Disclosure: This post includes affiliate links; I may receive compensation if you purchase products or services from the different links provided in this article.
Hello friends, if you are an online course creator, instructor, teacher, or blogger looking for the best online course creation platforms, websites, and best places to create and sell online courses, or if you are looking for alternatives to Teachable, a popular online course hosting portal then you have come to the right place.
I have been researching and working with different course creation and hosting platforms from past years and in this article, I am going to share the best Teachable alternatives like Thinkific, Podia and Kajabi to host and sell your online training courses and analyze them to find out which is the best place to create and sell online courses in 2024.
I will also discuss the best teaching alternative for online teaching and selling online courses.
Online tutoring and teaching are becoming bigger and bigger with so many bloggers, professionals, and programmers creating online courses and making good money. It's a new avenue for passive income creators and I think it's one of the best I know.
Why? because it's a win-win for everybody.
For example, if a blogger creates an online course he earns money by teaching. Students get benefits because they learn from an expert who has acquired that knowledge the hard way through their own mistakes and practical knowledge, and online creators platforms like Teachable, Thinkific, Podia, and Podia benefit. After all, they earn some fees and commissions.
So, it's a win-win for all three parties students, course creators, teachers, and platforms which makes it easy to create and sell a course online.
The biggest reason many people are creating online courses nowadays is that the industry is growing at an astounding pace. As per an estimate, the online learning industry is about to grow from 170 billion dollars in 2017 to around 350 billion dollars in 2024, which is phenomenal.
Another significant reason for creating an online course is that it scales well.
You just need to create a course once and then you can sell it multiple times to multiple people without actively working on it.
This is a powerful and genuine way to create a passive income stream and that's why I have been asking people to create online courses as a side hustle.
Though, if you care for your students and your course, you should spend some time helping students, and updating your course material to keep it relevant and up-to-date, that's a very minimal part of the work, compared to blogging, freelancing, writing, or any other online way to make money.
Now, that we are clear that creating an online course is an amazing idea, let's focus on the platforms which can help you to build and sell your online courses.
5 Best Websites to Create and Sell Online Courses in 2024
When it comes to creating and selling courses online, Teachable is one of the most popular portals and many course creators use Teachable because of its design flexibility and how it handles EU VAT, but unfortunately it doesn't have any free plan which many beginner and first-time course creator would appreciate.
If for some reason you are looking for Teachable alternatives then I suggest you to checkout Thinkific, Kajabi, Skillshare, and Podia (previously known as Coach), Gumroad, etc.
You can find many detailed reviews about them on the internet, but in this article, I have given options and reasons based on my assessment, keeping some very important features in mind like how easy is to create a course, marketing(sales), and cost.
1. Thinkific [Best Teachable Alternative]
When it comes to creating online courses, Thinkific is the market leader alongside Teachable.
With more than 32,000 influential bloggers, programmers, and marketers Thinkific is the best alternative to Teachable. That number of course creators on a platform itself says a lot about Thinkific because that many people cannot be wrong, they are also not beginners but many of them are experts and influencers.
Thinkific is simply amazing when it comes to course delivery and student engagement. It allows you to add multiple content types including videos, quizzes, text, PDF, surveys, etc and most importantly it has a free option which many beginner and first-time course creators appreciate.
Their free plan allows you to create up to 3 online courses with an unlimited number of students. Content hosting is also free, but if you are serious about your online course I suggest you to their Pro Plan ($99/mo) to get features that are needed to take your course to the next level. They also provide a one-month free trial to explore their professional plan, which is worth looking at.
In professional plans, you can also create and distribute course completion certificates, the biggest selling point for courses nowadays as it allows students to showcase their skills on LinkedIn and their Resume.
They also allow you to create learning paths with prerequisites and lesson locking, which is great for skill-based teaching. Recently they also opened an App Store which gives you many more powerful apps to increase your sales and create a better learning environment.
In short, Thinkific is the best alternative for Teachable, its best for beginners because of the free plan, and also great for experienced and seasoned course creators who want to setup their online classes.
The only problem with Thinkific is that they don't handle VAT (EU tax) for yourself, but they have documented their reason here and think that it's unfair to charge VAT for many courses that otherwise would not have to pay VAT. You can read their reasons to learn more about it.
2. Teachable
Teachable is another wonderful platform or Software which helps you to create and sell courses online. It's very similar to Thinkific and there are only some subtle differences between them.
When it comes to course delivery, Teachable also allows you to add multiple content types including videos and quizzes to your course, drip your course content, create course completion certification, and ensure course compliance it also has a very well-designed course player which together results in a great learning experience for the students, one of the most important factors for choosing Teachable vs Thinkific.
Though Teachable's USP is their powerful sales and marketing features like coupons, highly optimized 1-step checkout process, 1-click upsells, EU VAT handling, as well as a suite of services to manage your finances and paperwork, trust me no online course creator likes to manage accounting and taxes.
