One of the most effective ways to make money online is by sharing knowledge, teaching others, coaching, or any other similar activities. This can be done in many ways.
First and foremost, there is blogging, which is almost as old as the Internet itself. Although some believe that vlogging is its younger cousin, blogging has not lost its appeal. However, there are still people who love to read the content they’re interested in and not just videos.
Video essays are another way to learn about videos. These videos can provide a lot more insight than just a short presentation, especially when it comes to music, literature or film.
Video lectures and tutorials are also gaining popularity in terms of education. 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.
It was a new way to learn and educate growing up. The knowledge seemed to be spreading wider and more easily accessible to more people.
It was only a matter of time when formal courses, and education would also build a branch on the online world.
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. Do check out our article below, however, because it has a comprehensive overview of Podia.
Sites for Course Construction Podia Vs Rise
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 has been a thing since 1924. Podia Vs Rise
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. 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. Many of these websites, which have been around for a while, are now household names because of their popularity and use during the pandemic.
Then new websites have also come out, generating buzz and trying to be 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.
Among all LMS, it probably is one of the most affordable price plan. As such, it is best suited for course creators that are looking for an inexpensive LMS solution. It is affordable and allows you to create unlimited courses and products, which are great for digital product sellers.
The Podia website builder is easy to use and requires no coding. It is ideal for people who want to quickly get their digital courses or products online. That said, this simplicity sacrifices customization.
Many users feel that Podia can be too restrictive when it comes to designing websites. This is because Podia’s website builder doesn’t require 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. You can even get it 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 Rise
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
- Interface – Podia’s interface is a minimalistic and sleek UI that greets you when you log in. It is very simple and intuitive that you can access most features mostly within just three clicks. Podia’s Interface is simply far from overwhelming.
- Course Creation – Podia supports course creation with text, quiz, coaching and files. It does not support all lesson types, so it may be slower than the competition.
This is where Podia’s Embed feature comes in clutch, with over 1900+ platforms to embed from like Youtube, Soundcloud and even TikTok. Podia allows you to drip content/lessons, so that you can move them around in any way you like.
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.
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. 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 Rise
There are very few templates available. It does not allow for 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.
However, Stripe and Paypal might charge additional fees. You still need to pay them. These fees are usually very low, so they shouldn’t cause any problems.
Podia Price
Podia offers four types of plans. Each with their own features. These include:
| Free ($0 per month) | Mover ($33 per month) |
|
|
| Shaker Plan ($75 per month) | Earthquaker Plan ($33/month) |
|
|
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.
- 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 broadcasts and campaigns through their built-in email marketing. These campaigns can be customized with exit and entrance conditions.
- 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.
- 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 provides built-in quizzes, community, certificates, and community. You can even use the community page for memberships.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Cons
- Email Composer does not offer personalization options. It even lacks pre-made templates, a drag and drop editor and split-testing.
- Podia’s system does not have a course-compliance feature. The most common report that you will get is the number of people who have completed a course. It lacks details.
- Podia has very limited customization options. 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. Some that are missing include Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline and HTML 6 Content, assessments, etc.
- Affiliate program is also lacking. 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 that provides the user an all-in-one platform to create courses and products while at the same time hosting them.
The platform is very sophisticated, and has many features like automation. This makes it ideal for marketers and course creators who have previous experience in this field. To fully utilize Kajabi’s capabilities, users need to have technical knowledge.
Kajabi allows you to also sell memberships, coachings, communities and podcasts along with other digital products.
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 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. 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 looks neat and minimal with little to no clutter. It has a modern, minimalist aesthetic. The accessibility is also satisfactory. All of Kajabi’s features can be accessed in as little as 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. It allows you to create different 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. To help in creating your courses, Kajabi provides you blueprints or templates for each product. Kajabi already provides a “skeleton” for your course. All you need to do is add content.
Kajabi also allows you to structure your course in categories and 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.
Kajabi lets you use text, audio, video, assessments, images, and files to create your courses. These content can be combined and added to a single course. At the moment, Kajabi doesn’t offer live lessons.
As for the student’s side. Kajabi’s course delivery is minimalistic and sleek. Your students will not be distracted by clutter.
- Marketing – Kajabi provides all the products you need to sell your products. It allows you to sell coupons, upsells, and order bumps. You can even customize this stuff to ensure more value for your money.
Kajabi’s strongest point is email marketing. It allows you to do the basic functions of sending broadcasts as well as email sequences. Kajabi’s email marketing offers a variety of email templates. Podia Vs Rise
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.
It makes your job easier and faster. It opens up a lot of options too. 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 Rise
- Design and Customization – Kajabi’s design options are among the most customizable in the market. Even the lowest plans offer a variety of themes you can choose to match your brand or course. These themes look professional.
You can even upload your own theme if you want to. 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.
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. They also do not offer a free trial. It is also a standard practice to name the different plans they offer.
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) |
|
|
| Pro ($319 per month) | |
|
Kajabi Pros & Cons
Pros
- Kajabi offers a variety of courses that you can choose from
- 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
- 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
- Removes the need for third-party funnels with their own version of a pipeline. You can even choose from many different templates for your pipeline. Podia Vs Rise
Cons
- Is more on the expensive side. The lowest plan is $149 per Month
- There are no plans available that support unlimited products. The lowest plan has only three products and three pipelines. The highest plan includes 100 products and 100 funnels.
