One of the most effective ways to make money online is by sharing knowledge, teaching others, coaching, or any other similar activities. This can be done in many ways.
First and foremost, there is blogging, which is almost as old 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.
Video essays are another way to learn about videos. 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. Back in school, Math was a subject that I loved, and my classmates and me would search YouTube tutorials to find solutions to word problems.
Growing up, it was such a novel way to educate and learn. 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 time before formal education and education would also be available online.
Then there it was, the Course building websites have come.
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.
Sites for Course Construction Podia Vs During Summer
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 is a reality since 1924. Podia Vs During Summer
Therefore, to be more precise, LMS is basically distance learning through the internet. LMS can be either hosted locally or through a vendor. Most vendors usually use the cloud to host courses or learning materials. This is a SaaS (Software as a Service) model.
Learning Management Systems were especially popular during the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic, when face-to-face school learning was impossible due to social distancing and isolation measures taken by different governments around the globe.
LMS websites have been around since then and vendors sites are still in existence. A lot of these websites that have long existed are now becoming household names due to their popularity and usage during the pandemic.
New websites are also popping up, creating buzz and trying their hand at being the next big thing.
These sites all share the same goal of creating and learning courses on the best platform, but some specialize in specific areas.
Podia an Overview
Podia is a Learning Management System that markets itself as an all-in-one platform. 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. At its economical price, it offers to allow you to create unlimited products and courses, perfect for markets who want to sell digital products.
Podia website builder is very simple and there is no coding required. It is ideal for people who want to quickly get their digital courses or products online. However, it does not sacrifice customization.
It is for this reason that there are a lot of users who think that Podia is a bit too rigid and restricting when designing websites. This is because Podia’s website builder doesn’t require coding.
Podia has many integration options for those features that are not available. It allows you to add various email service providers, payment gateways and analytics tools to your website, from Zoom to Zapier.
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.
Speaking of plans, with the exception of the free plan, all tiers on Podia’s subscription does not take any transaction fees from all your purchases. This means that you own the money no matter what you sell. Podia Vs During Summer
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
- Interface – Podia’s interface is a minimalistic and sleek UI that greets you when you log in. It is very simple and intuitive that you can access most features mostly within just three clicks. Podia’s Interface is simply far from overwhelming.
- Course Creation – Podia supports course creation with text, quiz, coaching and files. However, it does not have all lesson types and may fall behind 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 allows you to drip content/lessons, so that you can move them around in any way you like.
Overall, it has a superb course creation feature, but the lack of retention reports keep 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 lacks email templates and there is not really a place for more personalization and automation features.
Other marketing features offered by Podia include the ability to sell more products, give coupons to customers and pre-launch courses that can be used to generate interest.
All in all, Podia’s marketing platform is more than enough to boost the potency of your sales. What really brings it down however is the lack of advanced automation. This is to be expected from a basic platform such as Podia.
- Podia is most vulnerable in this area. While they offer a decent number of customization options, It really isn’t that “customizable”. The majority of what you can do is limited to the colors and texts. Podia Vs During Summer
It also only has a very few templates to offer. It lacks HTML/Custom CSS customization. Although this may sound like a problem, some people 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 – For Payment Processors, Podia integrates Stripe and Paypal for collecting payment from your students. Podia also does not take any transaction fees for any transactions or sales you make with your website.
However, Stripe and Paypal might charge additional fees. You still need to pay them. These fees are usually very low, so they shouldn’t cause any problems.
Podia Price
There are four plans available from Podia. Each plan has its own unique features. These include:
| No cost ($0 per Month) | Mover ($33 per month) |
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| Shaker Plan ($75 per month) | Earthquaker Plan ($33 per month) |
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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. These products can be sold together.
- Podia offers unlimited products and courses in all of their plans.
- You also have unlimited storage and bandwidth to 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. This function can only be used if you are on the Shaker or Earthshaker plans.
- 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. For those without native integration, you can use the Zapier integration along with its many triggers and actions.
- Podia’s pre-launch mode is useful for testing out the waters and analyzing interest before going all in and full effort on a course.
- Podia claims to be creator-centric and they charge 0% on all sales
- Podia also provides built-in quizzes, community, certificates, and community. For memberships, you can use the community page.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Cons
- Email Composer does not offer personalization options. It even lacks pre-made templates, a drag and drop editor and split-testing.
