The current 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 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 want to teach your hobbies, or something related to your experience, 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 making your website, while others focus mainly on assisting you to achieve your target audience. The 1st step is discovering which one can transfer your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your potential students.
With all these LMS to choose from, there is 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 rivals, it is clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Product Dyno vs Teachable
Udemy was among 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 now two of the most popular options in selling online courses, but they’re extremely distinct in essence and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build 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 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 site, from content building and editing to sales, which are not 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 pupil’s data and information; but as soon as you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ information is theirs exclusively for whatever other purpose it might serve them. And in line with that, Udemy seems to care about selling classes, period; so it is not just your classes, but every other class in their list. There have been testimonials that said this, when even competitor’s classes are promoted to clients that the instructor brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who might use the marketing, but from the point of view of a loyal 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 several 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 does not promote 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 massive 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 look reasonable to others, especially 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 in the corporation’s site. On top of this, what have driven people over the edge are the restrictions on pricing. In 2016, Udemy put a cap on its costs, and all courses on the system had to be within the $20-$50 range. That 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 both of these 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 which you may want to tap into, the majority of the topics that they offer are really very limited to mostly Technology and Personal Development. Consider their dog-eat-dog advertising strategies and absorption of your brand’s identity, I would say Teachable is the response to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the end, nothing is more satisfying than creating your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Product Dyno vs Teachable
If you’re looking for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s cost, Thinkific is another great company that offers a lot for less. Both provide their first tier programs for free, and start charging for each higher tier thereafter. Many beginners choose Thinkific because of its generous waiving of transaction fees on all of its plans; however a closer look at the fine print will show that it charges extra for certain options which are already included in Teachable’s monthly flat prices. But, 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 they have in common. Both allow their users to create and sell personalized classes on their hosted platforms, without the bother of handling the technical aspects like website maintenance, hosting, and security.
Newbies to the biz have a tendency to gravitate toward these companies for their easy-to-use interface which allows nearly all formats of content, such as video, audio, PDFs, and other multimedia. Most of these can be uploaded to the courses by a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and monitor the progress of their pupils.
Product Dyno vs Teachable
Convenience
One of the advantages 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 number on their system; and it allows multi-format content in 1 lecture. What’s more is it can be linked to cloud services, such as Dropbox and Google Drive, for faster uploads from your devices.
In terms of course delivery, Teachable has an iOS application that permits students to learn on their mobile devices, which is something that Thinkific does not have.
Sales and Marketing
After the content production comes the selling and promotion of your classes. This is where Teachable wins by a landslide. Both give the freedom to sell one-time or recurring products, offer discounts and bundles, or add affiliate programs, but Teachable has more options. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout procedure, which decreases customer fallout (which happens more during obsolete, 2-step procedures like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it comes with a 1-click upsell upon checkout, increasing transactions per client. Another major 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 authors (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 own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Product Dyno vs Teachable
One of the online course 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 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 instantly help you narrow down your choice to what is best suited for you.
Podia’s compact categories lets users filter out other aspects that they may not have to dip into, like e-commerce. Its interface is simple, clean, and pretty great for novice instructors. That said, this is why it may not meet 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 defeats Podia in design and customization tools, with choices for simple uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. The ones that dabble in code can also explore that within Teachable. Users can easily get the slick look of a professional website by choosing from default themes which 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 offered to their clients, 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 quizzes and lessons. Additionally, it has built-in certificates that users can create and send to their clients at the conclusion of the lessons. In terms of integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are very important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Product Dyno 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 website, gives you control over your marketing and sales, has attributes that reduce time and effort on backend paperwork, and gives the best value for money. With more updates and user feedback, they are certain to be a trusted choice for many years to come.
