Best Platform to Sell Online Courses

Selecting the best platform to sell your online courses can be a turning point for your teaching career. It's crucial to find a system that aligns with your goals, content, and audience. With the surge in e-learning, a diverse range of platforms has emerged, each featuring unique tools tailored for educators and entrepreneurs alike. Whether you're searching for advanced marketing features, a user-friendly interface, or comprehensive analytics, there's a service out there that fits the bill.

Navigating this landscape means considering what you need in a learning management system. Do you prioritize having creative control over your content and presentation, or is a robust technical support network more important for your peace of mind? Maybe you're looking for a platform that efficiently handles subscriptions and payments, or perhaps community engagement and interaction rank high on your list of priorities.

The best online course platforms offer a seamless balance between functionality and user experience. They not only help you build and curate quality content but also provide the tools necessary for effective course marketing and sales. From pricing flexibility to seamless content uploads and interactive features, these platforms empower you to reach learners worldwide and monetize your expertise effectively.

Evaluating Online Course Platforms

When choosing a platform to sell your online courses, you'll want to consider key features that can help you effectively deliver and monetize your content. This will involve comparing well-known platforms and understanding the needs of your target audience.

Core Features to Look For

You should ensure the online course platform offers:

• Ease of Use: The platform should be intuitive for both course creators and learners.
• Customization: Options to customize the look and feel to match your brand.
• Monetization Options: Several means to monetize, like one-time sales, subscriptions, or memberships.
• Marketing Tools: Built-in tools to help you promote your courses, like discount codes and affiliate programs.
• Analytics and Reporting: Detailed insights into your sales and learner progress.

Comparison of Popular Platforms

Each platform comes with its own set of strengths:

• Teachable: Known for its user-friendly course creation tools and comprehensive marketing features.
• Thinkific: Offers a powerful site builder and community features but lacks a dedicated mobile app.
• Kajabi: An all-in-one solution providing extensive marketing and automation capabilities.
• Podia: Supports memberships and digital downloads in addition to courses.
• Skillshare: Prioritizes a community learning experience but offers limited branding control.
• Udemy: Has a vast marketplace but gives you less pricing control and a smaller revenue share.

Platform	User-Friendly	Custom Branding	Monetization	Marketing Tools	Mobile App
Teachable	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Thinkific	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Kajabi	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Podia	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Skillshare	No	No	Limited	No	Yes
Udemy	Yes	No	Limited	Yes	Yes

Considering Your Target Audience

Understand your audience's preferences in terms of:

• Learning Style: Some platforms favor community interaction, while others focus on self-paced learning.
• Tech Savvy: Your audience’s comfort with technology should align with the platform's complexity.
• Price Sensitivity: The platform's pricing model should cater to what your audience is willing to spend.

Teachable

When it comes to selling online courses, Teachable is a platform that empowers you to share your expertise. Its user-friendly interface allows you to create and sell courses with ease. You'll find a straightforward process for setting up your digital storefront.

Create Your Course:

• Utilize the no-code course builder to design your educational content.
• Upload videos, PDFs, and audio files to enhance your course.

Monetize Your Knowledge:

• Set your own pricing models for courses or coaching sessions.
• Use sales page tools to convert visitors into students.
• Process payments securely and manage student access.

Market and Scale:

• Offer coupons, bundles, and run promotions.
• Analyze sales and student insights with built-in analytics.

Teachable stands out by offering you total control over your content and student relationships. With its emphasis on branding, you're able to make your course seem like an integral part of your website. The platform allows for a mix of multimedia and text content, making the delivery of your course material dynamic and engaging.

Kajabi

Kajabi is a comprehensive platform that lets you create, market, and sell online courses with a suite of tools designed to manage all aspects of a knowledge business from one place. With Kajabi, you can streamline your online course creation and sales process by leveraging various features.

Key Features:

• Course Creation: Easy-to-use interface to build courses
• Marketing & Sales: Integrated tools for email campaigns and automations
• Membership Sites: Options for subscription-based content
• Analytics: Insightful data to track performance

When you start on Kajabi, you're greeted with a user-friendly dashboard that guides you through setting up your online course. You can select themes for your course's landing page to attract and engage your audience. To support your marketing efforts, Kajabi provides email templates and customizable pipelines to streamline funnels from leads to sales.

Course Creation Steps:

1. Identify your niche.
2. Use Kajabi's course builder to outline and populate your course material.
3. Customize your course's appearance with themes and media.

The platform also offers the ability to manage memberships and podcasts, making it more than just a course platform. The analytics dashboard shows you revenue, engagement, page views, and more to help you understand your sales funnel and customer behaviors.

For those looking to test its features, Kajabi offers a 14-day free trial period. Once you decide to move forward, you have a choice of different pricing plans to suit your business size and needs. Remember to pick the plan that aligns best with your business objectives and audience size to make the most out of Kajabi.

Thinkific

Thinkific offers you a comprehensive platform to create, market, and sell your online courses. It's designed to provide a robust set of tools to help people like you build engaging courses and reach a wide audience. The platform is known for its scalability, making it suitable for individual educators and larger organizations alike.

