Looking to build, market, and sell online courses in 2024 or 2024? You’re in the right place. In this comprehensive guide, we compare the top 15 online course platforms to help you find the right fit for your teaching goals and business needs.
We’ve tested and reviewed all the leading options—both online course platforms where you build your own website, and online learning platforms that let you tap into their student marketplace.
You’ll find key details on features, capabilities, positives, negatives, and pricing for each platform, along with expert insights on the online course industry trends to help guide your decision. Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned course creator, read on to discover your best match!
Key Online Course Industry Trends and Insights for 2024/2024
Before we dive into the platform comparison, let’s look at a few of the key trends shaping the online course market right now:
- Continued high growth – The online course industry shows no signs of slowing down. Revenues grew over 15% to $31 billion in 2022 and are on track to top $38 billion by 2025 according to HolonIQ.
- Increasing specialization – Course topics are becoming more specialized as creators identify unique sub-niches. Think transition courses for military veterans, apps to learn regional dialects, etc.
- More credentials and certification – Platforms are partnering with universities and certification bodies to back courses with official credentials, badges, and designations.
- New built-in capabilities – Platforms continue enhancing native features for video, community forums, assessments, gamification, and more so less third-party integration is needed.
- Rise of cohort-based courses – Grouping students into a shared schedule is becoming more popular for building engagement and completion rates.
These are just a few of the shifts happening right now that course creators should factor into platform selection and course development strategies.
Now let’s look at how the top options compare across essential criteria like features, support, ease of use, and cost.
Online Course Platforms Compared
First we’ll cover dedicated online course platforms. These let you build your own branded website to host and sell your courses directly to students. This gives you full control and ownership without relying on a third-party marketplace.
#1 – Thinkific
Thinkific remains an editor‘s choice as the best online course platform overall for creators wanting maximum capability packaged into a highly intuitive interface.
Key Features
- Course builder – Easy drag and drop course constructor with templates for all course types.
- Communities – Build exclusive membership areas and forums to foster student connections.
- Live streaming – Host interactive video lessons and webinars.
- Assessments – Quizzes, assignments, certificates, etc. to test knowledge.
- Media support – Video, PDFs, SCORM, audio, images, you name it.
- Ecommerce – Integrated checkout, coupons, bundles, taxes, and more.
- App integrations – Connect 80+ apps to extend functionality like email marketing and surveys.
Thinkific empowers creators to build polished, feature-rich online courses and membership sites quickly with no technical skills needed. You get all the sales, marketing, and student management tools built-in too.
Between the community forums, rewards system, cohorts, and other engagement features it’s easy to create a thriving student ecosystem that drives satisfaction and referrals.
For those needing advanced customization, there’s also a site developer toolkit to tweak HTML, CSS, etc. Expert support reps can lend a hand as well.
While most competing platforms charge transaction fees, Thinkific offers a free plan with core features and no hidden costs. Their premium tiers unlock more capability and better value at higher usage levels.
Pricing
Free plan available. Paid plans start at $49/month billed annually. Volume discounts available.
Try Thinkific risk-free: www.thinkific.com
#2 – Podia
Podia earns our vote as the best all-in-one online course platform for creators wanting to sell more than just courses from their website.
Use Podia as your unified hub to build, market, and sell online courses, memberships, downloads, webinars, and coaching services from one platform.
Key Features
- No code course builder
- Membership site capabilities
- Email marketing integrations
- Affiliate marketing system
- Landing page and funnel builder
- Unlimited video hosting
- Student messaging system
Podia essentially operates as an easy-to-use CMS, LMS, email marketing platform, and ecommerce solution all rolled into one.
Even with extensive built-in features, they still connect with over 1,000 external apps too in areas like email, payments, analytics, etc.
Their focus lies in enabling creators to own the full customer lifecycle from attracting visitors to enrollments to ongoing community management and retention. Robust course progress tracking and communication options help nurture students post-purchase too.
Streamlined checkouts, flexible payment options, coupons, global tax calculations, and split payments further optimize monetization with no hidden fees.
For those needing help, Podia provides stellar customer support and an engaged online community to learn from.
Between the frictionless interface, breadth of revenue streams, and built-in growth tools, Podia makes an excellent choice for first-time course creators and established teachers alike looking to consolidate systems.
Pricing
Free plan available. Paid plans from $39/month with volume discounts available. No transaction fees.
Start with Podia free: www.podia.com
#3 – Teachable
With over 100,000 online academies powered to date, Teachable stands out as another superb platform pick if you value design flexibility and global audience reach.
Key Features
- Custom brand positioning
- 35+ payment gateway integrations
- Native Spanish site translation
- Certificates and achievement badges
- Power Editor – HTML code access
- Built-in affiliate management
- Mobile learning app
Teachable enables creators to build polished online courses bolstered by strong customization capabilities for crafting a unique brand identity.
The built-in course creator fits beginners and experts alike with a simple drag and drop interface plus advanced HTML editor access.
Robust ecommerce functionalities like coupons, bundles, order bumps, drip content delivery, and global payment options optimize monetization and cart conversion.
We also appreciate Teachable’s dedicated mobile app allowing students to access courses on the go. Responsiveness across devices remains critical as research shows 42% of course participation happens on phones.
For post-purchase student management, you can track progress, enforce prerequisites, offer reset passes, and export gradebooks.
While top-notch platform architecture does come at a higher cost, zero transaction fees and potent selling tools help maximize customer lifetime value. We think Teachable Pro presents nice value for serious course entrepreneurs.
