The present trend of consumer behavior moving into online media is fast becoming the new standard 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. It has opened more avenues of learning beyond the classroom setting, and has empowered nearly anyone with an idea to talk about their knowledge.
Whether you wish to teach your hobbies, or something related to your experience, there are lots of online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) that may help you get started. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like making 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 pick from, there’s one company that has stood out for 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 vs Competition
Udemy was among the pioneers of LMS, which explains how and why their audience remains 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 classes, but they are very distinct in essence and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course website and market their brand, while Udemy is merely a market for course creators that have existing courses. At the very surface, this means that Teachable lets you 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 site, from content building and editing to sales, which aren’t 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 pupil’s data and information; but once you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ information is theirs exclusively for whatever other purpose it may serve them. And in accordance with this, Udemy seems to care most about selling classes, period; therefore it is not only your courses, but every other class in their list. There have been testimonials that mentioned this, when even competitor’s classes have been promoted to students that the user brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who could need the advertising, but from the viewpoint of a user, that business sense could seem overly spammy 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 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 manner, Udemy markets their user’s courses aggressively, but with a substantial price. That price is a huge chunk of control and revenue.
Udemy started 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 reasonable to others, especially to those whose courses were previously created for different purposes and were only shared more openly on Udemy, but that hurt many of the instructors that were selling solely in the company’s site. In addition to that, what have driven people over the edge are the limitations on pricing. In 2016, Udemy put a cap on its prices, 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’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 is true that Udemy has a massive audience which you might want to tap into, most of the topics which they offer are really very limited to mostly 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 end, nothing is more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Teachable vs Competition
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 programs at no cost, and start charging for every higher tier thereafter. Many beginners choose Thinkific because of 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 rates. But, 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 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 site maintenance, hosting, and security.
Newbies to the biz have a tendency to gravitate toward these companies for their easy-to-use interface that allows nearly all formats of content, including audio, video, PDFs, and other multimedia. Most of these can be uploaded into the site by a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and monitor the progress of their students.
Teachable vs Competition
Convenience
Among the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s course builder: it allows bulk changes to classes, which may be a huge time-saver, especially for the ones 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 devices.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS app that enables 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 courses. This is where Teachable wins by a landslide. Both give the freedom to sell one time or recurring goods, 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 occurs more during obsolete, 2-step processes like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it includes a 1-click upsell upon checkout, increasing transactions per customer. Another significant benefit is Teachable’s payment gateway which 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 to your content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable vs Competition
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 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 chose to focus 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 for you.
Podia’s compact classes lets users filter out other aspects that they may not need to dip into, like e-commerce. Its interface is simple, clean, and fairly good for novice instructors. Having said that, this is also why it may not meet the needs of instructors who want to do more with their site. 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 choices for easy uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. The ones that dabble in code may also experiment with that within Teachable. Users can easily get the slick look of a professional site 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 the ones that want to space the lessons provided to their students, and avoid cramming modules in one go. What’s unique to Teachable is advanced control over course compliance, such as keeping tabs on students’ completion of quizzes and lessons. Additionally, it has built-in certificates that users can make and send to their clients at the end of the lessons. In terms of integrations, Teachable has improved autoresponders and analytics, both of which are very important to sales and marketing.
Recommendation Teachable vs Competition
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has excellent creation and builder tools for designing a sleek course website, gives you control over your advertising and sales, has features that reduce time and effort on backend paperwork, and provides the best value for money. With more updates and user feedback, they’re guaranteed to be a trusted choice for years to come.