Features at a glance:

• Course Creation: Utilize a suite of tools to develop courses that captivate students.
• Marketing Tools: Promote your courses effectively with built-in marketing features.
• Sales: Streamline the sales process with a customizable checkout and integrations.

Benefits of Using Thinkific:

• No Transaction Fees: On paid plans, you keep all of your sales revenue.
• Free Plan Available: Test the waters without financial commitment.
• User-Friendly Design: Its ease of use allows you to focus more on content, less on tech.

Clients and Trust:

With a clientele that includes brands like Hootsuite and Intuit, it's clear that Thinkific is trusted among a variety of industries and educational professionals.

Plans:

Plan	Best for	Key Feature
Free	Beginners testing the platform	Core features, unlimited students
Basic	New course creators	Coupons, email integrations
Pro	Established courses	Advanced course pricing options, memberships
Premier	Large-scale businesses	Onboarding, unlimited courses

Whether you're starting out or scaling up, Thinkific is equipped to support your online course endeavors. By offering multiple learning products in a single platform, they aim to streamline the process from creation to sales, all while giving you control over your content and student engagement.

Podia

Podia offers a user-friendly interface that simplifies the process of selling online courses. If you’re considering monetizing your expertise, Podia is designed to assist you in launching your first course, potentially even within a week. The platform is equipped to handle various digital products including courses, coaching, ebooks, and webinars.

Features of Podia:

• Website Builder: Create your online storefront without needing coding skills.
• Email Marketing: Engage your audience with Podia's integrated email tools.
• Community Building: Develop a space for your customers to interact and discuss.

Pricing Structure:

• Starter Plan: Aimed at beginners.
• Pro Plan: Includes additional features like removing transaction fees.
• Premium Plan: Ideal for seasoned course creators, providing advanced support and team access.

Podia supports unlimited hosting for video content, which is essential for course creation. Their pricing plans are relatively affordable when compared to other platforms, and they offer a range of support options, including chat support, albeit with limitations on the lower tier plans.

When you’re ready to expand, Podia has functionality that scales with the size of your customer base and product offerings. For instance, they allow for an unlimited number of customers, which can be particularly beneficial as your business grows.

Migration and Support: Moving to Podia from another platform? They offer free migrations at certain plan levels. This means you can transfer your existing courses with less hassle.

LearnDash

When it comes to selling online courses, LearnDash is a powerful WordPress plugin that's designed to transform your website into a comprehensive learning management system (LMS). It's ideal if you're looking to build and sell courses, offer quizzes, award certificates, and manage users all within the WordPress interface.

Integration with WooCommerce: LearnDash integrates smoothly with WooCommerce, allowing you to sell your courses using a familiar e-commerce platform. Here's a quick guide:

• Set-Up: First, ensure you have LearnDash and WooCommerce installed. Activate the LearnDash-WooCommerce integration.
• Course Selling: Add your courses as products in WooCommerce to leverage its cart and payment gateways.

Course Bundles and Memberships: With LearnDash, packaging your courses or offering memberships can boost your sales strategy.

• Bundles: Group courses and sell them at a discounted rate.
• Memberships: Offer a subscription-based access to your courses.

Promotions and Discounts: WooCommerce extensions enable you to create:

• Coupons: For sales or referral programs.
• Licenses: Distribute course access through licenses for bulk enrollments.

Manageable Course Creation: Start with micro courses to alleviate the concerns of your learners about time and money commitments. These can serve as a teaser that highlights the value of your larger, more comprehensive courses.

ThriveCart Learn

ThriveCart Learn is an integrated platform within ThriveCart, particularly tailored for vendors looking to sell their educational content. It's a feature-rich system that provides you with the necessary tools to create and sell courses effectively.

Course Creation: You'll find that setting up courses is straightforward, thanks to a user-friendly interface. Courses are comprised of modules and lessons, allowing you to structure your content methodically.

• Flexibility: Customization options are plentiful, which means you can tailor your courses to meet the specific needs of your audience.
• Content Delivery: Utilize multimedia elements such as video, text, and interactive sessions to engage learners.

Monetization: ThriveCart Learn excels at providing various options to monetize your courses.

• Choose from one-time payments, subscriptions, or free offerings to match your strategy.
• Implement upsells, discounts, and bundles to optimize revenue.

Integration: A notable feature is the integration of various tools.

• ThriveCart Learn easily integrates with other ThriveCart features, streamlining your sales funnel.
• Compatibility with external services like Encharge enhances your ability to automate and connect with students.

Support: ThriveCart's helpdesk is readily available, ensuring you can tackle any challenges that arise during course creation or selling.

In brief, ThriveCart Learn is designed to be both powerful and user-friendly, allowing you to effectively create, market, and sell your courses, all within a single platform.

Skillshare

Skillshare is a unique platform tailored primarily for creative content and learning. It's community-driven, meaning that you'll find a strong emphasis on interaction and collaboration among students and instructors. Here, you’re not just selling a course; you're fostering a learning environment.

Features:

• Community Interaction: Peer-to-peer feedback, discussions, and project-based classes make learning dynamic.
• In-Demand Topics: Skillshare provides insights into popular topics, guiding you in creating content that resonates.
• Revenue Sharing: Instructors earn money through royalties based on the number of minutes watched in their classes and via premium referrals.

