The current trend of consumer behavior moving into online media is fast becoming the new normal for many businesses. It’s not surprising that the exact same is true for unconventional education through the multitude of online courses now available on the Internet. This 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 related to 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 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 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 leading choice of creative entrpreneurs, and after pitting it against its competitors, it is clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Vanvas vs Teachable
Udemy was one of the leaders of LMS, which explains how and why their audience is still among the largest markets in the business: they were there . Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular options in selling online courses, but they are extremely different in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course website and sell their brand, while Udemy is simply a marketplace for course 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 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 giving you access to pupil’s data and information; but once you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ data is theirs exclusively for whatever other purpose it may serve them. And in line with that, Udemy seems to care most about selling classes, period; so it’s not only your courses, but every other course in their list. There have been testimonials that mentioned 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 which 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 market the courses for its own 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 huge chunk of control and earnings.
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 look reasonable to others, especially to those whose classes were previously created for different 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 that, what have driven people over the edge are the restrictions 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. That is regardless of the uniqueness or skillfulness of a program, and it’s 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% instructor revenue, selling on Udemy becomes almost impossible as a reliable source of primary income.
So while it is true that Udemy has a large audience which you may want to tap into, the majority of the topics that 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 would say Teachable is the answer to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the long run, nothing is more satisfying than creating your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Vanvas 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 provide their first tier programs for free, and start charging for every higher tier thereafter. Many beginners choose Thinkific because of its generous waiving of transaction fees on any of its plans; however a closer look at the fine print will show that it costs extra for certain options 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 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 have a tendency to gravitate toward these firms for their easy-to-use interface which allows nearly all formats of content, such as video, audio, PDFs, and other multimedia. Most 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.
Vanvas vs Teachable
Convenience
Among the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s course builder: it allows bulk changes to courses, which can 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, like 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 which Thinkific doesn’t have.
Sales and Marketing
After the content creation comes the selling and promotion of your courses. This is where Teachable wins by a landslide. Both give the freedom to sell one time or recurring products, offer discounts and packages, or affiliate programs, but Teachable has more choices. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout procedure, which reduces customer fallout (which occurs more during obsolete, 2-step procedures like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it comes with a 1-click upsell upon checkout, increasing transactions per client. Another major benefit 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), 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 prices. That definitely gives you more value to your own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Vanvas 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 could 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 chose to focus 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 streamlined classes lets users filter out other aspects that they may not have to dip into, like e-commerce. Its interface is easy, clean, and fairly good for novice instructors. Having said that, this is why it may not meet the needs of instructors who want to do more with their site. Since the variety is not 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. The ones that dabble in code may also experiment with that within Teachable. Users can easily get the slick look of a professional website 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 want to space the lessons provided to their clients, and prevent 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 create and send to their students at the conclusion of the lessons. Concerning integrations, Teachable has improved autoresponders and analytics, both of which are extremely important to sales and marketing.
Recommendation Vanvas vs Teachable
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has exceptional creation and builder tools 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 gives the best value for money. With more upgrades and user feedback, they are guaranteed to be a reliable company for years to come.
