The present trend of consumer behaviour moving into online media is quickly becoming the new normal for many businesses. It’s not surprising that the same is true for non-traditional education via 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 talk about their knowledge.
Whether you want to teach your hobbies, or something related to your expertise, there are lots of online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) which can 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 move your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your prospective students.
With so many LMS to choose from, there’s one company that has stood out because of 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 Google Classroom
Udemy was among the leaders of LMS, which explains why and how their audience is still among the largest markets in the industry: they were there first. Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular options in selling online courses, but they are extremely different in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to construct 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 personalize 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 giving you access to pupil’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 accordance with that, Udemy seems to care most about selling courses, period; so it is not only your courses, but every other class on their listing. There have been testimonials that mentioned this, when even competitor’s courses are promoted to students that the user brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who might use the advertising, 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 that 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 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 earnings.
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 revenues may still seem reasonable to others, especially to those whose classes were previously created for different purposes and were merely shared more publicly on Udemy, but that hurt many of the instructors who were selling solely from the corporation’s site. In addition to this, what have driven people over the edge are the limitations on pricing. In 2016, Udemy set a cap on its costs, and all courses 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 ideas. If you combine these two policies, and have a class priced at $20 and a 50% instructor revenue, selling on Udemy becomes almost impossible as a dependable source of primary income.
So while it’s true that Udemy has a large audience that you might want to tap into, the majority of the topics that they offer are actually very limited to mostly Technology and Personal Development. Consider that and their dog-eat-dog marketing strategies and absorption of your brand’s identity, I’d say Teachable is the response to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the long run, there is nothing more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Teachable vs Google Classroom
If you’re searching for an LMS that is comparable to Teachable’s price, Thinkific is another terrific company that offers a great deal for less. Both offer their first tier plans for free, and start charging for every higher tier thereafter. Many beginners choose Thinkific for its generous waiving of transaction fees on any of its plans; but a closer look at the fine print will reveal that it costs extra for certain features 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 really can’t go wrong with either of these two.
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 have a tendency to gravitate toward these firms for their easy-to-use interface that allows nearly all formats of content, including video, audio, 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 Google Classroom
Convenience
One of the benefits 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 the ones that have built quite a number on their system; and it allows multi-format content in 1 lecture. What’s more is it can be linked to cloud services, such as Dropbox and Google Drive, for quicker uploads from your computer.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS application that permits students to learn on their mobile devices, which is something which Thinkific does not have.
Sales and Marketing
After the content creation 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 goods, offer discounts and packages, or affiliate programs, but Teachable has more options. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout procedure, which reduces 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 customer. Another significant benefit 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 writers (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 content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable vs Google Classroom
One of the online course 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 can be a result of the vastly different things they each offer. On the one hand, Teachable is a fully customizable class 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’s best suited to your needs.
Podia’s compact classes lets users filter out other aspects that they might not need to dip into, such as e-commerce. Its interface is easy, clean, and fairly good for novice instructors. Having said that, this is also why it may not meet the needs of instructors 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 beats Podia in design and customization tools, with options for simple uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. Those that dabble in code may also explore that within Teachable. Users can easily get the sleek 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 provided to their clients, 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 quizzes and lessons. Additionally, it has built-in certificates that users can make and send to their students at the end of the course. In terms of integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are very important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Teachable vs Google Classroom
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has excellent creation and builder resources for designing a sleek course site, gives you control over your marketing and sales, has features that cut time and effort on backend paperwork, and provides the best value for money. With more updates and user feedback, they are guaranteed to be a reliable choice for years to come.
