My Honest Review of Teachable Online Course Platform

Before picking a platform to start selling online courses, read my review of Teachable.

I’ll share the pros and cons of the platform and compare it to the other top online course providers.

I’ll also discuss a big mistake to avoid when selling your first course.

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Teachable

• Best all-in-one platform; manage affiliates, upsells, email marketing
• Recommended Pro Plan has 0% transaction fee on course sales
• AI-driven tools to generate course outlines; great way to start a course

Get Started for Free

Is Teachable Worth It?

Teachable is absolutely worth it for anyone looking to create and sell online courses.

If you want your students to be able to access the course on their mobile devices, have EU VAT handled, or have a built-in email marketing tool, then you’re going to want to look at Teachable.

It’s free to get started and offers all the essential tools you need to build your course with ease. While it’s priced similarly to Thinkific, Teachable is more user-friendly, especially for beginners, and offers a great level of customization when setting up courses.

The built-in payment processing feature simplifies managing finances, making it easier to monetize your content without needing extra integrations.

Overall, Teachable provides everything you need to launch a course quickly and efficiently, especially with the help of AI tools.

What Makes Teachable Different than Other Providers?

Teachable features are geared towards new course creators:

1. It has an intuitive admin interface and AI course starter, which makes building your first course easy
2. It has a Free plan to get you started
3. Custom branding and built-in marketing tools

More on these below…

Let’s take a high-level look at Teachable and then we’ll dive into my review.

Teachable Overview

Teachable is probably the most well-known online course platform that you can use to create and sell courses and membership sites.  Teachable will provide a framework for everything you need to create and sell your course.

The site offers a user-friendly interface that requires little to no technical knowledge, making it accessible to creators and teachers of all levels.
Its intuitive drag-and-drop builder allows users to easily design and deliver online courses as well as AI-powered course building, while custom branding features help users personalize their online school.

Teachable also includes built-in marketing tools like sales pages, coupon codes, and affiliate programs, all integrated with seamless payment processing in-platform. While it offers basic community-building tools, users seeking advanced customization may need third-party integrations.

Teachable Pricing

Teachable has 3 price plans: $59, $159, and $249.  Of note, the Basic Plan ($59/mo.) charges a 5% transaction fee each time you make a sale which can add up quickly.

My pick for the best Teachable plan is the Pro plan for $159/month (or $119/month if paid annually).  This is the first Teachable plan with no transaction fees.

The Pro Plan comes with affiliate tools to help you sell your course and built-in course completion certificates, which only Thinkific also offers.

Get the full rundown on Teachable pricing plans here.

Is Teachable Legit?

Teachable is absolutely legit. With over 100,000 instructors by 2020, Teachable knows what it’s doing and takes its instructors’ needs to heart.

Who Should Use Teachable?

Anyone creating an online course that works on iOS or handles EU VAT should use Teachable. Its no-coding-required interface makes it simple to use without a huge learning curve.

Who Uses Teachable?

Teachable is used by over 68,000 course creators with big names like Pat Flynn (Smart Passive Income) and Carrie-Anne Moss (Annapurna Living).

But it’s not just for solo entrepreneurs, Enterprise users include The New York Times, Intuit, Shopify, Penn Law, and many more.

Teachable is accessed by over 32 million students and has generated over $500 million in sales.

Teachable Review – The Good & Bad

When I started looking into online course creation, I was initially drawn to Teachable for its ‘free' plan, only to discover that free still means a cut from your sales. This was my first lesson in the trade-offs of course platforms.

Despite that, Teachable is straightforward and beginner-friendly, offering the essentials without upfront fees, unlike other platforms that might not charge per sale but have their own set of costs and complexities.

From personal experience, I've found that while Teachable is a solid starting point due to its simplicity and ease of use, its limitations become apparent as you grow. Other platforms offer more customization and advanced tools, which becomes critical as you expand your course's reach.

The right platform choice evolves with your needs; what starts as a perfect fit with Teachable might lead you to explore other options for more control and growth potential down the line.

