The current trend of consumer behaviour moving into online media is quickly becoming the new standard for many industries. It’s no surprise that the same is true for unconventional 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 experience, there are many online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) which can help you begin. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like making your site, 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 pick 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 creative entrpreneurs, and after pitting it against its rivals, it is clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Teachable vs Thinkific vs Coursecraft
Udemy was one of the leaders of LMS, which explains how and why their audience remains among the largest markets in the industry: they were there first. Udemy and Teachable are currently two of the most popular choices in selling online courses, but they are very different in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course site and sell their brand, while Udemy is merely a market for class creators that have existing classes. At the 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 personalize the entirety of your course, from content building and editing to sales, which aren’t in any way 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 as soon as you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ data is theirs alone for whatever other purpose it might serve them. And in accordance with that, Udemy seems to care about selling courses, period; therefore it’s 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 use the advertising, 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 appear 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 own 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 massive chunk of control and earnings.
Udemy started 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 revenues may still seem reasonable to others, particularly to those whose classes were previously created for other purposes and were only shared more publicly on Udemy, but that hurt many of the instructors who were selling solely from the corporation’s site. On top of this, what have driven people over the edge are the restrictions on pricing. In 2016, Udemy set a cap on its prices, and all courses 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 thoughts. If you combine these two policies, and have a class priced at $20 and a 50% creator 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 may choose 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 marketing 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 Thinkific vs Coursecraft
If you’re searching for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s cost, Thinkific is another great company that offers a great deal for less. Both offer their first tier plans at no cost, and start charging for every higher tier thereafter. Many beginners choose Thinkific for its generous waiving of transaction fees on any of its plans; however a closer look at the fine print will show 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 classes in their hosted platforms, without the bother 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 video, audio, PDFs, and other multimedia. The majority of these can be uploaded into the courses with a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and track the progress of their students.
Teachable vs Thinkific vs Coursecraft
Convenience
One of the advantages of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s class builder: it allows bulk changes to courses, which may be a huge time-saver, especially for those that have built quite a number on their system; also it allows multi-format content in one lecture. What’s more is it can be linked to cloud services, such as Dropbox and Google Drive, for quicker uploads from your devices.
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
After the content production comes the selling and promotion of your classes. This is where Teachable wins by a landslide. Both give the liberty to sell one-time or recurring goods, offer discounts and packages, or add affiliate programs, but Teachable has more choices. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout process, 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, raising transactions per customer. 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. 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 Thinkific vs Coursecraft
One of the online course 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 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 for you.
Podia’s streamlined 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 creators who want to do more with their website. Since the variety isn’t much, more advanced users may find it lacking.
Course Creation and Control
Teachable defeats Podia in design and customization tools, with choices for easy uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. Those 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 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 provided to their students, and avoid cramming modules in 1 go. What is unique to Teachable is innovative control over course compliance, like keeping tabs on students’ completion of lessons and quizzes. It also has built-in certificates that users can create and send to their students at the conclusion 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 Thinkific vs Coursecraft
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has exceptional creation and builder tools for designing a sleek course site, gives you control over your advertising 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 guaranteed to be a reliable choice for many years to come.
