Online courses are becoming more and more popular with the whole eLearning market expected to exceed $300 Billion USD by 2025 and many professionals achieving 6-7 figure incomes through creating and selling online courses. There has never been a better time to join the growing industry of eLearning. If you have made the decision to create an online course, you will need a platform to do so. Here we have compared some of the main online course platforms for you so that you can weigh up the pros and cons and make an educated decision on which platform to use for your business.
The first 3 options are all stand-alone platforms and all host video. If there are other functions for your website beyond a course, you certainly will want to consider WordPress as the best option.
Option 1: Kajabi
Kajabi has more features than Teachable or Thinkific – it is the premium option for course creation. Kajabi is among the most popular platforms for selling online classes and easily integrates with lots of other programs. It does everything from creating courses, promotion, and selling the courses separately or through a membership.
Core features:
- Built in email marketing
- Library of landing page and website templates
- Webinars option
- Assessments (quizzes + surveys)
- Community forum
Pros:
- High quality with lots of tools
- Easy to use
- Great support
- Great student area, student experience
- 0% transaction fee
Cons:
- Expensive (starts from $119USD per month)
- Some customization is limited.
Option 2: Teachable
Teachable is a great software if you want to create great looking courses without all of the technical work. It is very easy to use and is designed for beginners right through to advanced course creators.
Core features:
- Customizable courses (and checkouts and affiliate programmes included on the base plan)
Pros:
- Low entry-level pricing (there is even a very basic free offering) from $29USD per month
- Simple; no technical setup
- Good features
- Ability to view what your students/customers have bought and how much they’ve completed of your courses.
Cons:
- 5% transaction fee
- Limited in design options
- Doesn’t integrate well so you will need Zapier to be able to use your own email provider (they do offer their own internal email system).
- Doesn’t include a community forum
- Need add-ons to sell with EU Vat
Option 3: Thinkific
Thinkific takes care of all the design and technical aspects of your online courses so that you can focus on the important stuff; generating great content. Thinkific allows you to create beautiful looking courses fast.
Core features:
- Great course builder
- Simplistic design with clear and informative dashboard
- No limit on number of courses
 Pros:
- Low entry-level pricing (there is even a very basic free offering)
- Simple to use
- Great page builder
- Great support
Cons:
- Doesn’t include email marketing
- Doesn’t include a community forum
- Checkouts/thank you etc very simple
- Need add-ons to sell with EU Vat
- Unable to do live workshops
Option 4: WordPress (using Learndash or Memberpress)
Using Learndash or Memberpress allows you to transform your already existing website into a fully-featured membership site with ease. Both Memberpress and Learndash offer lots of extras and they both integrate well with email marketing services.
Core features:
- Large set of features – courses, quizzes, drip feed content, subscriptions, bundles etc.
- Ability to transform existing site to membership site.
Pros:
- Most control over the design and function
- Complete flexibility over branding and design
- Lower on-going cost (Learndash is $159USD per year and Memberpress is $249USD and is generally easier to use)
- Very easy to integrate with other plugins & services
Cons:
- More time consuming to initially set up
- Requires video hosting (e.g Vimeo from $7USD per month)
Option 5: Membervault
Membervault is a content hosting platform that allows you to provide free and paid content to your students and clients. It can replace your website, landing page tools and your shopping cart service.
Core features:
- Large set of features you can use.
- Includes gamification
Pros:
- Very easy to set up
- Free plan available
- Ability to have dripped or progressive content
Cons:
- You don’t own the platform
- Lack of intergrations with some major sales funnels builder tools
Getting started with a membership site can be time consuming and confusing. If you need support with your membership site we can help you to get set up ready to load content from as little as $500+gst. Get in touch with us and we’d be happy to discuss your options!