The current trend of consumer behavior moving into online media is fast becoming the new standard for many industries. It’s not surprising that the same is true for non-traditional 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 enabled nearly anyone with an idea to share their knowledge.
Whether you wish to teach your hobbies, or something associated with your expertise, 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 creating your website, while others focus mainly on assisting you to 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 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 creative entrpreneurs, and after pitting it against its competitors, it’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Teachable vs Udemy vs Thinkific
Udemy was among the leaders of LMS, which explains why and how their audience remains among the largest markets in the industry: they were there . Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular options in selling online classes, but they are very distinct in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course website and sell their brand, while Udemy is merely a market 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 clients return to Udemy.com. On another level, Teachable gives you tools to create and customize the entirety of your site, from content editing and building to sales, which aren’t in any way 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 once you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ information is theirs alone for whatever other purpose it might serve them. And in line with this, Udemy seems to care about selling courses, period; so it’s not only your classes, but every other course on their list. There have been testimonials that mentioned this, when even competitor’s classes have been promoted to students that the instructor brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who might use the advertising, but from the viewpoint of a 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 potential 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 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 massive chunk of control and earnings.
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 revenues may still look reasonable to others, particularly to those whose classes were previously created for different purposes and were merely shared more publicly on Udemy, but that hurt a number of the instructors who were selling solely from the company’s site. On top of this, what have driven people over the edge are the limitations on pricing. In 2016, Udemy set 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 program, and it is 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% creator revenue, selling on Udemy becomes nearly impossible as a reliable source of primary income.
So while it’s true that Udemy has a massive audience which you may choose to tap into, the majority of the topics that 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 would say Teachable is the response to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the long run, nothing is more satisfying than creating your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Teachable vs Udemy vs Thinkific
If you’re looking for an LMS that is comparable to Teachable’s cost, 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; however a closer look at the fine print will show that it charges 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 can’t go wrong with either of these.
Beginner-Friendly
But pricing isn’t all they have in common. Both allow their users to create and sell personalized courses on their hosted platforms, without the bother of handling the technical aspects like site 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, including audio, video, 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 monitor the progress of their pupils.
Teachable vs Udemy vs Thinkific
Convenience
One of the advantages of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s course builder: it allows bulk changes to classes, which can be a huge time-saver, especially for the ones that have built quite a few on their system; also it allows multi-format content in 1 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 application that permits students to learn on their mobile devices, which is something which Thinkific doesn’t have.
Sales and Marketing
Following the content creation comes the selling and promotion of your classes. 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 options. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout process, which reduces customer fallout (which happens more during obsolete, 2-step processes like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it comes with a 1-click upsell upon checkout, raising transactions per customer. Another major advantage 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 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 Udemy vs Thinkific
One of 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 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 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 for you.
Podia’s compact classes lets users filter out other aspects which they might not need to dip into, such as e-commerce. Its interface is easy, clean, and fairly good 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 beats Podia in design and customization tools, with choices for simple uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. The ones that dabble in code can also explore that within Teachable. Users can easily get the slick look of a professional site 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 trickle content attribute for the ones that would like to space the lessons provided to their students, and avoid cramming modules in 1 go. What’s unique to Teachable is advanced control over course compliance, such as keeping tabs on students’ completion of quizzes and lessons. It also has built-in certificates that users can make and send to their students at the end of the course. Concerning integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are extremely important to sales and marketing.
Recommendation Teachable vs Udemy vs Thinkific
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has exceptional creation and builder resources for designing a slick 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 upgrades and user feedback, they are guaranteed to be a reliable company for many years to come.
