The current trend of consumer behavior 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 online. This 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 wish to teach your hobbies, or something associated with your expertise, there are lots of online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) that may help you get started. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like creating your website, while others focus mainly on helping you achieve your target audience. The 1st step is discovering which one can transfer your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your prospective students.
With so many 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 creative entrpreneurs, and after pitting it against its competitors, it’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Teachable Course
Udemy was among the pioneers of LMS, which explains how and why their audience remains among the largest markets in the industry: they were there first. Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular options in selling online classes, but they are extremely different in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course website and market their brand, while Udemy is merely a market for course creators that have existing classes. At the very surface, this means that Teachable allows you to 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 editing and building to sales, which aren’t at all possible on Udemy. One of 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 once you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ information is theirs exclusively for whatever other purpose it may serve them. And in line with this, Udemy seems to care most about selling classes, period; therefore it’s not just your courses, but every other class on their list. There have been testimonials that said this, when even competitor’s classes have been promoted to clients that the user brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who could need the marketing, but from the viewpoint of a loyal user, that business sense could seem overly spammy and unnecessary.
Marketing at a Price
It’s Udemy’s cut-throat policies that 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 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 revenues may still look sensible to others, especially to those whose classes were previously created for other purposes and were merely shared more publicly on Udemy, but that hurt a number of the instructors that were selling solely in the corporation’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 costs, and all classes on the system had to be within the $20-$50 range. That 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 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 dependable source of primary income.
So while it’s true that Udemy has a large audience that you might want to tap into, most of the topics which they offer are actually quite limited to mostly 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 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 Course
If you’re looking for an LMS that is comparable to Teachable’s cost, Thinkific is another great 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 any of its plans; however 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 prices. 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 they have in common. Both allow their users to create and sell personalized classes in their hosted platforms, without the hassle 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 that allows nearly all formats of content, including audio, video, PDFs, and other multimedia. Most of these can be uploaded into the site by a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and track the progress of their pupils.
Teachable Course
Convenience
One of 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 number on their system; and it allows multi-format content in 1 lecture. What’s more is it can be linked to cloud providers, such as Dropbox and Google Drive, for quicker uploads from your devices.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS application that enables students to learn on their mobile devices, which is something which Thinkific does not 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 liberty to sell one-time or recurring goods, offer discounts and packages, or add affiliate programs, but Teachable has more choices. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout procedure, which decreases customer fallout (which occurs more during obsolete, 2-step procedures like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it includes a 1-click upsell upon checkout, raising transactions per customer. 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 writers (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 rates. That definitely gives you more value to your own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable Course
Among 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 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 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 to your needs.
Podia’s compact categories lets users filter out other aspects that they might not need 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 creators 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 personalization tools, with options 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 site by choosing 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 the ones that want to space the lessons provided to their clients, and avoid 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 certificates that users can make and send to their clients at the conclusion of the course. Concerning integrations, Teachable has improved autoresponders and analytics, both of which are very important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Teachable Course
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has excellent creation and builder tools for designing a sleek course website, gives you control over your marketing and sales, has attributes that cut time and effort on backend paperwork, and provides the best value for money. With more updates and user feedback, they’re certain to be a trusted choice for many years to come.
