The present trend of consumer behavior moving into online media is quickly becoming the new standard for many industries. It’s not surprising that the exact same is true for unconventional education via the multitude of online courses now available on the Internet. 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 want to teach your hobbies, or something associated with your expertise, there are many online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) which may help you begin. 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 transfer your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your potential students.
With so many LMS to choose from, there is 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 instructors, and after pitting it against its competitors, it’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Teachable Sections vs Lectures
Udemy was one of the leaders of LMS, which explains why and how their audience remains among the biggest markets in the business: they were there first. Udemy and Teachable are currently two of the most popular choices in selling online courses, but they are very distinct in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to construct their own course site and sell their brand, while Udemy is merely a marketplace for course creators that have existing courses. At the very 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 customize 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 once you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ data is theirs alone for whatever other purpose it might serve them. And in line with this, Udemy seems to care most about selling courses, period; so it’s not just your courses, but every other class in their listing. There have been testimonials that mentioned this, when even competitor’s classes have been promoted to clients that the user 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 too self-serving and unnecessary.
Marketing at a Price
It’s Udemy’s cut-throat policies that have turned off several former or potential 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 doesn’t market the courses for its own users, that responsibility is left entirely to them. In an extreme fashion, Udemy markets their consumer’s courses aggressively, but with a significant price. That price is a massive chunk of control and revenue.
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 look reasonable to others, especially to those whose courses 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 in the company’s site. On top of this, 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’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 nearly 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, the majority of the topics which they offer are really quite limited to largely 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, there is nothing more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Teachable Sections vs Lectures
If you’re searching for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s price, Thinkific is another terrific company that offers a lot for less. Both offer their first tier plans for free, and start charging for each higher tier thereafter. Many beginners choose Thinkific for its generous waiving of transaction fees on any of its plans; but a closer look at the fine print will show that it charges 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 isn’t all that they have in common. Both allow their users to create and sell personalized courses in 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 firms for their easy-to-use interface which allows nearly all formats of content, such as audio, video, 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 monitor the progress of their students.
Teachable Sections vs Lectures
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 1 lecture. What’s more is it can be linked to cloud providers, like Dropbox and Google Drive, for quicker uploads from your PC.
In terms of course delivery, Teachable has an iOS application that permits students to learn on their mobile devices, which is something that Thinkific doesn’t have.
Sales and Marketing
After 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 products, offer discounts and packages, or add affiliate programs, but Teachable has more choices. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout procedure, which decreases customer fallout (which happens more during obsolete, 2-step processes like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it 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 automated payout to affiliates and authors (when applicable), taking care of 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 for your content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable Sections vs Lectures
One of the online course 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 provided at $79 (with Teachable at $399). This price gap could 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 decided 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 for you.
Podia’s streamlined categories lets users filter out other aspects that they might not need to dip into, such as e-commerce. Its interface is easy, clean, and fairly good for novice instructors. That said, this is also why it may not meet the needs of creators who wish to do more with their site. Since the variety is not much, more advanced users may find it lacking.
Course Creation and Control
Teachable beats Podia in design and customization tools, with options for easy uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. Those that dabble in code may also explore that within Teachable. Users can easily get the sleek look of a professional website by choosing from default themes that 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 trickle content attribute for the ones that would like to space the lessons provided to their students, and avoid cramming modules in one go. What’s 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 certificates that users can make and send to their students at the end of the lessons. Concerning integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are extremely important to sales and marketing.
Recommendation Teachable Sections vs Lectures
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 marketing and sales, has attributes that cut time and effort on backend paperwork, and provides the best value for money. With more upgrades and user feedback, they are certain to be a trusted company for years to come.
