The current trend of consumer behavior moving into online media is fast becoming the new standard for many industries. It’s no surprise that the exact same is true for non-traditional education via 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 share their knowledge.
Whether you want to teach your hobbies, or something associated with your experience, 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 creating your website, while others focus mainly on assisting you to reach your target audience. The 1st step is discovering which one can move your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your prospective students.
With so many LMS to pick from, there’s one firm that has stood out because of its balance of reasonable pricing, customizability, ease of use, and marketing control. Teachable is the top choice of creative entrpreneurs, and after pitting it against its rivals, it’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Teachable Online Courses
Udemy was one of the leaders of LMS, which explains how and why their audience is still among the biggest markets in the business: they were there . Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular options in selling online courses, but they are very 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 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 personalize the entirety of your course, from content editing and building to sales, which aren’t 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 this, Udemy seems to care about selling classes, period; therefore it’s not only your classes, but every other course on their list. There have been testimonials that mentioned this, when even competitor’s courses have been promoted to students that the user brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who might need the marketing, but from the point of view of a loyal user, that business sense could seem overly spammy and unnecessary.
Marketing at a Price
It is Udemy’s cut-throat policies which have turned off many former or potential users. They seem to know the very value of their following, and have taken advantage of it, much to the detriment of the lecturer. True, Teachable does not market the courses for its 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 huge 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 earnings may still look reasonable to others, particularly to those whose classes 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. In addition to this, what have driven people over the edge are the restrictions on pricing. In 2016, Udemy set a cap on its prices, and all classes on the system needed to be within the $20-$50 range. This is regardless of the uniqueness or skillfulness of a program, and it’s 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 almost impossible as a dependable source of primary income.
So while it’s true that Udemy has a massive audience which you may 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 end, nothing is more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Teachable Online Courses
If you’re looking for an LMS that is comparable to Teachable’s cost, Thinkific is another great company that offers a great deal for less. Both offer 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; however a closer look at the fine print will reveal that it charges 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 that they have in common. Both allow their users to create and sell personalized classes on their hosted platforms, without the bother 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, including video, audio, 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 monitor the progress of their pupils.
Teachable Online Courses
Convenience
Among the advantages of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s course builder: it allows bulk changes to courses, which may be a huge 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 services, such as Dropbox and Google Drive, for faster uploads from your PC.
Concerning 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
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 packages, or add affiliate programs, but Teachable has more options. 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 includes 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 writers (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 own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable Online Courses
One of the online course platforms with the cheapest 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 due to the vastly different things they each offer. On the one hand, Teachable is a fully customizable class creator and seller, and on the other, Podia chose to focus on Online Course Hosting, Membership or Email Marketing, and Digital Downloads. Those will instantly help you narrow down your choice to what’s best suited for you.
Podia’s streamlined classes lets users filter out other aspects which they may not need to dip into, like e-commerce. Its interface is easy, clean, and fairly good for novice instructors. That said, this is also why it may not satisfy the needs of instructors who wish to do more with their website. Since the variety isn’t much, more advanced users may find it lacking.
Course Creation and Control
Teachable beats Podia in design and personalization tools, with choices for simple uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. The ones that dabble in code may also experiment with that within Teachable. Users can easily get the sleek look of a professional site by choosing from default themes that 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 those that want to space the lessons offered 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. It also has built-in certificates that users can make and send to their students at the end of the lessons. In terms of integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are extremely important to sales and marketing.
Recommendation Teachable Online 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 website, gives you control over your marketing and sales, has features 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.
