The present trend of consumer behaviour moving into online media is quickly becoming the new standard for many businesses. It’s not surprising 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 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 associated with your experience, there are many online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) which can help you get started. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like making your website, while others focus mainly on helping you achieve your target audience. The 1st step is finding which one can transfer your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your prospective students.
With so many LMS to pick from, there’s 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 Platform
Udemy was among the pioneers of LMS, which explains why and how their audience remains among the largest markets in the business: they were there first. Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular choices in selling online classes, but they’re very distinct in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to construct their own course website and sell their brand, while Udemy is merely a market for course 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 return to Udemy.com. On another level, Teachable gives you tools to create and personalize the entirety of your site, from content building and editing to sales, which are not at all possible on Udemy. Among the more immediate consequences of this is that Teachable lets you 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’ data is theirs alone for whatever other purpose it may serve them. And in line with this, Udemy seems to care most about selling courses, period; so it is not only your courses, but every other class in their list. There have been testimonials that mentioned 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 use the marketing, but from the viewpoint 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 doesn’t 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 began 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 seem reasonable to others, especially to those whose classes were previously created for other purposes and were merely shared more openly on Udemy, but that hurt a number of the instructors that were selling solely from the corporation’s site. In addition to this, 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 needed 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 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 is true that Udemy has a massive audience which 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 that and their dog-eat-dog advertising 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 creating your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Teachable Platform
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 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 costs extra for certain features that are already included in Teachable’s monthly flat rates. However, those deviations are somewhat negligible, and with a range from $0-$499 per month, you can’t go wrong with either of these two.
Beginner-Friendly
But pricing is not all they have in common. Both enable their users to create and sell personalized classes in their hosted platforms, without the bother of handling the technical aspects like site maintenance, hosting, and security.
Newbies to the biz tend to gravitate toward these firms for their easy-to-use interface which allows nearly all formats of content, such as audio, video, PDFs, and other multimedia. Most of these can be uploaded into 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 Platform
Convenience
One of the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s course builder: it allows bulk changes to classes, 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 one lecture. What’s more is it can be connected to cloud services, such as Dropbox and Google Drive, for faster uploads from your computer.
In terms of 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 production comes the selling and marketing of your classes. 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 choices. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout process, which reduces customer fallout (which occurs more during obsolete, 2-step processes like Thinkific’s). It also comes with a 1-click upsell upon checkout, increasing transactions per customer. Another significant benefit is Teachable’s payment gateway that 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 own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable Platform
One of the online course 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 due to 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 is best suited to your needs.
Podia’s streamlined categories lets users filter out other aspects which they may not have to dip into, such as e-commerce. Its interface is simple, clean, and fairly good for novice instructors. That said, this is also why it may not meet the needs of creators who want 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 easy uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. Those that dabble in code can also explore that within Teachable. Users can easily get the sleek look of a professional site by selecting 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 want to space the lessons provided to their clients, and prevent cramming modules in one go. What is unique to Teachable is innovative control over course compliance, such as keeping tabs on students’ completion of lessons and quizzes. It also has built-in certificates that users can make and send to their clients at the conclusion 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 Platform
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 features that reduce time and effort on backend paperwork, and gives the best value for money. With more updates and user feedback, they are guaranteed to be a reliable company for many years to come.
