Top 5 Teachable Alternatives & Why You Should Consider Them in 2024
The worldwide e-learning services market is on track to reach USD 842.64 billion by 2030, growing at an annual CAGR of 18.6%; it is clear that online education is not just a trend - it is mastering the competition. However, as this market expands, so does the demand for versatile and budget-friendly online course-creation platforms.
While teachable is a popular choice, it is not the only ace in the deck. Alternative platforms can offer unique benefits depending on specific needs, such as pricing flexibility, course creation features, or community building.
Let’s dive into the 5 best Teachable alternatives that stand out in the growing e-learning space.
Tl;Dr
Here is a glance at 5 teachable alternatives we will discuss in this article:
All About Teachable
Established in 2014, Teachable is a well-known course platform. It is a creative education tool that enables simple online course building and sales. It provides a simple course builder, easy-to-use interface, customized course pages, and the capability to interact with other marketing tools and payment processors. Once you have a course on Teachable, you may market it on your own website or via the Teachable marketplace.
Though it is a legacy platform, Teachable lacks some of the tools of more recent course systems. It's only accessible via an iOS app (not Android), mostly serves asynchronous learning, and does not do live sessions or create online communities.
With Teachable, course creators can offer ebooks and services as course additions and schedule conferences and seminars. The main advantage of using Teachable is how simple it is to create a course with their free plan. You can develop your first course in Teachable without coding knowledge; the platform handles all technical elements.
Teachable offers designers few customization options and product varieties. Most successful course creators on Teachable rely on third-party tools for email marketing, landing page builders, or website creation. For example, you may set up automated email flows from students' activities by linking your Teachable dashboard with MailerLite and Convertkit.
However, Teachable's transaction fees and pricing are complicated.
Teachable pricing
- Free plan: (Transaction fee of $1 + 10% on every sale of paid products)
- Basic plan: $59/month + 5% sale transaction fee
- Pro plan: $159/month with no transaction fee charge
- Pro+ plan: $249/month with no transaction fee charge
Why Should You Look for a Teachable Alternative?
Besides not having app download possibilities on Android devices (There are over 3.3 billion Android users who cannot access Teachable through phones), here are some of the reasons why you should consider a Teachable alternative:
Inadequate consumer assistance
According to some customer evaluations, Teachable customer help is sometimes inoperable; tickets still need to be addressed for weeks or months. Have a look at one of the recent customer reviews about the Teachable online course platform.
Teachable Pricing
With Teachable, costs soon mount up. In addition to monthly subscription costs, Teachable charges $1 + 10% and 5% transaction fees on every sale for free and basic plan users.
Furthermore, depending on the payment type, you will incur processing costs. For instance, if you receive foreign payments via PayPal, you will pay 4.99% + 49¢ for each sale. You pay 3.9% plus 30¢ for foreign credit and debit card sales. You could consider directly integrating with a third-party payment processor to avoid paying processing fees on Teachable, but this procedure is time-consuming and quickly becomes cumbersome.
Teachable also charges extra for administrative help, the "buy now, pay later" option, and affiliate marketing.
Restricted capabilities
For a course creator, Teachable has several tools you cannot use. For instance, a two-step checkout is impossible, and you must establish a complex integration process before automatically sending abandoned cart emails. The platform shuts down when you upload big files and slow video uploads.
Teachable's built-in website builder has little design customization capability. While independent branding and basic course element customization are possible, more significant changes require the assistance of a developer.
Top 5 Teachable Alternatives
To overcome teachable’s limitations and if you have different course creation requirements, the following are the other top alternatives to teachable you can consider:
Teachable Alternative #1: FreshLearn
FreshLearn is a complete, all-in-one tool platform for course creators. Course owners can create, develop, and market in less than 60 minutes. FreshLearn empowers creators to create online courses, masterclasses, digital downloads, and more, providing multiple ways to turn their expertise into revenue opportunities.
Established in 2020, FreshLearn lets you decide on your course offering price with a 0% commission. We provide individualized and customized solutions for every creator who can give learners robust assessments and certifications.
Why Should You Choose FreshLearn Over Teachable?
You can consider FreshLearn over Teachable for several reasons, including its intuitive course builder, powerful marketing tools, assessment features, and more.
a. Course offering diversification
Our modern all-in-one designer tool, FreshLearn, offers advanced online course creation capabilities, including an AI course creator, Masterclasses, digital downloads, Newsletters, etc., enabling creators to start their online classes quickly and easily.
The course builder, designed for FreshLearn, is more user-friendly than Teachable. Though it entered the market only a few years ago, FreshLearn offers better design ideas that enable creators to publish their courses more quickly.
b. Supporting course formats
FreshLearn supports several course materials, such as videos, audio, documents, etc. It also encourages embedding several video players, such as YouTube and Vimeo. It connects with widely used storage systems, such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, etc. - Teachable lacks this crucial ability.
c. Payment flexibility
FreshLearn also lets creators use Stripe, Paypal, etc., payment methods, and the money hits the creator's account straight away. FreshLearn allows you to bring your payment gateway, so the money shows up in your account the instant a student pays for an online course at your online school—no 45-day waiting time.
d. Gamification element
FreshLearn’s gamification feature is valuable in any course creator’s offering. It speeds up students' achievement of their goals. Our unique learning management system values the gamification element, benefiting course creators and students. You can include interactive quizzes and assessments (single-choice, multiple-choice, and short-answer formats) to make your online course offering more engaging and exciting.
