Written by
Hazel Ricky
15 min read

Key Takeaways

Introduction

The world of online course creation is ever-evolving, and as we venture into 2024, it's crucial for course creators to stay ahead by choosing the most suitable platforms for their needs. While Teachable remains a popular choice for course compliance, there are numerous alternatives offering unique features and benefits.

In this blog post, we'll explore the best Teachable alternatives for 2024, each with its own set of strengths catering to diverse requirements.

Short Summary

  • Explore the best Teachable alternatives for 2024 and understand their limitations.
  • Consider EdisonOS, Thinkific, Podia, Kajabi, Udemy, LearnDash or Mighty Networks depending on your specific needs.
  • Teachery & Ruzuku offer niche solutions with minimalistic approach & quick course creation respectively.

What You Should Look For?

Keep the following checklist in mind while choosing an online platform:

  • Has provision to run your own website.
  • Let's you create landing pages.
  • Provides live chat support.
  • Supports free trials to make informed decisions.
  • Let's you sell unlimited courses.

Understanding Teachable's Limitations

Laptop screen explaining the platform limitations by Teachable

Teachable is undeniably a prominent learning management system, enabling users to develop and distribute online courses with ease. However, it's important to recognize its limitations when it comes to customization, transaction fees, and product types. Each of these constraints can impact course creators' ability to tailor their courses effectively and maximize profits.

In the quest to find the best Teachable alternatives, it's essential to consider platforms that address these limitations and cater to the specific needs of online course creators.

As we dive deeper into this blog post, we'll evaluate various alternatives that excel in different areas, offering a comprehensive overview of what each platform has to offer.

Customization Constraints

Teachable provides several customization options, enabling course creators to select themes, customize sales pages, and design their thank you and site pages. However, it falls short in certain areas, such as the inability to remove Teachable branding on some site pages. This limitation can hinder creators from presenting a fully branded, professional-looking course.

In contrast, Podia, another Teachable alternative, also faces challenges in customizing pages. This highlights the importance of considering customization constraints when selecting an online course platform.

Transaction Fees

Transaction fees are another critical consideration when selecting an online course platform. Teachable's Pro and Business plans offer 0% transaction fees, but its Basic plan imposes a 5% transaction fee. For the average creator, this translates to an additional expense of over $100 per month.

In comparison, many Teachable alternatives like EdisonOS and Thinkific offer no transaction fees across all plans, ensuring creators retain a larger percentage of their earnings.

Limited Product Types

Teachable offers four pricing plan options for products: Free, One-Time Purchase, Subscriptions, and Payment Plans. While these options provide some flexibility, creators may still face limitations in offering diverse product types to attract a wider audience.

Time restrictions on product access can be implemented for Free, One-Time, and Payment Plan pricing plans, but creators may find these restrictions insufficient for their specific needs.

Thinkific: Top Teachable Alternative 

Thinkific emerges as a top Teachable alternative, boasting advanced assessment options, community tools, and flexible pricing plans. As an all-in-one platform, Thinkific enables users to craft, promote, and distribute their own online courses with ease.

The platform's scalability allows for multiple instructors, admins, and support staff, along with the ability to customize every aspect of the online course area to complement your website and branding.

Apart from its user-friendly course builder, Thinkific also integrates with various social media, email autoresponders, membership sites, payment gateways, and more to maximize marketing and sales efforts.

Thinkific users can take advantage of no transaction fees on any plan. Creators have access to unlimited courses, content, and students on paid plans.

Advanced Assessment Options

Thinkific offers an array of advanced assessment options, including quizzes, surveys, assignments, and Brillium exams. These assessment features enable course creators to measure student performance and understanding effectively.

Course creators can incorporate a variety of question types, multimedia choices, and detailed data analysis to enhance the learning experience and ensure their courses are engaging and informative.

Community Tools

Building a strong community around your online courses is vital for sustaining student engagement and retention. Thinkific's native tool, Thinkific Communities, empowers course creators to engage with their students through written posts and comments.

With features such as discussion boards, private messaging, and polls, Thinkific Communities provides a robust platform for fostering connections and facilitating meaningful conversations among course participants.

By creating a space for students to interact with each other and the course creator, Thinkific Communities helps to build a sense of community and belonging. This can lead to increased sales.

Flexible Pricing Plans

One of the standout features of Thinkific is its flexible pricing plans. With no transaction fees on any plan, creators have the freedom to price their courses as they see fit.

