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.
First and foremost, there is blogging, which is almost as old 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.
And speaking of videos, another angle into which you can learn from is through video essays. These videos can provide a lot more insight than just a short presentation, especially when it comes to music, literature or film.
Education is also becoming more popular thanks to video lectures and tutorials. I remember back in school, especially when Math is the subject, my classmates and I would often search tutorials on youtube to solve specifically confusing word problems.
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 of time when formal courses, and education would also build a branch on the online world.
It was then, the Course Building Websites were born.
For those of you who prefer a more visual experience, here is a video review from Legit Marketing Reviews’ YouTube channel. Do check out our article below, however, because it has a comprehensive overview of Podia.
Course Building Websites Podia Vs Regular
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.
These websites even allow learning to be done 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 Regular
Therefore, to be more precise, LMS is basically distance learning through the internet. LMS can either be hosted locally or via a vendor. Cloud hosting is a common method used by most vendors to host learning materials and courses. This is a SaaS (Software as a Service) model.
Learning Management Systems especially gained popularity during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic as face-to-face and regular school learning became impossible and impractical due to isolation and social distancing measures put in place by different governments across the world.
Ever since then, LMS websites and vendor sites seem to be here for good. 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 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. 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.
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. 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. That means, whatever you sell, the money is all yours. Podia Vs Regular
> > 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 simply far from overwhelming.
- 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.
This is where Podia’s Embed feature comes in clutch, with over 1900+ platforms to embed from like Youtube, Soundcloud and even TikTok. Podia also allows you to drip your content/lesson, so you can pace them in whatever way you want.
It has a great course creation feature. However, the absence of retention reports keeps it from being perfect.
- Marketing – Podia’s marketing features allows for email marketing, however it is a very basic email marketing tool that allows you to send broadcasts and email campaigns. It 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. The only thing that really lets it down is the absence 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 Regular
There are very few templates available. It does not allow for 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 per month) | Earthquaker Plan ($33/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. It is easy to set up and users will be satisfied.
- 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.
- In all their plans, Podia supports unlimited courses and products.
- Their unlimited offer also applies to storage and bandwidth where you can host your videos. You don’t have to use Vimeo, Wistia, or any other video hosting site.
- You can use Podia’s built-in affiliate program to increase your reach. You do have to be on the Shaker and Earthshaker plans to utilize this function.
- You can send campaigns and broadcasts through their integrated email marketing. These campaigns can be customized with exit and entrance conditions.
- Podia offers over 1900+ integrations across various apps, email service providers and payment gateways. 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 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
- The Email Composer lacks more option for personalization. It even lacks pre-made templates, a drag and drop editor and split-testing.
- 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 is very basic in terms of customization. Podia does not support custom CSS/HTML customizations
- You might need to use third-party apps and services to really create landing pages and sales funnels such as WordPress, or ClickFunnels
- Only a few 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. There is no affiliate commission tiers and affiliate-specific commissions.
- Podia doesn’t have a mobile app.
Podia versus Kajabi
Kajabi: An Overview
Kajabi is a Learning Management System. It allows users to create products and courses while simultaneously hosting them.
It is also very advanced, with a lot of features such as automation that the platform is perfect for course creators and marketers who already have the experience in the field. Of course, to make use of its full potential, users must have the technical know-how to utilize all of Kajabi’s offerings.
Kajabi 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.
Probably where Kajabi shines the most is in its marketing tools. While it offers the usual bells and whistles, what investors and the Kajabi’s competitors really envy is their automation system. Yes, that’s correct! Kajabi offers automation in lots of its features, especially their emails.
Kajabi’s Pipelines are another unique feature. Kajabi’s Pipelines offer many benefits that can be used to replace ClickFunnel or other website funnel-building tools.
- Interface – Logging in to Kajabi brings you to its dashboard. It is clean and minimalistic with minimal clutter. It has a modern, minimalist aesthetic. It is also easy to use. All of Kajabi’s features can be accessed in as little as 3 to 5 clicks.
