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 non-traditional education via the multitude of online courses now available on the Internet. This has opened more avenues of learning beyond the classroom setting, and has empowered nearly anyone with an idea to talk about 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) that can help you get started. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like making your site, 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 potential students.
With all these LMS to choose 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 leading choice of creative entrpreneurs, and after pitting it against its competitors, it’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Teachable Scam
Udemy was one of the pioneers of LMS, which explains why and how their audience remains among the biggest markets in the industry: they were there first. Udemy and Teachable are currently two of the most popular choices in selling online courses, but they are extremely different 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 personalize the entirety of your site, from content editing and building to sales, which aren’t 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 exclusively for whatever other purpose it might serve them. And in accordance with that, Udemy seems to care about selling courses, period; so it’s not only your classes, but every other class in their listing. There have been testimonials that mentioned this, when even competitor’s courses have been promoted to clients that the user brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who might 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 several former or possible users. They appear 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 promote the courses for its users, that responsibility is left entirely to them. In an extreme fashion, Udemy markets their consumer’s courses aggressively, but with a substantial price. That price is a huge 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 different purposes and were only shared more publicly on Udemy, but that hurt many 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 restrictions on pricing. In 2016, Udemy set 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’s natural for some to turn away and look for better outlets for their ideas. 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 dependable source of primary income.
So while it is true that Udemy has a large audience which you may want to tap into, most of the topics which they offer are really very 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 end, nothing is more satisfying than creating your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Teachable Scam
If you’re looking for an LMS that is comparable to Teachable’s price, Thinkific is another terrific company that offers a lot for less. Both offer their first tier programs at no cost, and start charging for every higher tier thereafter. Many beginners choose Thinkific because of its generous waiving of transaction fees on all of its plans; but a closer look at the fine print will show that it charges extra for certain options which are already included in Teachable’s monthly flat prices. But, 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 isn’t all they have in common. Both enable their users to create and sell personalized courses 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 that allows nearly all formats of content, including video, audio, PDFs, and other multimedia. The majority 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 track the progress of their students.
Teachable Scam
Convenience
One of the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s class builder: it allows bulk changes to classes, which can be a huge time-saver, especially for the ones 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 linked to cloud providers, like Dropbox and Google Drive, for quicker uploads from your devices.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS app that permits pupils to learn on their mobile devices, which is something that Thinkific doesn’t have.
Sales and Marketing
After the content creation 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 add affiliate programs, but Teachable has more options. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout procedure, which reduces customer fallout (which happens more during obsolete, 2-step procedures like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it comes with a 1-click upsell upon checkout, increasing 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 automated payout to affiliates and writers (when applicable), focusing on 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 for your content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable Scam
One of the online class platforms with the cheapest 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 can be a result of 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 concentrate 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 to your needs.
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 simple, clean, and fairly 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 site. Since the variety isn’t much, more advanced users may find it lacking.
Course Creation and Control
Teachable defeats Podia in design and customization tools, with options for easy uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. Those that dabble in code can also experiment with that within Teachable. Users can easily get the slick look of a professional site by choosing from default themes which 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 trickle content attribute for the ones that would like to space the lessons provided to their students, and prevent cramming modules in 1 go. What is unique to Teachable is innovative control over course compliance, such as keeping tabs on students’ completion of quizzes and lessons. It also has built-in certification that users can create and send to their clients at the conclusion of the course. In terms of integrations, Teachable has improved autoresponders and analytics, both of which are extremely important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Teachable Scam
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has excellent creation and builder resources for designing a slick course site, gives you control over your advertising and sales, has features that cut time and effort on backend paperwork, and provides the best value for money. With more upgrades and user feedback, they are guaranteed to be a trusted choice for years to come.
