The present trend of consumer behaviour moving into online media is quickly becoming the new normal for many industries. It’s not surprising that the same is true for unconventional education through the multitude of online courses now available online. It has opened more avenues of learning beyond the classroom setting, and has enabled nearly anyone with an idea to share their knowledge.
Whether you wish to teach your hobbies, or something related to 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 site, while others focus mainly on helping you reach your target audience. The 1st step is finding which one can move your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your prospective students.
With all these LMS to choose from, there is one firm 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 competitors, it’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Teachable Review
Udemy was among the leaders of LMS, which explains why and how their audience remains 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 extremely distinct in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course site 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 customers keep coming back to Udemy.com. On another level, Teachable gives you tools to create and customize the entirety of your course, from content editing and building to sales, which aren’t at all 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 pupil’s data and information; but as soon as you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ data is theirs alone for whatever other purpose it may serve them. And in line with that, Udemy seems to care most about selling classes, period; therefore it is not only your classes, but every other course in their listing. There have been testimonials that mentioned this, when even competitor’s classes are promoted to students that the instructor brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who could use the advertising, but from the point of view of a 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 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 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 earnings.
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 earnings may still seem reasonable to others, particularly to those whose classes were previously created for different purposes and were only shared more publicly on Udemy, but that hurt a number of the instructors who were selling solely from the company’s site. In addition to that, what have driven people over the edge are the limitations 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 course, and it’s natural for some to turn away and look for better outlets for their thoughts. If you combine these two policies, and have a class 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 large audience which you might want to tap into, the majority of the topics that they offer are really quite limited to mostly Technology and Personal Development. Consider their dog-eat-dog advertising strategies and absorption of your brand’s identity, I’d say Teachable is the answer to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the long run, nothing is more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Teachable Review
If you’re looking for an LMS that is comparable to Teachable’s price, Thinkific is another great company that offers a great deal for less. Both provide their first tier programs at no cost, and start charging for every higher tier thereafter. Many beginners choose Thinkific for its generous waiving of transaction fees on any 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 rates. 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 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 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, including video, audio, PDFs, and other multimedia. Most of these can be uploaded to the courses with a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and monitor the progress of their students.
Teachable Review
Convenience
One of the advantages 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 few on their system; and it allows multi-format content in 1 lecture. What’s more is it can be connected to cloud services, such as Dropbox and Google Drive, for quicker uploads from your computer.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS app that permits pupils to learn on their mobile devices, which is something that Thinkific does not have.
Sales and Marketing
Following the content production comes the selling and promotion 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 affiliate programs, but Teachable has more options. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout procedure, which decreases customer fallout (which happens more during outdated, 2-step procedures like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it includes a 1-click upsell upon checkout, increasing transactions per client. Another major 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), 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 prices. That definitely gives you more value to your own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable Review
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 could be a result of 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 chose to concentrate 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 for you.
Podia’s compact classes lets users filter out other aspects which they may not need to dip into, such as e-commerce. Its interface is easy, clean, and pretty great for novice instructors. Having said that, this is why it may not satisfy the needs of instructors who wish 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 simple uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. Those that dabble in code can also experiment with that within Teachable. Users can easily get the sleek look of a professional site by choosing from default themes which 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 drip content feature for those that want to space the lessons offered to their students, and prevent cramming modules in one go. What’s unique to Teachable is innovative control over course compliance, like keeping tabs on students’ completion of quizzes and lessons. It also has built-in certification that users can make and send to their clients at the end of the course. In terms of integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are very important to sales and marketing.
Recommendation Teachable Review
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has excellent creation and builder resources for designing a slick course website, gives you control over your advertising and sales, has attributes that reduce time and effort on backend paperwork, and gives the best value for money. With more upgrades and user feedback, they are guaranteed to be a trusted company for years to come.