Did I mention FreshLearn’s certification feature? With FreshLearn, you can also create your course completion certification by choosing from various templates, uploading and branding them, and automating the process of sending them to your students upon achieving milestones.
e. Pricing plan capabilities
Our base plan package offers bulk course enrollments, clone-like, bulk student uploads, and other additional capabilities. Similar features for Teachable are only available in an advanced subscription plan. The 29/month Pro package offers premium and advanced tools, including a Page Builder, Coupon Codes, Affine Marketing, and Email Marketing. (Psst - No matter what your pricing plan is, you can avail of our 24/7 live support for any course creation queries).
Have a look at the G2 grid positioning of FreshLearn and Teachable on online learning platforms.
Pricing comparison - FreshLearn Vs. Teachable
FreshLearn’s free plan has several core features, from custom branding to blogging CMS, with no transaction fee.
Also, FreshLearn’s pricing plan starts at just $29, allowing you to do email marketing and add unlimited students, custom assessments, certificates, coupons, and more.
With Teachable providing minimal options for free plans, FreshLearn provides 25 primary course creation features. Teachable progresses to advanced features only in their Pro plan ($159/month), for example, providing features for affiliate marketing. On the other hand, FreshLearn provides it for just $49/month.
Also, Teachable comes with transaction fees + credit card charges, whereas FreshLearn does not have additional transaction fees. When we compare the monthly payments of each course creation platform
FreshLearn or Teachable? What Should You Choose?
In addition to all the advantages mentioned above of FreshLearn over Teachable, FreshLearn also provides seamless migration from any other platform at zero charge. FreshLearn Academy has an elaborate step-by-step process for creating and managing courses.
In terms of pricing, customer review and support, features, migration capabilities, and more, FreshLearn can be a great alternative to Teachable. For a detailed comparison of the two platforms, check out this video.
Teachable Alternatives #2: Thinkific
Thinkific is a similar course-only platform that provides a free tier if you want an alternative to Teachable to deliver your online courses.
Thinkific provides two things that Teachable lacks. First, it offers more sophisticated quizzes with question banks and randomizing, as well as polls you may utilize to interact with students enrolled in your classes. Embedding your survey results and course feedback to your marketing pages (in paid plans) is a good approach to closing the loop.
Thinkific also provides a more direct link to your website, similar to FreshLearn and Kajabi. For a more seamless brand experience, you may combine your website with your Thinkific online courses with a little technical know-how.
Thinkific sadly lacks community possibilities and live course elements. Its Android apps suffered poor ratings, and native live streaming is absent. This makes Thinkific a good substitute for Teachable but not the best. You can sell Live lessons, pre-recorded videos, self-paced courses, and cohort programs on Thinkific. It can even help you create a storefront or website for your courses.
Thinkific Features
- Content and video hosting are available on all pricing plans.
- Make course sales pages and a website for your content.
- On certain options, you can create unlimited courses and communities
- Sell courses, communities, goods, bundles, and memberships.
- Tool of built-in voiceover PowerPoint presentations
- Student polls
- Students are free to leave course reviews.
- Exam integrations on higher-level plans
Thinkific users pay no transaction fees on any plan, while creators have limitless courses, materials, and students on paid plans.
Only course creators on the basic or higher plans may access memberships, product bundles, payment plans, and subscriptions. Also, Thinkific does not provide or has limited capabilities on features such as email marketing and sales tools.
Thinkific Pricing
Thinkific pricing's basic plan starts at $36/per month (billed annually). In addition to their basic, start, and grow pricing plans, they provide an accelerator program plan for selling courses at $499.
Teachable Alternative #3: Kajabi
Kajabi is the best Teachable alternative for online courses. It provides an advanced course-creating platform and delivery in one place on the web.
Kajabi distinguishes itself mainly by its sales and marketing tools. You can use robust marketing tools with Kajabi for email campaigns, weekly updates, blogs, and more. They accommodate checkout and payments in several currencies worldwide and have specialized marketing landing pages to build email waitlists or sell exclusive "windows" for purchase.
The primary drawback of Kajabi is that it is the most expensive platform available; several other platforms provide similar capabilities for less. You can leverage Kajabi for selling courses, downloads, coaching, podcasts, subscriptions, and communities. You can also utilize it for email marketing, website building, pipeline building (sales funnels) creation, and affiliate marketing.
Kajabi Features:
- Create integrated sales funnels.
