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
Course completion certificates		3rd party integration ($)		3rd party integration ($)
Student discussion
Course reviews / testimonials
Course reporting and analytics
Social media logins
API and SSO for developers

Customer Support Comparison
Course Platform	Thinkific	Kajabi	Teachable	Podia	Udemy
Phone
Email
Chat

Course Marketing Feature Comparison
Course Platform	Thinkific	Kajabi	Teachable	Podia	Udemy
Course marketplace
Run your own affiliate program					set commission structure
Built in Email Marketing
3rd Party Email marketing integrations
Drip feed course content
Built in sales funnel builder
Marketing automation triggers	Zapier integration ($)		Zapier integration ($)	Zapier integration ($)
Sales page templates
Reporting and Analytics
Time limited courses

Payment and Checkout Feature Comparison
Course Platform	Thinkific	Kajabi	Teachable	Podia	Udemy
Course pricing maximum	No	No	No	No	Yes, $199.99
Access your funds	Instantly (students pay you directly)	Instantly (students pay you directly)	Varies based on your plan (can be 1-2 mos.)	Instantly (students pay you directly)	2-3 mos. (students pay Udemy)
PayPal and Stripe integration
Payment plans for customers
Coupons
Upsells
Course Bundles

Head to Head Course Platform Comparisons

Have you already weeded down your options to two platforms already? Check out our head to head online course comparisons for a granular analysis:

• Compare Thinkific vs Teachable
• Compare Kajabi vs Teachable

Different Types of Online Course Platforms

There are dozens of eLearning platforms to assess, each with different specialties. Let’s look at the main types.

Hosted Online Course Platforms

All of the platforms in the comparison table above are hosted for you, meaning that they provide all the infrastructure to create and sell courses.   Your course content, videos, and storefront will be hosted in the cloud and maintained by the course provider.

Pros of Hosted Course Platforms

• These platforms offer everything you need (and didn't know you needed) including payment processing, video and content hosting, customizable web design templates, sales funnels, and email management.
• You do not need to be tech savvy to setup a course and storefront.
• You can typically match your own website’s branding and specify your own sub-domain, for example, course.yourwebsite.com
• They provide ongoing support and maintenance, feature updates, and will handle website security.
• They also ensure a mobile responsive design and fast page speeds.
• Their servers are managed to automatically scale to support high volume as you grow.

Cons of Hosted Course Platforms

• Most hosted course platform plans come with a recurring monthly fee that is higher than options for hosting your own course, although there are some free price plans available and most platforms offer discounts for annual pre-payment.
• It can be daunting to switch between platforms, although many come with free migration when you sign-up.

Self-Host Your Own Course through a WordPress plugin

There are WordPress plugins and themes available like LearnDash (read our review) that allow you to host a course on your own website

Pros of Hosting Your Own Course

• Most self-hosted WordPress plugins, like LearnDash charge a recurring annual fee that is lower than hosted course platforms.  Plans increase in price if you get licenses for multiple websites, although you can typically have unlimited courses on a single website.
• Most maintained plugins come with feature updates (but you must handle upgrades yourself).
• Most plugins will work with any WordPress theme to fit into your branding and there is no need for a custom domain since it runs on your own website.
• You have total control over configuration as the software will be running on your own website.

Cons of Hosting Your Own Course

• You will need some technical chops (or have to hire someone else who does) to install and configure the plugin on your website.
• You need to handle your own video and content hosting or use 3rd parties like YouTube, Vimeo, or Wistia.
• You need to manage plugin upgrades and maintenance yourself as well as handle website security.
• If your website is not yet mobile responsive, your courses will not be either.
• You need to worry about page speed and scaling to support high volume as you grow.
• Most do not come with tools to manage your own course affiliate program.

Learning Management Systems

The term “Learning Management System” is sometimes used interchangeably with hosted course platforms. However, it is typically used to describe more sophisticated and expensive, enterprise level software used by corporate and educational institutions to train employees and classes of college students.

Course Marketplaces

Some course platforms have marketplaces where you can sell your course to students who browse a catalog of courses.   Kajabi and Udemy both have online marketplaces although the Udemy marketplace has the largest number of courses and students by far.  The downside of course marketplaces is you will have to compete with other courses in your niche and Udemy severely limits you in terms of pricing and branding your course.

How to Choose the Best Online Course Platform

Here are some guidelines to help you understand essential components of course software as well as pitfalls to avoid. You’ll need to prioritize which of these criteria are the most important for your own situation.

