One of the most effective ways to make money online is by sharing knowledge, teaching others, coaching, or any other similar activities. There are a lot of things to go about this.
Blogging is the most popular form of blogging. It is almost as old and well-known as the Internet itself. Although some believe that vlogging is its younger cousin, blogging has not lost its appeal. However, there are still people who love to read the content they’re interested in and not just videos.
And speaking of videos, another angle into which you can learn from is through video essays. These videos can provide a lot more insight than just a short presentation, especially when it comes to music, literature or film.
Education is also becoming more popular thanks to video lectures and tutorials. I remember back in school, especially when Math is the subject, my classmates and I would often search tutorials on youtube to solve specifically confusing word problems.
It was a new way to learn and educate growing up. It seemed like once again, the knowledge was able to spread wider and was more accessible to a lot more audience.
It was only a matter of time when formal courses, and education would also build a branch on the online world.
It was then, the Course Building Websites were born.
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.
Sites for Course Construction Podia Vs Beyond Finance
Learning Management Systems, also known as course building websites, are platforms, services or websites that provide digital content to a targeted audience.
One could even say that these websites allow for learning to be delivered remotely. LMS is capable of remote and distance learning. However, it’s not the only one that can do this. Distance learning has been a thing since 1924. Podia Vs Beyond Finance
LMS, or distance learning via the internet, is therefore, more precise. LMS can be either hosted locally or through a vendor. Cloud hosting is a common method used by most vendors to host learning materials and courses. This is a SaaS (Software as a Service) model.
Learning Management Systems especially gained popularity during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic as face-to-face and regular school learning became impossible and impractical due to isolation and social distancing measures put in place by different governments across the world.
LMS websites have been around since then and vendors sites are still in existence. Many of these websites, which have been around for a while, are now household names because of their popularity and use during the pandemic.
Then new websites have also come out, generating buzz and trying to be the next big thing.
While these sites mostly share a common goal (to be the preferred platform of learning and creating courses) more or less, some of them specialize in certain areas.
Podia an Overview
Podia is an online Learning Management System. It claims to be all-in-one. It enables you to sell online courses, coaching, webinars, digital downloads, or you can sell all of them in a bundle.
Among all LMS, it probably is one of the most affordable price plan. It is a great choice for course creators who are searching for an affordable LMS solution. It is affordable and allows you to create unlimited courses and products, which are great for digital product sellers.
Podia website builder is very simple and there is no coding required. Thus, it is a perfect fit for those who are in a rush and just want to get their courses or digital products out there. However, it does not sacrifice customization.
Many users feel that Podia can be too restrictive when it comes to designing websites. This is because Podia’s website builder doesn’t require coding.
For some features that are lacking, Podia offers a wide range of integrations. From Zoom to Zapier, it allows for various email service providers, payment gateways, and analytics tools to be added to your website.
Podia Features
Podia provides many features that enable users to create websites and personalize them in their own way. You can also run your business with enough tools.
Among the more affordable LMS websites, Podia probably has the best Membership and integration communities. You can even get it on all Podia plans.
Talking about plans, except for the free one, every tier on Podia’s subscription doesn’t take transaction fees from any of your purchases. This means that you own the money no matter what you sell. Podia Vs Beyond Finance
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
- Interface – Podia’s interface is a minimalistic and sleek UI that greets you when you log in. You can access most features with just three clicks. It’s very intuitive and simple. Podia’s Interface is simply far from overwhelming.
- Course Creation – Podia supports course creation with text, quiz, coaching and files. It does not support all lesson types, so it may be slower than the competition.
This is where Podia’s Embed feature comes in clutch, with over 1900+ platforms to embed from like Youtube, Soundcloud and even TikTok. Podia also allows you to drip your content/lesson, so you can pace them in whatever way you want.
It has a great course creation feature. However, the absence of retention reports keeps it from being perfect.
- Marketing – Podia’s marketing features allows for email marketing, however it is a very basic email marketing tool that allows you to send broadcasts and email campaigns. It does not have email templates, and it doesn’t offer automation or personalization options.
Podia also offers other marketing features such as the ability to upsell your products, to giveaway coupons to potential customers, and even to pre-launch courses to drum up interest before really going all in.