- Tools for email marketing and affiliated marketing
- No costs associated with transactions
- Sales Upstream
- Provides features to create Podcasts
Kajabi Pricing
Kajabi’s basic plan starts at $55/month, which is costlier than other teachable alternatives we discuss. It makes it a non-ideal option for beginners to create online courses and make it a revenue stream.
Alternatives to Thinkific: #4 Mighty Networks
Mighty Networks is one of the Teachable alternatives that provide a customer-centric course platform. It's a no-brainer for business owners wishing to establish a strong community course since it allows unlimited members at any level.
Mighty Networks features:
- Mighty Networks runs on a no-volume pricing approach.
- Record and directly submit your video to Mighty Networks without utilizing a third-party recording tool.
- You can create groups to connect your members based on a shared interest, specialty, line of work, and more.
- Make sure every member has a customized feed that guarantees relevant content.
Though Mighty Networks has several benefits, it has drawbacks for online courses, groups, bundles, etc., including 2–3% transaction fees, not including payment processing costs. It provides simple personalizing choices, including color schemes and branding. Also, there is no discount or promo code functionality.
Mighty Networks pricing:
Free 14-day trial (note: you may upgrade or keep using the free plan with reduced features once the trial ends).
- Community: $59/month for chat, native live streaming and video, and more
- Business plan: The business plan is $219/month, covering analytics, community plus live cohort course development, and more
- Pro: Customized with everything in Business + app listing, branded application notifications, and more.
Alternative to Teachable #5: Udemy
Creators may post and offer courses to a large audience on the online course marketplace Udemy. Udemy manages your course's marketing, but you have less influence over your income, content, branding, and course materials.
Udemy pays instructors using a revenue-sharing arrangement. Should students naturally locate your course on Udemy, you only retain 37% of the course charge. You keep 97% when students register using your referral code or coupons.
Udemy features:
- More than forty million students worldwide
- Free to use
- Easily navigable course builder and uploader
- Students may drop course reviews.
- Instructors can design discounts for their courses and be part of site-wide deals.
After you publish your course materials, selling on Udemy is almost hands-off. This can be a great choice for teachers who want to make passive money on their courses without conducting their own marketing. With over 40 million users, Udemy can help you get your course front and front viewable for a sizable audience.
One of Udemy's drawbacks is its entirely restricted features. A website builder does not offer digital marketing tools, email functions, membership sites, or digital download capabilities.
When you sell online courses on Udemy, it leaves you powerless over your brand or marketing on the platform. Unless your students utilize your referral code, Udemy absorbs much of your sales. Ultimately, this could translate into less cash in your pocket.
Ready to Create and Sell Online Courses?
This article would have given you a fair understanding of online course platforms you can consider over Teachable for selling online courses. Among the other platforms, it is evident that when you choose FreshLearn over Teachable, we guarantee to provide the easiest way to create, sell, and market your online course.
Besides the benefits of choosing FreshLearn over Teachable, we provide unique features to enhance your online business path.
a. Creating Playlists
With FreshLearn, you can upload and arrange your course videos into Netflix-style playlists with just a few clicks. You can also receive feedback from your students directly during their course journey as you can improve your future offerings. You can even design and send automated emails to your learners depending on specific conditions, including course completion, successful payments, certificate delivery, etc.
b. Course Idea Validator
This is one of the unique features we provide compared to other teachable alternatives. Using our course validator, you can create landing pages for your courses to see whether people are interested in purchasing them by reviewing the course waitlist.
c. Automation
You can smoothly convert your leads into customers with an automated nurturing process. You can build a personalized workflow for each subscriber using the drag-and-drop workflow builder. You can easily design a welcome series, sales sequence, freebie delivery, post-purchase follow-up, and more. Upon sending customized messages, you can view its analytics to review which email resonates with your subscribers through email opens, bounces, and clicks.
Apart from all these, FreshLearn offers an AI quiz generator, campaign URL builder, course drip add-on, community-building features, product bundle setup, custom domain creation, white-label mobile app launch, and more, making it an ideal Teachable alternative.
FAQs On Best Teachable Alternatives
- What platform is better than Teachable?
FreshLearn: If you're ready to energize your online courses by matching your students’ needs for better results, FreshLearn is the ideal Teachable alternative for a strong, involved student community.
1. Does Teachable still have a free plan?
Yes, Teachable has a Free plan with $1+10% transaction fee
2. Is Teachable an LMS?
Teachable is an LMS that provides built-in email marketing capability. Depending on your demands, this LMS also highlights its users' courses on its website, which can benefit greatly. All things considered, Teachable is a good solution if you want to sell courses if they meet your feature and budget requirements.
3. How can I use Teachable for free?
Yes, Teachable offers free plan options; however, it includes additional transaction fees of $1 plus 10% on your course sales. Additionally, you may have to pay the usual payment processing fees that all payment service providers charge.
4. Which is better, Udemy or Teachable?
While Udemy might allow you more freedom in how your course is delivered, Teachable provides design options, including a whole set of different templates and colors, customization options to have your domain name, and flexibility over your course pages and even your checkout. Udemy doesn't provide these features.
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