- Podia’s system does not have a course-compliance feature. The most common report that you will get is the number of people who have completed a course. It lacks details.
- Podia is very basic in terms of customization. Podia does not support custom CSS/HTML customizations
- To create sales funnels and landing pages, you might need third-party apps or services such as WordPress or ClickFunnels.
- Only a handful of lesson types are supported. Adobe Captivate and Articulate Storyline are not supported. HTML 6 Content, assessments, and other lessons may be missing.
- The affiliate program is also missing. Affiliate-specific commissions are not available.
- Podia doesn’t have a mobile app.
Podia versus Kajabi
Kajabi: An Overview
Kajabi is a Learning Management System that provides the user an all-in-one platform to create courses and products while at the same time hosting them.
The platform is very sophisticated, and has many features like automation. This makes it ideal for marketers and course creators who have previous experience in this field. To fully utilize Kajabi’s capabilities, users need to have technical knowledge.
Kajabi allows you to also sell memberships, coachings, communities and podcasts along with 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 offers many features that will make it worth the extra cost. Most of Kajabi’s features, such as their website builder, are extremely customizable.
Marketing tools are probably the best area where Kajabi shines. It offers all the standard bells and whistles but what investors and Kajabi’s rivals really envy is its automation system. Yes that’s right! Kajabi offers automation in lots of its features, especially their emails.
One more thing that is unique to Kajabi is its Pipelines. Kajabi’s pipelines offer a lot to eliminate the need for funnel-building tools like ClickFunnel and other websites.
- Interface – Logging in to Kajabi brings you to its dashboard. It is clean and minimalistic with minimal clutter. Overall it gives off a very modern aesthetic. The accessibility is also satisfactory. You can get to all of Kajabi’s features within 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 load times are very fast and provide you a smooth experience.
- Course Creation – Kajabi’s course creator is extremely 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. To help in creating your courses, Kajabi provides you blueprints or templates for each product. 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. This allows you to decide how these courses will be presented to your students. This is particularly useful if you are slowly introducing your content.
Kajabi lets you use text, audio, video, assessments, images, and files to create your courses. You can even combine these content and add them on a single course. As of the moment, Kajabi does not offer live lessons.
As for the student’s side. Kajabi’s course delivery is minimalistic and sleek. There is no clutter that can serve as a distraction to your students.
- Marketing – At its most basic, Kajabi offers all of the expected products to make your products enticing to buyers. It allows you to sell coupons, upsells, and order bumps. You can even customize this stuff to ensure more value for your money.
Kajabi’s strongest point is email marketing. You can send broadcasts and email sequences using this tool. Kajabi’s email marketing also provides you with various email templates. Podia Vs During Summer
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. WIth Kajabi, you also don’t need to avail of 3rd party sales funnels. They got you covered with their pipelines that you can customize as well.
It can be used effectively and correctly to increase customer conversion rates, which will lead to increased sales. Podia Vs During Summer
- 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. You can access their code editor if you purchase the top Kajabi plan. This allows you to customize even the smallest 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.
- Kajabi does not have a native payment gateway for Payment Processing. It integrates Stripe, PayPal and other third-party integrations. Some regions have even more gateways.
For those regions that don’t have integration, third-party integration can be used through Webhooks and 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
It is robust and features-rich. Kajabi offers the best rates of all LMS services on the internet. You cannot also get a free trial. It has also become a common practice to include names for the different tiers that their plans have.
In the case of Kajabi they have the Growth, Basic, and Pro. 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/month) | Growth ($199 per month) |
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| Pro ($319 per month) | |
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Kajabi Pros & 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.
- This program allows you to use built-in assessments to help you grade and evaluate your students. These assessments can also be automated
- Has a mobile app that is perfect for students who want to consume the courses on their phone
- Also comes with a membership feature where you can sell or give exclusive products to members with different tiers
- Automating and advanced automation (with conditional filter), allows you to complete tasks quickly and easily on your website.
- It has a powerful theme builder that can be customized to suit your needs. You can also access a code editor by paying more. This will allow you to truly flesh out your website.
- Comes with a blogging feature for promoting your brand
- Removes the need for third-party funnels with their own version of a pipeline. There are even many different pipeline templates available for use. Podia Vs During Summer
Cons
- It is more expensive. Their lowest plan costs $149 per month
- They have no available plans that support unlimited products. The lowest plan offers only 3 products and 3 pipelines, the highest offers 100 products and 100 funnels.
