The wealthiest bloggers in the world make 80% of their income from online courses and can earn upwards of $100,000 per month in passive income (full study here). Most are not technical wizards, they just rely on e-learning tools to allow them to easily create and sell courses.
Most Customizable
Thinkific
- Tweak every possible aspect of your course and sales page
- Free option to get started
- Great for new course creators
Best All-In-One
Kajabi
- Intuitive marketing tools to help promote and sell your course
- No need to pay extra for email marketing, sales funnel builder, or marketing automations (all included)
- Great for selling big ticket courses
Course platforms are designed to make it easy for you to create and sell your online courses. They handle payment and student access, course design and navigation, hosting your videos, and helping you market your courses. All this makes it easy for you to focus on the important stuff like creating content.
If you have a course idea you think will sell, then picking the right online learning platform is the first step to building your own 6-figure per month education empire.
I’ve analyzed dozens of online learning providers and boiled the list down to my top five favorites. In this comparison of online course platforms, I’ll review the pros and cons of each.
Table of Contents
- Best Online Course Platforms Guide
- Different Types of Online Course Platforms
- How to Choose the Best Online Course Platform
- Which online course platform is really the best?
- Best Free Online Course Software
- How to Market Your Online Course
- Online Course Platforms in 2023 and Beyond
- Frequently Asked Questions
We offer this website completely free to our visitors. To help pay the bills, we’ll often (but not always) set up affiliate relationships with the top providers after selecting our favorites. However, we do our best not to let this impact our choices. There are plenty of high-paying companies we’ve turned down because we didn’t like their product.
An added benefit of our relationships is that we always try to negotiate exclusive discounts for our visitors.
Note, this post does include some affiliate links, but that does not impact my honest recommendations. If you visit a course website through one of my links and ultimately sign-up, you pay nothing extra, but I earn a small commission which helps me provide all this content to you for free.
Best Online Course Platforms Guide
Online Course Platform Ratings |
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Course Platform | |||||
Overall | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Ease of Use for creators | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Flexibility to customize | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Marketing tools | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Affordability | Average with good free option | Most expensive, but includes many tools you'd otherwise pay for separately | Average | Average | Free to start but very high transaction fees |
Editor's Notes | Most flexible platform. Best place to get started for free and upgrade later as your needs grow. Read my full Thinkific review | Robust all-in-one toolkit. No need to pay for a separate sales funnel builder or email mgmt. Read my full Kajabi review | Avoid high transaction fees on lower plan tiers. Read my full Teachable review | Great customer service and affordable plans. Read my full Podia review | Main advantage is a course marketplace. Otherwise, Udemy is very limited in all regards. Read my full Udemy review |
Pricing & Cost Comparison |
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Course Platform | |||||
Free option | ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Monthly billing tiers | $0 / $49 / $99 / $199 | $149 / $199 / $399 | $39 / $119 / $299 | $39 / $79 | $0 |
My Pricing Plan Guides | Thinkific Pricing Plan Guide | Kajabi Pricing Plan Guide | Teachable Pricing Plan Guide | Podia Pricing Plan Guide | Udemy Pricing Plan Guide |
Discount for annual pre-payment | 25% | 20% | 20-26% | 17% | 0 |
Transaction fees | 0% | 0% | 0-5% | 0% | 3% for your own referrals, 50% for marketplace sales |
Note: 3rd party payment processors like Stripe and PayPal will typically take 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction and are not associated with course plans. This is standard for any credit card charge on the Internet.
Read my detailed Pricing Plan Guide that gives you a side-by-side comparison of ALL the price plans across online course platforms.