for different purposes and were only shared more openly on Udemy, but that hurt a number of the instructors who were selling solely in the company’s site. In addition to this, what have driven people over the edge are the restrictions 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’s 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% instructor revenue, selling on Udemy becomes nearly impossible as a dependable source of primary income.
So while it’s true that Udemy has a massive audience that you may choose to tap into, most of the topics which they offer are actually very limited to mostly Technology and Personal Development. Consider their dog-eat-dog advertising 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 creating your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Glassdoor Teachable
If you’re looking for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s cost, Thinkific is another great company that offers a lot for less. Both offer their first tier programs for free, 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 reveal that it charges extra for certain features which 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.
Beginner-Friendly
But pricing isn’t all they have in common. Both allow their users to create and sell personalized classes 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 companies for their easy-to-use interface which allows nearly all formats of content, including video, audio, PDFs, and other multimedia. The majority of these can be uploaded into 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.
Glassdoor Teachable
Convenience
Among the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s class builder: it allows bulk changes to classes, which may be an enormous time-saver, especially for the ones that have built quite a number on their system; also it allows multi-format content in 1 lecture. What’s more is it can be connected to cloud providers, like Dropbox and Google Drive, for quicker uploads from your devices.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS application that permits pupils to learn on their mobile devices, which is something which Thinkific doesn’t have.
Sales and Marketing
Following the content creation comes the selling and marketing of your classes. This is where Teachable wins by a landslide. Both give the freedom to sell one-time or recurring goods, offer discounts and bundles, or affiliate programs, but Teachable has more options. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout procedure, which reduces customer fallout (which occurs more during obsolete, 2-step processes like Thinkific’s). It also comes with a 1-click upsell upon checkout, increasing transactions per customer. Another major advantage is Teachable’s payment gateway which accepts credit card, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay payments. Another service included is the automatic payout to affiliates and writers (when applicable), focusing on 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 to your own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Glassdoor Teachable
Among 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 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 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 is best suited for you.
Podia’s streamlined categories lets users filter out other aspects which they may not need to dip into, such as e-commerce. Its interface is simple, clean, and fairly great for novice instructors. That said, this is why it may not meet the needs of instructors who want to do more with their site. 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 simple uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. Those that dabble in code may also explore that within Teachable. Users can easily get the slick look of a professional site 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 drip content feature for those that would like to space the lessons offered to their clients, and prevent cramming modules in 1 go. What is unique to Teachable is advanced control over course compliance, like keeping tabs on students’ completion of lessons and quizzes. Additionally, it has built-in certificates 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 extremely important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Glassdoor 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 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 updates and user feedback, they are certain to be a trusted company for years to come.
