The current trend of consumer behavior moving into online media is fast becoming the new normal for many industries. It’s no surprise that the exact same is true for non-traditional education through 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 share their knowledge.
Whether you want to teach your hobbies, or something associated with your expertise, 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 creating 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 is one firm 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 Squarespace
Udemy was among the leaders of LMS, which explains how and why their audience is still among the largest markets in the industry: they were there . Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular options in selling online courses, but they are extremely distinct in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course website and market their brand, while Udemy is simply a marketplace for class creators that have existing courses. At the very surface, this means that Teachable lets you 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 course, 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 as soon as 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 said 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 need the marketing, but from the viewpoint of a loyal user, that business sense could seem overly spammy and unnecessary.
Marketing at a Price
It is Udemy’s cut-throat policies that have turned off several 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 consumer’s courses aggressively, but with a significant 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 earnings may still seem sensible to others, especially to those whose classes were previously created for different purposes and were only shared more openly on Udemy, but that hurt a number of the instructors who were selling solely in the company’s site. On top of that, 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 needed 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 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 that you may want to tap into, the majority of the topics which they offer are really very limited to mostly Technology and Personal Development. Consider that and their dog-eat-dog advertising strategies and absorption of your brand’s identity, I would 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 Squarespace
If you’re looking 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 plans for free, and start charging for every higher tier thereafter. Many beginners choose Thinkific because of its generous waiving of transaction fees on all of its plans; but a closer look at the fine print will reveal that it costs extra for certain features 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 two.
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 companies for their easy-to-use interface that allows nearly all formats of content, such as video, audio, PDFs, and other multimedia. The majority of these can be uploaded to the site with a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and monitor the progress of their pupils.
Teachable vs Squarespace
Convenience
One of the advantages of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s class builder: it allows bulk changes to courses, which may 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 providers, such as Dropbox and Google Drive, for faster uploads from your PC.
In terms of course delivery, Teachable has an iOS app that enables students to learn on their mobile devices, which is something that Thinkific does not 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 goods, offer discounts and packages, or add affiliate programs, but Teachable has more options. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout procedure, which decreases customer fallout (which happens more during outdated, 2-step processes like Thinkific’s). It also comes with a 1-click upsell upon checkout, raising transactions per client. Another major 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), taking care of 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 to your own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Teachable vs Squarespace
One of the online class platforms with the cheapest 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 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 is best suited to your needs.
Podia’s compact categories lets users filter out other aspects that they may not have to dip into, like e-commerce. Its interface is simple, clean, and pretty great for novice instructors. That said, this is also why it may not satisfy the needs of creators 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 defeats Podia in design and personalization tools, with choices for easy uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. The ones that dabble in code can also experiment with that within Teachable. Users can easily get the sleek look of a professional site by choosing from default themes which can be customized to satisfaction. Teachable’s editor makes it easy 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 clients, and avoid cramming modules in one go. What is unique to Teachable is innovative control over course compliance, such as keeping tabs on students’ completion of lessons and quizzes. It also has built-in certificates that users can make and send to their students at the end of the lessons. In terms of integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are very important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Teachable vs Squarespace
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has exceptional creation and builder resources for designing a sleek course site, 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’re guaranteed to be a reliable choice for many years to come.
