The current trend of consumer behavior moving into online media is quickly becoming the new standard for many industries. It’s not surprising that the exact same is true for unconventional education through the multitude of online courses now available on the Internet. This 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 related to your experience, there are many online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) which may help you begin. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like creating your site, while others focus mainly on assisting you to reach your target audience. The 1st step is finding which one can move your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your prospective students.
With so many LMS to choose 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 Sites Like Teachable
Udemy was one of the pioneers of LMS, which explains why and how their audience is still among the biggest markets in the business: they were there first. Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular options in selling online courses, but they’re very distinct in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course website and sell their brand, while Udemy is simply a market for course creators that have existing courses. 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 course, from content building and editing to sales, which are not in any way possible on Udemy. Among the more immediate consequences of this is that Teachable allows you to communicate more directly with your clientele, by giving you access to student’s data and information; but as soon as you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ data is theirs exclusively for whatever other purpose it might serve them. And in accordance with this, Udemy seems to care most about selling classes, period; therefore it is not only your courses, but every other course on their list. There have been testimonials that mentioned this, when even competitor’s classes have been promoted to students that the user brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who could need the advertising, but from the viewpoint of a 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 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 does not market the courses for its users, that responsibility is left entirely to them. In an extreme fashion, 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% 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, especially to those whose courses were previously created for other purposes and were merely shared more openly on Udemy, but that hurt a number of the instructors who were selling solely in the company’s site. In addition to this, 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. 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 these two policies, and have a course priced at $20 and a 50% instructor revenue, selling on Udemy becomes nearly impossible as a reliable source of primary income.
So while it’s true that Udemy has a large audience which you may choose to tap into, the majority of the topics that they offer are really very limited to largely 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 answer to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the end, there is nothing more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Sites Like Teachable
If you’re looking for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s cost, Thinkific is another terrific company that offers a lot for less. Both offer their first tier programs at no cost, 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 reveal that it charges 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 two.
Beginner-Friendly
But pricing isn’t all that they have in common. Both enable their users to create and sell personalized courses in their hosted platforms, without the hassle of handling the technical aspects like website 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, including video, audio, PDFs, and other multimedia. The majority of these can be uploaded into 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.
Sites Like Teachable
Convenience
Among the advantages of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s course builder: it allows bulk changes to courses, which can 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.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS application that permits 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 marketing 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 affiliate programs, but Teachable has more options. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout procedure, which reduces customer fallout (which occurs more during obsolete, 2-step processes like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it comes with 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. 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 for your content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Sites Like Teachable
One of the online class 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 can be due to 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 focus 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 streamlined classes lets users filter out other aspects which they may not need 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 satisfy the needs of instructors who want 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 personalization tools, with choices for easy uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. The ones 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 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 drip content feature for the ones that want to space the lessons provided to their students, and prevent cramming modules in 1 go. What is unique to Teachable is innovative 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 end of the course. In terms of integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are extremely important to sales and marketing.
Recommendation Sites Like Teachable
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has excellent creation and builder resources for designing a sleek course website, gives you control over your marketing and sales, has features that reduce time and effort on backend paperwork, and provides the best value for money. With more updates and user feedback, they are certain to be a reliable choice for years to come.
