The current trend of consumer behaviour moving into online media is fast becoming the new standard for many businesses. It’s no surprise that the same is true for non-traditional education via the multitude of online courses now available on the Internet. It has opened more avenues of learning beyond the classroom setting, and has empowered nearly anyone with an idea to share their knowledge.
Whether you want 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 get started. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like creating your site, while others focus mainly on helping you achieve your target audience. The 1st step is finding which one can transfer 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 for 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 New Kajabi vs Teachable
Udemy was one of the pioneers of LMS, which explains how and why their audience is still among the largest markets in the industry: they were there first. Udemy and Teachable are currently two of the most popular choices in selling online courses, but they are extremely different in essence and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course site and sell their brand, while Udemy is simply a marketplace for course creators that have existing classes. At the very surface, this means that Teachable allows you to use your custom domain while Udemy will have your clients return to Udemy.com. On another level, Teachable gives you tools to create and customize the entirety of your site, from content building and editing to sales, which are not in any way possible on Udemy. One of the more immediate consequences of this is that Teachable allows you to communicate more directly with your clientele, by providing you with access to pupil’s data and information; but as soon as you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ information 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’s not just your classes, but every other class in their listing. There have been testimonials that said this, when even competitor’s courses have been promoted to clients that the user brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who could use the marketing, 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 which have turned off many former or possible 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 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 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 seem sensible to others, especially to those whose classes were previously created for other purposes and were merely shared more publicly on Udemy, but that hurt a number of the instructors that were selling solely in the company’s site. In addition to that, what have driven people over the edge are the restrictions on pricing. In 2016, Udemy put a cap on its prices, and all classes on the system had to be within the $20-$50 range. This is regardless of the uniqueness or skillfulness of a course, and it is 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 which you might choose to tap into, the majority of the topics that they offer are really 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 answer to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the end, nothing is more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing New Kajabi 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 provide their first tier programs 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 costs extra for certain options 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 two.
Beginner-Friendly
But pricing isn’t all that they have in common. Both enable their users to create and sell personalized classes in their hosted platforms, without the hassle of handling the technical aspects like website 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 video, audio, PDFs, and other multimedia. The majority of these can be uploaded to 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.
New Kajabi vs Teachable
Convenience
One of the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s course 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; and it allows multi-format content in 1 lecture. What’s more is it can be linked to cloud services, like Dropbox and Google Drive, for quicker uploads from your computer.
In terms of course delivery, Teachable has an iOS application that permits students to learn on their mobile devices, which is something that Thinkific doesn’t have.
Sales and Marketing
After the content production comes the selling and marketing of your classes. 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 options. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout process, which reduces customer fallout (which occurs more during outdated, 2-step procedures like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it includes a 1-click upsell upon checkout, increasing transactions per customer. Another significant advantage is Teachable’s payment gateway which accepts credit card, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay payments. Another service included is the automated 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 prices. That definitely gives you more value to your content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia New Kajabi vs Teachable
One of the online course platforms with the most affordable 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 due to 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 chose to focus 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 compact categories lets users filter out other aspects which they might not have to dip into, such as e-commerce. Its interface is simple, clean, and fairly great for novice instructors. Having said that, this is why it may not satisfy 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 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 website 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 trickle content attribute for the ones that want to space the lessons offered to their students, and prevent cramming modules in one 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 certificates that users can make and send to their students at the conclusion of the lessons. Concerning integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are very important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation New Kajabi vs Teachable
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has exceptional creation and builder tools for designing a sleek 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 are guaranteed to be a trusted choice for many years to come.
