The present trend of consumer behavior moving into online media is quickly becoming the new normal for many businesses. It’s no surprise that the same is true for non-traditional education via the multitude of online courses now available online. It has opened more avenues of learning beyond the classroom setting, and has enabled nearly anyone with an idea to talk about their knowledge.
Whether you wish to teach your hobbies, or something associated with your expertise, 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 website, while others focus mainly on helping you reach your target audience. The 1st step is discovering which one can move your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your potential students.
With so many LMS to pick from, there is 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 Is Virtue Teachable
Udemy was one of the leaders of LMS, which explains how and why their audience is still among the largest markets in the business: they were there . Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular options in selling online courses, but they are extremely distinct in essence and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to construct their own course website and sell their brand, while Udemy is merely a market for course creators that have existing classes. 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 personalize the entirety of your site, from content building and editing to sales, which aren’t at all possible on Udemy. One of 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 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 that, Udemy seems to care about selling classes, period; therefore it’s not only your courses, but every other class in their list. There have been testimonials that mentioned this, when even competitor’s classes are promoted to clients that the user brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who could use the advertising, but from the point of view of a loyal 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 many former or potential 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 does not promote the courses for its 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 huge chunk of control and earnings.
Udemy began 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 earnings may still look reasonable to others, especially to those whose courses were previously created for other purposes and were only shared more publicly on Udemy, but that hurt many of the instructors who were selling solely in the corporation’s site. On top of this, what have driven people over the edge are the limitations 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. 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 thoughts. If you combine both of these policies, and have a course 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 large audience which you might choose to tap into, most of the topics which they offer are actually quite limited to largely Technology and Personal Development. Consider that and their dog-eat-dog marketing 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 building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Is Virtue Teachable
If you’re searching for an LMS that is comparable to Teachable’s cost, Thinkific is another great company that offers a great deal for less. Both offer their first tier plans for free, and start charging for every higher tier thereafter. Many beginners choose Thinkific for its generous waiving of transaction fees on all of its plans; however a closer look at the fine print will reveal that it charges extra for certain options which are already included in Teachable’s monthly flat rates. But, those deviations are somewhat negligible, and with a range from $0-$499 per month, you 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 in 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, 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 monitor the progress of their pupils.
Is Virtue Teachable
Convenience
One of the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s course builder: it allows bulk changes to classes, which can be an enormous time-saver, especially for the ones 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 devices.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS application that enables students 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 bundles, or 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 obsolete, 2-step procedures like Thinkific’s). It also includes a 1-click upsell upon checkout, increasing transactions per customer. 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), 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 to your content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Is Virtue 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 provided at $79 (with Teachable at $399). This price gap could 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 focus 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 to your needs.
Podia’s compact categories lets users filter out other aspects that they might not have to dip into, like e-commerce. Its interface is easy, clean, and fairly good for novice instructors. That said, this is why it may not satisfy the needs of instructors who wish to do more with their site. Since the variety isn’t much, more advanced users may find it lacking.
Course Creation and Control
Teachable beats Podia in design and customization tools, with choices for simple uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. Those that dabble in code can 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 liking. Teachable’s editor makes it effortless to create changes and push upsells, maximizing both user’s time and profitability.
Both have a drip content feature for the ones that would like to space the lessons offered to their clients, and prevent cramming modules in 1 go. What is unique to Teachable is innovative control over course compliance, such as keeping tabs on students’ completion of quizzes and lessons. It also has built-in certification that users can make and send to their clients at the conclusion of the course. In terms of integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are very important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Is Virtue Teachable
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has excellent creation and builder resources for designing a slick course website, gives you control over your marketing and sales, has features that cut time and effort on backend paperwork, and gives the best value for money. With more upgrades and user feedback, they are certain to be a reliable company for years to come.
