The present trend of consumer behavior moving into online media is quickly becoming the new normal for many industries. It’s no surprise that the exact same is true for non-traditional 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 wish to teach your hobbies, or something associated with your experience, 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 creating your website, while others focus mainly on helping you achieve your target audience. The 1st step is discovering which one can move your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your prospective students.
With all these LMS to pick 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 rivals, it’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Teachable Support
Udemy was among the leaders of LMS, which explains how and why their audience is still among the biggest markets in the business: they were there first. Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular choices in selling online courses, but they’re 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 allows you to use your custom domain while Udemy will have your customers return to Udemy.com. On another level, Teachable gives you tools to create and customize the entirety of your course, from content building and editing 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 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 line with this, Udemy seems to care about selling classes, period; so it is not only your classes, but every other course on their list. 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 might use 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 seem 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 own 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 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 revenues may still seem reasonable to others, particularly to those whose courses were previously created for different purposes and were merely shared more openly on Udemy, but that hurt a number of the instructors who were selling solely from the corporation’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 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 ideas. 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’s true that Udemy has a large audience which you might choose to tap into, the majority of the topics that they offer are really quite limited to largely Technology and Personal Development. Consider their dog-eat-dog marketing strategies and absorption of your brand’s identity, I would 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 Support
If you’re looking for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s cost, 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 for its generous waiving of transaction fees on any 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 really can’t go wrong with either of these.
Beginner-Friendly
But pricing isn’t all they have in common. Both enable their users to create and sell personalized classes 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 companies 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 to the site by a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and track the progress of their pupils.
Teachable Support
Convenience
One of the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s course builder: it allows bulk changes to courses, which may be a huge time-saver, especially for those that have built quite a few on their system; and it allows multi-format content in one lecture. What’s more is it can be connected to cloud services, like Dropbox and Google Drive, for quicker uploads from your computer.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS application that enables pupils to learn on their mobile devices, which is something that Thinkific doesn’t have.
Sales and Marketing
Following the content production 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 products, offer discounts and bundles, or 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). It also includes a 1-click upsell upon checkout, increasing transactions per client. Another significant benefit is Teachable’s payment gateway which 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 for your content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable Support
One of the online class platforms with the most affordable 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 due to the vastly different things they each offer. On the one hand, Teachable is a fully customizable course creator and seller, 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’s best suited to your needs.
Podia’s streamlined categories 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. That said, this is also why it may not meet the needs of creators who want 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 choices 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 website by selecting 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 drip content feature for the ones that would like to space the lessons offered to their students, and prevent cramming modules in one go. What is unique to Teachable is advanced control over course compliance, such as keeping tabs on students’ completion of quizzes and lessons. It also has built-in certification that users can make 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 extremely important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Teachable Support
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has exceptional creation and builder resources for designing a slick course website, gives you control over your advertising and sales, has features 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 many years to come.