Furthermore, paid plans grant creators unlimited courses, content, and students, allowing them to scale their online course offerings without incurring any additional costs.

This flexibility makes Thinkific an attractive choice for course creators seeking a Teachable alternative.

EdisonOS: One Platform, Endless Solutions

EdisonOS vs. Teachable

EdisonOS is a comprehensive platform designed for knowledge entrepreneurs to effectively manage and operate their own online education business. It serves as an all-in-one solution, providing the necessary technology infrastructure to empower educators in the digital realm.

With EdisonOS, educators gain access to a scalable and robust technological framework that allows them to effortlessly launch and manage various types of edtech platforms.

Whether you aspire to create a tutoring platform, build a vibrant community of learners, develop interactive learning applications selling courses, or facilitate online assessments, EdisonOS provides the tools and capabilities to bring these ideas to life.

White Labelled Solution

EdisonOS is a white-labelled solution providing its users with the option to package and then sell courses online and have their own website in their brand. The platform's intuitive interface helps you in replicating your brand through uniquely designed landing pages, custom domain, course completion certificates, comprehensive course content and branded mobile apps.

Platform Versatility

The platform's versatility and flexibility enable educators to implement a wide range of use cases in the field of online education. It simplifies the process of setting up and running an edtech company, eliminating the need for extensive technical expertise.

EdisonOS handles the intricate technical aspects, allowing knowledge entrepreneurs to focus on delivering high-quality educational content and nurturing their student community.

In-built Features and Functionalities

Users can leverage EdisonOS's in-built features and functionalities to streamline their operations. These features may include unlimited students, free courses, user management, content delivery, assessment tools, marketing tools, payment gateways, analytics, advanced pricing options, and reporting capabilities. This comprehensive suite of tools empowers educators to effectively manage and monitor their online education businesses, ensuring smooth and efficient operations.

Podia: An All-in-One Solution

Podia is another all-in-one solution that rivals Teachable, offering an easy-to-use website builder, email marketing, and affiliate marketing features. The platform's array of tools allows course creators to manage and promote their online courses effectively, without the hassle of juggling multiple software solutions.

In addition, Podia's white-label features enable individual branding, and its advanced email marketing capabilities, such as email broadcasting and drip campaigns, make it a strong contender in the online course creation space.

As an added bonus, Podia does not charge transaction fees, allowing creators to keep 100% of their profits.

With its comprehensive suite of features and user-friendly interface, Podia proves to be a powerful all-in-one solution for online course creators.

Website Builder

Podia's website builder offers a user-friendly interface with drag-and-drop elements, templates, custom domains, live previews, video hosting, complete font controls, rich text editor, and complete control over the look and feel of your storefront and sales pages. This makes it easy for course creators to design and launch a professional-looking website without any coding knowledge.

The seamless integration of the website builder with Podia's other features ensures a smooth experience for both creators and students alike.

Email Marketing

Podia's email marketing features, such as email broadcasts and email campaigns, enable course creators to send one-time notifications to their entire list or more focused notifications to specific segments. With no limits on subscribers and the ability to send an unlimited amount of emails depending on the plan, course creators can effectively communicate with their audience.

Keeping them engaged and informed about new course offerings or updates is essential for successful course creation. Podia's email marketing features make it easy to do just that.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a powerful tool for course creators, and Podia's affiliate marketing program allows users to customize affiliate program and commission terms, invite affiliates, and reward them for promoting their courses. By leveraging the power of affiliates, course creators can expand their reach and attract new students without investing additional time and resources into marketing efforts.

This feature makes Podia an ideal choice for creators seeking a comprehensive Teachable alternative.

Kajabi: A Comprehensive Platform

Kajabi is another comprehensive platform that stands out among Teachable alternatives, providing course creation tools, marketing features, and pricing considerations. The platform offers a seamless experience for creating online courses, constructing landing pages, launching marketing campaigns, and developing websites, all from a single interface.

In addition to its robust course creation tools, Kajabi provides one-click marketing sequences, email marketing, landing page templates, and analytics to optimize product visibility and maximize revenue. Its premium pricing, however, may be a drawback for some creators.

Course Creation Tools

Kajabi offers customizable templates, blueprints, and intuitive design tools for creating online courses. In addition, it enables users to set the price, choose a theme, and create courses, a blog, and launch an email marketing campaign from a single platform.

