The current trend of consumer behaviour moving into online media is fast becoming the new normal for many businesses. It’s no surprise that the exact same is true for unconventional education via the multitude of online courses now available online. This has opened more avenues of learning beyond the classroom setting, and has empowered nearly anyone with an idea to share their knowledge.
Whether you wish to teach your hobbies, or something related to your expertise, there are many online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) which may help you begin. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like making your website, while others focus mainly on helping you reach 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 pick 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 instructors, and after pitting it against its rivals, it’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Humility vs Teachable
Udemy was one of the leaders 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 options 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 class creators that have existing courses. At the very surface, this means that Teachable lets you use your custom domain while Udemy will have your customers keep coming back to Udemy.com. On another level, Teachable gives you tools to create and personalize 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 allows you to communicate more directly with your clientele, by providing you with 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 may serve them. And in accordance with that, Udemy seems to care most about selling courses, period; therefore it’s not only your classes, but every other class in their listing. There have been testimonials that said this, when even competitor’s courses 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 viewpoint of a user, that business sense could seem too self-serving and unnecessary.
Marketing at a Price
It’s Udemy’s cut-throat policies that have turned off several 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 does not promote the courses for its users, that responsibility is left entirely to them. In an extreme fashion, Udemy markets their consumer’s courses aggressively, but with a substantial price. That price is a huge chunk of control and revenue.
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 earnings may still look sensible to others, especially to those whose courses were previously created for other purposes and were merely shared more publicly on Udemy, but that hurt many 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 limitations on pricing. In 2016, Udemy set a cap on its prices, 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’s natural for some to turn away and look for better outlets for their ideas. If you combine these two policies, and have a course priced at $20 and a 50% creator 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 may choose to tap into, most of the topics which they offer are actually very limited to largely Technology and Personal Development. Consider that and 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 long run, nothing is more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Humility vs Teachable
If you’re searching for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s cost, Thinkific is another terrific company that offers a lot for less. Both offer their first tier plans at no cost, and start charging for every 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 that 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 isn’t all they have in common. Both enable 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 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 to the site by a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and track the progress of their students.
Humility vs Teachable
Convenience
Among 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 number 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 faster uploads from your computer.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS app that permits pupils to learn on their mobile devices, which is something which Thinkific does not have.
Sales and Marketing
After the content creation comes the selling and promotion of your courses. 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 choices. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout procedure, which decreases customer fallout (which occurs more during outdated, 2-step procedures like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it comes with a 1-click upsell upon checkout, raising transactions per client. Another significant benefit 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 authors (when applicable), focusing on 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 rates. That definitely gives you more value to your content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Humility vs Teachable
Among the online course platforms with the most affordable 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 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 course creator and seller, and on the other, Podia chose to focus 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 streamlined classes lets users filter out other aspects that they might not have to dip into, like e-commerce. Its interface is simple, clean, and fairly great for novice instructors. Having said that, this is also why it may not meet the needs of creators who wish to do more with their website. Since the variety is not much, more advanced users may find it lacking.
Course Creation and Control
Teachable beats Podia in design and customization tools, with options 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 selecting from default themes which 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 the ones that want to space the lessons offered to their students, and avoid cramming modules in one go. What’s 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 make and send to their students at the end of the course. In terms of integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are extremely important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Humility 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 site, gives you control over your marketing and sales, has attributes that reduce time and effort on backend paperwork, and provides the best value for money. With more upgrades and user feedback, they’re certain to be a reliable choice for many years to come.
