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 same is true for unconventional education via the multitude of online courses now available online. This has opened more avenues of learning outside the classroom setting, and has enabled nearly anyone with an idea to share their knowledge.
Whether you wish to teach your hobbies, or something related to your experience, there are lots of online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) that can help you begin. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like making your site, while others focus mainly on helping you achieve your target audience. The 1st step is finding which one can move your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your potential students.
With all these LMS to pick from, there’s 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 competitors, it’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Most Successful Teachable Courses
Udemy was one of the pioneers of LMS, which explains why and how their audience remains among the largest markets in the industry: 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 classes. At the surface, this means that Teachable allows you to 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 site, 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 providing you with access to pupil’s data and information; but once you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ data is theirs alone for whatever other purpose it might serve them. And in line with this, Udemy seems to care most about selling classes, period; so it’s not just your classes, but every other class in their list. 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 could use the advertising, but from the viewpoint of a loyal user, that business sense could seem too self-serving and unnecessary.
Marketing at a Price
It is Udemy’s cut-throat policies which 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 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 earnings.
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 reasonable to others, particularly to those whose classes were previously created for different purposes and were only shared more openly on Udemy, but that hurt many of the instructors that were selling solely from the company’s site. In addition to that, what have driven people over the edge are the limitations on pricing. In 2016, Udemy put a cap on its costs, 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 is natural for some to turn away and look for better outlets for their ideas. If you combine both of these policies, and have a course 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 might want to tap into, most 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 long run, there is nothing more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Most Successful Teachable Courses
If you’re looking for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s price, Thinkific is another terrific company that offers a lot for less. Both provide their first tier plans at no cost, and start charging for every higher tier thereafter. Many beginners choose Thinkific for its generous waiving of transaction fees on all of its plans; but a closer look at the fine print will show 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 isn’t all that they have in common. Both allow their users to create and sell personalized courses in their hosted platforms, without the hassle 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 which allows nearly all formats of content, such as audio, video, PDFs, and other multimedia. Most of these can be uploaded into the site by a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and monitor the progress of their pupils.
Most Successful Teachable Courses
Convenience
Among the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s class builder: it allows bulk changes to classes, which can be a huge time-saver, especially for the ones that have built quite a number on their system; and it allows multi-format content in one lecture. What’s more is it can be connected to cloud services, like Dropbox and Google Drive, for faster uploads from your computer.
In terms of course delivery, Teachable has an iOS app that permits students 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 courses. This is where Teachable wins by a landslide. Both give the freedom 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 process, which reduces customer fallout (which happens more during obsolete, 2-step procedures like Thinkific’s). It also includes a 1-click upsell upon checkout, raising transactions per customer. Another significant advantage 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), 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 for your own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Most Successful Teachable Courses
One of the online class 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 could be a result of the vastly different things they each offer. On the one hand, Teachable is a fully customizable course 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 to your needs.
Podia’s compact categories lets users filter out other aspects which they may not have to dip into, such as e-commerce. Its interface is easy, clean, and pretty great for novice instructors. Having said that, this is why it may not meet 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 choices for easy uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. Those that dabble in code can also explore that within Teachable. Users can easily get the sleek look of a professional site by selecting 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 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, such as keeping tabs on students’ completion of quizzes and lessons. It also has built-in certificates that users can make and send to their clients at the end of the lessons. In terms of integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are extremely important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Most Successful Teachable Courses
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has excellent creation and builder resources for designing a slick course site, gives you control over your marketing and sales, has features that reduce time and effort on backend paperwork, and gives the best value for money. With more upgrades and user feedback, they’re certain to be a trusted choice for years to come.
