Knowledge is the greatest gift that life has to offer. Without the knowledge we currently have, life would have been really really different and so is our way of life.
For most of human history, the way we learn and give knowledge has remained largely unchanged. It usually involves a teacher and student relation or a master and apprentice relation. One mostly provides the instruction, while the other receives it.
Then there are those who learn by themselves. Self-study has become possible thanks to advances in writing and reading. With detailed instruction books, anyone can learn without the need for a teacher or master.
Then came the online revolution. While the popular opinion is that the advent of the internet revolutionized learning and education in general, it did not really change much except the way how people receive and consume information.
My opinion is that the internet did the best job of democratizing knowledge on a scale not seen since instructional films were created and the invention of the printing presses.
The internet allowed teachers and teachers at heart to impart their knowledge to people that they never imagined they would meet. It allowed education and knowledge to break boundaries and borders, even without a plane ticket and a visa.
While most of it started on unlikely websites such as youtube and vimeo, or maybe even written blogs. We now have dedicated websites that allow people to teach courses.
For those of you who prefer a more visual experience, here is a video review from Legit Marketing Reviews’ YouTube channel. Do check out our article below, however, because it has a comprehensive overview of Podia.
Podia a Brief Overview Podia Vs Membervault
Podia allows users to share their knowledge online and make money. Podia customers create online courses that can be tailored to their students. These courses can be put on the platform by customers and sold to them.
In a way, Podia not only gives you tools to create an online course, it also hosts them.
Podia’s market is not limited to online courses. Podia is one of the most popular digital content selling platforms. These content could include the mentioned online courses. It could also be coaching, webinars, community, as well as other digital products.
Podia is headquartered in New York City. It has additional offices also in Austin Texas. It is fairly new but somehow old by internet standards. It was launched in 2014 by Spencer Fry, a man who is behind it.
Fry created a platform that would make it easier for online creators to market their products and to connect with their audience. He wanted the experience to be less hassle, but at the same time, provide these people with a welcoming and communal environment.
This resulted in Podia the website, which is intuitive, powerful and user friendly tool that was designed from scratch
Podia: Why do you use it?
Despite the number of online platforms available on the internet, Podia still stands out especially due to its creator-friendly policies. Podia has a digital shopfront that allows for instant payment from sales and does not charge any transaction fees. Yes, podia does not charge any transaction fees.
Podia extends its creator-friendly policies in the way their platform works. With an intuitive and comprehensive platform, creatives are able to execute their great ideas and visions even if they lack the technical know-how.
Podia makes it simple to get digital content on the market.
Even for those who already have an established digital content, Podia is still a very viable platform to transfer to. Other digital platforms can offer too many features that could be considered as an overkill. Too many options may look fine at first, however it could lead to an overwhelming experience.
This lack of focus may even be the cause of why your business is going into decline. That is why Podia’s simple and easy to get platform is a much better option. Podia Vs Membervault
Your membership site and your selling platform can be linked to each other through Podia’s website. This is much better than if your membership site is hosted separately from the product. This is not only a hassle but it also takes away valuable time that you could have spent creating.
In short, using Podia allows you to focus on the “creating” side of things rather than the logistics and business side.
What Podia Can Do
Podia promotes themselves as ” Everything you need to know about creating, validating, and marketing online courses, all in one convenient place.” As such, to be able to back this claim, the platform has a bunch of features geared exactly for that.
A Custom Website Builder
The custom website builder allows users to create landing pages that are specific to what your brand is selling. Podia offers you to build this custom website with a custom domain or as a subdomain to Podia.
Thus, podia gives you the advantage of a more custom website or the simplicity of having everything all in one place.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
A Email Marketing System
Podia allows you to have an automated email marketing system that allows you to send one-time broadcasts, as well as automated campaigns. Although you can also access this service via other websites, Podia’s tool is sufficient.
Using the one Podia provides allows you to save even more money.
The email editor is very user-friendly. You can even create automated sequences that are tailored to the buyer.
A live messaging widget
If you want to respond quickly to customers’ questions, live messaging is a great option. People nowadays want quick customer service. This widget allows you to communicate with customers instantly.
Affiliate Marketing Program Capabilities
Affiliate marketing is essential if you wish to expand your product line. Podia users have the opportunity to take advantage of the platform’s capabilities. By using partner promotion, users can widen their audience as well as exponentially enhance the number of sales
Digital Storefronts
Of course, you won’t be able to show your products without a place to display them. A Digital Storefront also allows you to advertise the new or featured products in your website. Podia allows you to build an online store that holds your products exclusively.
This storefront can be set up by any customer without the need for programming, programming, or design skills. Podia has a no-coding approach that allows you to do this.
Course Dashboard
Podia is a service where customers can navigate their content easily. This is a crucial factor in deciding which service they want to use. With Podia’s intuitive interface, it is easy to navigate these pages with just a few clicks.
Uploading and sharing your lessons, whether they are videos, audio podcasts or PDF documents, has never been easier.
Drip Content
Podia also gives you control on the schedule of your posting. Such a feature is especially important if you don’t want to blow your load of lessons at just a single opportunity.
