The current trend of consumer behavior moving into online media is quickly becoming the new standard for many businesses. 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 outside the classroom setting, and has enabled 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 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 discovering which one can transfer your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your potential students.
With all these 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 rivals, it’s clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Zenler vs Teachable
Udemy was one of the pioneers of LMS, which explains how and why their audience is still among the largest markets in the business: they were there first. Udemy and Teachable are currently two of the most popular options in selling online classes, but they’re extremely distinct in essence and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to construct 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 return 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 at all 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 student’s data and information; but once you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ information is theirs alone for whatever other purpose it may serve them. And in accordance with that, Udemy seems to care about selling classes, period; so it’s not only your classes, but every other course in their listing. There have been testimonials that mentioned this, when even competitor’s courses have been promoted to clients that the instructor brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who might need the marketing, but from the point of view of a 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 know the very value of their following, and have taken advantage of it, much to the detriment of the lecturer. True, Teachable doesn’t promote the courses for its 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 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 revenues may still seem reasonable to others, especially to those whose courses were previously created for other purposes and were merely shared more publicly on Udemy, but that hurt many of the instructors who were selling solely in 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 courses on the system had 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 class priced at $20 and a 50% creator revenue, selling on Udemy becomes nearly impossible as a dependable source of primary income.
So while it is true that Udemy has a massive audience which you may choose to tap into, the majority of the topics that they offer are actually quite limited to largely Technology and Personal Development. Consider their dog-eat-dog marketing strategies and absorption of your brand’s identity, I’d say Teachable is the response to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the end, nothing is more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Zenler vs Teachable
If you’re looking for an LMS that is comparable to Teachable’s cost, Thinkific is another great company that offers a lot for less. Both offer their first tier plans for free, and start charging for every 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 reveal that it charges 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 isn’t all that they have in common. Both allow their users to create and sell personalized classes on their hosted platforms, without the bother of handling the technical aspects like site maintenance, hosting, and security.
Newbies to the biz tend to gravitate toward these firms for their easy-to-use interface which allows nearly all formats of content, including audio, video, 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.
Zenler vs Teachable
Convenience
One of the advantages 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 the ones that have built quite a number on their system; and it allows multi-format content in one lecture. What’s more is it can be connected to cloud providers, like Dropbox and Google Drive, for faster uploads from your PC.
Concerning course delivery, Teachable has an iOS app that permits pupils to learn on their mobile devices, which is something which Thinkific does not have.
Sales and Marketing
After the content production comes the selling and marketing of your courses. This is where Teachable wins by a landslide. Both give the liberty to sell one time or recurring goods, offer discounts and packages, or add 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 outdated, 2-step procedures like Thinkific’s). It also comes with a 1-click upsell upon checkout, increasing transactions per customer. Another major advantage 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 for your content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Zenler vs Teachable
Among the online course platforms with the cheapest 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 a result of 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 is best suited for you.
Podia’s compact classes lets users filter out other aspects that they may not need to dip into, like e-commerce. Its interface is easy, clean, and fairly great for novice instructors. That said, this is also why it may not satisfy the needs of instructors who want to do more with their website. Since the variety isn’t much, more advanced users may find it lacking.
Course Creation and Control
Teachable defeats Podia in design and personalization tools, with options for simple 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 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 trickle content attribute for those that want to space the lessons provided to their clients, 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 lessons and quizzes. Additionally, it has built-in certificates that users can make and send to their clients at the end of the lessons. Concerning integrations, Teachable has improved autoresponders and analytics, both of which are very important to marketing and sales.
Recommendation Zenler 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 website, gives you control over your marketing and sales, has features 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 reliable company for many years to come.
