The current trend of consumer behaviour moving into online media is fast becoming the new standard for many industries. It’s not surprising that the same is true for unconventional education via the multitude of online courses now available online. This has opened more avenues of learning outside 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 may help you begin. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like creating your website, while others focus mainly on helping you reach your target audience. The 1st step is discovering which one can move your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your potential students.
With all these LMS to pick from, there’s one firm that has stood out for its balance of reasonable pricing, customizability, ease of use, and marketing control. Teachable is the top choice of instructors, and after pitting it against its rivals, it is clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Teachable App
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 first. Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular options in selling online courses, but they are extremely distinct in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course website and sell their brand, while Udemy is merely a marketplace for class creators that have existing courses. At the surface, this means that Teachable lets you 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 course, from content editing and building to sales, which aren’t in any way 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’ data is theirs exclusively for whatever other purpose it may serve them. And in accordance with that, Udemy seems to care about selling courses, period; so it’s not only your classes, but every other course in their listing. There have been testimonials that said this, when even competitor’s courses are promoted to clients 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 that have turned off many 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 doesn’t promote 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 substantial price. That price is a massive chunk of control and earnings.
Udemy started 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 look sensible 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 that were selling solely in the company’s site. In addition to that, what have driven people over the edge are the limitations on pricing. In 2016, Udemy put a cap on its prices, and all classes on the system needed 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 thoughts. If you combine these two policies, and have a class 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 massive audience that you may want to tap into, most of the topics that they offer are really quite 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 answer to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the end, nothing is more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Teachable App
If you’re looking for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s price, Thinkific is another terrific company that offers a lot for less. Both provide 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; but 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 two.
Beginner-Friendly
But pricing is not all that they have in common. Both allow their users to create and sell personalized classes in 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 firms for their easy-to-use interface that allows nearly all formats of content, such as audio, video, 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 pupils.
Teachable App
Convenience
Among the advantages 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 the ones that have built quite a few on their system; and it allows multi-format content in one lecture. What’s more is it can be connected to cloud providers, like Dropbox and Google Drive, for quicker uploads from your computer.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS app that enables pupils 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 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 reduces customer fallout (which happens more during obsolete, 2-step procedures like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it comes with a 1-click upsell upon checkout, raising 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 automatic 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 rates. That definitely gives you more value to your content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable App
One of the online course 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 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 concentrate 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 to your needs.
Podia’s streamlined classes lets users filter out other aspects which they might not have to dip into, like e-commerce. Its interface is easy, clean, and pretty good for novice instructors. Having said that, this is also why it may not satisfy the needs of creators who wish to do more with their site. Since the variety is not much, more advanced users may find it lacking.
Course Creation and Control
Teachable defeats Podia in design and customization tools, with options for easy uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. Those that dabble in code can also experiment with that within Teachable. Users can easily get the slick look of a professional site by selecting 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 those that want to space the lessons provided 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 lessons and quizzes. It also has built-in certification that users can create and send to their students at the end 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 App
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has excellent creation and builder tools for designing a slick course site, gives you control over your marketing and sales, has features that cut time and effort on backend paperwork, and provides the best value for money. With more updates and user feedback, they’re guaranteed to be a reliable company for years to come.
