The present trend of consumer behaviour moving into online media is fast becoming the new standard for many businesses. It’s no surprise that the exact same is true for unconventional education through the multitude of online courses now available online. It has opened more avenues of learning outside the classroom setting, and has enabled nearly anyone with an idea to share their knowledge.
Whether you wish 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 begin. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like creating your website, 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’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 instructors, and after pitting it against its competitors, it is clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Teachable Support Phone Number
Udemy was one of the pioneers 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 currently two of the most popular choices in selling online courses, but they’re extremely different in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course website and market their brand, while Udemy is merely 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 clients return to Udemy.com. On another level, Teachable gives you tools to create and personalize the entirety of your course, 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 giving you access to student’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 might serve them. And in accordance with that, Udemy seems to care about selling classes, period; so it’s not only your courses, but every other course in their listing. There have been testimonials that mentioned this, when even competitor’s classes have been promoted to students that the instructor brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who might need the marketing, but from the point of view of a loyal 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 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 promote the courses for its users, that responsibility is left entirely to them. In an extreme manner, 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 earnings may still look sensible to others, particularly to those whose courses were previously created for other purposes and were merely shared more openly on Udemy, but that hurt many of the instructors that were selling solely in the corporation’s site. In addition to this, what have driven people over the edge are the restrictions on pricing. In 2016, Udemy put 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 both of these policies, and have a course priced at $20 and a 50% creator revenue, selling on Udemy becomes almost impossible as a reliable source of primary income.
So while it’s true that Udemy has a large audience that you may want to tap into, most of the topics which they offer are really very 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, nothing is more satisfying than creating your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Teachable Support Phone Number
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 provide 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 all of its plans; however a closer look at the fine print will reveal that it charges extra for certain options which are already included in Teachable’s monthly flat prices. However, those deviations are somewhat negligible, and with a range from $0-$499 per month, you can’t go wrong with either of these.
Beginner-Friendly
But pricing is not all that 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 website 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, 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 Support Phone Number
Convenience
Among the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s class builder: it allows bulk changes to classes, which can 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 PC.
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 promotion of your classes. This is where Teachable wins by a landslide. Both give the liberty to sell one-time or recurring goods, offer discounts and bundles, 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 outdated, 2-step processes like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it includes a 1-click upsell upon checkout, raising transactions per customer. Another major advantage 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 authors (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 rates. That definitely gives you more value to your content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable Support Phone Number
One of the online class 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 offered 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 course creator and vendor, 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 is best suited to your needs.
Podia’s compact categories lets users filter out other aspects which they may not have to dip into, like e-commerce. Its interface is easy, clean, and pretty great for novice instructors. Having said that, 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 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 slick look of a professional website by selecting 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 drip content feature for those that want to space the lessons provided to their students, 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 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 Support Phone Number
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has exceptional creation and builder tools 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 provides the best value for money. With more upgrades and user feedback, they’re guaranteed to be a reliable company for years to come.
