Knowledge is the greatest gift that life has to offer. Life would not be the same without the knowledge that we have today.
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. The one who receives the instruction is the most likely to be the teacher.
Then there are those who learn by themselves. Self-study has become possible thanks to advances in writing and reading. WIth detailed instructional books, it became possible for people from all walks of life to gain knowledge without a teacher or a 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. Now, we have dedicated websites that act as a platform for 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. To get a comprehensive overview of Podia, you may still want to check out our article below.
Podia a Brief Overview Podia Email Marketing
Podia allows users to share their knowledge online and make money. Basically, Podia customers make online courses that they can tailor to their students. These courses can be put on the platform by customers and sold to them.
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. It could also be coaching, webinars, community, as well as other digital products.
Podia is headquartered in New York City. It has additional offices also 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. Fry wanted it to be easier, but also provide a friendly and welcoming environment for people.
Podia, a website that is intuitive, powerful, and user-friendly, was created from scratch.
Why use Podia?
Podia is a standout among the many online platforms, mainly because of 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’s platform is designed to be creator-friendly. 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. Other digital platforms can offer too many features that could be considered as an overkill. Too many options may look fine at first, however it could lead to an overwhelming experience.
This lack of focus may even be the cause of why your business is going into decline. Podia’s easy-to-use platform is an excellent choice. Podia Email Marketing
Your membership site and your selling platform can be linked to each other through Podia’s website. This is much better than if your membership site is hosted separately from the product. This is not only a hassle but it also takes away valuable time that you could have spent creating.
In short, using Podia allows you to focus on the “creating” side of things rather than the logistics and business side.
What Podia Can Do
Podia promotes themselves as ” Everything you need to know about creating, validating, and marketing online courses, all in one convenient place.” As such, to be able to back this claim, the platform has a bunch of features geared exactly for that.
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 lets you have an automated email marketing platform that allows for both one-time broadcasts and 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. You can even create automated sequences that are tailored to the buyer.
A Live Messaging Widget
If you want to respond quickly to customers’ questions, live messaging is a great option. Quick customer service is something that most people look for nowadays. WIth this live messaging widget, you are able to provide just that.
Capabilities of Affiliate Marketing Program
Affiliate marketing is important especially if you want to sell your products to a wider market. Podia users can take advantage of the capabilities afforded by the platform. Users can increase their reach and sales by using partner promotion.
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. It’s all thanks to the no coding approach implemented by Podia.
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.
Putting up and uploading your lessons be it videos, audio podcasts, PDF document downloads, ebooks and more, have never been this easy.
Drip Content
Podia also gives you control on the schedule of your posting. This is particularly important if you don’t want to take on too many lessons at once.
With the drip content feature, course creators can “choose to schedule their content” at a more manageable time. This system benefits both the teacher and student (Main Podia customer), as it allows students to stay focused and not get overwhelmed.
Meanwhile with automatic Drip Content, the teacher does not need to manually update each post to give another lesson or release another product.
Payment Integrations
Without payment integration, every feature is useless. Podia offers payment integrations that allow customers to pay with credit cards and PayPal worldwide. Podia Email Marketing
Membership Areas
You can set up a membership area through Podia. 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. You can even host giveaways there.
Membership Areas are also a great way to build customer trust and even a tight community, so having a prepared place where you can easily set it up is surely a welcome one.
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.
For course creation, you can create an unlimited number of courses on Podia. There is no limit to the number of courses you can create on Podia.
As for the lessons proper, Podia allows text, embed, quiz, coaching, and files. Podia has very few lesson types. It also lacks assessments, Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, HTML5 content types and custom codes.
It can embed, but it has a few limitations. Podia can embed lots. In fact, there are over 1900+ platforms where Podia can embed from. These include, but aren’t limited to:
- Youtube, vimeo, dailymotion for video content
- Spotify SoundCloud, and PodBean for Audio podcasts
- Slide Share, Presentation, and Speaker Deck
- 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. Of course, these features are optional.
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.
By integrating the multiple websites mentioned above, you can create webinars as well as replay of these webinars to your customers. To make a complete package, you can also bundle them with your courses.
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. You can choose what you want to include on each page. You can even rearrange these pages just by dragging and dropping. You can also remove sections that you don’t need.
For customization, Podia offers a decent amount of options. You get the basic stuff of fonts and colors as well as customizable text boxes. But that’s not all you get. Many people think that Podia can be too restrictive when it comes to design.
That said, it seems this is what Podia has to sacrifice to maintain a ready to use and flexible website creator. Bear in mind, Podia’s site design page requires no coding. Drag and drop is all that’s required.
They say that custom code can be added, but I have not found the location.
Podia lets you sell other things, in addition to courses. This feature requires that you have at least one digital product on your storefront. This is not a difficult task. You can do the same for these products like how you designed your websites.
