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 exact same is true for unconventional education through the multitude of online courses now available on the Internet. This 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 related to your expertise, there are many online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) which may help you get started. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like making your website, while others focus mainly on helping you reach your target audience. The 1st step is finding 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 for its balance of reasonable pricing, customizability, ease of use, and marketing control. Teachable is the top choice of creative entrpreneurs, and after pitting it against its competitors, it’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Teachable vs Academy Of Mine
Udemy was one of the pioneers of LMS, which explains how and why 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 options in selling online courses, but they’re extremely different in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to construct their own course site and sell their brand, while Udemy is simply a marketplace for course creators that have existing classes. 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 customize the entirety of your site, from content building and editing to sales, which are not at all possible on Udemy. Among the more immediate consequences of this is that Teachable allows you to 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’ data is theirs alone for whatever other purpose it may serve them. And in line with that, Udemy seems to care about selling courses, period; so it is not just your classes, but every other course in their listing. There have been testimonials that mentioned this, when even competitor’s classes are promoted to students that the instructor brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who could 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 that have turned off many former or possible 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 users, that responsibility is left entirely to them. In an extreme manner, Udemy markets their user’s courses aggressively, but with a significant price. That price is a huge chunk of control and earnings.
Udemy began 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 other purposes and were merely shared more openly on Udemy, but that hurt many of the instructors that were selling solely in the company’s site. On top of that, what have driven people over the edge are the limitations on pricing. In 2016, Udemy set a cap on its costs, and all classes on the system had to be within the $20-$50 range. This is regardless of the uniqueness or skillfulness of a program, 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 massive audience that you might want to tap into, the majority of the topics which they offer are actually 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 vs Academy Of Mine
If you’re looking for an LMS that is comparable to Teachable’s cost, Thinkific is another great company that offers a great deal for less. Both offer their first tier programs for free, and start charging for each higher tier thereafter. Many beginners choose Thinkific because of its generous waiving of transaction fees on any of its plans; but a closer look at the fine print will show that it costs 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 really 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 courses 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 companies for their easy-to-use interface which allows nearly all formats of content, including video, audio, PDFs, and other multimedia. Most of these can be uploaded into the courses by a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and monitor the progress of their pupils.
Teachable vs Academy Of Mine
Convenience
Among the advantages of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s course builder: it allows bulk changes to courses, which may be an enormous time-saver, especially for those that have built quite a number on their system; and it allows multi-format content in one lecture. What’s more is it can be connected to cloud providers, such as Dropbox and Google Drive, for quicker uploads from your PC.
Concerning 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
Following the content creation comes the selling and marketing of your classes. This is where Teachable wins by a landslide. Both give the liberty to sell one-time or recurring products, 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 happens more during obsolete, 2-step processes like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it comes with a 1-click upsell upon checkout, raising transactions per client. Another major 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), 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 for your own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable vs Academy Of Mine
Among the online course platforms with the most affordable 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 could be a result of 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 instantly help you narrow down your choice to what’s best suited for you.
Podia’s streamlined classes lets users filter out other aspects that they may 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 meet the needs of creators who wish to do more with their website. Since the variety is not much, more advanced users may find it lacking.
Course Creation and Control
Teachable beats Podia in design and personalization tools, with options for simple uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. The ones that dabble in code may also experiment with that within Teachable. Users can easily get the sleek look of a professional website by selecting from default themes that can be customized to liking. 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 want to space the lessons provided to their students, and avoid cramming modules in one go. What is unique to Teachable is advanced control over course compliance, such as keeping tabs on students’ completion of lessons and quizzes. Additionally, it has built-in certificates that users can create 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 vs Academy Of Mine
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 marketing and sales, has features 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.
