The current trend of consumer behavior moving into online media is fast becoming the new normal for many businesses. It’s no surprise that the same is true for unconventional education via the multitude of online courses now available online. This has opened more avenues of learning outside the classroom setting, and has empowered nearly anyone with an idea to share their knowledge.
Whether you wish to teach your hobbies, or something related to your expertise, there are many online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) which may help you get started. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like creating your site, while others focus mainly on assisting you to achieve your target audience. The 1st step is finding which one can transfer your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your potential students.
With all these 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 leading choice of creative entrpreneurs, and after pitting it against its competitors, it is clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Thinkific vs Teachable vs Udemy
Udemy was one of the pioneers of LMS, which explains why and how their audience is still among the biggest markets in the business: they were there . Udemy and Teachable are currently two of the most popular choices in selling online courses, but they’re very distinct in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course website and sell their brand, while Udemy is simply a market for class creators that have existing courses. At the 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 site, from content building and editing 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 pupil’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 accordance with this, Udemy seems to care most about selling courses, period; therefore it is not just your courses, but every other course on their list. There have been testimonials that said this, when even competitor’s classes 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 several former or potential users. They appear 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 does not promote the courses for its own users, that responsibility is left entirely to them. In an extreme fashion, Udemy markets their consumer’s courses aggressively, but with a significant price. That price is a huge 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 earnings may still seem sensible to others, especially to those whose classes were previously created for other purposes and were merely shared more openly on Udemy, but that hurt many of the instructors who were selling solely in the company’s site. In addition to this, what have driven people over the edge are the restrictions on pricing. In 2016, Udemy put a cap on its costs, and all courses 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 course 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 that you might want to tap into, most of the topics which 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 would say Teachable is the response to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the end, there is nothing more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Thinkific vs Teachable vs Udemy
If you’re searching for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s cost, Thinkific is another terrific company that offers a lot 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; but a closer look at the fine print will reveal that it charges extra for certain options that are already included in Teachable’s monthly flat rates. 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 isn’t all they have in common. Both allow their users to create and sell personalized classes on their hosted platforms, without the hassle 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. 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 track the progress of their pupils.
Thinkific vs Teachable vs Udemy
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 those that have built quite a number 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 computer.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS application that permits pupils 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 add affiliate programs, but Teachable has more options. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout procedure, which decreases customer fallout (which occurs more during obsolete, 2-step processes like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it includes 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 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 to your own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Thinkific vs Teachable vs Udemy
One of the online class 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 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’s best suited to your needs.
Podia’s compact classes lets users filter out other aspects which they might not need to dip into, like e-commerce. Its interface is easy, clean, and pretty great for novice instructors. Having said that, this is why it may not satisfy the needs of instructors 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 personalization tools, with options 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 sleek look of a professional website by selecting from default themes that can be customized to liking. Teachable’s editor makes it easy to create changes and push upsells, maximizing both user’s time and profitability.
Both have a trickle content attribute for those that would like to space the lessons provided to their clients, and avoid cramming modules in 1 go. What’s unique to Teachable is advanced control over course compliance, like keeping tabs on students’ completion of lessons and quizzes. It also has built-in certification that users can create and send to their students at the conclusion of the course. In terms of integrations, Teachable has improved autoresponders and analytics, both of which are extremely important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Thinkific vs Teachable vs Udemy
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has excellent creation and builder tools for designing a slick course site, gives you control over your marketing and sales, has attributes that reduce time and effort on backend paperwork, and gives the best value for money. With more updates and user feedback, they’re guaranteed to be a reliable choice for years to come.