Ease of Use and Support

• How easy or difficult is it to setup a new course and customize your store front? Do you need to be tech-savvy or is it intuitive? To find out, sign-up for a free trial of any platform and spend 20 minutes trying to customize a sample course.
• Does the platform have lots of tutorials and good customer support in case you have questions?
• Are you comfortable working with a 3^rd party email provider like MailChimp or Aweber to message your students? Or do you prefer a platform that has built in email marketing?
• Do you want to offer course completion certificates to students? Some platforms have these included and on others you must pay for a third-party provider like Accredible.

Flexibility to Customize

• How much can you customize your sales page and course to promote your brand?
• Can you remove platform branding and logo or specify your own sub-domain, for example, course.yourwebsite.com?
• Does the platform have existing integrations with third party systems for things like email management, sales funnels, and course completion certificates?
• Does it have Zapier integration with pre-built “zaps”? Zapier is a popular middleware tool that allows you to easily connect to almost any online tool without much tech-savvy. Read our Zapier review.
• Does the core functionality appeal to a wide variety of online educators? Is it geared more for independent learning, digital coaching, or a hybrid of both?

Marketing Tools

• Do you want to tackle course promotion yourself or want to list your course in a marketplace?
• Does the platform come with sales page templates, a marketing funnel builder, or allow integration with 3^rd party marketing funnel software?
• Does the platform have marketing automation allowing you to trigger emails or offers based on things like course completion or inactivity?
• Can you run your own affiliate program and have a team of affiliates selling on your behalf for a commission?

Affordability

• Always go for a platform with zero transaction fees. If your course gains traction and starts to sell, transaction fees will quickly eat into your profits.
• Is there a discount for pre-paying annually?
• Is this your first course? If so, consider a platform with a free option to get started and learn the ins and outs.  As you begin to sell and you want more options you can easily upgrade into a premium plan.

Payment Processing Capabilities

• Do you have the freedom to set your own course prices?
• Does the platform support Stripe or PayPal for payment processing?
• Do you want the flexibility to offer coupons and payment plans to your students?

Which online course platform is really the best?

The best online course platforms are intuitive and designed to help you focus on course creation rather than figuring out how to set things up.

My picks for best platform are Kajabi and Thinkific depending on your needs.

• Kajabi is the best high-end platform to do EVERYTHING for you. It’s priced slightly higher than the others, but that’s because it comes with a bunch of built-in tools that you’d otherwise need to pay for separately. Kajabi includes email management, a marketing funnel builder, hosting, themes, a blog function, and a course marketplace.
• Thinkific is the best all-around platform with the most flexibility to customize your course. It also enables you to easily integrate with your preferred 3^rd party vendors like MailChimp, Zapier, and many more. It is one of the more affordable providers and has a quality free option to get you started.

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Best Free Online Course Software

Thinkific also happens to be my pick for the best free online course platform.  If you are new to selling courses or starting out on a budget, Thinkific has the best free option of all the platforms.  (Use this link to check out the free forever plan and this link to get a month free trial of the Pro plan which you can downgrade at any time)

Other platforms have free trials for a limited time, free with high transaction fees (Teachable), or free but 50% commission on sales (Udemy).  Thinkific is the only provider with a truly free, viable option to sell courses.

The main caveats of Thinkific’s free plan are that you are limited to 1 course and you cannot remove the Thinkific branding.  Though you can still add your own branding to both your course and your sales page.

When you see traction and your course starts to sell, you can easily upgrade your plan in order to offer more than 3 courses and get access to additional features.

How to Market Your Online Course

There are a variety of ways to promote your online course.  While I could devote an entire website to course marketing, here are just a few for now.

1. Do your research: One of the best forms of marketing starts before you even have a product or service ready to sell. It comes from careful planning, data and market analysis, and financial forecasting. Choosing the best online course niche to capitalize on trends and stand out from the competition is key to long term course marketing success.
2. Use your existing resources: This may seem obvious, but if you are lucky enough to already have an email list, social media following, or traffic to your website, then you can simply message your followers to let them know about your course.  You can also create blog posts and banner ads promoting your own course.
3. Enlist a team of affiliates: Affiliate marketing is when you find website owners in relevant niches and ask them to promote your course for a share of the profit. You get to decide what percent of the sales price is offered as a commission.
   

   Successful affiliate programs often give up 20-50% in commissions for sales they would not have gotten otherwise.

   All the platforms above come with built-in affiliate management tools to handle order tracking and payouts.

