Teachable Competitors & Alternatives
Teachable is one of the most popular course creation solutions available. However, it does compete with many other alternatives in the market. Before purchasing Teachable, we recommend evaluating how it compares against its top competitors.
There are around seven online course platforms worth considering. They primarily differentiate based upon the robustness of their features, the level of control they allow over your course and website designs, and the marketing tools offered. As you can see below, Teachable is a mid-tier solution in terms of price and features.
Below, we analyze Teachable’s top competitors and offer detailed insight into their features and pricing. To gain a better understanding of Teachable and its capabilities, you can read our in-depth Teachable review. You can also read more of our course creation software comparisons.
All of the information in this article is based upon research, discussions with course creators, and dozens of hours spent hand-testing the leading course creation software platforms. The details of our research process can be found on our article covering the best online course platforms.
Table of Contents
- Teachable Features
- Teachable Competitor Overview: Pricing & Features
- Top Teachable Competitors
- Bottom Line
Teachable Features
Before we examine Teachable’s competitors, it’s important to understand Teachable’s own features. Teachable is a mid-tier, user-friendly solution that’s best for beginner and experienced course creators.
The 10 most important features that Teachable offers are described in the table below.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Course Builder | Teachable offers a course builder that you can use to create and publish courses in various multimedia formats, including video, audio, code and PDF. However, compared to other tools, Teachable offers limited course design customizations. |
| Website Builder | Teachable lets you build your website from scratch, and host it on your custom domain. You can edit your Teachable website using content blocks – these can be images, html, videos, and text. Teachable also lets you align the elements within a block to the left, center, or right. |
| Sales Tracker | Teachable’s sales tracker helps you monitor the financial performance of your courses and school. This includes daily breakdowns of your transactions, refund data, affiliate earnings, chargebacks, payout statuses, and instructor fees. |
| Affiliate Management | In Teachable, you can create and manage affiliate marketing campaigns to sell courses. Affiliates in Teachable can only receive a percentage of the sales they generate, as opposed to a fixed dollar amount per-sale. |
| Drip Schedules | Teachable lets you deliver your course content based on student enrollment date or on a specific date. You can also write an email announcement that is sent when course material is released. |
| Live Classes & Webinars | Teachable lets you live stream your classes, but you have to use a third-party platform. This involves embedding code into your Teachable curriculum from platforms such as YouTube Live, Twitch, and LiveStream. |
| Student Discussions | Teachable supports student discussions in the form of commenting. Students and instructors can comment and reply to one another. Student discussions improve student engagement and encourage a sense of community. |
| Coupons | Teachable lets you create coupons that apply to specific courses or all courses. Teachable lets you set the discount as a percentage off or fixed dollar amount, set an expiration date, and set the number of coupons available. |
| Course Bundles | Teachable lets bundle your courses into packages and sell them at a discounted price. Course bundles entice customers to purchase your courses, and increase your average order price. |
| Integrations | Teachable offers integrations that support the creation, marketing, selling and delivering of your online courses. Some of these integrations include Mailchimp, Zapier, Zoom, WordPress, and Squarespace. |
Teachable Competitor Overview: Pricing & Features
Teachable is one of the most popular course creation solutions in the market with over 124,000 instructors. As seen in the chart below, it compares nicely to its top competitors in terms of pricing and features.
Teachable’s pricing starts at $39 per month, with its most popular plan priced at $119 per month. It is competitive in price with Thinkific and LearnWorlds, is more expensive than Podia, and is slightly cheaper than Kajabi. It is important to note that Teachable charges transaction fees for every plan. This includes fees for US and international sales, and chargebacks.
As you’ll read below, Teachable is an effective, mid-level solution that works for beginner and established course creators. Overall, it is an intuitive platform that offers a solid set of features at a reasonable price.
Teachable Competitors
The course creation market has many solutions that fit different types of course creators. We’ve ranked Teachable’s top six competitors based on their features, pricing, and usability.
The top Teachable competitors are:
- Kajabi
- Thinkific
- LearnWorlds
- Podia
- Heights Platform
- Mighty Networks
1: Kajabi
Kajabi is an advanced course creation solution that we’ve ranked the highest among our reviewed online course platforms. It is robust and offers more features than Teachable overall – including high quality marketing and course & website customization features. We recommend Kajabi for experienced course creators who have a strong focus in growing their course business. However, it should be noted that Kajabi is the most expensive course creation platform we have reviewed so far.
- You want a simpler tool that is more affordable and better for beginners
- Having more advanced sales reporting is important to you
- You want to create in-platform certificates to give to students who complete your courses
- You want a single platform that manages your course creation, marketing and selling
- You want advanced marketing tools – including automated campaigns, pipelines, and email marketing
- You want advanced site design features
2: Thinkific
Thinkific is a popular course creation software with approximately 50,000 instructors. It is the most similar product to Teachable in terms of features and price. If you’re strongly considering Teachable, we recommend comparing it to Thinkific before making your purchase.
- You want a mobile app that your students can use
- You want more robust sales information – including refund and instructor fee data
- You want to create in-platform certificates
- You want a basic, free plan simply to host your content online
- You want to translate your platform into different languages
- You want course templates
3: LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds is an up-and-coming course creation solution with over a thousand customers. It is an advanced platform that is comparable to Kajabi. It offers the greatest design flexibility and lets you create a more professional looking website. However, Teachable is more user-friendly and can work for a wider range of course creators.
- You want a simpler tool that is more affordable and better for beginners
- You want a mobile app that your students can use
- You want to create in-platform certificates to give to students who complete your courses
- You want the best website design capabilities
- You want a wider range of multimedia uploads – including ebooks, SoundCloud, and YouTube videos
- You want to include gamification elements in your courses – i.e. badges
4: Podia
Podia is a basic, course creation platform with over a thousand instructors. Podia provides what you need to build and sell your courses without worrying about the technology involved. We recommend Podia to those who want an affordable solution and are beginning their course creation journeys.
- You are a more established course creator and want a mid-tier solution
- You want a mobile app that your students can use
- You want to create in-platform certificates
- You a simpler, more affordable solution
- You want to stream live classes without any coding
- You want an in-platform student messaging feature
5: Heights Platform
Heights Platform is a newer course creation platform that helps creators build courses and sell digital products. While many features are still in development, Heights Platform lets its early customers have influence over the product’s roadmap. Heights Platform also offers above average customer support.
- You want a more complete course creation platform in terms of features offered
- You want more robust sales information – including refund and instructor fee data
- You want a mobile app that your students can use
- You want a solution that does not charge additional transaction fees
- You want to sell other products through the platform – including digital products
- You want to include gamification elements in your courses – i.e. badges
6: Mighty Networks
Mighty Networks is a course creation platform that helps creators build a community around their content. While Mighty Networks is competitive in price with Teachable, Teachable is a more feature-rich solution.
- You want standard course creation features – including quizzes, assignments, and coupons
- You want more robust sales information – including refund and instructor fee data
- You want to create in-platform certificates to give to students who complete your courses
- You want an advanced, in-platform student discussion tool
- You want to customize the language used in your online school – for example, you can refer to yourself as a professor, or teacher
- You want to stream live classes without any coding
Bottom Line
Teachable is the most popular course creation platform in the market. It is an intermediate solution that, while difficult to navigate at first, works well for less experienced creators and those who are farther along in their course creation journeys.
However, before making a purchase, we suggest comparing Teachable to other highly ranked platforms like Thinkific and Kajabi. Each solution has its own unique features and advantages that might fit your course creation needs the best. Take a look at our reviews to learn more about Thinkific and Kajabi.