Knowledge is the greatest gift that life has to offer. Without the knowledge we currently have, life would have been really really different and so is our way of life.
For most of human history, the way we learn and give knowledge has remained largely unchanged. This usually involves a teacher/student relationship or a master/apprentice relation. One mostly provides the instruction, while the other receives it.
Then there are those who learn by themselves. Self-study has become possible thanks to advances in writing and reading. With detailed instruction books, anyone can learn without the need for a teacher or master.
Then came the online revolution. While the popular opinion is that the advent of the internet revolutionized learning and education in general, it did not really change much except the way how people receive and consume information.
In my opinion, what the internet really did best was to democratize knowledge in a scale that had been unseen since the rise of instructional films and even the invention of the printing press even before that.
Teachers and teachers of the heart were able to share their knowledge via the internet to people they didn’t know. It enabled education and knowledge to cross borders without the need for visas or a flight ticket.
While most of it started on unlikely websites such as youtube and vimeo, or maybe even written blogs. We now have dedicated websites that allow people to teach courses.
For those of you who prefer a more visual experience, here is a video review from Legit Marketing Reviews’ YouTube channel. Do check out our article below, however, because it has a comprehensive overview of Podia.
Podia a Brief Overview Podia App Store
Podia allows users to share their knowledge online and make money. Podia customers create online courses that can be tailored to their students. They can then put these courses on the platform and sell them to their own customers.
In a way, Podia not only gives you tools to create an online course, it also hosts them.
Podia’s market is not limited to online courses. Podia is one of the most popular digital content selling platforms. These content could include the mentioned online courses. This content could include coaching, webinars and community as well as digital products.
Podia is headquartered in New York City. Additional offices are located in Austin, Texas. It is fairly new but somehow old by internet standards. It launched in 2014 and behind it is a guy named Spencer Fry.
Fry created a platform that would make it easier for online creators to market their products and to connect with their audience. He wanted the experience to be less hassle, but at the same time, provide these people with a welcoming and communal environment.
Podia, a website that is intuitive, powerful, and user-friendly, was created from scratch.
Why use Podia?
Despite the number of online platforms available on the internet, Podia still stands out especially due to its creator-friendly policies. Podia has a digital shopfront that allows for instant payment from sales and does not charge any transaction fees. Yes, podia does not charge any transaction fees.
Podia extends its creator-friendly policies in the way their platform works. With an intuitive and comprehensive platform, creatives are able to execute their great ideas and visions even if they lack the technical know-how.
Podia even makes it easy to navigate the hurdle of getting the digital content to the market.
Even for those who already have an established digital content, Podia is still a very viable platform to transfer to. Some digital platforms offer too many features and could be considered overkill. Although too many options might seem appealing at first glance, it can lead to overwhelming experiences.
This lack of focus may even be the cause of why your business is going into decline. That is why Podia’s simple and easy to get platform is a much better option. Podia App Store
Your membership site and your selling platform can be linked to each other through Podia’s website. This is preferable to most cases where the membership site is hosted separately from your product. Not only is this a hassle, it removes precious time that you can use to create.
Podia lets you focus more on the “creating side” of things than the business and logistics.
What Podia Can Do
Podia claims that they have everything you need to create, validate, and market online courses.
A Custom Website Builder
Their custom website builder enables users to create custom landing pages that suit what you ad your brand are selling. This custom website can be built by Podia with either a custom domain, or as a subdomain.
Thus, podia gives you the advantage of a more custom website or the simplicity of having everything all in one place.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
An Email Marketing System
Podia allows you to have an automated email marketing system that allows you to send one-time broadcasts, as well as automated campaigns. While you can avail of this service through other websites, the tool that Podia provides you is already enough.
You can save even more money by using the one Podia offers.
Their email editor is also very elegant. It even allows you to create automated sequences that are geared depending on the buyer.
A Live Messaging Widget
If you want to respond quickly to customers’ questions, live messaging is a great option. People nowadays want quick customer service. This widget allows you to communicate with customers instantly.
Capabilities of Affiliate Marketing Program
Affiliate marketing is important especially if you want to sell your products to a wider market. Podia users have the opportunity to take advantage of the platform’s capabilities. By using partner promotion, users can widen their audience as well as exponentially enhance the number of sales
Digital Storefronts
Of course, you won’t be able to show your products without a place to display them. A Digital Storefront also allows you to advertise the new or featured products in your website. Podia makes it possible to create an online store that only sells your products.
This storefront can be set up by any customer without the need for programming, programming, or design skills. Podia has a no-coding approach that allows you to do this.
Course Dashboard
For services like Podia, the way customers are able navigate their content is another crucial factor on which service they would like to avail. With Podia’s intuitive interface, it is easy to navigate these pages with just a few clicks.
Uploading and sharing your lessons, whether they are videos, audio podcasts or PDF documents, has never been easier.
Drip Content
Podia also gives you control on the schedule of your posting. Such a feature is especially important if you don’t want to blow your load of lessons at just a single opportunity.