All in all, Podia’s marketing platform is more than enough to boost the potency of your sales. The only thing that really lets it down is the absence of advanced automation. This is to be expected from a basic platform such as Podia.
- Design and Customization – This is probably where Podia falls the hardest. Although they have a lot of customization options available, it is not very “customizable”. The majority of what you can do is limited to the colors and texts. Podia Vs Beyond Finance
There are very few templates available. It does not allow for HTML/Custom CSS customization. While at first this may seem like a bad thing, there are those who would prefer it that way. {Non-techies would probably not notice and would prefer the ease of use.|The ease of use would be preferred by non-techies.
- Payment Processors: Podia integrates Stripe with Paypal to collect payment from students. Podia does not charge transaction fees for any sales or transactions you make through your website.
However, Stripe and Paypal might charge additional fees. You still need to pay them. Usually these fees are very low so you probably won’t have a problem with them.
Podia Price
There are four plans available from Podia. Each plan has its own unique features. These include:
| Free ($0 per month) | Mover ($33 per month) |
|
|
| Shaker Plan ($75/month) | Earthquaker Plan ($33 per month) |
|
|
Podia Pros and Cons
Pros
- Podia’s UI/UX is refined to the point that even non-techies are able to grasp its use easily. Users will find themselves satisfied when setting it up.
- Podia allows you to sell various digital products, from the usual courses, to memberships, webinars, and community or digital downloads. You can even sell these things in a bundle.
- Podia offers unlimited products and courses in all of their plans.
- Their unlimited offer also applies to storage and bandwidth where you can host your videos. While you have the option, you don’t need to use Vimeo, Wistia or other video hosting sites.
- You can use Podia’s built-in affiliate program to increase your reach. You do have to be on the Shaker and Earthshaker plans to utilize this function.
- You can send campaigns and broadcasts through their integrated email marketing. These campaigns can be customized with exit and entrance conditions.
- Podia offers over 1900+ integrations across various apps, email service providers and payment gateways. Zapier is an integration that can be used by those who don’t have native integration.
- The pre-launch mode of Podia is helpful for testing the waters and analysing interest before committing to a course.
- Podia markets itself as creator-centric, as such, they take 0% transaction fee on all of your sales
- Podia also offers built-in certificates, community, and quizzes. For memberships, you can use the community page.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Cons
- Email Composer does not offer personalization options. The Email Composer lacks pre-made templates and a drag-and-drop editor. Split-testing is also not available.
- Podia’s system doesn’t have a course compliance feature. Most of the time, the only report you can get is how many have finished a course. It lacks details.
- Podia has very limited customization options. Podia does not support custom CSS/HTML customizations
- You might need to use third-party apps and services to really create landing pages and sales funnels such as WordPress, or ClickFunnels
- Only a handful of lesson types are supported. Some that are missing include Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline and HTML 6 Content, assessments, etc.
- Affiliate program is also lacking. There is no affiliate commission tiers and affiliate-specific commissions.
- Podia does not have a mobile application.
Podia versus Kajabi
Kajabi an Overview
Kajabi is a Learning Management System. It allows users to create products and courses while simultaneously hosting them.
It is also very advanced, with a lot of features such as automation that the platform is perfect for course creators and marketers who already have the experience in the field. Of course, to make use of its full potential, users must have the technical know-how to utilize all of Kajabi’s offerings.
Kajabi also allows you to sell coachings, memberships, communities, podcasts as well as other digital products.
Kajabi offers a mobile app that is different from other LMSs. This is because smartphones have quickly become the most preferred device for almost everyone. It really gives the company a boost in terms of the market.
Kajabi Features
Kajabi also offers a lot of features to ensure that their higher price point is worth every cent that you pay for. Kajabi’s website builder and many other features are highly customizable.
Marketing tools are probably the best area where Kajabi shines. While it offers the usual bells and whistles, what investors and the Kajabi’s competitors really envy is their automation system. Yes that’s right! Kajabi provides automation in many of its features, including their email.
One more thing that is unique to Kajabi is its Pipelines. Kajabi’s Pipelines offer many benefits that can be used to replace ClickFunnel or other website funnel-building tools.
