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. 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. 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. 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.
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 Samcart
Course building websites or to refer to them in their proper name: Learning Management Systems are platforms, services, or websites that deliver digital content, especially educational ones to a desired audience.
One could even say that these websites allow for learning to be delivered remotely. While LMS can be used for remote or distance learning, it isn’t the only one capable of this. Distance learning is a reality since 1924. Podia Vs Samcart
LMS, or distance learning via the internet, is therefore, more precise. LMS can be either hosted locally or through a vendor. Cloud hosting is a common method used by most vendors to host learning materials and courses. These vendors usually follow 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.
LMS websites have been around since then and vendors sites are still in existence. A lot of these websites that have long existed are now becoming household names due to their popularity and usage during the pandemic.
New websites are also popping up, creating buzz and trying their hand at being the next big thing.
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. It enables you to sell online courses, coaching, webinars, digital downloads, or you can sell all of them in a bundle.
Among all LMS, it probably is one of the most affordable price plan. It is a great choice for course creators who are searching for an affordable 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. 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. 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.
Among the more affordable LMS websites, Podia probably has the best Membership and integration communities. It even comes available on all Podia plans.
Speaking of plans, with the exception of the free plan, all tiers on Podia’s subscription does not take any transaction fees from all your purchases. This means that you own the money no matter what you sell. Podia Vs Samcart
> > 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.
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 lacks email templates and there is not really a place for more personalization and automation features.
Podia also offers other marketing features such as the ability to upsell your products, to giveaway coupons to potential customers, and even to pre-launch courses to drum up interest before really going all in.
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. This is to be expected from a basic platform such as Podia.
- Design and Customization – This is probably where Podia falls the hardest. While they offer a decent number of customization options, It really isn’t that “customizable”. Most of the things you can do are only about the texts and colors. Podia Vs Samcart
It also only has a very few templates to offer. It lacks HTML/Custom CSS customization. Although this may sound like a problem, some people would prefer it that way. {Non-techies would probably not notice and would prefer the ease of use.|The ease of use would be preferred by non-techies.
- Payment Processors – For Payment Processors, Podia integrates Stripe and Paypal for collecting payment from your students. Podia also does not take any transaction fees for any transactions or sales you make with your website.
That said, there might be additional fees that come from Stripe or Paypal, as such, you still have to pay for them. These fees are usually very low, so they shouldn’t cause any problems.
Podia Price
Podia offers four types of plans. Each with their own features. This include:
| No cost ($0 per Month) | Mover ($33 per month) |
|
|
| Shaker Plan ($75/month) | Earthquaker Plan ($33 per month) |
|
|
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.
- 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. 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 claims to be creator-centric and they charge 0% on all 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
- The Email Composer lacks more option for personalization. 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. Podia does not support custom CSS/HTML customizations
- To create sales funnels and landing pages, you might need third-party apps or services such as WordPress or ClickFunnels.
- Only a handful of lesson types are supported. Some that are missing include Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline and HTML 6 Content, assessments, etc.
- The affiliate program is also missing. Affiliate-specific commissions are not available.
- Podia does not have a mobile application.
Podia versus Kajabi
Kajabi: An Overview
Kajabi is a Learning Management System. It allows users to create products and courses while simultaneously hosting them.
The platform is very sophisticated, and has many features like automation. This makes it ideal for marketers and course creators who have previous experience in this field. Of course, to make use of its full potential, users must have the technical know-how to utilize all of Kajabi’s offerings.
Kajabi allows you to also sell memberships, coachings, communities and podcasts along with other digital products.
Kajabi offers a mobile app that is different from other LMSs. This is because smartphones have quickly become the most preferred device for almost everyone. It really gives the company a boost in terms of the market.
Kajabi Features
Kajabi also offers a lot of features to ensure that their higher price point is worth every cent that you pay for. Kajabi’s website builder and many other features are highly 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.
One more thing that is unique to Kajabi is its Pipelines. 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 looks neat and minimal with little to no clutter. Overall it gives off a very modern 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 can redirect you to features and tools inside of the Kajabi app.
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.
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. 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. At the moment, Kajabi doesn’t offer live lessons.
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 – At its most basic, Kajabi offers all of the expected products to make your products enticing to buyers. You can sell upsells and order bumps using Kajabi. You can even customize this stuff to ensure more value for your money.
Kajabi’s strongest point is email marketing. You can send broadcasts and email sequences using this tool. Kajabi’s email marketing also provides you with various email templates. Podia Vs Samcart
Kajabi can send any type of email, no matter what it is. Kajabi’s email marketing is even more powerful when it is combined with an automation function.
It makes your job easier and faster. You have many options. Kajabi makes it easy to use third-party sales funnels. You can also customize their pipelines.
It can be used effectively and correctly to increase customer conversion rates, which will lead to increased sales. Podia Vs Samcart
- 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. You can access their code editor if you purchase the top Kajabi plan. This allows you to customize even the smallest details.