Pricing
Free plan available. Pro plan starts at $59/month billed annually.
Try Teachable free: teachable.com
#4 – Kajabi
Kajabi caters uniquely to “knowledge entrepreneurs” selling info products like online courses, memberships, and coaching.
We recommend Kajabi to service-based business owners also selling knowledge to smooth delivery and minimize admin.
Key Features
- Product templates galore
- All-in-one CRM
- Email marketing built-in
- Automated webinar capabilities
- Membership site options
- Built-in affiliate program
- Sales funnel blueprints
Kajabi truly consolidates a stacked array of systems course creators need into one platform. This helps minimize tedious software hopping.
Product and pipeline templates accelerate getting courses, offers, and sales processes online by handling the technical setup for you.
Robust membership site capabilities also enable packaging online courses, communities, and premium content within recurring access levels.
For post-purchase engagement, Kajabi’s classroom insights reveal student interactions, completion rates, and pain points to improve curriculum and retention.
The integrated affiliate program also incentivizes students to promote your offerings for recurring passive income streams.
While Kajabi lacks a free tier, a 14-day free trial provides adequate exposure before committing. Stellar infrastructure and support teams further bolster the value.
Do note monthly subscriber caps on lower-priced plans could limit scale. But the platform otherwise hits the mark for simplified knowledge selling.
Pricing
Plans from $119/month billed annually. Free 14-day trial.
Test Kajabi free: new.kajabi.com
Online Learning Platforms Compared
Next let‘s discuss leading online learning platforms. These act as marketplaces allowing you to list your courses alongside other sellers to access student audiences already actively looking there.
#5 – Udemy
With 49 million students served, Udemy stands tall as the world’s largest online course marketplace in terms of sheer volume and selection.
We suggest Udemy particularly for dipping a toe into online teaching without managing a full-blown course website. Exposure to millions of searchers provides nice upside too.
Key Features
- 49+ million student marketplace
- Lead generation tools showing topic demand
- Platform marketing support
- Performance tracking insights
Udemy essentially handles the heavy lifting of attracting and enrolling students so creators can focus strictly on quality content production. Useful lead generation tools even identify topics aligned to learner searches.
You retain leeway setting course prices while Udemy markets offerings across its channels to registered students. Performance dashboards also reveal key engagement metrics like completion rates to optimize curriculum.
The sheer breadth of course topics and students enables niched subjects to still find buyers interested in their specialty. Scale certainly brings choice.
As a trade-off however, Udemy’s revenue share model grants them a rather high cut of each sale. So ensure your margins remain worthwhile factoring their fees in.
Strict content guidelines and right to remove low-performing courses also means you relinquish some control. But for convenient global distribution with speed, Udemy exchanges fair value.
Pricing
Free to create and list courses. Udemy takes a 63% revenue share on marketplace sales.
Try Udemy as an instructor: www.udemy.com
#6 – Skillshare
Skillshare offers a unique online learning platform catering predominantly to arts and design topics. We recommend Skillshare specifically for creators with creative flair looking to monetize hobby skills.
Key Features
- 83% of content creative-focused
- Robust interaction features
- Generous referral bonuses
- 7 million strong student base
Skillshare captures a massive community centered around creative skills like illustration, photography, even gardening. So it could prove quite engaging for artistic teachers.
You earn based on how long students view your courses vs. a set tuition rate. But some top instructors make over $100k annually showing nice upside.
Do budget ample time to build watch hours though. Consistent publishing helps. Engaging course projects for application cement skills learned too.
While producing video-based content occupies additional effort than simple information products, Skillshare helps instructors curious to profit from fun hobbies or artistic abilities.
Pricing
Free to create and list video courses. Skillshare takes 30% of membership revenue distributed by watch time.
Try Skillshare as a teacher: www.skillshare.com
Choosing the Best Online Course Platform For You
Wondering how to select the ideal online course platform from the crowded field? Here are key criteria to consider when evaluating options:
Course Features
Ensure core functionality like multimedia uploads, assessments, and community forums align to the learning experience you aim to create. Complex courses need more robust features.
Ease of Use
The platform should allow you to create professional online courses without heavy technical skills through pre-made templates and drag-drop workflows.
Customization
While pre-designed themes enable faster launch, customized design and branding build authenticity so evaluate both template quality and edits allowed.
Cost
Factor both subscription fees AND potential transaction fees into pricing models. Monthly costs offer more flexibility but annual subscriptions enable better value at scale.
There’s no one-size-fits all best course platform given unique teacher goals. Carefully weigh the pros and cons against your own priorities and business model to make the smartest choice.
At the end of the day, the best platform FOR YOU depends on your technical prowess, target audience, course topic, and monetization strategy.
Teach Online Successfully With the Right Platform Pick
We hope this guides you to the best online course platform option encouraging your teaching dreams for 2024/2024 and beyond!
Remember, today’s learners show strong demand for specialized knowledge across nearly every interest. So don’t doubt that an audience exists eager to buy whatever exclusive skills or expertise you offer.
The platforms above help smooth technical complexity so you can fully focus on creating stellar curriculum and serving students.
Once your backend infrastructure is in place, shift energy to course content and student satisfaction. Craft engaging lectures, foster community, respond promptly to questions, and the rest should unfold organically!
Here‘s to educators like you changing lives and democratizing access to education through incredible online courses!
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