- Interface – Logging in to Kajabi brings you to its dashboard. It looks neat and minimal with little to no clutter. Overall it gives off a very modern aesthetic. The accessibility is also satisfactory. All of Kajabi’s features can be accessed in as little as 3 to 5 clicks.
Kajabi’s homepage includes a search assistant. This can be used to help you navigate the site if you get lost or are too lazy to click on things. This will redirect you to the Kajabi App’s features and tools.
Kajabi’s page loads very quickly and provides a smooth experience.
- Course Creation – Kajabi’s course creation is very robust. First of all, it allows you to make different types of categories. This flexibility allows you to choose the best option depending on which course you are presenting to students.
There are many options: online courses, mini-courses and drip courses. You can also create your own custom course. Kajabi offers templates or blueprints to help you create your courses. It already gives you a “skeleton” of the course, and all you have to do is fill it up with content.
Kajabi allows you to organize your course in categories or subcategories. That way, you can decide how you present these courses to your students. This is particularly useful if you are slowly introducing your content.
As for content, Kajabi allows you to use the following to make your courses: text, audio, vidoe, assessments, images and files. These content can be combined and added to a single course. As of the moment, Kajabi does not offer live lessons.
The student’s side. Kajabi’s course delivery offers a sleek and minimal design. Your students will not be distracted by clutter.
- Marketing – At its most basic, Kajabi offers all of the expected products to make your products enticing to buyers. You can sell upsells and order bumps using Kajabi. You can even customize this stuff to ensure more value for your money.
Email marketing is probably where Kajabi stands out the most. You can send broadcasts and email sequences using this tool. Kajabi’s email marketing offers a variety of email templates. Podia Vs Beyond Finance
Kajabi can send any type of email, no matter what it is. Kajabi’s email marketing is even more powerful when it is combined with an automation function.
Not only does it make your job faster and easier. It opens up a lot of options too. Kajabi makes it easy to use third-party sales funnels. You can also customize their pipelines.
It can be used effectively and correctly to increase customer conversion rates, which will lead to increased sales. Podia Vs Beyond Finance
- Design and Customization – Kajabi’s design options are among the most customizable in the market. Even the lowest plans offer a variety of themes you can choose to match your brand or course. These themes have a very professional look.
If you wish, you can upload your own theme. If you pay for the highest plan Kajabi offers, then you will be given access to their code editor where you can even customize the most minute details.
As for the Page Builder, Kajabi allows you to design course pages, membership site, checkout pages, landing pages and even more. Each block can also be customized using a block system. Even then, they are already page-specific and function specific.
- For Payment Processing, Kajabi unfortunately does not have its own native payment gateway. It integrates Stripe, PayPal and other third-party integrations. Some regions even have more gateways available.
As for those regions who don’t have integration, you can use third party integration through Webhooks or Zapier.
As for the checkout page, Kajabi offers it in a single page. That said, this single page can be customized to add sales videos and testimonials to further upsell your products.
Kajabi Price
Because of its robust and feature-rich nature. Kajabi offers the best rates of all LMS services on the internet. You cannot also get a free trial. It is also a standard practice to name the different plans they offer.
Kajabi offers the Basic, Growth, and Pro plans. All plans also give you access to Kajabi University. This knowledge base is Kajabi’s own and can be used to assist users with its functionality.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
| Basic ($149 per month) | Growth ($199 per month) |
|
|
| Pro ($319 per month) | |
|
Kajabi Pros and Cons
Pros
- Kajabi offers a variety of courses that you can choose from
- Provides Templates and Blueprints to help you get started
- With their automations, their email marketing solutions are some of the best on the market.
- Provides you with built-in assessments that allows you to grade and assess your students. These can also be automated
- Has a mobile app that is perfect for students who want to consume the courses on their phone
- You can also sell or give products to members of different tiers through the membership feature
- Automation and advanced automation (with conditional filter) helps you finish tasks in your website easily and swiftly
- Has a very powerful theme builder that you can customize according to your needs. You can also access a code editor by paying more. This will allow you to truly flesh out your website.
- It comes with a blog feature to promote your brand
- Removes the need for third-party funnels with their own version of a pipeline. You can even choose from many different templates for your pipeline. Podia Vs Beyond Finance
Cons
- Is more on the expensive side. The lowest plan is $149 per Month
- They have no available plans that support unlimited products. The lowest plan has only three products and three pipelines. The highest plan includes 100 products and 100 funnels.