To get started:

1. Research: Use Skillshare’s tools to understand what topics are trending.
2. Create: Focus on high-quality, engaging content with practical projects.
3. Promote: Leverage Skillshare’s internal marketing and your social channels to reach students.

Remember:

• No upfront fees: Start teaching without initial charges.
• User-friendly: An intuitive platform that makes course creation and navigation simple for both you and your audience.
• Skillshare Originals: Exclusive content created with industry leaders, which can inspire your own courses.

Skillshare might be the right place for you if you're into creative arts, design, or lifestyle topics, and you're looking to build a community rather than just selling a standalone product.

Udemy

Udemy is a popular online learning platform where you can sell your courses to a vast audience. With over 40 million students, it's an attractive place to share your expertise.

How to Start:

1. Sign Up: Create an instructor account.
2. Course Creation: Plan and record your course content.
3. Uploading: Use Udemy's course management tools to upload videos and materials.
4. Pricing: Set a price for your course or opt for Udemy's promotional programs.

Pros and Cons:

• Pros:
  • Broad Reach: Access to millions of potential students.
  • Flexibility: Teach on your schedule.
  • Resources: Extensive instructor resources to help you create and promote courses.
  • No Upfront Costs: Free to create and list courses.
• Cons:
  • Competition: High number of courses on the platform.
  • Revenue Sharing: Udemy takes a share of the course sales.
  • Control: Less control over pricing during promotional periods.

Course Types and Topics: Tech & Business: Most popular categories for learners. Personal Development: A growing area for those looking to supplement their skills.

Remember to engage with your students through Udemy's Q&A and messaging to help maintain a good course rating, which is crucial for visibility on the platform.

Memberful

If you're an expert or a creator looking to monetize your knowledge, Memberful is an intriguing option to explore. This platform does a stellar job allowing you to sell memberships to your audience, effectively unlocking a more intimate and premium experience for your course participants.

Features:

• Seamless Integration: Memberful can integrate directly with your existing website, maintaining your brand's look and feel.
• Subscription Management: It offers easy-to-handle subscription and payment systems to keep things running smooth.
• Content Protection: You can safeguard your courses, ensuring only paying members gain access.
• Community Building: It's equipped to foster community by integrating with platforms like Discord and offering member-only forums.

Pros:

• You retain full control over your content and member data.
• The platform is designed to be user-friendly, minimizing your legwork.

Cons:

• You'll need to handle the initial setup on your website.
• There may be additional transaction fees to consider.

To get started, you'll typically set up Memberful within your site, customize your membership plans, and connect it to payment processors like Stripe. You control the content, pricing, and the relationship with your subscribers. Whether you're providing exclusive video content, downloadable resources, or access to a private community, Memberful helps keep things straightforward and professional.

Maven

When you're looking to sell online courses, Maven stands out as a specialized platform that caters specifically to course creators, educators, and experts. It's designed to facilitate cohort-based courses, offering a structure that supports interactive learning and community engagement.

Key Features:

• Community Access: Maven connects you with a pre-existing student base, allowing you to tap into a network of eager learners.
• Interactivity: Live course options foster accountability and student interaction, which can enhance the learning experience.

Getting Started with Maven

To kickstart your course creation, Maven provides a Course Accelerator program, guiding you through the course development process:

• Proven templates
• Step-by-step guidance
• Feedback on your course material

Course Creation: Maven prioritizes community, making it a core feature in their course design. Your courses can benefit from this by fostering a sense of learning together with others. The platform's tools let you customize your content to suit your teaching style and course needs.

Course Selling Point:

• Instant Access to Learners: With Maven, you can reach more than 25,000 potential students.
• Cohort-Based Approach: This model can help boost engagement and completion rates.

Maven could very well be your go-to if you value strong community engagement and are looking for a supportive environment to start your teaching journey.

Platform-Specific Considerations

When choosing a platform to sell your online courses, it's important to consider how specific platform features and plans can impact your course's success and your overall experience as an instructor.

Exploring the LMS Plugin for WordPress

WordPress, a content management system, is not just for blogging; with the right LMS plugin, it transforms into a powerful platform for selling online courses. LMS plugins like LearnDash and LifterLMS integrate seamlessly into your WordPress site, allowing you to maintain your course within the ecosystem you're already familiar with. They offer features such as course progress tracking, quizzes, and certificate issuance.

Leveraging Platform-Specific Marketing Tools

Maximizing your course’s visibility often requires leveraging platform-specific marketing tools. Platforms like Teachable and Thinkific provide built-in tools for email marketing and affiliate programs. These tools help you to engage with your audience and incentivize others to promote your courses, which can be crucial for growing your online education business.

Examining Free Plans and Premium Features

Some platforms offer free plans as a starting point, with the option to upgrade as your needs evolve. For example, LearnWorlds allows you to create and sell courses with no upfront costs on its free plan, giving you access to basic features. As your business grows, you might consider premium features like course bundles, memberships, and more advanced marketing tools, which are typically part of paid plans.