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 non-traditional 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 share 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) which can help you get started. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like making 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 all these LMS to pick from, there is one company that has stood out because of its balance of reasonable pricing, customizability, ease of use, and marketing control. Teachable is the leading choice of instructors, and after pitting it against its competitors, it’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Wiziq vs Teachable
Udemy was among the leaders of LMS, which explains why and how their audience is still among the biggest markets in the industry: they were there first. Udemy and Teachable are currently two of the most popular choices in selling online classes, but they are very different in nature and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course site and market their brand, while Udemy is merely a marketplace for class creators that have existing classes. 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 course, from content building and editing to sales, which aren’t in any way possible on Udemy. One of the more immediate consequences of this is that Teachable allows you to communicate more directly with your clientele, by giving you access to student’s data and information; but once you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ data is theirs exclusively for whatever other purpose it might serve them. And in accordance with this, Udemy seems to care most about selling courses, period; so it is not just your courses, but every other course in their list. There have been testimonials that mentioned this, when even competitor’s courses have been promoted to students that the instructor brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who could use the marketing, but from the viewpoint of a user, that business sense could seem too self-serving and unnecessary.
Marketing at a Price
It is Udemy’s cut-throat policies that have turned off many former or potential 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 substantial price. That price is a massive chunk of control and revenue.
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 seem sensible to others, particularly to those whose classes were previously created for other purposes and were merely shared more publicly on Udemy, but that hurt a number of the instructors that were selling solely in the company’s site. In addition to that, what have driven people over the edge are the restrictions on pricing. In 2016, Udemy set a cap on its prices, and all classes on the system needed to be within the $20-$50 range. This is regardless of the uniqueness or skillfulness of a course, and it’s natural for some to turn away and look for better outlets for their ideas. If you combine both of these policies, and have a course 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 that you may want to tap into, most of the topics which they offer are really very limited to largely Technology and Personal Development. Consider 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 building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Wiziq vs Teachable
If you’re looking for an LMS that is comparable to Teachable’s price, Thinkific is another great company that offers a great deal for less. Both provide their first tier plans at no cost, and start charging for every 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 charges extra for certain options 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 is not all that 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, including video, audio, PDFs, and other multimedia. Most 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 students.
Wiziq vs Teachable
Convenience
Among the advantages of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s class builder: it allows bulk changes to classes, which can 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, like Dropbox and Google Drive, for quicker uploads from your PC.
In terms of 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
After the content creation 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 products, offer discounts and packages, or affiliate programs, but Teachable has more options. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout procedure, which decreases customer fallout (which happens more during outdated, 2-step procedures like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it includes a 1-click upsell upon checkout, increasing transactions per client. Another major benefit is Teachable’s payment gateway which 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 for your own content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Wiziq vs Teachable
Among the online course 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 vendor, and on the other, Podia chose to concentrate 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 compact classes lets users filter out other aspects that they might 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 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 customization tools, with options for easy uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. The ones that dabble in code can also explore that within Teachable. Users can easily get the sleek look of a professional site by choosing from default themes that 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 want to space the lessons offered to their students, 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 lessons and quizzes. Additionally, it has built-in certification that users can create and send to their students at the conclusion of the lessons. In terms of integrations, Teachable has improved autoresponders and analytics, both of which are very important to sales and marketing.
Recommendation Wiziq vs 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 site, 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 guaranteed to be a trusted company for many years to come.
