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 unconventional education through the multitude of online courses now available on the Internet. It has opened more avenues of learning beyond the classroom setting, and has empowered nearly anyone with an idea to share their knowledge.
Whether you want to teach your hobbies, or something associated with your experience, there are lots of online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) that can help you begin. 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 all these LMS to pick from, there is one company that has stood out for its balance of reasonable pricing, customizability, ease of use, and marketing control. Teachable is the top choice of instructors, and after pitting it against its competitors, it’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Teachable vs Coursecats
Udemy was among the leaders of LMS, which explains why and how their audience is still among the biggest markets in the business: they were there . Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular options in selling online courses, but they are very distinct in essence and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course site and market their brand, while Udemy is merely a marketplace for class creators that have existing classes. At the very surface, this means that Teachable allows you to use your custom domain while Udemy will have your customers keep coming back 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 aren’t at all possible on Udemy. One of the more immediate consequences of this is that Teachable allows you to communicate more directly with your clientele, by giving you 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 line with that, Udemy seems to care about selling classes, period; therefore it is not only your courses, but every other class in their listing. There have been testimonials that said this, when even competitor’s courses have been promoted to clients that the instructor brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who might need the advertising, but from the viewpoint 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 several 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 does not market the courses for its own users, that responsibility is left entirely to them. In an extreme fashion, Udemy markets their user’s courses aggressively, but with a significant price. That price is a huge chunk of control and revenue.
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 courses were previously created for different purposes and were merely shared more publicly on Udemy, but that hurt a number of the instructors that were selling solely from the company’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 costs, and all classes on the system had to be within the $20-$50 range. That 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 nearly impossible as a dependable source of primary income.
So while it is true that Udemy has a large audience that you might want to tap into, most of the topics which they offer are really quite limited to largely Technology and Personal Development. Consider that and their dog-eat-dog advertising strategies and absorption of your brand’s identity, I’d say Teachable is the response to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the end, nothing is more satisfying than creating your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Teachable vs Coursecats
If you’re looking for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s price, Thinkific is another great company that offers a lot for less. Both provide their first tier plans 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 reveal that it charges extra for certain options that are already included in Teachable’s monthly flat prices. 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 is not all they have in common. Both allow their users to create and sell personalized courses in 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 audio, video, PDFs, and other multimedia. The majority of these can be uploaded to the courses with a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and monitor the progress of their students.
Teachable vs Coursecats
Convenience
Among the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s class builder: it allows bulk changes to courses, which can be an enormous 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 PC.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS app that permits 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 marketing of your courses. This is where Teachable wins by a landslide. Both give the freedom 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 occurs more during outdated, 2-step procedures like Thinkific’s). It also comes with a 1-click upsell upon checkout, increasing 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 automated payout to affiliates and authors (when applicable), focusing on tax forms and similar documentation. If you 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 own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable vs Coursecats
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 vendor, and on the other, Podia decided 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 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 pretty great for novice instructors. That said, this is why it may not satisfy 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 personalization tools, with choices for easy uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. Those that dabble in code can also explore that within Teachable. Users can easily get the sleek look of a professional website 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 drip content feature for the ones that would like to space the lessons offered to their students, and prevent cramming modules in 1 go. What’s unique to Teachable is advanced control over course compliance, such as keeping tabs on students’ completion of lessons and quizzes. It also has built-in certification that users can make and send to their clients at the end of the lessons. Concerning integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are extremely important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Teachable vs Coursecats
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has excellent creation and builder tools 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 gives the best value for money. With more upgrades and user feedback, they’re certain to be a trusted company for years to come.