- Kajabi does not have course completion certificates or course compliance features
- There are no page templates for your landing pages, thank you pages, and some others. You will need to edit the default page templates as needed
- Does not offer guarantee badges on the checkout page
- Kajabi does not own 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. These courses and coaching can be sold together.
Teachable’s greatest strength can be found in its course compliance feature. This feature is often missing in most LMSs and online courses platforms. If they do have this feature, it will probably be lacking or not as advanced or robust.
Teachable offers advanced reports about student progress and video analytics to demonstrate student engagement.
Teachable does not require integration to access its payment gateways. Instead, they can choose their own system. It also handles EU/VAT, making your life easier and that of your European Students.
Teachable is also one of the most affordable LMSs available. Teachable even has a free plan that allows one course to be sold. Though it does come with its own limitations. This plan is free and can be extremely useful if you are just starting out.
Teachable Features
- Interface – Teachable’s interface is actually very neat and brings about a modern feel. The right sidebar contains most features. 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.
Lastly, Teachable seems to load its pages slower compared to other LMS, however this lag is negligible and I would have not noticed if I was not actively comparing websites.
- Course Creation – Teachable doesn’t provide any templates or pipelines to help you create courses. This setup can be difficult, especially for newbies in web design.
Courses or Content are also divided into sections and lectures found inside 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. Although this may seem like a difficult task, Teachable offers a bulk upload option that makes it easier to upload your files quicker.
These files can be uploaded once they are saved.
Teachable allows you to schedule drip delivery. This means that your content can be dripped depending on the time your student enrolled. This feature does not drip lectures, but sections. Podia Vs During Summer
Then there is the course player, which has a neat feature of allowing students to add personal notes, for them to use while learning. 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. This feature allows you to control the way students see and consume your lectures.
From deciding the lecture order to making sure they watch the whole video lecture. Quizzes can be used as a way to check their understanding before they are able to continue 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 provides basic marketing features like free previews, coupons and pre-selling courses. 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.
One thing that Teachable lacks is a dedicated affiliate program. You will need to create affiliates by yourself. It does however allow you to create affiliates for your product.
The website will handle the commissions of these affiliates through Teachable’s very own payment gateways. Podia Vs During Summer
- Design and customization – Teachable is not very customizable in terms of the overall theme. The service only gives you one theme. You can only customize very few things like the logo and branding, the fonts, as well as the theme and background color.
> > 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 itself is much more customizable than you might expect. 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. And even pricing for your products.
Like the themes, you can also use CSS/HTML to code in stuff to personalize your website more.
- Payment Processors – Teachable is the only LMS service that has its own payment gateway. There are two payment options: Monthly Payment Gateway and Teachable Payments. The former is a godsend to EU students as they can handle EU/VAT calculations.
Teachable has a “Back Office”, which handles all affiliate payouts. Sadly, if you want to use the good old Stripe and PayPal services, you would need to be on their professional plan or higher.
Overall, Teachable Payment Processors make it easier for your students and customers to easily make payments and checkouts.
Teachable price
If we include the free plan, Teachable has four plans total. Like the others, these plans differ in accessibility and features. We have listed the features and prices of each plan to help you choose which plan is right for you. That said, you can try the free plan, which acts as a free trial to test Teachable’s environment.
| No cost ($0 per Month) | Basic ($39/month) |
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| Pro ($119 per Month) | Businesses ($299 per month) |
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Teachable Cons and Pros
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
- You can combine the built-in certificate of completion with the course compliance to allow you to host academic courses
- The course player lets your students take notes and listen to your lectures, promoting active learning. You can even add subtitles to the program.
- HTML/CSS scripts can be embedded to lectures, opening up a lot of interesting and engaging opportunities.
- It has unlimited bandwidth for video hosting
- It offers a strong membership feature that allows for exclusive content depending upon membership levels
- The bulk upload feature makes your workflow more comprehensive
- You can opt in for a comment feature in 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
- Includes video analytics and student reports. Podia Vs During Summer
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Cons
- The free plan does not have enough features to be called a plan.
- Basic plan charges a 5% fee for your sales
- They don’t use a drag-and-drop builder. Instead, they use custom CSS and power editors. This is bad news to non-techies
- A lack of a community feature
- You would need to know how to code in order to fully customize their course player
- You will need third-party services to issue refunds
Thinkific versus Podia
Thinkific an Overview
Thinkific, another LMS service, puts course building at its forefront. You can create a website and then start building your courses.