Kajabi’s homepage includes a search assistant. This can be used to help you navigate the site if you get lost or are too lazy to click on things. This will redirect you to the Kajabi App’s features and tools.
Kajabi’s page loads very quickly and provides a smooth experience.
- Course Creation – Kajabi’s course creation is very robust. It allows you to create different 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.
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 – Kajabi provides all the products you need to sell your products. It allows you to sell coupons, upsells, and order bumps. This stuff can be customized to give you more value for money.
Kajabi’s strongest point is email marketing. 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 Regular
Kajabi can send any type of email, no matter what it is. However, Kajabi’s email marketing really gets powerful when you combine it with an automation function.
Not only does it make your job faster and easier. You have many options. WIth Kajabi, you also don’t need to avail of 3rd party sales funnels. You can also customize their pipelines.
When used properly and effectively, it will increase your customer conversion rate leading to more sales. Podia Vs Regular
- Design and Customization – Kajabi’s design options are among the most customizable in the market. 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. They also utilize a block system and each block can be customized. They are 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 even have more gateways available.
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
It is robust and features-rich. Kajabi has the highest rates among all the LMS services found 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 also give you access to Kajabi University. This knowledge base is Kajabi’s own and can be used to assist users with its functionality.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
| Basic ($149 per month) | Growth ($199 per month) |
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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
- Provides Templates and Blueprints to help you get started
- Their email marketing solutions are the most advanced in the market with their automations
- Provides you with built-in assessments that allows you to grade and assess 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
- Automation and advanced automation (with conditional filter) helps you finish tasks in your website easily and swiftly
- 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 Regular
Cons
- It is more expensive. 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 lacks course completion certificates and course compliance features
- There are no page templates available for thank you pages, landing pages, or other pages. You can edit the default templates for your pages as you need.
- There are no guarantee badges available on the checkout page
- Kajabi doesn’t have their own payment gateway
- Kajabi’s community lacks some features that make it as engaging as the others.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Podia versus Teachable
Teachable an Overview
Teachable is one of the most popular online courses platforms. 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 is 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’s course compliance even gives out advanced reports on student progress, and video analytics to show student engagement.
Teachable also does not depend on integration for its payment gateways, opting for their own system instead. It even handles EU/VAT making your life and those of your European Students easier overall.
Teachable is also one of the most affordable LMSs available. It even offers a free plan that allows you to sell one course only. Though it does come with its own limitations. However, this free plan can be very useful when you just want to test out the waters.
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.
Although it does not include a search function, this is due to how easy it is for users to navigate from one option to the next.
Teachable’s pages load slower than other LMSs, but this is not noticeable and I wouldn’t have noticed it if I wasn’t actively comparing websites.
- Course Creation – As for course creation proper, Teachable does not provide templates or pipelines for you to use. This setup can be difficult, especially for newbies in web design.
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.
You can even combine these types into one lecture, like adding a quiz after a video lecture in the same course. This might seem a hassle to set-up at first,but Teachable has a bulk upload feature that allows you to put up your files faster.
Once uploaded, these files will become individual lectures themselves.
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 Regular
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.
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.
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. They function like the other LMS marketing features and they serve the same purpose of enticing others to buy your products.
Teachable offers basic email marketing features. However, it lacks some key features such as sequences, templates and automations.
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 Regular
- Design and customization – Teachable is not very customizable in terms of the overall theme. You can only choose 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.
Like the themes, you can also use CSS/HTML to code in stuff to personalize your website more.
- Payment Processors – Teachable is among the only LMS services that has their very own Payment Gateway. They have Teachable Payments and the Monthly Payment Gateway. Students from EU can use the Monthly Payment Gateway to handle EU/VAT calculations.
Teachable also has “Back Office” which is a service that will handle all affiliate payout. 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. These plans are similar to the others in terms of accessibility and features. We have listed the features and prices of each plan to help you choose which plan is right for you. 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 per month) |
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| Pro ($119 per Month) | Businesses ($299 per month) |
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Teachable Pros and Cons
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
- 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 are easily embedded in lectures to open up many interesting and engaging possibilities.
