When it comes to selling and marketing digital products online, there are many platforms to choose from, each with its own unique features and benefits. Two popular options are Podia and Gumroad. Both platforms offer a range of tools and features to help you monetize your expertise and grow your online business.
In this comparison, we will take a closer look at Podia and Gumroad, highlighting their similarities and differences, as well as what sets them apart from other digital product platforms on the market. Whether you are a course creator, artist, or writer, this guide will help you make an informed decision about which platform is right for your digital product business. We will cover key features, pricing, and user experience to help you determine which platform is the best fit for your needs and goals.
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 Gumroad
Course building websites or to refer to them in their proper name: Learning Management Systems are platforms, services, or websites that deliver digital content, especially educational ones to a desired audience.
One could even say that these websites allow for learning to be delivered remotely. While LMS can be used for remote or distance learning, it isn’t the only one capable of this. Distance learning is a reality since 1924. Podia Vs Gumroad
LMS, or distance learning via the internet, is therefore, more precise. LMS can either be hosted locally or via a vendor. Most vendors usually use the cloud to host courses or learning materials. These vendors usually follow 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.
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 a Learning Management System that markets itself as an all-in-one platform. You can either sell individual courses, coaching, webinars or digital downloads online, or all of them together.
It is probably the most affordable LMS plan. As such, it is best suited for course creators that are looking for an inexpensive 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.
The Podia website builder is easy to use and requires no coding. 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.
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. It is only expected as its website builder does not need 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. It also offers enough tools to conduct your business.
Podia is probably the most affordable LMS website. It has the best integration and membership communities. It even comes available 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 Gumroad
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
- Interface – A sleek and minimal UI greets you upon logging in to Podia. It is very simple and intuitive that you can access most features mostly within just three clicks. Podia’s interface is simple and intuitive.
- Course Creation – Podia’s course creation supports text, quiz, coaching, files, as well as embeds. However, it does not have all lesson types and may fall behind the competition.
Podia’s Embed feature is a game changer. There are over 1900+ platforms you can embed from, including Soundcloud, Youtube, and TikTok. Podia allows you to drip content/lessons, so that you can move them around in any way you like.
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 lacks email templates and there is not really a place for more personalization and automation features.
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.
Overall, Podia’s marketing platform does more than enough to increase 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.
- Podia is most vulnerable in this area. Although they have a lot of customization options available, it is not very “customizable”. Most of the things you can do are only about the texts and colors. Podia Vs Gumroad
There are very few templates available. 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.
That said, there might be additional fees that come from Stripe or Paypal, as such, you still have to pay for them. These fees are usually very low, so they shouldn’t cause any problems.
Podia Price
Podia offers four types of plans. Each with their own features. These include:
| Free ($0 per month) | Mover ($33 per month) |
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| Shaker Plan ($75/month) | Earthquaker Plan ($33/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. It is easy to set up and users will be satisfied.
- You can sell a variety of digital products through Podia, including courses, webinars, memberships and 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. 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. You can even add entrance and exit conditions for these campaigns.
- 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. It even lacks pre-made templates, a drag and drop editor and split-testing.
- Podia’s system does not 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 is very basic in terms of customization. There is no support for 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.
- The affiliate program is also missing. Affiliate-specific commissions are not available.
- 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.
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. Of course, to make use of its full potential, users must have the technical know-how to utilize all of Kajabi’s offerings.
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 also offers a lot of features to ensure that their higher price point is worth every cent that you pay for. Most of Kajabi’s features, such as their website builder, are extremely customizable.
Probably where Kajabi shines the most is in its marketing tools. 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 provides automation in many of its features, including their email.
Kajabi’s Pipelines are another unique feature. Kajabi’s pipelines offer a lot to eliminate the need for funnel-building tools like ClickFunnel and other websites.
- Interface – Logging into Kajabi will bring you to the 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 also includes a search assistant that can help you navigate the site whenever you are lost or just too lazy to click on stuff. 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. You can choose the best option based on the course you’re 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 also allows you to structure your course in categories and subcategories. This allows you to decide how these courses will be presented to your students. This is especially useful when you are “dripping” your content slowly.
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 is minimalistic and sleek. 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. This stuff can be customized to give you more value for 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 Gumroad
Depending on what type of email you want to send, Kajabi has got it covered. Kajabi’s email marketing is even more powerful when it is combined with an automation function.
It makes your job easier and faster. You have many options. 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.
When used properly and effectively, it will increase your customer conversion rate leading to more sales. Podia Vs Gumroad
- Kajabi offers a wide range of design and customization options. Even the lower plans provide you with various themes that you can use to fit your course or brand. 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 have even more gateways.
For those regions that don’t have integration, third-party integration can be used through Webhooks and Zapier.
Kajabi provides the checkout page on one 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 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 is Kajabi’s very own knowledge base that can help 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 and Cons
Pros
- Kajabi offers various types of courses for you to make
- Helps you get started with Blueprints and Templates
- Their email marketing solutions are the most advanced in the market with their automations
- This program allows you to use built-in assessments to help you grade and evaluate your students. These assessments can also be automated
- A mobile app is available that allows students to access the courses from their phones.
- You can also sell or give products to members of different tiers through the membership feature
- 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. By paying more, you can even access a code editor to really 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. There are even many different pipeline templates available for use. Podia Vs Gumroad
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 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 can edit the default templates for your pages as you need.