- Kajabi does not have course completion certificates or course compliance features
- There are no page templates available for thank you pages, landing pages, or other pages. You will need to edit the default page templates as needed
- There are no guarantee badges available on the checkout page
- Kajabi doesn’t have their own payment gateway
- Kajabi’s community lacks some features that make it as engaging as the others.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Podia versus Teachable
Teachable an Overview
Teachable is among the best online course platforms currently in the market. This LMS can be used by teachers, course creators, coaches, and entrepreneurs to teach as well as for business. You can even sell these courses, and coaching in a single bundle
Teachable’s greatest strength is its course compliance feature. This feature is often missing in most LMSs and online courses platforms. This feature is not usually available on most LMS and online course platforms.
Teachable’s course compliance even gives out advanced reports on student progress, and video analytics to show student engagement.
Teachable also does not depend on integration for its payment gateways, opting for their own system instead. It even handles EU/VAT making your life and those of your European Students easier overall.
Teachable is also one of the most affordable LMSs available. It even offers a free plan that allows you to sell one course only. It does have its limitations. This plan is free and can be extremely useful if you are just starting out.
Teachable Features
- Interface – Teachable’s interface looks very modern and is quite neat. Most features can be accessed through the right sidebar. It may take three to four clicks to get to sub-features.
It does not have a search function but that is primarily because of how easy it is to get from one option to another.
Teachable’s pages load slower than other LMSs, but this is not noticeable and I wouldn’t have noticed it if I wasn’t actively comparing websites.
- Course Creation – As for course creation proper, Teachable does not provide templates or pipelines for you to use. This setup can be difficult, especially for newbies in web design.
The sections of a course or content are divided into sections. Lectures can be found within each section. You can choose to use text, video, files or quizzes.
You can even combine these types into one lecture, like adding a quiz after a video lecture in the same course. This might seem a hassle to set-up at first,but Teachable has a bulk upload feature that allows you to put up your files faster.
Once uploaded, these files will become individual lectures themselves.
As for delivery, Teachable also allows for drip scheduling, meaning you can drip your content depending on when your student enrolled. That said, this feature only drips sections and not lectures. Podia Vs Beyond Finance
There is also the course player. This allows students to add notes to their learning experience. The only problem is that you will need to use the power editor to modify this player.
In which case, people who do not know how to code might find themselves lost.
Also something to take note is Teachable’s Course Compliance Feature. This feature is where Teachable really shines among the competition. With this feature, you are able to control how the students view and consume your lectures.
They can decide the order of the lectures and make sure they have watched the entire lecture. You can even use quizzes as a checkpoint before they can proceed or pass a lecture.
The results can then be passed on the various detailed reports you can get from Teachable, which is another tool that you can use to effectively teach your students.
- Marketing – Teachable offers basic marketing features such as free previews, coupons, and pre-selling a course. These features function in the same way as the LMS marketing features, and serve the same purpose: to encourage others to purchase your products.
As for email marketing, Teachable has the basic features that can get you what you need, however it does lack some features like, templates, sequences, and automations.If you think you want better options, you can integrate popular email services like MailChimp and ConvertKit as needed.
Teachable does not have an affiliate program. You will need to create affiliates by yourself. That said, it does allow you to make affiliates for your product.
The website will handle the commissions of these affiliates through Teachable’s very own payment gateways. Podia Vs Beyond Finance
- Design and Customization – In terms of overall theme, Teachable is really not that customizable. The service only gives you one theme. The only thing you can customize is the logo, branding, fonts, background color, and theme.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Nevertheless, if you pay for the business plan, you will have access to the power editor. This allows you to use custom code to modify the theme of the page.
The page builder proper is more customizable than expected. You can choose from a variety of building blocks to suit your needs. You can even find block layouts to make banners, images with text and email. You can even get pricing for your products.
You can use CSS/HTML, just like the themes, to add more personalization to your website.
- Payment Processors – Teachable is among the only LMS services that has their very own Payment Gateway. They have Teachable Payments and the Monthly Payment Gateway. Students from EU can use the Monthly Payment Gateway to handle EU/VAT calculations.
