Knowledge is one of life’s greatest gifts to mankind. Life would not be the same without the knowledge that we have today.
The way we give and gain knowledge remained mostly unchanged for most of history. 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.
There are also those who learn on their own. 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.
The internet revolution followed. 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.
My opinion is that the internet did the best job of democratizing knowledge on a scale not seen since instructional films were created and the invention of the printing presses.
The internet allowed teachers and teachers at heart to impart their knowledge to people that they never imagined they would meet. It allowed education and knowledge to break boundaries and borders, even without a plane ticket and a visa.
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 Free Alternative
Podia allows users to share their knowledge online and make money. Podia customers create online courses that can be tailored to their students. These courses can be put on the platform by customers and sold to them.
Podia gives you the tools and hosts your online courses.
Podia’s market does not only cover online courses. In fact, Podia is among the best of many all-in-one 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. 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 wanted a platform to give online creators an easier way to sell their products and connect with their audiences. 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. Creatives can execute their visions and ideas with an intuitive platform that is comprehensive and easy to use, even if they don’t have the technical knowledge.
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. 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 Free Alternative
Podia’s website also allows your membership site as well as your selling platform to be integrated with each other. 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.
Podia lets you focus more on the “creating side” of things than the business and logistics.
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
The custom website builder allows users to create landing pages that are specific to what your brand is selling. Podia offers you to build this custom website with a custom domain or as a subdomain to Podia.
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 < <
A 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. Although you can also access this service via other websites, Podia’s tool is sufficient.
Using the one Podia provides allows you to save even more money.
The email editor is very user-friendly. You can even create automated sequences that are tailored to the buyer.
A Live Messaging Widget
Live messaging is always important when you want to offer a fast and quick response to any questions fielded by your customers. People nowadays want quick customer service. 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 have the opportunity to take advantage of the platform’s capabilities. Users can increase their reach and sales by using partner promotion.
Digital Storefronts
You won’t be allowed to showcase your products if you don’t have a place to put them. You can also advertise new or featured products on your digital storefront. Podia allows you to build an online store that holds your products exclusively.
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
You can also control the posting schedule with Podia. This is particularly important if you don’t want to take on too many lessons at once.
Course creators have the option to “choose when they want to schedule their content”. This system benefits both the teacher and student (Main Podia customer), as it allows students to stay focused and not get overwhelmed.
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 offers payment integrations that allow customers to pay with credit cards and PayPal worldwide. Podia Free Alternative
Member 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’s Podia Like?
This review wouldn’t be complete if it didn’t give you a true picture of the service. For Podia, we will look at its Course Creation and Engagement Section, Site Design and Customization, and Sales and Marketing and see how they feel.
Course Creation and Engagement
First and foremost, we should tackle how the Podia handles course creation. This is particularly important because this is why most users want to pay for the Podia Service.
You can create unlimited courses with Podia. There is no limit to the number of courses you can create on Podia.
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. In fact, there are over 1900+ platforms where Podia can embed from. This include but are not limited to
- Youtube, vimeo, dailymotion for video content
- Spotify SoundCloud and PodBean Audio podcasts
- Speaker Deck, Slide Share, Presentation and Google Slides
- Twitter, TikTok and Behance.
- Github, Codepen
- Google Forms, Typeform, and Paper Form
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.
For students who have completed a course, you can add a quiz to the page and give them a certificate of completion. 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.
By integrating the multiple websites mentioned above, you can create webinars as well as replay of these webinars to your customers. 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 is also true when making your product landing pages too.
It is easy to create your product website, or landing pages. Each page is divided into a section wherein you can decide what to put in. You can even rearrange these pages just by dragging and dropping. The same goes for removing sections that are not needed.
Podia has a good selection of customization 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. However, you need to have more than one digital product in the storefront for this feature to work. This is not a difficult task. You can do the same for these products like how you designed your websites.
To create unique sections for each product, you can use your landing page or front page. 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. As such, it is easy to convert each customer into a buyer as there are no distractions taking away their attention as they are about to 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 Free Alternative
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 < <
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. You can either give them a one time big time payment or you can spread the payment overtime.
It is up to you.
As for the payment processing, Podia handles everything for you, so you don’t need to worry about anything. 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. However, Stripe and PayPal fees still apply so you will have to pay those. 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.
Their email marketing allows you to send automated emails as well as one-off emails. This allows you send email campaigns to both existing and potential customers.
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. Two very basic things but are entirely essential when doing your email marketing platform. Luckily, you can use third party integration to remedy these problems.
MailChimp and ConvertKIt are some third-party email service providers that integrate with Podia.
Zapier allows Podia to integrate with other email solutions, which allows podia users to share their data through this service.
Zapier allows you to connect Podia with other third-party applications such as FreshBooks or ClickFunnels. You can even add third-party scripts to your website. You can add third-party scripts to your website, such as Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel and ConvertBox.
Customer Support
Podia’s customer support is among the best in the business. You can email support with any questions or use the widget to chat live.
Other customers have noted Podia’s excellent support. The Podia team will usually respond within 5-10 minutes of you asking. That is of course provided that you contact them during work 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
If you’re on one of their paid plans, they will migrate your customers or audiences for free. They will move your content and your audience from any other platform to Podia at no cost. Podia Free Alternative
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 do change from time to time. At the time this review was written, they were offering a discount on all plans. Visit the website to see their most recent pricing.
| Plan | No cost ($0 per Month) | Mover ($33 per month) |
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| Plan | Shaker ($75 per month) | Earthquaker ($33 per month) |
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> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
The Mover Plan is a great option for anyone just starting out. The Mover Plan by Podia could provide enough for even small-time creators.
However, the best value can be seen in the Shaker Plan which offers everything the Mover Plan has while adding Unlimited Webinars and Affiliates. As talked about earlier, these features are especially useful when talking about growing your business and such. Podia Free Alternative
The Earthquaker plan, however, is for those who want to spend a lot on their subscription. It actually benefits most who are looking for a bigger business. You also get 100,000 members of the community with the Earthquaker plan.
All paid plans allow you to set up a custom domain and a matching logo for your Podia storefront.
Speaking of brands, the Shaker and Earthquaker plans allow you to remove the Podia branding from your products. The Mover plan does not allow you to remove the Podia branding from your products. Instead, your product will be branded with the P symbol for Podai.
Important to remember is that Podia provides a free plan. However, it is very limited and unlike the paid plans, it takes an 8$ transaction fee from all your 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
- Course builders can feel rigid to most people
- 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.
Amidst the competition, Podia is steadily gaining ground as a player in e-learning. 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. However for people who have limited knowledge on designing websites, such a feature is a god send. Podia Free Alternative
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. With an amount that’s lower than $50,you can almost set up your website to a functional state.
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 who answers queries fast and efficiently, one could even forgive the lack of a phone channel to ask for help. You can count on them to answer all your questions, no matter what time it is.
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 < <
Most Frequently Asked Questions
Podia Free Alternative
What plan is best to choose when I purchase my Podia subscription
The Shaker Plan is the best one to get.
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 Paypal and Stripe for processing 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. It also has a low price.
What products can you make using Podia?
You can create online courses with Podia.
Aside from that, you can also make digital downloads, community memberships, and webinars and coaching.