The present trend of consumer behavior moving into online media is fast becoming the new normal for many businesses. It’s not surprising that the exact same is true for non-traditional education via 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 want to teach your hobbies, or something associated with your experience, there are lots of online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) that may help you get started. 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 move your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your prospective students.
With so many LMS to choose from, there is 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 creative entrpreneurs, and after pitting it against its competitors, it is clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Mark Thinkific vs Teachable
Udemy was one of the leaders of LMS, which explains why and how their audience is still among the largest markets in the business: they were there . Udemy and Teachable are currently two of the most popular options in selling online courses, but they are very different in essence and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to construct their own course website and market their brand, while Udemy is simply a market 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 customers return 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 at all 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 once you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ information is theirs exclusively for whatever other purpose it may serve them. And in accordance with that, Udemy seems to care about selling courses, period; so it’s not just your courses, but every other class in their listing. There have been testimonials that said this, when even competitor’s courses are promoted to clients that the instructor brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who could use the advertising, but from the viewpoint 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 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 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% 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 sensible to others, especially to those whose classes were previously created for different purposes and were only shared more publicly on Udemy, but that hurt a number of the instructors that were selling solely in the corporation’s site. In addition to that, what have driven people over the edge are the restrictions on pricing. In 2016, Udemy set a cap on its prices, and all courses on the system needed to be within the $20-$50 range. This is regardless of the uniqueness or skillfulness of a program, 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 nearly impossible as a reliable source of primary income.
So while it is true that Udemy has a large audience that you may want to tap into, the majority of the topics that they offer are actually quite limited to largely Technology and Personal Development. Consider their dog-eat-dog advertising strategies and absorption of your brand’s identity, I’d say Teachable is the answer to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the end, nothing is more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Mark Thinkific vs Teachable
If you’re searching for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s price, Thinkific is another great company that offers a lot for less. Both offer their first tier plans for free, and start charging for each higher tier thereafter. Many beginners choose Thinkific because of its generous waiving of transaction fees on any of its plans; but 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 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.
Beginner-Friendly
But pricing is not all that they have in common. Both allow their users to create and sell personalized courses in their hosted platforms, without the bother of handling the technical aspects like site 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. Most 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 students.
Mark Thinkific vs Teachable
Convenience
Among the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s class builder: it allows bulk changes to classes, which may be a huge time-saver, especially for those that have built quite a few on their system; also it allows multi-format content in one 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 app that enables pupils to learn on their mobile devices, which is something which Thinkific does not have.
Sales and Marketing
After the content production comes the selling and promotion of your courses. This is where Teachable wins by a landslide. Both give the freedom to sell one time or recurring products, 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 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 automated 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 for your own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Mark Thinkific 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 could be a result of the vastly different things they each offer. On the one hand, Teachable is a fully customizable class creator and seller, 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’s best suited for you.
Podia’s compact classes lets users filter out other aspects which they might not need 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 instructors 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. Those that dabble in code may also explore that within Teachable. Users can easily get the slick look of a professional website by choosing from default themes that 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 trickle content attribute for the ones that want to space the lessons provided to their students, and avoid cramming modules in 1 go. What’s unique to Teachable is innovative control over course compliance, like 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 lessons. In terms of integrations, Teachable has improved autoresponders and analytics, both of which are extremely important to sales and marketing.
Recommendation Mark Thinkific vs 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 site, gives you control over your advertising and sales, has attributes that cut time and effort on backend paperwork, and gives the best value for money. With more upgrades and user feedback, they’re guaranteed to be a reliable choice for years to come.
