Sharing knowledge, teaching people, coaching, and similar other things has become one of the best ways to earn money on the Internet. 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. While some do think that it’s younger cousin, vlogging has replaced it, there are still those who prefer to read what they want to study 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.
Course Building Websites Podia Vs New Zenler
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. 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 New Zenler
Therefore, to be more precise, LMS is basically distance learning through the internet. 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.
Ever since then, LMS websites and vendor sites seem to be here for good. Many of these websites, which have been around for a while, are now household names because of their popularity and use 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 an online Learning Management System. It claims to be all-in-one. 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. 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.
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.
Podia has many integration options for those features that are not available. 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. 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 New Zenler
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
- Interface – A sleek and minimal UI greets you upon logging in to Podia. 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.
Podia’s Embed feature is a game changer. There are over 1900+ platforms you can embed from, including Soundcloud, Youtube, and TikTok. Podia also allows you to drip your content/lesson, so you can pace them in whatever way you want.
Overall, it has a superb course creation feature, but the lack of retention reports keep it from being perfect.
- Marketing – Podia has a few marketing tools that allow you to email market. However, it only allows you send emails and broadcasts. 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.
Overall, Podia’s marketing platform does more than enough to increase your sales. What really brings it down however is the lack of advanced automation. But that is to be expected of a basic platform like 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 New Zenler
It also only has a very few templates to offer. It lacks 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 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
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/month) | Earthquaker Plan ($33 per month) |
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Podia Pros and Cons
Pros
- Podia’s UI/UX has been refined so that even non-techies can easily understand it. Users will find themselves satisfied when setting it up.
- You can sell a variety of digital products through Podia, including courses, webinars, memberships and digital downloads. You can even sell these things in a bundle.
- Podia offers unlimited products and courses in all of their plans.
- You also have unlimited storage and bandwidth to host your videos. You don’t have to use Vimeo, Wistia, or any other video hosting site.
- To increase your reach, you can use Podia’s integrated affiliate program. 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 has over 1900+ integration across different apps, email service providers, payment gateways, and analytic tools. For those without native integration, you can use the Zapier integration along with its many triggers and actions.
- 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. You can even use the community page for memberships.
> > 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. The most common report that you will get is the number of people who have completed a course. It lacks details.
- Podia has very limited customization options. 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 few lesson types are supported. Adobe Captivate and Articulate Storyline are not supported. HTML 6 Content, assessments, and other lessons may be missing.
- Affiliate program is also lacking. 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.
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. To fully utilize Kajabi’s capabilities, users need to have technical knowledge.
Kajabi also allows you to sell coachings, memberships, communities, podcasts as well as other digital products.
Unlike most LMS, Kajabi has a mobile app, given that phones have become the preferred device to use by almost everyone, this really gives it a boost in 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.
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 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 looks neat and minimal with little to no clutter. Overall it gives off a very modern aesthetic. It is also easy to use. 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 can redirect you to features and tools inside of the Kajabi app.
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.
You can choose from: mini-courses, online courses, drip courses, or do a custom one of your own. Kajabi offers templates or blueprints to help you create your courses. Kajabi already provides a “skeleton” for your course. All you need to do is add 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 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.
As for the student’s side. Kajabi’s course delivery offers a sleek and minimal design. 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.
Email marketing is probably where Kajabi stands out the most. It allows you to do the basic functions of sending broadcasts as well as email sequences. Kajabi’s email marketing also provides you with various email templates. Podia Vs New Zenler
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.
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.
When used properly and effectively, it will increase your customer conversion rate leading to more sales. Podia Vs New Zenler
- 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 look professional.
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.
Kajabi’s Page Builder allows you to create course pages, membership sites, checkout pages, landing pages, and many other pages. 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.
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. They also do not offer a free trial. It has also become a common practice to include names for the different tiers that their plans have.
Kajabi offers the Basic, Growth, and Pro plans. All plans include 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 and Cons
Pros
- Kajabi offers a variety of courses that you can choose from
- 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.
- 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. By paying more, you can even access a code editor to really flesh out your website
- Comes with a blogging feature for promoting your brand
- This eliminates the need to use third-party funnels that have their own version. You can even choose from many different templates for your pipeline. Podia Vs New Zenler
Cons
- Is more on the expensive side. Their lowest plan costs $149 per month
- There are no plans available that support unlimited products. The lowest plan offers only 3 products and 3 pipelines, the highest offers 100 products and 100 funnels.
- Kajabi lacks course completion certificates and 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 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 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 mostly missing from most LMS and online course platforms. This feature is not usually available on most LMS and online course platforms.
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. 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. 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.
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 – As for course creation proper, Teachable does not provide templates or pipelines for you to use. Such set-up can be very difficult especially for those newer at designing websites.
Courses or Content are also divided into sections and lectures found inside each section. Content type can be text, video, files, quizzes, code examples, custom codes, and upsells.
These files can be combined into one lecture. For example, you could add a quiz to a video lecture. 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.
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 New Zenler
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 is the area where Teachable stands out from the rest. 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. 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. They function like the other LMS marketing features and they serve the same purpose of enticing others to buy 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. 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 New Zenler
- 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. They have Teachable Payments and the Monthly Payment Gateway. 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.
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. You can also try the free plan to get a feel for Teachable.
| 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
- It’s paid plans allows you to host unlimited courses
- 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
- 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 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 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 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 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 New Zenler
> > 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 don’t 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
Thinkific versus Podia
The Overview of Thinkific
Thinkific is another LMS service that puts course building at the forefront. It has everything you need to create a web page and 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. 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 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. 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 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 lets you use many media types, including videos, pdf, audio and Google Docs. You can also create storylines and captures. 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 New Zenler
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. Their marketing features are limited to 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. You can only send marketing emails to students who are already enrolled in your courses.
Thinkific allows you to add affiliates for your products and courses. It allows you to choose how much commission you want.
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. 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.
That said, their level of customizability is not as good 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 uses a drag and drop page builder. In this builder, each block is called a section and there are 20 of them. It’s very simple to use, and you can add sections to your page in just one click. Podia Vs New Zenler
- Payment Processors – Thinkific has its own payment processor, Thinkific Payments. This tool is part of the TCommerce suite. 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. Other than those countries, Stripe integrations and Paypal integrations can be used.
Thinkific Price
Thinkific offers four plans, including a free one. 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. Other than that, they also offer Thinkific Plus 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 permanent free offer is the Thinkific Free Package
- 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.
- Beginners would probably be disappointed with the lack of custom options, and they might be lost in the sea of code
- Marketing features are very weak.
- Very clunky checkout page
- Does not have chat support. Email support might take up to one day for a proper response. This also includes time zones.
The Verdict Podia Vs New ZenlerPodia Vs New Zenler
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 New Zenler
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. 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
This matchup is much more difficult to compare to the one above. Teachable and Podia are experts in different areas. Your business’s direction would determine your decision.
You should choose Podia if what you need is mostly to sell courses, coachings, memberships, and other digital products, you would need more of a digital platform. Podia is more suited to your needs.
You should choose Teachable if you want to focus more on the “course” and “teaching” part. Teachable offers a stronger course-building platform than 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
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.
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 has a stronger marketing tool than Thinkific. This would be a benefit for some.
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 New Zenler