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 exact same is true for unconventional education through the multitude of online courses now available online. It has opened more avenues of learning beyond the classroom setting, and has empowered nearly anyone with an idea to talk about their knowledge.
Whether you want to teach your hobbies, or something associated with your expertise, there are lots of online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) which may help you get started. 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 is one firm that has stood out for its balance of reasonable pricing, customizability, ease of use, and marketing control. Teachable is the leading choice of instructors, and after pitting it against its competitors, it’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Teachable Api
Udemy was among the leaders of LMS, which explains why and how their audience remains among the biggest markets in the business: they were there . Udemy and Teachable are currently two of the most popular choices in selling online courses, but they’re extremely different in essence and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to construct their own course website and market their brand, while Udemy is merely a market for course creators that have existing courses. At the surface, this means that Teachable allows you to 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 customize the entirety of your site, from content editing and building to sales, which aren’t 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 once you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ data 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’s not just your courses, but every other class in their listing. 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 might use the marketing, but from the point of view 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 potential users. They seem 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 promote 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 started 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 publicly on Udemy, but that hurt a number of the instructors that were selling solely in the company’s site. On top of that, what have driven people over the edge are the restrictions on pricing. In 2016, Udemy set a cap on its prices, and all classes 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 these two policies, and have a course priced at $20 and a 50% creator revenue, selling on Udemy becomes almost impossible as a dependable source of primary income.
So while it’s true that Udemy has a large audience which you may choose to tap into, most of the topics which they offer are actually very 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, there is nothing more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Teachable Api
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 provide their first tier programs for free, and start charging for every higher tier thereafter. Many beginners choose Thinkific because of its generous waiving of transaction fees on any of its plans; but a closer look at the fine print will reveal 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 two.
Beginner-Friendly
But pricing is not 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 have a tendency 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. 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 students.
Teachable Api
Convenience
Among the advantages of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s class builder: it allows bulk changes to courses, which may be a huge time-saver, especially for the ones that have built quite a number on their system; also 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 computer.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS application that enables pupils to learn on their mobile devices, which is something that 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 products, offer discounts and packages, or 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 client. Another significant benefit 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 writers (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 to your content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable Api
One of 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 offered at $79 (with Teachable at $399). This price gap can be a result of 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 classes lets users filter out other aspects that they might not have to dip into, such as e-commerce. Its interface is simple, clean, and fairly good for novice instructors. That said, this is why it may not meet the needs of instructors who wish 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 simple uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. Those that dabble in code can also explore that within Teachable. Users can easily get the slick look of a professional website 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 drip content feature for those that would like 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 lessons and quizzes. Additionally, it has built-in certification that users can make and send to their students 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 Teachable Api
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has exceptional creation and builder resources for designing a slick course site, gives you control over your advertising and sales, has attributes 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 trusted company for many years to come.