- 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 can handle EU/VAT transactions
- It has its own native payment gateways bypassing the need to integrate other services
- 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 Regular
> > 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. Instead, they use custom CSS and power editors. This is bad news to 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. It has everything you need to create a web page and start building your courses.
Thinkific is also very easy to use and as such, it is one of the most beginner friendly online course creators on the market. It is so user-friendly that Thinkific offers a free plan which allows you to create up to three courses with no investment. Granted, they do take a transaction fee.
Thinkific is the “go to platform” for online courses.
Thinkific’s core focus is on its 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 will be your hub that allows you to navigate the whole Thinkific Platform.
The sidebar allows you to access every feature that Thinkific has to offer. Usually, these features are found and arranged in a logical manner. You might not be able to find certain features in the places you think they should be.
Overall, the thinkific interface may be decent, but there are parts where it feels clunky and unoptimized.
- 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 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 Regular
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.
You can also manage assignments and quizzes with Thinkific.
- Marketing – This is where Thinkific is weakest. Their marketing features are limited to the essentials. What’s worse is that it might only be limited to a certain 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.
Thinkific’s email marketing is also severely limited. Your marketing emails can only be sent to students 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.
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. First of all, they give you a choice of three themes. You can then select from these three themes, your theme styles. These styles can be thought of as presets that allow you to choose your site’s aesthetic.
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 offers a drag-and-drop page builder. In this builder, each block is called a section and there are 20 of them. It is very easy to use and you can add a section to your page with only just 1 click. Podia Vs Regular
- Payment Processors – Thinkific has its own payment processor, Thinkific Payments. This tool is part of the TCommerce suite. This tool offers seamless shopping, subscriptions and payment plans.
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 basic plans which includes a free plan. The best plan, the free one, is the best. It gives you the most features and limits the number of courses that you can create or sell.
That said, Thinkific also offers a Growth feature that gives more powerful tools in their Pro plan. 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 < <
Thoughtific 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
- Premium packages give you unlimited online purse options
- The page builder is simple to use and can be customized with coding knowledge.
- It has a robust course builder to make your course as engaging as possible.
- 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.
- Very clunky checkout page
- Does not have chat support. For a prompt response, email support can take up to one working day. This includes time zones.
The Verdict Podia Vs RegularPodia Vs Regular
We can now see how Podia compares with 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
Both Kajabi and Podia function very similarly, as they both offer all-in-one solutions. Choosing one or the other comes down to two factors: price and customizability. Podia Vs Regular
Podia is the best choice if you are looking for an all-in-one platform that’s affordable and doesn’t require much customization. An important thing to note is that, in its low price point, Podia allows you to upload an unlimited number of courses.
You should choose Kajabi if budget is not a question and you would prefer a more personal touch. Kajabi offers advanced automation and automation for marketing that will make it easier to update your customers and market to them.
Verdict: Podia versus Teachable
It is more difficult to compare this matchup to the one mentioned above. Teachable and Podia specialize in different things and as such, your choice would depend on your business’ direction.
If you are looking to sell digital products such as memberships, coachings and courses, Podia is the right choice. As such, Podia would better fit your needs.
Teachable is the best choice if you are looking to concentrate more on the “course” rather than “teaching”. Teachable has a more robust course building platform compared to Podia. Teachable’s most distinctive feature is its course compliance, which allows you to monitor the progress of your students.
Verdict: 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.
If you want to sell your digital products, Podia is the right choice. Podia has a stronger marketing tool than Thinkific. This would be a benefit for some.
You should choose Thinkific if you would rather focus on making courses, but you don’t want to pay Teachable’s high prices. Though their plan is more limited, Thinkific can be used to learn how to make online courses. Thinkific does not have a course compliance feature. Instead, it focuses on positive and incentivized motivation. Podia Vs Regular