You can use the front page or landing page of your website to create sections that are unique for each product. This makes it easy for customers and students to find what they are looking for and allows them to buy the product that is right for them.
Speaking of buying, the checkout page for the products has a smart and simple design. 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. You won’t feel overwhelmed by all the options available.
Podia’s design offerings may feel restrictive to some but for non-techies, the simplicity is what they could ask for. Podia Email Marketing
Marketing and sales
Let’s lastly talk about Podia’s sales and marketing capabilities. This is an essential part of the Podia experience or any course-creating platform overall. It gives you an idea of how easy it can be to sell to potential customers.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
You have two options for payment: Stripe and PayPal. You can offer your customers a flexible and customizable payment plan. You can either give them a one time big time payment or you can spread the payment overtime.
It is up to you.
Podia takes care of all aspects of payment processing so that you don’t have to worry. As for credit card and payment information, it is all securely stored by Stripe, a PCI-compliant payment processor.
Unlike other services, Podia offers no transaction fees. This means that the sale is yours and Podia doesn’t get any commission. However, Stripe and PayPal fees still apply so you will have to pay those. This is the same throughout all available 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.
Their email marketing allows you to send automated emails as well as one-off emails. 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.
However, what they provide is very basic, and as such it 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. You can even add third-party scripts 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. Generally speaking, the Podia team will give you a response in 5-10 minutes from asking. This is provided you reach them during working hours. Outside that, you can still get a response, but it takes a longer time.
Podia also has a vast knowledge base that can be used to help you do different things on the platform. You can also use this resource to find the answer to your question yourself if you prefer to search it on your own.
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 help move your content as well as your audience from another platform to Podia free of cost. Podia Email Marketing
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. For example: at the time of writing this review, they are currently offering a discount to all their plans. So visit the website to check out on their latest pricing.
| Plan | No cost ($0 per Month) | Mover ($33 per month) |
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| Plan | Shaker ($75 per month) | Earthquaker ($33 per month) |
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> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
The Mover Plan is a great option for anyone just starting out. The Mover Plan by Podia could provide enough for even small-time creators.
However, the best value can be seen in the Shaker Plan which offers everything the Mover Plan has while adding Unlimited Webinars and Affiliates. As talked about earlier, these features are especially useful when talking about growing your business and such. Podia Email Marketing
The Earthquaker plan, however, is for those who want to spend a lot on their subscription. It actually benefits most who are looking for a bigger business. You also get 100,000 members of the community with the Earthquaker plan.
All paid plans allow you to set up a custom domain and a matching logo for your Podia storefront.
Speaking of brands, the Shaker and Earthquaker plans allow you to remove the Podia branding from your products. The Mover plan does not allow you to remove the Podia branding from your products. Instead, your product will be branded with the P symbol for Podai.
Important to remember is that Podia provides a free plan. It is limited and, unlike paid plans, charges an 8$ transaction charge for all transactions.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- It is very easy to use and set up
- Instant payouts that don’t require you to wait for payment
- Has affordable price for the features it offers
- Offers great support no matter the customer tier
- Has integrated email marketing
- This tool allows you to track the progress of your students
- Hosts can host both paid and free content
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Podia offers free migration of products and customers from other websites to Podia
Cons
- Most people find course builders rigid.
- Lacks important learning tools including graded quizzes, course compliance, assignments etc.
- No mobile app feature
- Reporting tools are basic
- Not suitable for building a fully-fledged website
- Only Shaker PLan members can access the membership feature
- Email composer lacks personalization fields
- Adding team members and providing them with admin access can cost you $20 per month per admin team member.
Podia the Verdict
We can now see what Podia can do and decide if it is worth the effort.
Amidst the competition, Podia is steadily gaining ground as a player in e-learning. Its user interface is simpler and more intuitive.
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 Email Marketing
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. It is fairly cheap compared to other course-creation services. With an amount that’s lower than $50,you can almost set up your website to a functional state.
There might be limits to what it can do but it is possible to think about it this way. You can Podia’s Mover plan to test the waters while getting the hang around of things. Sometimes simplicity is the best option. Over-features can overwhelm users and cause them to lose their sense of control.
We should also pay attention to their customer service. WIth a customer service who answers queries fast and efficiently, one could even forgive the lack of a phone channel to ask for help. 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.
This site is highly recommended.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Frequently Asked Questions
Podia Email Marketing
Which Plan is the best option to get when I buy my Podia subscription?
The Shaker Plan is the best.
You can get the most features and additional stuff at $79 per month. 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.
Why Use Podia?
You can use Podia if you are looking for a platform that is extremely easy to use.
Other reasons why you should choose podia over its competitors is because it takes no transaction fees. It also offers reliable and excellent customer service. It also has a low price.
What products can you make using Podia?
The main thing that you can do with Podia is to create online courses.
Aside from that, you can also make digital downloads, community memberships, and webinars and coaching.