4. Offer coupons or time sensitive discounts: The course providers above each allow you to create coupon codes.  You can give these to folks on your email list as a special offer or send them to your affiliates to help them drive more orders.
5. Create sales funnels: Use sales funnel software like LeadPages, ClickFunnels, or Kajabi to nuture your prospective students with webinars, email drip series, free lead magnets, and tested sales page templates.  Student don’t always buy the first time they read about your course.  So you can increase your sales by engaging with them across multiple touch points to move them towards a sale.
6. Place paid ads on Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram: Consider making a brief video ad that leads to a longer course teaser on your sales page. Video is king these days and converts at a much higher rate than text or image ads.  In any case, start out with a small advertising budget and make sure you get your cost per acquisition down to your desired profit margin before increasing your ad spend.

p.s. If you need help with marketing or setting up a course platform, my marketing agency, Grant Spark can help.   We work closely with selected course creators to help them realize their vision.  To apply to work with us, send me, Geoff, an email (Geoff AT ddiy.co) with a brief summary of your course and your goals.

Online Course Platforms in 2023 and Beyond

It's fun to think about the future!

We've witnessed significant growth in the online learning market over the last couple of years. Here are some of our bold predictions for 2022 and the coming years:

1. Crypto Payments – With the cryptocurrency markets seeing significant growth in 2021, it's very likely that some of the top course platforms will look towards setting up payment methods that will accept coins like Bitcoin and Litecoin. We expect that students will be able to pay for a course using cryptocurrencies. We also wouldn't be surprised if course platforms start to look at providing payouts for course sales in crypto.
2. Amazon – Amazon is the king of all things ecommerce. It's kind of surprising that they haven't jumped all over enabling independent online course sales through their website. One possible reason that they haven't moved forward on it is quality control. Course creators have worked around this historically by turning their courses into a book or a physical product. I think that the online course market is becoming too big to ignore for Amazon. In 2022, they'll look to partner with some of the top course platforms to facilitate course sales through their site. This might start out small with top selling courses, but expand into an integration where course creators can link to an Amazon seller profile to publish their courses as products.
3. Artificial Intelligence – AI is being incorporated into virtually every industry. I don't see online course sales being an exception. There are tons of ways these platforms could explore using AI more. Some potential use cases include providing real-time support to common questions, making content suggestions to creators, natural language processing, and customized tutoring and learning personalization.
4. Freelancers – With the gig economy surging, we expect the use of freelance services to carry over into courses. Not only will freelancers be relied on for content creation, their skills will be valued from marketing savvy course creators. In 2022 and beyond, we see a number of course creators building teams of freelancers to more cost effectively scale their course sales businesses.
5. In-course Advertising – This idea comes from the world of podcasting. I've seen a number of popular creators effectively promote advertising partners in their content on YouTube and Spotify. This is a somewhat natural placement that can provide an additional revenue stream for creators. From my experience, I rarely see course creators promote partners within their courses. Top course platforms would be wise to look at finding a way to make it easy for course creators to advertise on their courses. Developing and implementing a program like Google AdSense, where course creators could quickly set up advertising relationship to passively collect revenue, would be a good way for software companies to build more user loyalty. It would also be another way for the course platforms to earn.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I setup my online course?

Course setup is very straightforward and intuitive on most platforms.  First outline your course and break it down into lessons and a curriculum.  Then upload videos or written content for each lesson.  Once done, you can brand the course with your logo and branding and then link to it from your website.  See our picks for the best online course platforms.

How long does it take to create an online course?

Setting up a course platform is the easy part and very intuitive.  If you are already an expert on a given topic, you can create a curriculum, record videos, and publish content in as little as a few days.  If you are researching a topic and want polished, professionally edited videos it could take you a few weeks or longer.

How much can you make selling online courses?

The sky is the limit.  The very best course providers make hundreds of thousands per month and it’s reasonable for many course providers to earn a few thousand per month.  Obviously, not everyone knocks it out of the park, but the nice thing about courses is you create them once and can sell them over and over again without any additional effort.

How do online courses make money?

You can sell your course for a one-time fee or use a recurring membership model.  Some people will even offer an introductory course for free and then upsell with consulting services or a second high cost course.

How much should I charge for an online course?

Your pricing will vary based on your niche as well as the amount of value you deliver.  People charge anywhere from free or $10 up to thousands of dollars per course.  Courses that show a return on investment like Internet marketing and professional skills typically earn the most.   But don’t be afraid to charge a premium and check what other courses in your niche are charging.

How can I setup online courses for free?

Some course platforms have free options to get you started.  These don’t come with all the bells and whistles, but are more than enough to see if you will get traction from your course before spending money.