- Kajabi does not have course completion certificates or course compliance features
- There are no page templates available for thank you pages, landing pages, or other pages. You will need to edit the default page templates as needed
- Does not offer guarantee badges on the checkout page
- Kajabi does not own their own payment gateway
- Kajabi’s community lacks some features that make it as engaging as the others.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Podia versus Teachable
Teachable an Overview
Teachable is among the best online course platforms currently in the market. This LMS can be used by teachers, course creators, coaches, and entrepreneurs to teach as well as for business. These courses and coaching can be sold together.
Teachable’s greatest strength can be found in its course compliance feature. This feature is 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. It even offers a free plan that allows you to sell one course only. It does have its 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.
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 – 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.
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.
Teachable allows you to schedule drip delivery. This means that your content can be dripped depending on the time your student enrolled. That said, this feature only drips sections and not lectures. Podia Vs Rise
Then there is the course player, which has a neat feature of allowing students to add personal notes, for them to use while learning. The only problem is that you will need to use the power editor to modify this player.
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. You can even use quizzes as a checkpoint before they can proceed 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.
Teachable does not have an affiliate program. Because of this, you need to make affiliates on your own. It does however allow you to create affiliates for your product.
These affiliates will be paid through the website’s own payment gateways by Teachable. Podia Vs Rise
- Design and customization – Teachable is not very customizable in terms of the overall theme. The service only gives you one theme. The only thing you can customize is the logo, branding, fonts, background color, and theme.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Nevertheless, if you pay for the business plan, you will have access to the power editor. This allows you to use custom code to modify the theme of the page.
The page builder itself is much more customizable than you might expect. You can choose from a variety of building blocks to suit your needs. You can even find block layouts to make banners, images with text and email. You can even get pricing for your products.
Like the themes, you can also use CSS/HTML to code in stuff to personalize your website more.
- Payment Processors – Teachable is the only LMS service that has its own payment gateway. There are two payment options: Monthly Payment Gateway and Teachable Payments. Students from EU can use the Monthly Payment Gateway to handle EU/VAT calculations.
Teachable has a “Back Office”, which handles all affiliate payouts. Unfortunately, to access the old Stripe or PayPal services, you will need to be on their professional plans.
Overall, Teachable Payment Processors make it easier for your students and customers to easily make payments and checkouts.
Teachable price
Teachable offers four plans in total if we count the free one. 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. You can also try the free plan to get a feel for Teachable.
| No cost ($0 per Month) | Basic ($39 per month) |
|
|
| Pro ($119 per Month) | Business ($299 per Month) |
|
|
Teachable Cons and Pros
Pros
- You can host unlimited courses with the paid plans
- It has the best course compliance features making it the best option if your focus is on teaching
- You can combine the built-in certificate of completion with the course compliance to allow you to host academic courses
- Its course player allows your students to take notes while watching or listening to your lecture, thus promoting a pro-active learning environment. You can even add subtitles to the program.
- 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 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 choose to have comments added to 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 has its own native payment gateways bypassing the need to integrate other services
- 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 Rise
> > 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 do not use a drag and drop builder. Instead, 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, another LMS service, puts course building at its 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. 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. This is why the course creation features are the most important.
This means their selling and marketing aspects are poor.
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. 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. Even its free plan offers a lot of options to make your course as enjoyable as it can be.
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. You will need to organize each lesson separately to make the bulk upload work.
Thinkific also allows for drip-feeding your content to easily pace out and manage your course. Podia Vs Rise
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. 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 also lacks a sales funnel builder and as such, you will need to use 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. You can only send marketing emails to students who are already enrolled in your courses.
Thinkific also allows you to add affiliates to promote your courses and products. 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. 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 are like presets which allow you to select your preferred site aesthetic.
However, they are not as customizable 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 Rise
- Payment Processors – Thinkific has their own payment processor called Thinkific Payments. This is part of a tool called TCommerce suite of tools. This tool provides for a seamless experience especially for one time purchases, subscriptions, and payment plans.
This is not available in Canada, the UK and the USA. Outside of those regions, Stripe and Paypal integrations are the other alternatives.
The Thinkific Price
Thinkific offers four plans, including a free one. 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 per month) |
|
|
| Pro ($79 per month) | Premier ($399 per month) |
|
|
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Thoughtific Pros and Cons
Pros
- Thinkific’s free package is permanently free
- Different course payment options available for different students and schools
- No transaction fees for any 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 comes with a strong course builder that will make your course engaging.
- You can use Thinkific to give incentives such as leaderboards, awards, and scores to motivate your students.
Cons
- Most of their features are not exactly user friendly.
- Beginners would probably be disappointed with the lack of custom options, and they might be lost in the sea of code
- Very weak marketing features.
- Checkout page very clunky
- Does not have chat support. Email support might take up to one day for a proper response. This includes time zones.
Verdict Podia Vs RisePodia Vs Rise
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. Choosing one or the other comes down to two factors: price and customizability. Podia Vs Rise
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.
If you don’t have the budget but still want a personal touch, Kajabi is the right choice. 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. As such, Podia would better fit your needs.
You should choose Teachable if you want to focus more on the “course” and “teaching” part. Teachable 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
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
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 Rise