Pros: Here’s what I like about Teachable

• Teachable Payments is a built-in payment processing option so you don’t need to get a separate Stripe or PayPal account.
• Teachable's built-in email marketing tool lets you message students when events occur like enrolling or completing a course.
• Course completion certificates are offered on the Professional plan and up (many providers do not offer this or require you to pay a 3^rd party).
• Your course can be accessed from the Teachable iOS app.
• You can offer students payment options like a monthly payment plan for more expensive courses.
• You can offer a monthly recurring subscription for ongoing access to a course in a membership model.
• Teachable will handle EU VAT for you.
• There is a free option.
• AI-powered course starter to jumpstart your course creation makes it super easy.
  • Check out some other AI tools you can use with Teachable >>
• Membership options to offer your students to increase revenue.

Cons: Here are the only things I don’t like about Teachable

• There’s not as many course and site customization options as some of the other platforms.
• The Basic plan has a 5% transaction fee. (no transaction fees starting on the Professional Plan).
• You would need to use a 3^rd party platform (like ClickFunnels or LeadPages) for a sales funnel builder.
• There is no phone support.
• No course marketplace.

Review of Teachable’s Best Features

I first started this review by explaining that Teachable was focused on helping new course creators. Let me expand:

1 – Teachable’s intuitive interface

Teachable has a straightforward admin panel which makes building your first course easy. Teachable’s navigation is clean with only the most important customization features. Some other course platforms have so many customization features that a newbie can get a little lost.

These features include a no-code builder that requires no coding experience to create your course. It couldn’t be easier. You just need to drag and drop to easily format your course in a way that makes learning easy for your students.

They also offer a site-building tool that you can use to create your own site for students to learn more and see what else your business has to offer.

2 – Teachable’s payment processing

The Teachable platform comes with built-in payment processing through Teachable Payments. This saves you the trouble of having to get an account with a 3rd party payment processor and then configure it within the platform.

Teachable Payments fees are comparable to industry standards, Stripe and PayPal at 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction. The only caveat is that Teachable charges a 25-cent fee for each payout, which is negligible if you get your payouts once or twice a month.

3 – Coaching Options

Teachable's coaching option, which is available to all paid Teachable members, is a wonderful feature for solo entrepreneurs that are looking to earn money by selling digital coaching services online.

It provides coaches with an easy way to set up a sales page and intake forms. There is also a 1:1 coaching space where users can schedule coaching sessions and communicate with you directly, which eliminates email and a lot of back and forth.

There are also a ton of other scheduling and video conference tool integrations.

4 – Circle.so Integration

Teachable recently released a new integration with Circle.so, which offers a simple and intuitive community platform, designed to foster engagement and build relationships. You can create a free community to build a brand and generate new leads with Circle.so.

In addition, you can create community space specifically for your cohort-based course to drive course discussions and accountability. With Teachable's Circle.so integration, you can create a free or paid stand alone community.

You can also create a community that connects to your courses.

5 – Marketing Tools

Teachable also offers a full menu of marketing tools to help course creators drive up demand and get the word out about their courses.

These include:

• Subscriptions- Use their subscription pricing model to give students access to your content as long as they continue to pay a recurring fee.
• Bundles- Bundle your online course, coaching, and products to create better value for your students and increase revenue.
• Affiliate marketing- Teachable offers affiliate marketing services to support you every step of the way by helping to screen and onboard affiliates, manage commission settings, process payments, and even take care of commission tax reporting.
• Upsells- Once students purchase courses, they make it easy to upgrade their subscription or purchase with just one click, making upselling easy
• Referrals-  Generate unique links to make it easy for students to share your course with their peers.

6 – Teachable AI Tools

Teachable also harnesses the power of AI to make course creation and teaching students easier than ever.

Check out some of the AI tools Teachable offers to customers:

• AI Curriculum Generator- To help with class planning and structure.
• AI Quiz Generator- Create quizzes to boost student engagement and make sure your students are learning easily with the AI quiz generator.
• AI Summary Generator- Create content summaries of lessons for students to revisit the main themes of each lesson.
• AI Subtitles and Translations- For videos and content to make your course more accessible to every student.
• AI Lesson Writing Assistant- Make writing lessons easier with the writing assistant built into the text block.

Teachable Support

Teachable’s customer support is phenomenal, and I can speak from experience. I reached out because I was curious about how companies can buy multiple seats for a course and how I could achieve that, and they were super quick to respond with a solution.

