The present trend of consumer behaviour moving into online media is quickly becoming the new standard for many businesses. It’s no surprise that the same is true for non-traditional education via the multitude of online courses now available on the Internet. 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 want to teach your hobbies, or something related to your expertise, there are lots of online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) that can help you begin. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like making your site, 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 prospective students.
With all these 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 leading choice of creative entrpreneurs, and after pitting it against its rivals, it is clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Webinar In Teachable vs Webinar Software
Udemy was one of the leaders of LMS, which explains why and how their audience remains among the biggest markets in the business: they were there first. Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular options in selling online classes, but they are very distinct in essence and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course site and sell their brand, while Udemy is merely a market for class creators that have existing courses. At the very 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 course, from content building and editing to sales, which aren’t at all possible on Udemy. One of 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’ data is theirs alone for whatever other purpose it may serve them. And in line with this, Udemy seems to care most about selling classes, period; so 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 instructor brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who could need the advertising, but from the point of view of a loyal user, that business sense could seem too self-serving and unnecessary.
Marketing at a Price
It is Udemy’s cut-throat policies which have turned off several former or possible 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 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 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 reasonable to others, especially to those whose classes were previously created for other 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 that, 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 needed to be within the $20-$50 range. This 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 thoughts. If you combine both of these 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 is true that Udemy has a massive audience that you may want to tap into, most of the topics that they offer are actually quite limited to largely Technology and Personal Development. Consider that and their dog-eat-dog advertising 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, there is nothing more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Webinar In Teachable vs Webinar Software
If you’re looking for an LMS that’s comparable to Teachable’s price, Thinkific is another terrific 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 for 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 features which 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 two.
Beginner-Friendly
But pricing isn’t all that they have in common. Both allow their users to create and sell personalized courses in their hosted platforms, without the hassle of handling the technical aspects like site 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, including video, audio, PDFs, and other multimedia. Most 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 monitor the progress of their pupils.
Webinar In Teachable vs Webinar Software
Convenience
One of the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s course builder: it allows bulk changes to classes, which may be a huge time-saver, especially for those that have built quite a few on their system; and it allows multi-format content in 1 lecture. What’s more is it can be linked to cloud providers, like Dropbox and Google Drive, for quicker uploads from your devices.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS application that permits pupils to learn on their mobile devices, which is something that Thinkific doesn’t have.
Sales and Marketing
After 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 goods, offer discounts and packages, or affiliate programs, but Teachable has more options. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout procedure, which reduces customer fallout (which occurs more during obsolete, 2-step processes like Thinkific’s). It also includes a 1-click upsell upon checkout, raising transactions per client. Another significant benefit is Teachable’s payment gateway which 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. If you 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 Webinar In Teachable vs Webinar Software
One of the online class platforms with the most affordable 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 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 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’s best suited to your needs.
Podia’s compact classes lets users filter out other aspects which they may not have to dip into, such as e-commerce. Its interface is simple, 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 is not much, more advanced users may find it lacking.
Course Creation and Control
Teachable defeats Podia in design and customization tools, with options for easy uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. The ones that dabble in code may also explore that within Teachable. Users can easily get the sleek look of a professional website by choosing from default themes which can be customized to satisfaction. 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 would like to space the lessons offered to their clients, and avoid cramming modules in one go. What is 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 certification that users can make and send to their students 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 Webinar In Teachable vs Webinar Software
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has exceptional creation and builder resources for designing a sleek 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 are guaranteed to be a trusted company for many years to come.
