What is Teachable?
Teachable is an online platform designed to allow individuals and businesses to create, host, and sell online courses.
It offers comprehensive tools for course design, including quiz modules, videos, and other forms of interactive content.
Teachable also enables enrollment and payment management, providing an integrated solution for course creators who want to market their expertise and skills.
Founded in 2014, it has become a popular service of choice among educators, trainers, and entrepreneurs seeking to extend their educational and commercial reach on the internet.
Who is Teachable for?
If you want to create an online curriculum, build an online school, or offer coaching services, this platform, which is used by thousands of business models and millions of students around the world, could be right for you:
- Self-employed: As an online entrepreneur, you will be in a position to reach customers around the world with your educational courses.
- Small Businesses: This simple but powerful, no-code software is perfect for small businesses on a budget, as well as for people with limited technical knowledge.
- Large Businesses: Teachable is a great way for larger businesses to organize employee training and onboarding.
- Educational institutions: This platform allows you to create an amazing and fully functional school website.
- Nonprofits: Get your message across to your donors, volunteers, and other stakeholders with the powerful features of this software.
As you can see, Teachable is perfect for everyone, from content creators and bloggers to industry professionals and even hobbyists.
Features
Whether you want to create online courses, webinars, or offer coaching, Teachable has all the features you need to get started.
Below on the page of this article, an overview of some of the main functionalities of platforms for creating online courses is provided:
1. Easy Course Creation
Create engaging courses with ease on Teachable, a platform designed for modern instructors.
- Easy download: Easily import a variety of file formats like videos, PDFs, and spreadsheets.
- Cloud Storage Integrations: Synchronize with a service like Google Drive or Dropbox for centralized content management.
The course creation feature on Teachable is intuitive, ideal for trainers of all technical levels, combining simplicity and versatility.
2. Custom domain
Build your personal brand by connecting a custom domain name to Teachable.
- Easy integration: Link your existing domain to Teachable for a consistent brand experience.
- Brand Building: Use your own domain to improve brand recognition and audience trust.
The custom domain option on Teachable is a strategic asset for those looking to establish a strong and recognizable online presence.
3. Sales pages
Create effective and engaging sales pages for your course settings on Teachable.
- Intuitive editor: Use a flexible editor to design engaging sales pages.
- Conversion Optimization: Optimized pages to increase conversion rates and boost sales.
Teachable offers powerful tools for creating sales pages that capture attention and prompt contacts to action, which are essential for succeeding in selling online courses.
4. Payment options
Facilitate transactions with Teachable's diverse payment options.
- Varied Payment Methods: Accept payments via cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal.
- International payments: Accept payments in over 130 currencies, expanding your global reach.
Teachable excels in payment flexibility, allowing for global reach and improved user experiences for your online courses.
5. Affiliate marketing
Extend your marketing for your courses by taking advantage of affiliate marketing on Teachable.
- Affiliate Management: Easily recruit and manage affiliates to promote your courses.
- Automated Payment System: Manage affiliate payments in a centralized and transparent manner.
Teachable simplifies affiliate marketing, a crucial channel for increasing the visibility and sales of your courses.
6. Effective Student Management
Give your students a great learning experience on Teachable.
- Engagement Tools: Use surveys and forms to gather feedback and improve student engagement.
- Direct Communication: Establish smooth communication with students through integrated messaging, increasing interaction and support.
Teachable provides effective student management tools that are essential for maintaining a high-quality and personalized learning experience.
7. Various integrations
Maximize the reach and effectiveness of your online courses with the range of integrations offered by Teachable.
- Enriched Student Experience: Integration with tools like Zoom and Google Sheets for an interactive learning experience.
- Sales and Marketing Tools: Link with platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot to optimize sales management and marketing.
Teachable integrations allow for deep course management and customization, tailored to the modern needs of content creators.
8. Advanced Analytics and Reporting
Get valuable insights into course performance every time with Teachable's analysis tools and report publishing capabilities.
- Comprehensive dashboard: Monitor sales, enrollment, and student engagement from a centralized dashboard.
- Integrated Analytical Tools: Take advantage of integration with Google Analytics for detailed analyses of your audience and course performance.
Teachable's analytics capabilities are a major asset for creators, offering valuable data to constantly refine and improve their course offerings.
9. Course Certificates
Increase contact and student satisfaction with Teachable's certificate creation feature, giving conferences tangible recognition for their achievements.
- Customizing Certificates: Create unique certificates with customization options to reflect your brand and course content.
- Automated Issuance: Set up the automatic issuance of certificates at the end of courses, offering instant gratification to students.
- Teachable's certification tool adds significant value to courses, increasing student satisfaction and motivation, while strengthening the credibility of the courses offered.
Customer Support
Teachable provides award-winning support for creators and businesses.
You can get help in a number of ways, including:
- Email/Customer Help: The platform has a helpful and responsible customer support team that you can reach by email and who will help you find solutions to all of your problems. Emails are generally processed within 24 hours on the site.
- LiveChat: This feature makes it easy for you to get help while working on your online course, without having to leave the site.
