The present trend of consumer behaviour moving into online media is fast becoming the new standard for many businesses. It’s no surprise that the same is true for unconventional education via the multitude of online courses now available on the Internet. It has opened more avenues of learning beyond the classroom setting, and has enabled nearly anyone with an idea to talk about their knowledge.
Whether you wish to teach your hobbies, or something related to your expertise, there are lots of online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) which can help you begin. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like making your site, while others focus mainly on assisting you to reach your target audience. The 1st step is discovering which one can transfer your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your potential students.
With all these LMS to pick 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 Custom Domain
Udemy was one of the leaders of LMS, which explains why and how their audience is still among the largest markets in the business: they were there first. Udemy and Teachable are currently two of the most popular choices in selling online courses, but they are extremely different in essence and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to construct their own course website and sell their brand, while Udemy is simply a market for class creators that have existing classes. At the very 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 site, from content building and editing 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 providing you with access to pupil’s data and information; but as soon as you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ information is theirs exclusively for whatever other purpose it may serve them. And in accordance with this, Udemy seems to care most about selling courses, period; so it is not just your classes, but every other course in their list. There have been testimonials that said this, when even competitor’s classes are 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 point of view of a loyal 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 many former or possible 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 market the courses for its users, that responsibility is left entirely to them. In an extreme manner, Udemy markets their consumer’s courses aggressively, but with a significant price. That price is a massive chunk of control and revenue.
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 classes were previously created for other purposes and were merely shared more publicly on Udemy, but that hurt many of the instructors who were selling solely from the company’s site. On top of this, what have driven people over the edge are the limitations 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. This 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 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 that you may want to tap into, the majority of the topics that they offer are really quite limited to largely Technology and Personal Development. Consider their dog-eat-dog marketing strategies and absorption of your brand’s identity, I would say Teachable is the response to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the end, there is nothing more satisfying than creating your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Teachable Custom Domain
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 for its generous waiving of transaction fees on all of its plans; however a closer look at the fine print will reveal that it costs extra for certain features 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 isn’t all that they have in common. Both allow their users to create and sell personalized courses on their hosted platforms, without the hassle of handling the technical aspects like website 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, such as video, audio, PDFs, and other multimedia. Most of these can be uploaded to the site with a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and monitor the progress of their pupils.
Teachable Custom Domain
Convenience
One of the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s course builder: it allows bulk changes to courses, which may be an enormous time-saver, especially for the ones that have built quite a number on their system; also it allows multi-format content in one lecture. What’s more is it can be connected to cloud services, like Dropbox and Google Drive, for faster uploads from your devices.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS application that enables pupils 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 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 bundles, 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 outdated, 2-step procedures like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it comes with 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 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 for your own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable Custom Domain
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 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 chose 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 compact classes lets users filter out other aspects that they may 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 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 personalization tools, with choices for easy uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. Those 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 satisfaction. 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 the ones that want to space the lessons offered 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. It also has built-in certificates that users can make and send to their clients at the end of the lessons. In terms of integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are very important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Teachable Custom Domain
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has excellent creation and builder resources 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 are certain to be a trusted company for many years to come.