Course creators have the option to “choose when they want to schedule their content”. This benefits both the student and the teacher (Main Podia customer) as this system allows the student to avoid being overwhelmed and burnt out of the course.
Automatic Drip Content means that the teacher doesn’t have to manually modify each post in order to add another lesson or create a product.
Payment Integrations
Without payment integration, every feature is useless. Podia’s payment integrations include credit cards, PayPal payments for customers worldwide. Podia App Store
Member Areas
Through Podia, you can create a membership area for your customers. A membership area is an option you can sell to your customers for a monthly or yearly fee where they get special and exclusive content in return. There are even giveaways you can host.
Membership areas are a great way of building customer trust and even a close community. It is a good idea to have a place you can set it up easily.
What is Podia like?
This review wouldn’t be complete if it didn’t give you a true picture of the service. We will be looking at Podia’s Course Creation and Engagement Section as well as Site Design and Customization and Sales and Marketing to see how they feel.
Course Creation and Engagement
We must first look at how Podia manages course creation. This is especially crucial as of course, this is the main reason why users would like to pay for the Podia Service.
You can create unlimited courses with Podia. This means that there is no limit and no additional fees whenever you feel offering a new course.
Podia supports text, embeds, quizzes, coaching and files for lessons. That said, Podia offers very few lesson types. It also lacks assessments, Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, HTML5 content types and custom codes.
However what it lacks, it can embed and Podia can embed a lot. Podia can embed on over 1900+ platforms. These include, but aren’t limited to:
- Youtube, vimeo, dailymotion for video content
- Spotify SoundCloud, and PodBean for Audio podcasts
- Speaker Deck, Slide Share, Presentation and Google Slides
- Twitter, TikTok and Behance.
- Github and Codepen
- Typeform, Paper Form, and Google Forms
Podia was designed to make it easy for students. They can guide themselves through your course with no problem at all. To make it more enjoyable, you can use your drip content and automated emails.
You can even add in a quiz and offer a certificate of completion to your students for completing a course. These features can be added or removed at your discretion.
Another thing to note is that courses are just the tip of the iceberg on what products you can feature in Podia. You can sell webinars, bundles and coaching as well as digital files.
You can make webinars and offer replays of the webinars to your customers by integrating multiple websites. You can even bundle them along with your courses to create a more comprehensive package.
Site Design and Customization
For your websites, Podia offers templates that allow you to get on the exciting part easily and quickly. This holds true for product landing pages as well.
As stated, creating your product website or your landing pages is quite easy. Each page is divided into a section wherein you can decide what to put in. These pages can be rearranged by simply dragging and dropping. The same goes for removing sections that are not needed.
Podia has a good selection of customization options. Podia offers both the basics of fonts and colors, as well as customizable text box options. But that’s not all you get. This is why there are a lot of people who think Podia can be a little restrictive when talking about design.
Podia must make this sacrifice in order to keep his website design page flexible and ready-to-use. Bear in mind, Podia’s site design page requires no coding. Drag and drop is all that’s required.
As for adding custom code they say it is available, but I haven’t found the option of where it is.
As stated above, Podia allows you to sell other stuff aside from courses. However, you need to have more than one digital product in the storefront for this feature to work. This is not a difficult task. Similar to how you design your websites, you can also do this for these products.
You can use the front page or landing page of your website to create sections that are unique for each product. That way, it is simple for your students and customers to navigate and buy what they need.
The checkout page for products is smart and simple. There is very little clutter. It is simple to convert every customer into a buyer because there are no distractions distracting their attention while they pay.
Overall, when it comes to customization, Podia offers a decent number of features. It provides only the essential things needed and thus, you have no worries of being overwhelmed by the options being presented.
Podia’s design offerings may feel restrictive to some but for non-techies, the simplicity is what they could ask for. Podia App Store
Marketing and Sales
Let’s lastly talk about Podia’s sales and marketing capabilities. This is also an important part of the Podia experience, or any course-creating platform in general as this gives you an idea how easy it is to sell to your potential customers.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
For the basics, Podia has two payment options you can use: Stripe or PayPal. You can offer your customers a flexible and customizable payment plan. Either you give them a lump sum payment, or spread it out over time.
This is entirely up to you.
Podia takes care of all aspects of payment processing so that you don’t have to worry. Stripe, a PCI compliant payment processor, securely stores your credit card and payment information.
Unlike other services, Podia offers no transaction fees. This means that the sale is yours and Podia doesn’t get any commission. You will still have to pay Stripe and PayPal fees. The same applies to all platforms.
Podia provides basic tools for lead generation. You can offer both a sign-up form for the pre-launch and a sign-up form for the newsletter to collect email addresses.
You can send both automated and one-off emails through their email marketing. This allows you to send email campaigns to your customers both current and potential.
You can even customize your campaign emails in a drip out fashion, and define when the emails will be sent.
But, they are very basic and cannot replace your email service provider.
A real landing page capability and list management are two things that are missing. These are two very important things, but they are essential for your email marketing platform. Luckily, you can use third party integration to remedy these problems.
Some third party email service providers that have native integration with Podia include MailChimp, ConvertKIt, Drip, Active Campaign, GetResponse, and MailerLite.