This seamless integration of course creation tools makes Kajabi a popular choice among online course creators seeking a comprehensive Teachable alternative.

Marketing Features

Kajabi's marketing features, such as one-click marketing sequences, email marketing, landing page templates, and analytics, enable course creators to promote their products and increase revenue. Additionally, Kajabi offers a built-in CRM to manage customer relationships, making it easier for creators to keep track of their students and their progress.

These powerful marketing tools make Kajabi a strong contender in the online course creation space.

Pricing Considerations

Kajabi's premium pricing is its most significant disadvantage, with plans starting at $119 per month. This makes it one of the costliest online course platforms, putting it out of reach for many new creators.

Despite this drawback, Kajabi does not take a percentage of sales, allowing users to retain 100% of their profits. For creators who can afford the investment, Kajabi offers a comprehensive platform with a wealth of features.

Udemy: The Online Course Marketplace

Udemy is an online course marketplace that enables users to create and sell their courses. Its expansive user base of over 40 million users provides a great opportunity to get courses in front of a large audience.

However, there are some drawbacks to using Udemy, such as limited control over branding and marketing, as well as restrictions on course pricing and revenue sharing.

Despite these limitations, Udemy offers a convenient and hands-off approach for instructors who wish to generate passive income on their courses without managing their own marketing efforts. It's essential to weigh the pros and cons of Udemy when considering it as a Teachable alternative.

Course Exposure

Course exposure is a critical element to consider when selecting an online course platform, as it refers to the potential reach and visibility of a course. Udemy's expansive user base and marketplace structure offer significant course exposure, enabling creators to showcase their courses to a wide audience.

However, it's essential to consider other factors, such as the rating system, which can influence sales and make it difficult to generate sales without a rating.

Limited Control

Instructors on Udemy face limitations in the types of information they can request from students, impacting their ability to tailor their courses effectively. This limited control may be a significant drawback for some course creators who value customization and personalization in their online courses.

It's crucial to evaluate the importance of control when considering Udemy as a Teachable alternative.

Revenue Sharing

Udemy offers a revenue-sharing model for instructors, granting them 100% revenue share on students they bring selling online courses to Udemy and 50% revenue share on students that Udemy brings to their course.

Additionally, Udemy allocates 25% of its total monthly subscription revenue from the Udemy for Business platform towards the instructor revenue pool.

While this model can be beneficial for some instructors, others may find the revenue sharing less favorable than other Teachable alternatives that offer more control over pricing and profits.

LearnDash: WordPress LMS Plugin

LearnDash vs. Teachable

LearnDash is a WordPress Learning Management System (LMS) plugin that offers customization options, seamless WordPress integration, and additional costs. It is an ideal choice for course creators who already have a WordPress website and wish to transform it into a learning management system.

LearnDash's cost-effective pricing and flexibility make it a popular choice among online course creators seeking a Teachable alternative.

With its comprehensive range of features and seamless integration with WordPress, LearnDash provides a powerful platform for course creators to build and sell their courses. However, it's crucial to consider the additional costs associated with LearnDash, such as cloud hosting, when comparing it to other Teachable alternatives.

Customization Options

LearnDash offers a wide range of customization options, including custom labels, pre-made templates, and over 100 customizable options for improved LearnDash styling. Additionally, the [ld_course_list] shortcode can be used to customize the course grid.

The ability to tailor the appearance and functionality of courses makes LearnDash a versatile choice for course creators seeking a Teachable alternative with enhanced customization options.

WordPress Integration

LearnDash offers a range of integration features with WordPress, enabling users to transform their WordPress sites into learning management systems. The platform boasts a clean user interface and user experience, ensuring a smooth transition for both course creators and students.

With its compatibility with all types of media and course authoring tools, LearnDash provides a comprehensive and user-friendly solution for online course creators who prefer a WordPress-based platform.

Pricing and Additional Costs

LearnDash offers three pricing tiers: Basic, Plus, and Pro, with the Basic plan starting at $159 per year for up to 10 users, the Plus plan at $189 per year for up to 25 users, and the Pro plan at $329 per year for unlimited users.

Although LearnDash's pricing is cost-effective compared to other platforms, it's essential to consider additional costs, such as cloud hosting, which is offered at a monthly fee of $24/month when billed annually or $29/month when billed monthly. These additional costs should be factored in when evaluating LearnDash as a Teachable alternative.