They also have a free plan which allows you to create your first online course for free but you can have as many students as you want but they also charge up to 10% of transaction fees. This means their free plan is great for creating your first online course for free and learning all the skills you need to become a successful online course creator.
But if you already have a course and plan to sell more copies then I suggest you choose their basic plan (29$ per month) or even better professional plan (99$ per month) when charged annually. To start with you can choose the basic plan and when you get some success, switch to their professional plan to make it even bigger.
3. Podia
Podia (previously known as Coach) is a relatively late entrant in the hosted online course platform market that lets you create and sell online courses and other digital products like memberships, PDFs, e-books, and templates. This was the one platform I got my first exposure to with online course creation but unfortunately, I didn't launch the course as I wanted to make it great.
When it comes to teaching and online learning experience Podia allows you to create engaging multimedia lectures with videos, audio, text, PDF, etc. which are then delivered through the beautifully designed course player and create an amazing learning experience.
Another useful feature that Podia offers is for building membership sites, which is not available on Thinkific and Teachable (at least I am not aware). So, apart from bundling your courses, you can also create individual Posts that work great for delivering one-off content regularly and making some side income.
3. Kajabi
Kajabi is one of the best Teachable Alternative but slightly expensive online hosting platforms that allow you to do much more than just hosting and delivering online courses or memberships. You can not only build a beautiful course website but also create a blog, build sales funnels, do email marketing, etc.
Apart from all the important course creation features that Teachable and Thinkific offer, it also provides some powerful features like Community, Assessments (quizzes and assignments), Automation, learning paths, etc. which will help you create a great learning experience for your members.
The only downside of Kajabi is their pricing, which is also fair because they offer so many features and provide an all-in-one platform for creating online courses. Kajabi's pricing starts from $149/month and their most popular plan costs $199/month.
But more importantly, unlike Teachable, Kajabi doesn't charge you a single dollar transaction fee whether you choose their basic or professional plan.
4. Academy of Mine
Academy of Mine is another (not so popular) option for creating, hosting, and selling online courses. It allows you to build a fully-fledged website to host your online courses and start selling them.
One of the best things about the Academy of mine is its powerful LMS features. It has inbuilt support for Certificates, Gamification, Discussion Forums, GradeBook, etc. These features can be a game-changer for boosting student engagement and enhancing their online learning experience.
Academy of Mine's pricing starts from $9997, which may seem quite high for individual instructors and course creators but if you already have a decent number of courses and students and want to scale your e-learning business then exploring Academy of Mine can be a good option.
That's all about my list of the *best places to create and sell online courses in 2024. They are also the best Teaching alternatives to create and sell training courses for instructors and content creators. You have so many choices available but Thinkific is the best option for both beginners and experienced bloggers, teachers, and instructors.
I highly recommend starting with either the Thinkific or Podia platform.
What I like most about Thinkific is that they make every effort for their course creator to be successful. They provide a lot of useful training, webinars, and knowledge material on how to create successful online courses.
In this article, I have purposefully omitted Udemy, Pluralsight, Educative, and Skillshare because they are just a marketplace and don't provide you full control of marketing and sales.
No doubt, Udemy is still a great platform to sell your course but if you are thinking long-term, you should choose any of the above platforms to start with, I recommend Thinkific to start with. You can use their free plan or free trial of their pro plan to create your online course academy.
Other Online Course Articles you may like
- Why Every Programmer or Blogger should teach online
- 5 Resources to Create best selling Online Courses
- Learn How to Create Online Courses in 10 minutes
- 10 Reasons to Create Online Courses as a Side Hustle
- Teachable, Thinkific, or Udemy? Which is the Best Online Course Platform for Instructors?
Thanks for reading this article so far. If you like these best Online Course Platforms, websites, and places then please share them with your friends and colleagues. If you have any questions about creating and selling online courses then please drop a note.
P.S. If you decide to join Thinkific, I suggest you take their professional plan, which costs around $99 per month. In this plan, you get access to many more useful premium features like Course Completion Certificates, integrated affiliate marketing, and Support which is required to create a successful online course portal.
Top comments (1)
Hello,
e-Learning have a great importance now. It's not easy to figure out which is the greatest online learning management system. But you have share great information and best Teachable alternatives list here. For creating online course website. I also know the name of LMS software as well as hosting provider. That meets your all online learning needs. And that is DomainRacer Tutor LMS Hosting.
DomainRacer is comprehensive solution for Hosting + LMS Software + Private Video Platform.
Their plans are precisely customized and design of LMS. That allows you for easy management, interactive interface and advance way of reporting. Here you have to pay only for your business needs. Their Tutor LMS solution is great way to start educational platform.
Also Check This Video :- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k2q7mPfr4k&t=7s
DomainRacer’s self-hosted LMS software is free open source platform where you can optimize and configure it as your own way. Here you can:
• Add intruders and enroll students
• Create assignments and installations
• Quick setup and configuration
• You can create free/paid courses or videos
If you go with DomainRacer LMS Hosting Solution, then you will get unlimited LMS recourses in your budget. And best replacement for Teachable.