The present trend of consumer behavior moving into online media is quickly becoming the new standard for many businesses. It’s no surprise that the same is true for unconventional education via the multitude of online courses now available on the Internet. This has opened more avenues of learning outside 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 many online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) which may help you get started. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like making your site, 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 pick from, there’s 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’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy What Does It Mean To Be Teachable
Udemy was one of the leaders of LMS, which explains why and how their audience remains among the biggest markets in the industry: they were there first. Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular choices in selling online classes, but they are very different in essence and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course site and market their brand, while Udemy is simply a market for course creators that have existing courses. At the very surface, this means that Teachable allows you to use your custom domain while Udemy will have your customers return 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 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 providing you with access to pupil’s data and information; but as soon as you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ information is theirs exclusively for whatever other purpose it might serve them. And in accordance with this, Udemy seems to care about selling courses, period; so it’s not only your classes, but every other course on their listing. There have been testimonials that said this, when even competitor’s classes have been 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 viewpoint of a loyal 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 several former or possible 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 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 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 look 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 a number of the instructors who were selling solely from the corporation’s site. In addition to this, what have driven people over the edge are the restrictions on pricing. In 2016, Udemy set a cap on its prices, and all courses on the system needed to be within the $20-$50 range. This 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 thoughts. 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 is true that Udemy has a large audience which you may want to tap into, the majority of the topics which they offer are actually quite 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 end, there is nothing more satisfying than creating your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing What Does It Mean To Be Teachable
If you’re searching for an LMS that is comparable to Teachable’s cost, Thinkific is another terrific company that offers a great deal for less. Both offer their first tier plans at no cost, and start charging for each higher tier thereafter. Many beginners choose Thinkific for 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 that 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 can’t go wrong with either of these two.
Beginner-Friendly
But pricing is not 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 website maintenance, hosting, and security.
Newbies to the biz have a tendency 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 monitor the progress of their pupils.
What Does It Mean To Be Teachable
Convenience
One of the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s class builder: it allows bulk changes to classes, which may be a huge time-saver, especially for the ones 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 connected to cloud providers, like 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 that Thinkific does not have.
Sales and Marketing
After the content production 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 goods, offer discounts and bundles, or affiliate programs, but Teachable has more choices. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout procedure, 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 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 automatic 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 rates. That definitely gives you more value to your own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia What Does It Mean To Be Teachable
Among 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 provided at $79 (with Teachable at $399). This price gap could 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 chose to focus on Online Course Hosting, Membership or Email Marketing, and Digital Downloads. Those will instantly help you narrow down your choice to what is best suited for you.
Podia’s compact classes lets users filter out other aspects which they might not need to dip into, like e-commerce. Its interface is simple, clean, and fairly good for novice instructors. That said, 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 defeats Podia in design and personalization tools, with options for easy uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. Those that dabble in code can 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 those that would like to space the lessons provided to their students, and prevent cramming modules in 1 go. What’s unique to Teachable is innovative control over course compliance, like 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 course. In terms of integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are very important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation What Does It Mean To Be Teachable
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has excellent creation and builder tools for designing a slick course website, gives you control over your advertising and sales, has attributes that reduce time and effort on backend paperwork, and provides the best value for money. With more upgrades and user feedback, they’re certain to be a reliable company for years to come.
