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 exact same is true for unconventional education via the multitude of online courses now available online. This has opened more avenues of learning beyond the classroom setting, and has empowered nearly anyone with an idea to talk about 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 can help you get started. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like creating your website, while others focus mainly on helping you achieve your target audience. The 1st step is finding which one can move your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your prospective students.
With so many LMS to choose from, there is 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 instructors, and after pitting it against its competitors, it is clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Verses About Being Teachable
Udemy was among the pioneers of LMS, which explains why and how their audience is still among the biggest markets in the industry: they were there . Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular choices in selling online courses, but they are very distinct in essence and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course website and sell their brand, while Udemy is merely a market for course creators that have existing classes. At the surface, this means that Teachable lets you use your custom domain while Udemy will have your clients 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 lets you 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’ information is theirs alone for whatever other purpose it might serve them. And in line with this, Udemy seems to care most about selling courses, period; so it’s not only your courses, but every other class on their list. There have been testimonials that said this, when even competitor’s classes are promoted to clients that the instructor brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who might use the marketing, but from the point of view of a user, that business sense could seem too self-serving and unnecessary.
Marketing at a Price
It’s Udemy’s cut-throat policies which have turned off many former or potential 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 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% 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 revenues may still seem sensible to others, particularly to those whose courses 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. In addition to this, 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 class priced at $20 and a 50% creator 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 might choose to tap into, the majority of the topics which they offer are actually very limited to mostly Technology and Personal Development. Consider that and their dog-eat-dog advertising strategies and absorption of your brand’s identity, I’d 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 Verses About Being Teachable
If you’re searching for an LMS that is comparable to Teachable’s price, Thinkific is another great company that offers a lot for less. Both provide their first tier plans for free, and start charging for each 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 reveal that it costs 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 really can’t go wrong with either of these two.
Beginner-Friendly
But pricing is not all they have in common. Both enable their users to create and sell personalized courses 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 companies for their easy-to-use interface that allows nearly all formats of content, such as audio, video, PDFs, and other multimedia. The majority of these can be uploaded to the courses by a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and track the progress of their students.
Verses About Being Teachable
Convenience
Among the advantages of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s class builder: it allows bulk changes to classes, which may be an enormous time-saver, especially for the ones 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 connected to cloud services, such as Dropbox and Google Drive, for quicker uploads from your devices.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS application that enables 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 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 happens more during obsolete, 2-step processes like Thinkific’s). It also comes with a 1-click upsell upon checkout, increasing transactions per customer. Another significant benefit 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 writers (when applicable), focusing on tax forms and similar documentation. If you 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 content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Verses About Being Teachable
Among the online class 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 offered 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 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 for you.
Podia’s streamlined categories lets users filter out other aspects that they may not need to dip into, such as e-commerce. Its interface is simple, clean, and pretty good for novice instructors. That said, this is why it may not meet 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 may also explore that within Teachable. Users can easily get the slick look of a professional website by selecting from default themes which 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 drip content feature for the ones that want to space the lessons offered to their clients, and prevent cramming modules in 1 go. What is unique to Teachable is advanced control over course compliance, such as keeping tabs on students’ completion of quizzes and lessons. Additionally, it has built-in certification that users can make 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 marketing and sales.
Recommendation Verses About Being Teachable
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has exceptional creation and builder resources for designing a sleek course website, 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 certain to be a reliable choice for years to come.
