The current trend of consumer behavior moving into online media is quickly becoming the new standard for many industries. It’s not surprising that the 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 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) that can help you begin. 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 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’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Teachable Linkedin
Udemy was among the leaders of LMS, which explains why and how their audience is still 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’re very distinct in essence and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course site and market their brand, while Udemy is simply 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 customers return 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 are not in any way possible on Udemy. Among 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 as soon as you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ information is theirs alone for whatever other purpose it may serve them. And in accordance with that, Udemy seems to care about selling classes, period; so it is not only your classes, but every other course in their list. 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 use the marketing, but from the point of view of a loyal user, that business sense could seem too self-serving and unnecessary.
Marketing at a Price
It’s Udemy’s cut-throat policies which have turned off many former or potential users. They seem 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 user’s courses aggressively, but with a substantial price. That price is a massive chunk of control and earnings.
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 seem reasonable to others, particularly to those whose courses were previously created for other purposes and were only shared more publicly on Udemy, but that hurt a number of the instructors who 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 needed 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 ideas. If you combine both of these policies, and have a course priced at $20 and a 50% creator revenue, selling on Udemy becomes nearly impossible as a dependable source of primary income.
So while it’s true that Udemy has a massive audience that you may choose to tap into, most of the topics which they offer are actually quite 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, there is nothing more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Teachable Linkedin
If you’re searching for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s cost, Thinkific is another great company that offers a lot for less. Both offer their first tier programs for free, and start charging for every 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 show that it costs extra for certain features 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 really can’t go wrong with either of these two.
Beginner-Friendly
But pricing isn’t all they have in common. Both enable their users to create and sell personalized courses on 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 companies for their easy-to-use interface that allows nearly all formats of content, such as audio, video, PDFs, and other multimedia. Most of these can be uploaded into the courses with a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and track the progress of their students.
Teachable Linkedin
Convenience
One of the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s class builder: it allows bulk changes to classes, 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 one lecture. What’s more is it can be connected to cloud services, like Dropbox and Google Drive, for quicker uploads from your PC.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS app that enables students to learn on their mobile devices, which is something which 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 goods, offer discounts and packages, or add affiliate programs, but Teachable has more options. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout process, which decreases customer fallout (which occurs more during obsolete, 2-step procedures like Thinkific’s). It also 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 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 rates. That definitely gives you more value for your content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable Linkedin
One of 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 provided 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 decided 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 to your needs.
Podia’s compact classes lets users filter out other aspects which they might not have to dip into, like e-commerce. Its interface is simple, clean, and pretty good for novice instructors. That said, this is also why it may not satisfy the needs of instructors who want 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 personalization tools, with options for simple uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. The ones that dabble in code may also explore that within Teachable. Users can easily get the sleek look of a professional site by choosing 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 offered to their clients, and avoid 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 make and send to their clients at the end of the course. Concerning integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are very important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Teachable Linkedin
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has excellent creation and builder tools for designing a slick course website, gives you control over your advertising and sales, has attributes that cut time and effort on backend paperwork, and gives the best value for money. With more upgrades and user feedback, they’re certain to be a reliable choice for many years to come.