Mighty Networks: Community-Centric Platform

Mighty Networks is a platform that focuses on community building, offering features such as discussion forums, private messaging, and polls to foster connections among course participants. In addition to its community-centric approach, Mighty Networks provides course features and various pricing and plan options to cater to the diverse needs of course creators.

The platform's emphasis on community building, combined with its course features and pricing options, makes Mighty Networks an attractive choice for course creators who value community engagement and interaction as a critical aspect of their online courses.

Community Building

Mighty Networks offers powerful community building features, enabling course creators to engage with their students through written posts and comments, discussion forums, and private direct messaging. By fostering connections and facilitating meaningful conversations among course participants, Mighty Networks helps create a vibrant and supportive community around online courses.

This focus on community building sets Mighty Networks apart from other Teachable alternatives and makes it an ideal choice for creators seeking a community-focused platform.

Course Features

In addition to its community building features, Mighty Networks provides a range of course features, such as the ability to create and sell online courses, course communities, course materials, and discovery. The platform also offers powerful and advanced community features such as rich media posts, events, spaces, and personalized activity feeds, ensuring that course creators have all the tools they need to create engaging and interactive courses.

Pricing and Plan Limitations

Mighty Networks offers a free plan, a basic plan, an unlimited course and a premium plan, catering to a wide range of budgets and requirements. However, creators are only able to charge for courses and community memberships through recurring subscriptions or one-time payments.

This limitation may impact creators who require more flexibility in their pricing options, making it essential to weigh the pros and cons of Mighty Networks' pricing and plan limitations when considering it as a Teachable alternative.

Niche Alternatives for Specific Needs

Choose the right LMS

For course creators with specific needs, niche alternatives such as Teachery and Ruzuku offer unique features and benefits. Teachery provides a minimalist approach to course creation, while Ruzuku focuses on quick course creation.

Each platform caters to different requirements, making them worth considering for creators seeking a more targeted solution.

Teachery: Minimalist Approach

Teachery offers a minimalistic approach to course creation, making it an ideal choice for creators who require a straightforward and uncomplicated setup. The streamlined platform is simple to use, and there are no transaction fees for either plan.

However, Teachery lacks features such as a website builder and email marketing capabilities, making it a suitable choice for creators who prefer a more focused and minimalist approach to course creation.

Ruzuku: Quick Course Creation

Ruzuku offers a convenient course creation process, providing a straightforward framework for structuring courses and a cloud-based learning management system for rapid development and uploading of content. This quick course creation feature makes Ruzuku an attractive choice for course creators who value efficiency and speed in the course development process.

However, it's essential to consider the trade-offs, such as the potential lack of advanced features or customization options, when evaluating Ruzuku as a Teachable alternative.

Summary

In conclusion, there are numerous Teachable alternatives available in 2024, each catering to different needs and preferences of course creators. From comprehensive platforms like Thinkific and Kajabi to community-centric solutions like Mighty Networks and niche alternatives such as Teachery and Ruzuku, the options are vast.

By carefully evaluating each platform's features, benefits, and limitations, course creators can make an informed decision and select the best Teachable alternative to suit their unique requirements and ensure their online courses flourish.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is comparable Teachable?

For those looking for a comparable alternative to Teachable, Thinkific is the best overall option. It offers a free plan and plenty of features that make it a great choice for course creators.

Podia is another great alternative that provides an all-in-one platform to sell courses and other types of products. Both options are worth exploring and can help you find the right solution for your needs.

Why is Thinkific better than Teachable?

Thinkific offers a free trial version with no transaction fees, more competitive pricing for their Professional Plan than Teachable's Pro Plan, and no transaction fees on any of their plans.

Overall, Thinkific provides a better value than Teachable.

Is there a free version of Teachable?

Yes, there is a free version of Teachable available. The Free Plan allows users to create and build a School without having to select a Paid Plan.

With this plan, you will have access to Teachable's core features including hosting, security, checkout page, payment processing, and customer support.

What is comparable Teachable?

For a great Teachable alternative, Thinkific is the best choice overall. It offers an extensive range of features and has a free plan available.

Podia can also be a great option for course creators who need an all-in-one platform, allowing them to sell courses and other products. Both of these options provide excellent solutions for those looking for a Teachable alternative.

Author
Hazel Ricky
Content Marketing Associate

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