Course creators have the option to “choose when they want to schedule their content”. This benefits both the student and the teacher (Main Podia customer) as this system allows the student to avoid being overwhelmed and burnt out of the course.
Meanwhile with automatic Drip Content, the teacher does not need to manually update each post to give another lesson or release another product.
Payment Integrations
Without payment integration, every feature is useless. Podia offers payment integrations that allow customers to pay with credit cards and PayPal worldwide. Podia Vs Membervault
Member Areas
You can set up a membership area through Podia. A membership area is an option you can sell to your customers for a monthly or yearly fee where they get special and exclusive content in return. You can even host giveaways there.
Membership areas are a great way of building customer trust and even a close community. It is a good idea to have a place you can set it up easily.
What is Podia like?
Of course, this wouldn’t really be a full review if we can’t tell you how the service really feels. For Podia, we will look at its Course Creation and Engagement Section, Site Design and Customization, and Sales and Marketing and see how they feel.
Course Creation and Engagement
First and foremost, we should tackle how the Podia handles course creation. This is particularly important because this is why most users want to pay for the Podia Service.
You can create unlimited courses with Podia. This means that there is no limit and no additional fees whenever you feel offering a new course.
Podia supports text, embeds, quizzes, coaching and files for lessons. Podia has very few lesson types. It also lacks assessments, Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, HTML5 content types and custom codes.
It can embed, but it has a few limitations. Podia can embed lots. In fact, there are over 1900+ platforms where Podia can embed from. This include but are not limited to
- Youtube, vimeo, dailymotion for video content
- Spotify SoundCloud and PodBean Audio podcasts
- Slide Share, Presentation, and Speaker Deck
- Twitter, TikTok and Behance.
- Github, Codepen
- Google Forms, Typeform, and Paper Form
As for the side of the students, Podia made itself easy to navigate especially for your potential students. They can guide themselves through your course with no problem at all. To make it more enjoyable, you can use your drip content and automated emails.
You can even add in a quiz and offer a certificate of completion to your students for completing a course. These features can be added or removed at your discretion.
It is important to remember that Podia can only feature courses. You can sell webinars, bundles and coaching as well as digital files.
By integrating the multiple websites mentioned above, you can create webinars as well as replay of these webinars to your customers. You can even bundle them along with your courses to create a more comprehensive package.
Site design and customization
For your websites, Podia offers templates that allow you to get on the exciting part easily and quickly. This is also true when making your product landing pages too.
As stated, creating your product website or your landing pages is quite easy. Each page is divided into a section wherein you can decide what to put in. You can even rearrange these pages just by dragging and dropping. The same goes for removing sections that are not needed.
For customization, Podia offers a decent amount of options. Podia offers both the basics of fonts and colors, as well as customizable text box options. However, that’s almost what you get. Many people think that Podia can be too restrictive when it comes to design.
That said, it seems this is what Podia has to sacrifice to maintain a ready to use and flexible website creator. Bear in mind, Podia’s site design page requires no coding. Drag and drop is all that’s required.
They say that custom code can be added, but I have not found the location.
As stated above, Podia allows you to sell other stuff aside from courses. This feature requires that you have at least one digital product on your storefront. That is an easy job though. You can do the same for these products like how you designed your websites.
To create unique sections for each product, you can use your landing page or front page. That way, it is simple for your students and customers to navigate and buy what they need.
The checkout page for products is smart and simple. There is little to no clutter. It is simple to convert every customer into a buyer because there are no distractions distracting their attention while they pay.
Podia has a good selection of customization options. It provides only the essential things needed and thus, you have no worries of being overwhelmed by the options being presented.
Although Podia’s design offerings might seem restrictive to some, for others the simplicity of Podia’s designs is all they need. Podia Vs Membervault
Marketing and Sales
Lastly, let’s talk about Podia’s marketing and sales capabilities. This is also an important part of the Podia experience, or any course-creating platform in general as this gives you an idea how easy it is to sell to your potential customers.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
For the basics, Podia has two payment options you can use: Stripe or PayPal. For your payment plan, you can offer a customizable and flexible plan option for your customers. You can either give them a one time big time payment or you can spread the payment overtime.
This is entirely up to you.
As for the payment processing, Podia handles everything for you, so you don’t need to worry about anything. As for credit card and payment information, it is all securely stored by Stripe, a PCI-compliant payment processor.
Podia does not charge transaction fees, unlike other services. That means what you sell is yours alone and Podia does not get a cut of it. You will still have to pay Stripe and PayPal fees. This is the same throughout all available platforms.
Podia provides basic tools for lead generation. You can offer both a sign-up form for the pre-launch and a sign-up form for the newsletter to collect email addresses.
Their email marketing allows you to send automated emails as well as one-off emails. This allows you send email campaigns to both existing and potential customers.
You can even customize your campaign emails in a drip out fashion, and define when the emails will be sent.
However, what they provide is very basic, and as such it cannot replace your email service provider.
A real landing page capability and list management are two things that are missing. Two very basic things but are entirely essential when doing your email marketing platform. These problems can be solved with third-party integration.
MailChimp and ConvertKIt are some third-party email service providers that integrate with Podia.