Teachable also has “Back Office” which is a service that will handle all affiliate payout. Unfortunately, to access the old Stripe or PayPal services, you will need to be on their professional plans.
Teachable Payment Processors simplify the payment and checkout process for customers and students.
Teachable price
If we include the free plan, Teachable has four plans total. These plans are similar to the others in terms of accessibility and features. We have listed the features and prices of each plan to help you choose which plan is right for you. You can also try the free plan to get a feel for Teachable.
| No cost ($0 per Month) | Basic ($39 per month) |
|
|
| Pro ($119 per Month) | Business ($299 per Month) |
|
|
Teachable Pros and Cons
Pros
- You can host unlimited courses with the paid plans
- It has the best course compliance features making it the best option if your focus is on teaching
- It’s built-in course completion certificates can be combined with the course compliance giving you the ability to host academic courses
- Its course player allows your students to take notes while watching or listening to your lecture, thus promoting a pro-active learning environment. It even has a subtitle feature
- HTML/CSS scripts can be embedded to lectures, opening up a lot of interesting and engaging opportunities.
- You can use it for unlimited video hosting
- It offers a strong membership feature that allows for exclusive content depending upon membership levels
- Bulk upload makes your workflow easier
- You can choose to have comments added to your courses
- Use an ios app to let your students access the content wherever they are.
- Payment processing platforms has an ability to handle EU/VAT sales
- It does not need to be integrated with other services, as it has its own payment gateways.
- Its native payment gateways also has “Back Office’ that process payouts for affiliate commission and other complex payment
- Has an in-depth student reports and video analytics, Podia Vs Beyond Finance
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Cons
- Their free plan lacks a lot of feature to even call it a plan
- Basic plan charges a 5% fee for your sales
- They do not use a drag and drop builder. They use custom CSS and power editors. This is bad news to non-techies
- A lack of a community feature
- To customize the course player, you would need to be able to code
- You will need third-party services to issue refunds
Podia versus Thinkific
Thinkific an Overview
Thinkific, another LMS service, puts course building at its forefront. It has everything you need to create a web page and start building your courses.
Thinkific is also very easy to use and as such, it is one of the most beginner friendly online course creators on the market. It is so user-friendly that Thinkific offers a free plan which allows you to create up to three courses with no investment. They do charge a transaction fee.
Thinkific is the “go to platform” for online courses.
Thinkific’s core focus is on its curriculum creation capabilities. As such, most of the best features in this service can be found on the course creation.
However, this means that their marketing and selling aspects are not that good.
Useful Features
- Interface – Logging into Thinkific brings you to the admin area. This will be your hub that allows you to navigate the whole Thinkific Platform.
You can access all features that Thinkific offers via the sidebar. These features are usually found and organized in a logical way. You might not be able to find certain features in the places you think they should be.
The interface is overall decent but it has its flaws.
- Course Creation – Thinkific’s greatest strength is found on its course creation mechanism. You have many options to make your course enjoyable, even if you don’t pay for it.
Thinkific’s platform allows you to use different types of media such as videos, pdf, audio, Google docs, captivates, storylines, among others. Thinkific also allows you to bulk upload your contents. However, this bulk upload is limited and you will have to look at and organize each lesson individually in order to fully customize them.
Thinkific allows you to drip-feed your content, allowing you to manage and pace your course. Podia Vs Beyond Finance
While it does not have a course compliance option like that of Teachable, Thinkific allows you to incentivize your students by using awards, leaderboards as well as scoring to motivate them in finishing your course.
Thinkific also allows you to manage your course in different ways. You can also manage discussions, answer students’ questions, and approve or deny discussions.
Thinkific also allows you to manage quizzes and assignments as much as possible.
- Marketing – This is where Thinkific is weakest. Most of their marketing features only include the essentials. Worse, it may only be available for a specific tier or higher.
Thinkific offers course bundles that can be used to create a membership website.
Thinkific does not have a sales funnel builder. You will also need integration. Even so, the checkout process is somewhat cumbersome and offers limited customization.
Email marketing at Thinkific is also very limited. You can only send your marketing emails to students who are already enrolled in your courses. As such, the best you can do is to tell them about new courses or products as well as send the email updates.