- There are no guarantee badges available on the checkout page
- Kajabi does not own their own payment gateway
- Kajabi’s community is missing some features that make it as interesting as the rest.
> > 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 is used by course creators, teachers, professionals, coaches, entrepreneurs for business as well as teaching. You can even sell these courses, and coaching in a single bundle
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’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 also handles EU/VAT, making your life easier and that of your European Students.
Teachable is also among the cheapest LMS available out there. Teachable even has a free plan that allows one course to be sold. 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 is actually very neat and brings about a modern feel. The right sidebar contains most features. Getting to the sub-features may need three to four clicks.
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 – 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.
These files can be combined into one lecture. For example, you could add a quiz to a video lecture. Although this may seem like a difficult task, Teachable offers a bulk upload option that makes it easier to upload your files quicker.
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 Gumroad
Then there is the course player, which has a neat feature of allowing students to add personal notes, for them to use while learning. One downside however, is that to customize this player, you need to use the power editor.
People who don’t know how to code could find themselves in this situation.
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.
They can decide the order of the lectures and make sure they have watched the entire lecture. Quizzes can be used as a way to check their understanding before they are able to continue or pass a lecture.
You can then pass the results on to Teachable for detailed reports. This is yet another tool you can use in order to teach students effectively.
- 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.
One thing that Teachable lacks is a dedicated affiliate program. Because of this, you need to make affiliates on your own. That said, it does allow you to make affiliates for your product.
These affiliates will be paid through the website’s own payment gateways by Teachable. Podia Vs Gumroad
- Design and Customization – In terms of overall theme, Teachable is really not that customizable. 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 < <
That said, paying for the business plan will give you access to its power editor wherein you can use custom code that allows you to further modify the theme of your 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. They even include block layouts for banners, images with text, email. And even 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. There are two payment options: Monthly Payment Gateway and Teachable Payments. Students from EU can use the Monthly Payment Gateway to 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.
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. Like the others, these plans differ in accessibility and features. To ensure which plan is for you, we have placed what they offer in each price point. That said, you can try the free plan, which acts as a free trial to test Teachable’s environment.
| Free ($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
- It’s built-in course completion certificates can be combined with the course compliance giving you the ability to host academic courses
- The course player lets your students take notes and listen to your lectures, promoting active learning. It even has a subtitle feature
- HTML/CSS scripts are easily embedded in lectures to open up many interesting and engaging possibilities.
- You can use it for unlimited video hosting
- It has a robust membership feature to allow for exclusive content depending on membership tiers
- The bulk upload feature makes your workflow more comprehensive
- You can opt in for a comment feature in your courses
- Has an ios App to allow your students consume the content whenever or wherever
- Payment processing platforms can handle EU/VAT transactions
- It does not need to be integrated with other services, as it has its own payment gateways.
- Its native payment gateways have a “Back Office” that processes payouts for affiliate commissions and other complex payments.
- Includes video analytics and student reports. Podia Vs Gumroad
> > 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. They use custom CSS and power editors. This is bad news for non-techies
- Lacks a proper 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
The Overview of Thinkific
Thinkific is another LMS service that puts course building at the forefront. You can create a website and then 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. 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 flaunts itself as the “go-to platform for running an online course business”.
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 into Thinkific brings you to the admin area. This is your central point for all things Thinkific Platform.
You can access all features that Thinkific offers via the sidebar. Usually, these features are found and arranged in a logical manner. There are some features though that might be found in places you don’t think that they should be in.
Overall, the thinkific interface may be decent, but there are parts where it feels clunky and unoptimized.
- Course Creation – Thinkific is known for its unique course creation system. 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 also allows for drip-feeding your content to easily pace out and manage your course. Podia Vs Gumroad
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.
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 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 also lacks a sales funnel builder and as such, you will need to use integration. Even then, the whole checkout is a bit clunky with limited customization.
Thinkific’s email marketing is also severely 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’s level of customizability is fairly decent. First of all, they give you a choice of three themes. Then, you can choose from the three themes to create 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 also allows you to import developer coded themes. If you have the technical know-how, you can also customize your themes using code.
Thinkific also offers a drag-and-drop page builder. Each block in this builder is called a “section” and there are 20. It is very easy to use and you can add a section to your page with only just 1 click. Podia Vs Gumroad
- 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.
Thinkific Price
Thinkific offers four basic plans which includes a free plan. Their free plan is one of the best as it give you the most features only being limited to the number of courses you can make and sell with them.
That said, Thinkific also offers a Growth feature that gives more powerful tools in their Pro plan. Thinkific Plus is also available for enterprise clients.
| No cost ($0 per Month) | Basic ($39/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
- The page builder is simple to use and can be customized with coding knowledge.
- 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.
- Marketing features are very weak.
- 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.
The Verdict Podia Vs GumroadPodia Vs Gumroad
We can now see how Podia compares with other Learning Management Systems. This will help you find the best platform for your courses, products, and businesses.
Verdict: Podia versus Kajabi
Both Kajabi and Podia function very similarly, as they both offer all-in-one solutions. The two main factors that will determine which platform you choose are price and customization. Podia Vs Gumroad
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 are experts in different areas. Your business’s direction would determine your decision.
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. 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.
You should choose Thinkific if you would rather focus on making courses, but you don’t want to pay Teachable’s high prices. 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 Gumroad