A few of the other customer support solutions they offer include:

• teachable:u online courses- A catalog of mini-courses to help with everything from course creation to marketing.
• Product Webinars- That teach course creators how to use new products and features on Teachable.
• Teachable:rewards- To further incentivize you for every sale you make as an instructor.
• Launch Accelerator Challenge- A proven program to help you launch a course in 30 days or less.
• Live Chat- For creators with the Pro, Pro Plus, and Business plans, use live chat support to get answers fast.
• Guides and How-tos- A full library of downloadable workbooks, ebooks, case studies, and more to help build and grow your business.

Teachable Integrations

To keep everything streamlined and in one place, Teachable also offers a full suite of integrations, including:

• Email service providers: Including AWeber, ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit, Mailerlite, and MailChimp. You can also integrate other email service providers using Zapier or the Teachable API.
• Zapier: Connect Teachable with thousands of other apps, including marketing automation tools, email service providers, and team communication tools.
• Zoom: Start a Zoom meeting directly from your Teachable dashboard.
• Circle: Integrate your Teachable course with Circle so students and clients can log in and access your Circle space with a single sign-on.
• Make: Access eLearning content from Teachable Academy with Make.
• MemberPress: Build membership sites and monetize your content with MemberPress.
• Amazon Payments: Add your Amazon customers to your contact list to send them offers and information about your products.

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Teachable

• Best all-in-one platform; manage affiliates, upsells, email marketing
• Recommended Pro Plan has 0% transaction fee on course sales
• AI-driven tools to generate course outlines; great way to start a course

Get Started for Free

Alternatives to Teachable

We've analyzed dozens of the best online course platforms and made a shortlist of the top Teachable competitors.

• Thinkific – Read our full review
• Kajabi – Read our full review and compare Kajabi vs Teachable
• Learndash – Read our full review
• Podia – Read our full review
• Udemy – Read our full review

Avoid This Mistake When Starting to Sell Courses

As you probably know, creating and selling online courses is one of the easiest ways to build a large passive income stream. If you’ve got a great idea, you may be tempted to dive head-first into a course and spend a ton of time and money on content creation, video production, and platform fees.

I’m excited about selling courses, too, and would be the last person to discourage other entrepreneurs. However, if this is your first foray into course production, I’d suggest testing the waters and seeing if there is a market for your course.

Before investing months building out a course, set up a mini-course in your niche. Pick one topic or chapter of your master course and use that for your mini-course. You can offer this for free or a nominal fee.

You can use your existing audience, social media followers, or paid ads to find students.

At the end of the mini-course, add a survey and ask students what could be improved and what topics interest them. This way, you can tailor your full course to match the topics your students really want to know about. Be sure to collect email addresses so you can notify those students when your full course is released and hit the ground running with course sales.

Also Read: What to do when your course is stolen (our guide to fighting course pirates)

Teachable Pros + Cons Video

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Teachable legit?

Yes, Teachable is a legitimate company. It was founded in 2014 by Ankur Nagpal and has over 170 employees serving over 70,000 course creators.

Is Teachable mobile friendly?

Yes, Teachable courses are fully mobile responsive and render well on any phone, tablet, or computer.

Who uses Teachable?

Teachable is used by tens of thousands of individual course creators like Pat Flynn as well as big companies like The New York Times, Shopify, and Penn Law.

Does Teachable have a free plan?

Teachable does not have a free plan.

Does Teachable charge transaction fees?

Yes, Teachable has a 5% transaction fee on their Basic plan.  The Professional and Business plans do not have transaction fees.

How do teachable payments work?

Teachable Payments is Teachable’s payment gateway to allow credit card transactions.  It allows for faster payouts which are paid out directly to your bank account via Stripe.  You enable Teachable Payments and select a payout schedule (daily, weekly, or monthly) when you are setting up your school.

Is Teachable an LMS?

Yes, Teachable is a web-based learning management system (LMS).  LMS software is used to provide training courses and educational content in both written and video format.

Is Thinkific better than Teachable?

Both Teachable and Teachable are leading providers of course software.  The main difference between the two platforms is that Teachable has more customization tools and better pricing options for course creators.

Where is Teachable located?

Teachable headquarters in New York, NY.