The current trend of consumer behavior moving into online media is fast becoming the new standard for many businesses. It’s not surprising that the exact same is true for unconventional education via the multitude of online courses now available online. This has opened more avenues of learning outside the classroom setting, and has enabled nearly anyone with an idea to share their knowledge.
Whether you want 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 begin. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like creating your site, while others focus mainly on assisting you to achieve 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 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 instructors, and after pitting it against its rivals, it’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Teachable Summit
Udemy was among the leaders of LMS, which explains why and how their audience is still among the biggest markets in the industry: they were there first. Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular choices in selling online courses, but they are very different in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course site and sell their brand, while Udemy is merely a market 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 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 are not at all 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 student’s data and information; but once you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ information is theirs exclusively for whatever other purpose it might serve them. And in line with that, Udemy seems to care about selling classes, period; therefore it is not just your courses, but every other class on their list. There have been testimonials that said this, when even competitor’s courses have been promoted to students that the instructor brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who might need the advertising, 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 is Udemy’s cut-throat policies that have turned off many former or potential 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 doesn’t market 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 significant price. That price is a huge chunk of control and earnings.
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 seem reasonable to others, especially to those whose classes were previously created for different purposes and were only shared more publicly on Udemy, but that hurt many of the instructors that were selling solely from the corporation’s site. On top of this, what have driven people over the edge are the limitations on pricing. In 2016, Udemy put a cap on its prices, and all courses on the system needed to be within the $20-$50 range. That 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 these two policies, and have a class priced at $20 and a 50% instructor revenue, selling on Udemy becomes nearly impossible as a reliable source of primary income.
So while it is true that Udemy has a large audience which you may choose to tap into, most of the topics which they offer are actually very limited to mostly Technology and Personal Development. Consider that and their dog-eat-dog marketing strategies and absorption of your brand’s identity, I’d say Teachable is the response to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the end, there is nothing more satisfying than creating your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Teachable Summit
If you’re searching for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s price, Thinkific is another great company that offers a great deal for less. Both provide their first tier plans 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; but a closer look at the fine print will reveal that it costs extra for certain options that are already included in Teachable’s monthly flat rates. But, 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 that they have in common. Both allow their users to create and sell personalized classes in their hosted platforms, without the hassle 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 video, audio, PDFs, and other multimedia. The majority 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 track the progress of their students.
Teachable Summit
Convenience
One of the advantages of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s class 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; 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 faster uploads from your computer.
In terms of course delivery, Teachable has an iOS application that permits students to learn on their mobile devices, which is something which Thinkific does not 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 liberty 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 process, which reduces customer fallout (which occurs more during outdated, 2-step procedures like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it comes with a 1-click upsell upon checkout, raising transactions per client. 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), 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 to your own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable Summit
Among 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 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 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 to your needs.
Podia’s streamlined classes lets users filter out other aspects which they might not have to dip into, like e-commerce. Its interface is simple, clean, and fairly great for novice instructors. Having said that, this is why it may not satisfy 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 customization tools, with options for simple uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. The ones that dabble in code can also explore that within Teachable. Users can easily get the slick 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 trickle content attribute for those that would like to space the lessons offered to their students, and avoid cramming modules in one go. What’s unique to Teachable is advanced control over course compliance, like keeping tabs on students’ completion of quizzes and lessons. Additionally, it has built-in certificates that users can create and send to their students at the end of the lessons. In terms of integrations, Teachable has improved autoresponders and analytics, both of which are very important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Teachable Summit
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has exceptional creation and builder resources for designing a sleek course site, 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 updates and user feedback, they’re certain to be a reliable company for many years to come.