- Knowledge Base and FAQ: Here you'll find a ton of high value-added guides that will help you get from idea to execution very quickly, so you can start selling online quickly. There are also a ton of articles on troubleshooting, which can save you the hassle of emailing the support team.
- Online training: Teachable offers tutorials on every aspect of the process of creating and selling online courses. With paid plans, you also have access to Teachable U, where you'll find a vast collection of live and recorded webinars, online lessons, videos, documentation, and a variety of other resources to help you on your online course creation journey.
- Blog: On Teachable, you'll find a helpful blog filled with tons of articles, best practices, tips, and tricks for getting the most out of this platform.
- Community: There is also a forum with a large community of users who are always there to help new users answer their questions or queries.
Suffice it to say that on this platform, you will find all the help you need to start as a founder, become an innovator, and evolve to become a recognized leader and expert in your field.
Pricing
Teachable's pricing options are designed to adapt to the growth of your online education business.
Whether you're starting out with a small number of student contacts or managing a large community of learners, Teachable offers a pricing structure that evolves according to your needs.
Free plan: $0/month
- Unlimited students, courses, product bundles, coaching services
- $1 + 10% per transaction
- Instant payments, basic quizzes, third party integration
Basic Plan: $39/month
- 5% fee per transaction
- 2 administrators, members-only community
- Custom domains, coupons, email marketing
Pro plan: $119/month
- No transaction fees
- 5 administrators, priority support
- Rated quizzes, unbranded site, advanced reports
Business Plan: $299/month
- 20 administrators, group registrations
- Advanced customization, custom user roles
Teachable offers great flexibility with its various pricing plans, making the platform accessible to a wide range of course creators. The free plan is great for beginners or those who are testing the waters of online education, while the paid plans offer more features and a better user experience, but at a higher cost. For power users and businesses, Pro and Business plans offer advanced features and superior support, although cost can be a barrier for smaller entrepreneurs.
Alternatives to Teachable
1. Thinkific
Thinkific is a platform for creating and selling online courses. It is designed to provide a personalized learning experience for trainers and learners.
Features
- Intuitive Course Creation: Drag and drop to create courses with videos, quizzes, and surveys.
- Sales Pages and Landing Pages: Tools for building engaging sales pages.
- Integrations and Automations: Integration with marketing tools like Mailchimp and Zapier.
Pricing
- Free: €0/month, offers basic features.
- Basic: Around €39/month, includes email marketing tools and coupons.
- Pro: Around €79/month, offers advanced options like certificates and API integrations.
Thinkific is a solid solution for content creators looking to provide a rich and interactive learning experience. Its user interface is user-friendly, although some advanced features may require a more expensive subscription.
SEE MORE: Try Thinkific Now
2. Podia
Podia is an all-in-one platform for selling online courses, memberships, and digital products. It is ideal for independent creators and small businesses.
Features
- Easy to create and sell: Create and sell courses, webinars, and digital products.
- Marketing and Messaging Tools: Email marketing and live chat to engage students.
- No Transaction Fees: Podia does not charge fees on your sales.
Pricing
- Mover: Approximately €39/month, includes the sale of courses and digital products.
- Shaker: Around €79/month, offers additional features like subscriptions and webinars.
- Earthquaker: Customized pricing for advanced needs.
Podia is a flexible and affordable option for those looking for a simple platform to sell directly to their audience. Its built-in marketing features are a plus, although the customization options are somewhat limited.
SEE MORE: Try Podia now
3. LearnDash
LearnDash is an LMS (Learning Management System) plugin for WordPress, ideal for creating and managing online course classes on your own website.
Features
- Full WordPress integration: Integrates perfectly with your existing WordPress site.
- Advanced Educational Tools: Quizzes, assignments, assignments, certifications, and detailed reporting.
- Flexibility and Personalization: Fully personalize your online learning experience.
Pricing
- Basic: Around €159/year for a site, with support and updates.
- Plus Package: Around €189/year for up to 10 sites, with additional add-ons.
- Pro Package: Around €329/year for up to 25 sites, with all features.
LearnDash is a perfect tool for those who want total control over their online learning experience and are comfortable using WordPress. It offers great flexibility but requires a certain technical expertise to be fully exploited.
SEE MORE: Try LearnDash Now
FAQs
What percentage does Teachable take?
Teachable charges a transaction fee of 10% on the free plan and 5% on the basic plan. On the other hand, there are no transaction fees on the Pro or Business plans.
Can you use Zoom on Teachable?
While Teachable doesn't have a built-in Zoom integration, you can connect the two using Zapier.
Final Verdict
Teachable excels in the simplicity and ease of use in creating online courses, ideal for non-techies.
It offers managed maintenance and updates, but at a higher cost compared to open-source solutions like WordPress with an LMS plugin. Although limited in flexibility and customization, for standard courses based on text, images, or videos, Teachable is a very convenient option.
However, if the budget is tight or if more advanced features are needed, a self-hosted WordPress website with LearnDash or LifterLMS would be a better alternative.