5 Best Online Course Platforms [Updated for 2023]

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.

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.

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
Course Platform	Thinkific	Kajabi	Teachable	Podia	Udemy
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
	Visit Thinkific	Visit Kajabi	Visit Teachable	Visit Podia	Visit Udemy

Pricing & Cost Comparison
Course Platform	Thinkific	Kajabi	Teachable	Podia	Udemy
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.

Course Creation Feature Comparison
Course Platform	Thinkific	Kajabi	Teachable	Podia	Udemy
Visual page builder
Bulk import course content
Custom domains
Multi-language support
Multiple instructors
Prerequisites (content locking)
Quizzes, surveys, exams