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 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 enabled nearly anyone with an idea to share their knowledge.
Whether you wish to teach your hobbies, or something associated with your experience, there are many 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 website, while others focus mainly on helping you reach 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 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 Teachable Alternatives
Udemy was among the leaders of LMS, which explains why and how their audience remains among the biggest markets in the industry: they were there first. Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular choices in selling online classes, but they’re very different in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to construct their own course website and sell their brand, while Udemy is merely a marketplace for course creators that have existing courses. At the very surface, this means that Teachable lets you use your custom domain while Udemy will have your clients 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 at all possible on Udemy. Among the more immediate consequences of this is that Teachable allows you to communicate more directly with your clientele, by providing you with access to student’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 may serve them. And in accordance with that, Udemy seems to care about selling classes, period; therefore it’s not just your classes, but every other class on their list. There have been testimonials that mentioned 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 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 which have turned off several former or potential users. They appear to know 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 manner, Udemy markets their user’s courses aggressively, but with a significant price. That price is a huge chunk of control and earnings.
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 reasonable to others, particularly to those whose courses were previously created for other purposes and were only shared more openly on Udemy, but that hurt a number of the instructors that were selling solely from 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 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’s natural for some to turn away and look for better outlets for their thoughts. If you combine both of these policies, and have a class priced at $20 and a 50% instructor revenue, selling on Udemy becomes almost impossible as a dependable source of primary income.
So while it is true that Udemy has a large audience that you may choose to tap into, most of the topics that they offer are really quite 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 response to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the long run, nothing is more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Teachable Alternatives
If you’re looking for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s price, Thinkific is another great company that offers a great deal for less. Both offer their first tier programs at no cost, and start charging for every 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 features 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 they have in common. Both allow their users to create and sell personalized courses on their hosted platforms, without the bother of handling the technical aspects like site maintenance, hosting, and security.
Newbies to the biz tend 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. The majority of these can be uploaded into the site with a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and track the progress of their students.
Teachable Alternatives
Convenience
Among the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s course builder: it allows bulk changes to courses, which can be an enormous 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 providers, like Dropbox and Google Drive, for faster uploads from your PC.
In terms of course delivery, Teachable has an iOS app that enables students to learn on their mobile devices, which is something that Thinkific does not have.
Sales and Marketing
After the content creation 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 goods, offer discounts and packages, 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 processes like Thinkific’s). It also comes with a 1-click upsell upon checkout, increasing 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), 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 to your content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable Alternatives
Among the online class platforms with the cheapest 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 provided 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 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 streamlined categories lets users filter out other aspects which they may not need to dip into, like e-commerce. Its interface is easy, clean, and fairly good for novice instructors. Having said that, this is why it may not satisfy the needs of creators 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 customization tools, with options for easy uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. The ones that dabble in code may also experiment with that within Teachable. Users can easily get the slick look of a professional site by selecting from default themes which 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 those that want to space the lessons provided to their students, and avoid cramming modules in one go. What’s unique to Teachable is innovative control over course compliance, like keeping tabs on students’ completion of lessons and quizzes. It also has built-in certification that users can create and send to their students at the conclusion of the lessons. In terms of integrations, Teachable has improved autoresponders and analytics, both of which are very important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Teachable Alternatives
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has exceptional creation and builder tools 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 updates and user feedback, they’re certain to be a trusted company for many years to come.