Thinkific also allows you to add affiliates to promote your courses and products. The best part of it is that it allows you to select how many percent commission you can offer.
Your affiliates will also receive their own private dashboard to monitor the performance of the unique affiliate links. However, the affiliate tracking pixel cannot be changed and is permanently set to 30 days.
- Design and Customization – Thinkinfic’s level of customizability is fairly decent. They offer three themes to choose from. You can then select from these three themes, your theme styles. These styles can be thought of as presets that allow you to choose your site’s aesthetic.
However, they are not as customizable as Kajabi. Thinkific allows you to import themes that have been developed by developers. You can customize your themes with code if you have the technical knowledge.
Thinkific also offers a drag-and-drop page builder. In this builder, each block is called a section and there are 20 of them. It is very easy to use and you can add a section to your page with only just 1 click. Podia Vs Beyond Finance
- Payment Processors – Thinkific has its own payment processor, Thinkific Payments. This tool is part of the TCommerce suite. This tool offers seamless shopping, subscriptions and payment plans.
However, it seems like this is only available for the USA, UK, and Canada. Outside of those regions, Stripe and Paypal integrations are the other alternatives.
Thinkific Price
Thinkific offers four basic plans which includes a free plan. The best plan, the free one, is the best. It gives you the most features and limits the number of courses that you can create or sell.
That said, Thinkific also offers a Growth feature that gives more powerful tools in their Pro plan. Other than that, they also offer Thinkific Plus for enterprise clients.
| No cost ($0 per Month) | Basic ($39 per month) |
|
|
| Pro ($79 per month) | Premier ($399 per month) |
|
|
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Thoughtific Pros and Cons
Pros
- Thinkific’s free package is permanently free
- Has different course payment options for different types of students and schools
- No transaction fees for any payments made by learners
- The premium packages gives you an unlimited number of online purses
- Their page builder is easy to use, and it can be further customized if you have the coding know-how
- It comes with a strong course builder that will make your course engaging.
- You can use Thinkific to give incentives such as leaderboards, awards, and scores to motivate your students.
Cons
- Many of the features they offer are not user-friendly.
- Beginners would probably be disappointed with the lack of custom options, and they might be lost in the sea of code
- Very weak marketing features.
- Very clunky checkout page
- Chat support is not available. Email support might take up to one day for a proper response. This also includes time zones.
Verdict Podia Vs Beyond FinancePodia Vs Beyond Finance
With all those laid out in hand, we can finally see how Podia compares to other Learning Management Systems. This will help you find the best platform for your courses, products, and businesses.
Verdict: Podia versus Kajabi
Podia and Kajabi function pretty similarly as they are both all-in-one platforms. The two main factors that will determine which platform you choose are price and customization. Podia Vs Beyond Finance
You should choose Podia if you want an affordable all in one platform and you don’t need much customization for your product. An important thing to note is that, in its low price point, Podia allows you to upload an unlimited number of courses.
You should choose Kajabi if budget is not a question and you would prefer a more personal touch. Kajabi offers advanced automation and automation for marketing that will make it easier to update your customers and market to them.
Verdict: Podia versus Teachable
It is more difficult to compare this matchup to the one mentioned above. Teachable and Podia specialize in different things and as such, your choice would depend on your business’ direction.
If you are looking to sell digital products such as memberships, coachings and courses, Podia is the right choice. Podia is more suited to your needs.
You should choose Teachable if you want to focus more on the “course” and “teaching” part. Teachable has a more robust course building platform compared to Podia. Teachable’s most distinctive feature is its course compliance, which allows you to monitor the progress of your students.
Verdict: Podia versus Thinkific
This is a simple statement that Thinkific is essentially a cheaper version Teachable. As such, picking between the two would be the same as choosing between Podia or Teachable.
If you want to sell your digital products, Podia is the right choice. Podia also has a more robust marketing tool compared to Thinkific, so that would be a plus for some people.
If you prefer to make courses than pay Teachable’s high prices, Thinkific is the right choice. Though their plan is more limited, Thinkific can be used to learn how to make online courses. Bear in mind, Thinkific has no course compliance feature and puts focus on a more positive and incentivized motivation. Podia Vs Beyond Finance