Zapier allows Podia to integrate with other email solutions, which allows podia users to share their data through this service.
Zapier also enhances Podia’s integration to reach some other useful third-party applications like FreshBooks and ClickFunnels. Third-party scripts can be added to your website. Like Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, ConvertBox, Deadline Funnel among others.
Customer Support
Podia has the best customer service in the industry. For any queries you can contact support by emailing them or using the small widget that allows you to reach support via live chat.
Other customers have noted Podia’s excellent support. The Podia team will usually respond within 5-10 minutes of you asking. This is provided you reach them during working hours. You can still contact them during work hours, but it may take longer to get a reply.
Podia also offers their own extensive knowledge library that can be used as a reference on how to do different things on the platform. If you feel like finding the answer to your question independently, you can use this resource at hand to do it themselves
Lastly, one of their favorite features is their free offer to migrate your customers and audiences if you are on one of their paid plans. They will move your content and your audience from any other platform to Podia at no cost. Podia App Store
Price
Price is an important aspect of any review. Price is a key factor that can make or break your decision about whether you want to use a service. In this case, Podia offers three types of plans: Mover ($39/mo), Shaker ($79/mo), Earthquaker($179/mo).
Prices can change from time-to-time. At the time this review was written, they were offering a discount on all plans. So visit the website to check out on their latest pricing.
Plan | Free ($0 per month) | Mover ($33 per month) |
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Plan | Shaker ($75 per month) | Earthquaker ($33 per month) |
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> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
At a quick glance, the Mover Plan can be enough for those just starting out. The Mover Plan by Podia could provide enough for even small-time creators.
The Shaker Plan offers the most value, as it includes everything in the Mover Plan and adds unlimited webinars and affiliates. As talked about earlier, these features are especially useful when talking about growing your business and such. Podia App Store
Meanwhile, the Earthquaker plan is something for those looking to go all out on their subscription. This plan is beneficial to most people who are interested in a larger business. The Earthquaker plan also gives you 100,000 community members.
All paid plans allow you to set up a custom domain and a matching logo for your Podia storefront.
Speaking of brands, the Shaker and Earthquaker plans allow you to remove the Podia branding from your products. This is not true with the Mover plan and your product will have that P branding that stands for Podai.
Important to remember is that Podia provides a free plan. However, it is very limited and unlike the paid plans, it takes an 8$ transaction fee from all your transactions.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Super easy to use and setup
- Instant payouts that does not make you wait to be paid
- It is affordable for the features it provides
- Offers great support no matter the customer tier
- Integrates email marketing
- This tool allows you to track the progress of your students
- Hosts both free and paid content
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Offers free migration of customers and products from other websites to Podia
Cons
- Most people find course builders rigid.
- Important learning tools are missing, such as graded quizzes, course compliance, and assignments.
- No mobile app feature
- Reporting tools are essential
- This is not the right platform for building a full-fledged website.
- Membership feature is only available in the Shaker PLan
- Email composer lacks personalization fields
- Adding team members and providing them with admin access can cost you $20 per month per admin team member.
The Verdict of Podia
We can now see what Podia can do and decide if it is worth the effort.
Podia continues to gain ground in e-learning despite all the competition. This is probably because of its less complicated and easy to use user interface.
Podia’s “rigid” and limited design is the most common complaint from customers. This feature is great for those with limited web design knowledge. Podia App Store
With the influx of people bringing their businesses online, an easy to get and easy to understand UI can bring the focus back to the “creation” part of content creation and less with dealing on the logistics and admin side.
Podia’s price is another highlight. This course-creation service is quite affordable compared to others. You can set up your website in a functional state with a cost of less than $50
Sure, there might be a limit to what it can do, but you can think of it this way. Podia’s Mover allows you to try the waters and get the hang of it. Sometimes simplicity is the best option. Too many features could be overkill and might overwhelm the user.
We should also pay attention to their customer service. With a customer service that responds quickly and efficiently to queries, it is easy to overlook the absence of a telephone number for assistance. They have people who will will answer your questions on the clock as long as its work hours.
Podia is a great service, especially for people who are just getting started with the internet. They have the basic necessities needed by someone to put up a successful website without overwhelming then.
I would highly recommend this site t
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Frequently Asked Questions
Podia App Store
Which Plan is the best option to get when I buy my Podia subscription?
The Shaker Plan is the best one to get.
At $79 per month, you can get most features with additional stuff that are not available at the Mover Tier. Affiliate marketing is possible, as well as the ability to integrate other apps and services such Zoom.
What are Podia’s payment plans?
Podia uses Stripe and Paypal to process payments.
Customers and students can pay by paypal, credit or debit card for products.
Podia: Why use it?
If you’re looking for an easy-to-use platform, Podia is the right choice.
Other reasons why you should choose podia over its competitors is because it takes no transaction fees. Furthermore, it has good and reliable customer service. Lastly, it is has a very low price point.
What products can you make using Podia?
You can create online courses with Podia.
You can also download community memberships, webinars, coaching, and other digital content.