Podia has a Zapier integration too, which allows other email solutions that does not integrate directly to podia to pass users data via this service.
Zapier also enhances Podia’s integration to reach some other useful third-party applications like FreshBooks and ClickFunnels. You can even add third-party scripts to your website. Like Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, ConvertBox, Deadline Funnel among others.
Customer Support
Podia has the best customer service in the industry. For any queries you can contact support by emailing them or using the small widget that allows you to reach support via live chat.
Other customers have noted Podia’s excellent support. Generally speaking, the Podia team will give you a response in 5-10 minutes from asking. This is provided you reach them during working hours. You can still contact them during work hours, but it may take longer to get a reply.
Podia also has a vast knowledge base that can be used to help you do different things on the platform. You can also use this resource to find the answer to your question yourself if you prefer to search it on your own.
Lastly, one of their favorite features is their free offer to migrate your customers and audiences if you are on one of their paid plans. They will move your content and your audience from any other platform to Podia at no cost. Podia Vs Membervault
Price
Price is an important aspect of any review. Price is a key factor that can make or break your decision about whether you want to use a service. In this case, Podia offers three types of plans: Mover ($39/mo), Shaker ($79/mo), Earthquaker($179/mo).
Prices can change from time-to-time. For example: at the time of writing this review, they are currently offering a discount to all their plans. So visit the website to check out on their latest pricing.
Plan | No cost ($0 per Month) | Mover ($33 per month) |
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Plan | Shaker ($75 per month) | Earthquaker ($33 per month) |
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> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
The Mover Plan is a great option for anyone just starting out. Even for small time creators, what Podia offers in the Mover Plan could be enough.
However, the best value can be seen in the Shaker Plan which offers everything the Mover Plan has while adding Unlimited Webinars and Affiliates. As talked about earlier, these features are especially useful when talking about growing your business and such. Podia Vs Membervault
The Earthquaker plan, however, is for those who want to spend a lot on their subscription. This plan is beneficial to most people who are interested in a larger business. The Earthquaker plan also gives you 100,000 community members.
All paid plans allow you to set up a custom domain and a matching logo for your Podia storefront.
Speaking of brands, the Shaker and Earthquaker plans allow you to remove the Podia branding from your products. The Mover plan does not allow you to remove the Podia branding from your products. Instead, your product will be branded with the P symbol for Podai.
An important thing to note is that Podia offers a free plan. However, it is very limited and unlike the paid plans, it takes an 8$ transaction fee from all your transactions.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- It is very easy to use and set up
- Instant payouts that don’t require you to wait for payment
- It is affordable for the features it provides
- Offers great support no matter the customer tier
- Has integrated email marketing
- Gives you the ability track student progress
- Hosts both free and paid content
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Podia offers free migration of products and customers from other websites to Podia
Cons
- Most people find course builders rigid.
- Important learning tools are missing, such as graded quizzes, course compliance, and assignments.
- No mobile app feature
- Reporting tools are basic
- Not suitable for building a fully-fledged website
- Only Shaker PLan members can access the membership feature
- Email composer lacks personalization fields
- You can add team members to your admin team for $20 per month.
The Verdict of Podia
We can now see what Podia can do and decide if it is worth the effort.
Amidst the competition, Podia is steadily gaining ground as a player in e-learning. This is probably because of its less complicated and easy to use user interface.
While most customer’s common complaint about Podia is its limited and “rigid” design. This feature is great for those with limited web design knowledge. Podia Vs Membervault
With the influx of people bringing their businesses online, an easy to get and easy to understand UI can bring the focus back to the “creation” part of content creation and less with dealing on the logistics and admin side.
Another highlight in Podia’s case is its price point. It is fairly cheap compared to other course-creation services. You can set up your website in a functional state with a cost of less than $50
Sure, there might be a limit to what it can do, but you can think of it this way. Podia’s Mover allows you to try the waters and get the hang of it. Sometimes simplicity is the best option. Too many features could be overkill and might overwhelm the user.
We should also pay attention to their customer service. WIth a customer service who answers queries fast and efficiently, one could even forgive the lack of a phone channel to ask for help. They have people who will will answer your questions on the clock as long as its work hours.
Podia is a great service, especially for people who are just getting started with the internet. They have the basic necessities needed by someone to put up a successful website without overwhelming then.
I would highly recommend this site t
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Frequently Asked Questions
Podia Vs Membervault
Which Plan is the best option to get when I buy my Podia subscription?
The Shaker Plan is the best one to get.
You can get the most features and additional stuff at $79 per month. Some of which includes affiliate marketing and the ability to integrate many other apps and services like Zoom.
What are Podia’s payment plans?
Podia uses Paypal and Stripe for processing payments.
Customers and students can pay by paypal, credit or debit card for products.
Why Use Podia?
If you’re looking for an easy-to-use platform, Podia is the right choice.
Other reasons why you should choose podia over its competitors is because it takes no transaction fees. Furthermore, it has good and reliable customer service. It also has a low price.
What products can you make using Podia?
You can create online courses with Podia.
You can also download community memberships, webinars, coaching, and other digital content.