It is easy to use, making it one of the best online course creators. In fact, it is so beginner friendly that Thinkific’s very own free plan allows you to create three courses, with no investment required. Granted, they do take a transaction fee.
Thinkific is the “go to platform” for online courses.
As such, Thinkific puts its core focus on it’s curriculum creation capabilities. This is why the course creation features are the most important.
However, this means that their marketing and selling aspects are not that good.
Useful Features
- Interface – Logging in to Thinkific will take you to the admin area. This is your central point for all things Thinkific Platform.
The sidebar allows you to access every feature that Thinkific has to offer. These features are usually found and organized in a logical way. There are some features though that might be found in places you don’t think that they should be in.
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. You can also bulk upload your content to Thinkific. 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 During Summer
Although it doesn’t have a course compliance option, Thinkific lets you incentivize students using leaderboards, awards and scoring to motivate them to complete your course.
You can also manage your course with Thinkific in many different ways. You can manage discussions, answer questions from students, and even approve or hide discussions.
Thinkific also allows you to manage quizzes and assignments as much as possible.
- Marketing – This is probably where Thinkific is at its weakest. Their marketing features are limited to the essentials. Worse, it may only be available for a specific tier or higher.
Thinkific allows for course bundles which can also be used for creating a membership site.
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 allows you to add affiliates for your products and courses. It allows you to choose how much commission you want.
Affiliates will have their own dashboard that allows them to track the performance of each unique affiliate link. The affiliate tracking pixel can’t be modified and remains in place for 30 days.
- Design and Customization – Thinkinfic has a decent level of customizability. First of all, they give you a choice of three themes. You can then select from these three themes, your theme styles. These styles are like presets which allow you to select your preferred site aesthetic.
That said, their level of customizability is not as good as Kajabi. Thinkific allows you to import themes that have been developed by developers. If you have the technical know-how, you can also customize your themes using code.
Thinkific also uses 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 During Summer
- Payment Processors – Thinkific has its own payment processor, Thinkific Payments. This is part of a tool called TCommerce suite of tools. This tool provides for a seamless experience especially for one time purchases, subscriptions, and payment plans.
This is not available in Canada, the UK and the USA. Outside of those regions, Stripe and Paypal integrations are the other alternatives.
The 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.
Thinkific also offers a Growth option that provides more powerful tools to their Pro plan. Thinkific Plus is also available for enterprise clients.
| No cost ($0 per Month) | Basic ($39 per month) |
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| Pro ($79 per month) | Premier ($399 per month) |
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> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Thinkific Pros and Cons
Pros
- Thinkific’s free package is permanently free
- Different course payment options available for different students and schools
- There are no transaction fees on 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.
- Thinkific allows you to put incentives like leaderboards, awards and scores as a way to motivate your students.
Cons
- Many of the features they offer are not user-friendly.
- The lack of custom options would be disappointing for beginners, and it could lead to them getting lost in the ocean of code.
- Very weak marketing features.
- Checkout page very clunky
- Chat support is not available. For a prompt response, email support can take up to one working day. This includes time zones.
Verdict Podia Vs During SummerPodia Vs During Summer
With all those laid out in hand, we can finally see how Podia compares to other Learning Management Systems. Through this, I hope you can find the right platform to host your products, courses 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 During Summer
You should choose Podia if you want an affordable all in one platform and you don’t need much customization for your product. Podia is affordable and allows unlimited course uploads.
You should choose Kajabi if budget is not a question and you would prefer a more personal touch. Also, if you would want an easier time in marketing and updating your customers, Kajabi’s automation and advanced automation has got you covered.
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. As such, Podia would better fit 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. Also, Teachable’s greatest and most unique feature is its course compliance which helps to properly monitor your student’s course completion.
Verdict: Thinkific versus Podia
There is nothing really much to say here except for the fact that Thinkific is basically like a cheaper version of Teachable, as such picking between these two would be basically the same as picking between Podia and Teachable
You should choose Podia if you wish to focus on selling your digital products and you would prefer an all in one digital platform. 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. Thinkific is also a good platform to get used to making online courses with, as their free plan requires little to no investment, despite being more limited. Thinkific does not have a course compliance feature. Instead, it focuses on positive and incentivized motivation. Podia Vs During Summer