The current trend of consumer behaviour moving into online media is fast becoming the new standard for many industries. 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 outside 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 lots of online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) that can help you begin. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like creating your website, while others focus mainly on assisting you to reach your target audience. The 1st step is finding which one can transfer your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your potential students.
With so many LMS to pick from, there’s one company 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’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Teachable Free Courses
Udemy was one of the leaders of LMS, which explains why and how their audience remains among the biggest markets in the industry: they were there . Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular choices in selling online classes, but they are very distinct in essence and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to construct their own course site and sell their brand, while Udemy is merely a marketplace for class 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 building and editing to sales, which are not 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 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 alone for whatever other purpose it might serve them. And in line with this, Udemy seems to care most about selling courses, period; therefore it is not just your classes, but every other class on their listing. There have been testimonials that mentioned this, when even competitor’s classes are 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 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 several 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 doesn’t 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 massive chunk of control and revenue.
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 revenues may still seem reasonable to others, especially to those whose courses were previously created for different purposes and were only shared more openly on Udemy, but that hurt a number of the instructors who were selling solely from the corporation’s site. On top of that, what have driven people over the edge are the limitations on pricing. In 2016, Udemy put 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% creator revenue, selling on Udemy becomes almost impossible as a reliable source of primary income.
So while it is true that Udemy has a massive audience which you might choose to tap into, the majority of the topics which they offer are really very limited to mostly 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 long run, nothing is more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Teachable Free Courses
If you’re looking for an LMS that is comparable to Teachable’s cost, Thinkific is another terrific company that offers a lot for less. Both offer their first tier plans 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 show that it charges extra for certain options that are already included in Teachable’s monthly flat rates. But, those deviations are somewhat negligible, and with a range from $0-$499 per month, you 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 classes on their hosted platforms, without the hassle of handling the technical aspects like website maintenance, hosting, and security.
Newbies to the biz have a tendency to gravitate toward these companies for their easy-to-use interface which allows nearly all formats of content, including audio, video, PDFs, and other multimedia. The majority 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 students.
Teachable Free Courses
Convenience
One of the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s course builder: it allows bulk changes to classes, which can be a huge time-saver, especially for those that have built quite a few 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 quicker uploads from your PC.
In terms of course delivery, Teachable has an iOS app that enables pupils to learn on their mobile devices, which is something which 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 liberty to sell one-time or recurring products, offer discounts and packages, or affiliate programs, but Teachable has more choices. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout procedure, which decreases customer fallout (which happens more during obsolete, 2-step procedures like Thinkific’s). It also comes with a 1-click upsell upon checkout, raising transactions per customer. Another major benefit 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), 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 own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable Free Courses
Among the online course platforms with the most affordable 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 due to the vastly different things they each offer. On the one hand, Teachable is a fully customizable class creator and vendor, 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 for you.
Podia’s compact classes lets users filter out other aspects that they may not have to dip into, such as e-commerce. Its interface is simple, clean, and pretty great for novice instructors. Having said that, this is also 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 defeats Podia in design and personalization tools, with choices for easy uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. Those that dabble in code may also explore that within Teachable. Users can easily get the slick look of a professional site by selecting from default themes that can be customized to satisfaction. Teachable’s editor makes it easy to create changes and push upsells, maximizing both user’s time and profitability.
Both have a trickle content attribute for the ones that would like to space the lessons provided to their clients, and prevent cramming modules in one go. What is unique to Teachable is advanced control over course compliance, like keeping tabs on students’ completion of lessons and quizzes. Additionally, it has built-in certificates that users can create and send to their students at the end of the course. In terms of integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are extremely important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Teachable Free Courses
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has exceptional creation and builder tools for designing a sleek 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 upgrades and user feedback, they’re guaranteed to be a trusted choice for many years to come.
