The current trend of consumer behaviour moving into online media is quickly becoming the new standard for many industries. It’s not surprising that the exact 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 outside 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 many online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) which 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 discovering which one can transfer 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 for 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 Teachery vs Teachable
Udemy was one of the pioneers 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 currently 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 market for course 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 editing and building to sales, which are not in any way possible on Udemy. Among the more immediate consequences of this is that Teachable lets you communicate more directly with your clientele, by giving you access to student’s data and information; but as soon as you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ information is theirs alone for whatever other purpose it might serve them. And in accordance with that, Udemy seems to care most about selling classes, period; so it is not just your classes, but every other course on their list. There have been testimonials that mentioned this, when even competitor’s courses have been promoted to clients that the user brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who could use the advertising, but from the viewpoint of a user, that business sense could seem too self-serving and unnecessary.
Marketing at a Price
It is 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 promote 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 substantial price. That price is a massive chunk of control and revenue.
Udemy started 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 reasonable to others, particularly to those whose classes were previously created for different purposes and were only shared more openly on Udemy, but that hurt many of the instructors that 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 put a cap on its prices, and all classes on the system had to be within the $20-$50 range. This is regardless of the uniqueness or skillfulness of a course, 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 large audience which you might want to tap into, the majority of the topics that they offer are actually very limited to largely Technology and Personal Development. Consider their dog-eat-dog marketing 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, there is nothing more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Teachery vs Teachable
If you’re looking for an LMS that is comparable to Teachable’s price, Thinkific is another terrific company that offers a lot for less. Both offer 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 show that it costs extra for certain features which 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 isn’t all they have in common. Both enable their users to create and sell personalized courses on 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, including audio, video, PDFs, and other multimedia. Most of these can be uploaded into the site with a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and track the progress of their students.
Teachery vs Teachable
Convenience
One of the benefits 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; and it allows multi-format content in 1 lecture. What’s more is it can be linked to cloud providers, such as Dropbox and Google Drive, for faster uploads from your devices.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS app that permits pupils to learn on their mobile devices, which is something that Thinkific does not have.
Sales and Marketing
Following the content creation comes the selling and marketing of your classes. This is where Teachable wins by a landslide. Both give the liberty to sell one time or recurring products, offer discounts and packages, or add affiliate programs, but Teachable has more options. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout process, which reduces customer fallout (which occurs more during outdated, 2-step processes like Thinkific’s). It also includes a 1-click upsell upon checkout, increasing transactions per client. Another major advantage 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. 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 Teachery vs Teachable
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 provided at $79 (with Teachable at $399). This price gap can 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 decided 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 streamlined classes lets users filter out other aspects which they might not have to dip into, such as e-commerce. Its interface is easy, clean, and fairly good for novice instructors. That said, this is why it may not meet the needs of instructors who wish 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 options for simple uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. The ones that dabble in code can also experiment with that within Teachable. Users can easily get the slick look of a professional website by choosing 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 trickle content attribute for those that want 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, like keeping tabs on students’ completion of quizzes and lessons. It also has built-in certificates that users can create and send to their clients at the end of the lessons. In terms of integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are extremely important to sales and marketing.
Recommendation Teachery vs Teachable
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has excellent creation and builder resources for designing a sleek course website, gives you control over your marketing and sales, has attributes 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 choice for many years to come.