Kajabi’s Page Builder allows you to create course pages, membership sites, checkout pages, landing pages, and many other pages. They also utilize a block system and each block can be customized. 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 and PayPal as well as other third-party integrations. Some regions have even more gateways.
For those regions that don’t have integration, third-party integration can be used through Webhooks and Zapier.
Kajabi provides the checkout page on one page. That said, this single page can be customized to add sales videos and testimonials to further upsell your products.
Kajabi price
Because of its robust and feature-rich nature. Kajabi offers the best rates of all LMS services on the internet. You cannot also get a free trial. It has also become a common practice to include names for the different tiers that their plans have.
In the case of Kajabi they have the Growth, Basic, and Pro. All plans also give you access to Kajabi University. This 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 and Cons
Pros
- Kajabi offers various types of courses for you to make
- Provides Templates and Blueprints to help you get started
- With their automations, their email marketing solutions are some of the best on the market.
- This program allows you to use built-in assessments to help you grade and evaluate your students. These can also be automated
- Has a mobile app that is perfect for students who want to consume the courses on their phone
- 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 Samcart
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 available for thank you pages, landing pages, or other pages. You will need to edit the default page templates as needed
- There are no guarantee badges available on the checkout page
- Kajabi doesn’t have their own payment gateway
- Kajabi’s community is missing some features that make it as interesting as the rest.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Podia versus Teachable
Teachable an Overview
Teachable is 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 can be found in its course compliance feature. This feature is often missing in most LMSs and online courses 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 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. Teachable even has a free plan that allows one course to be sold. Though it does come with its own limitations. This plan is free and can be extremely useful if you are just starting out.
Teachable Features
- Interface – Teachable’s interface looks very modern and is quite neat. 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.
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. 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.
You can even combine these types into one lecture, like adding a quiz after a video lecture in the same course. Although this may seem like a difficult task, Teachable offers a bulk upload option that makes it easier to upload your files quicker.
These files can be uploaded once they are saved.
As for delivery, Teachable also allows for drip scheduling, meaning you can drip your content depending on when your student enrolled. This feature does not drip lectures, but sections. Podia Vs Samcart
There is also the course player. This allows students to add notes to their learning experience. 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.
Teachable’s Course Compliance feature is also worth noting. This feature is where Teachable really shines among the competition. 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.
Teachable offers basic email marketing features. However, it lacks some key features such as sequences, templates and automations.
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.
The website will handle the commissions of these affiliates through Teachable’s very own payment gateways. Podia Vs Samcart
- Design and customization – Teachable is not very customizable in terms of the overall theme. 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 < <
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 proper is more customizable than expected. They provide you with several building blocks depending on 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 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. 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. You can also try the free plan to get a feel for Teachable.
| No cost ($0 per Month) | Basic ($39/month) |
|
|
| Pro ($119 per Month) | Businesses ($299 per month) |
|
|
Teachable Pros and Cons
Pros
- It’s paid plans allows you to host unlimited courses
- It is the best choice if you are a teacher and want to focus on teaching.
- It’s built-in course completion certificates can be combined with the course compliance giving you the ability 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 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 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.
- Has an in-depth student reports and video analytics, Podia Vs Samcart
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Cons
- Their free plan lacks a lot of feature to even call it a plan
- Your sales are subject to a 5% commission under the Basic Plan
- They don’t use a drag-and-drop builder. Instead, they use custom CSS and power editors. This is bad news for non-techies
- A lack of a community feature
- To customize the course player, you would need to be able to code
- When issuing refunds, you would need to avail of third-party services.
Podia versus Thinkific
Thinkific an Overview
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 flaunts itself as the “go-to platform for running an online course business”.
As such, Thinkific puts its core focus on it’s curriculum creation capabilities. This is why the course creation features are the most important.
This means their selling and marketing aspects are poor.
Thinkific Features
- Interface – Logging into Thinkific brings you to the admin area. This will be your hub that allows you to navigate the whole Thinkific Platform.
You can access all features that Thinkific offers via the sidebar. 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 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. 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 also allows for drip-feeding your content to easily pace out and manage your course. Podia Vs Samcart
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 manage discussions, answer questions from students, and even approve or hide discussions.
Thinkific also allows you to manage quizzes and assignments as much as possible.
- Marketing – This is probably where Thinkific is at its weakest. Most of their marketing features only include the essentials. What’s worse is that it might only be limited to a certain tier or higher.
Thinkific allows for course bundles which can also be used for creating a membership site.
Thinkific also lacks a sales funnel builder and as such, you will need to use integration. Even so, the checkout process is somewhat cumbersome and offers limited customization.
Thinkific’s email marketing is also severely limited. You can only send your marketing emails to students who are already enrolled in your courses. As such, the best you can do is to tell them about new courses or products as well as send the email updates.
Thinkific allows you to add affiliates for your products and courses. It allows you to choose how much commission you want.
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 are like presets which allow you to select your preferred site 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 uses a drag and drop page builder. Each block in this builder is called a “section” and there are 20. It is very easy to use and you can add a section to your page with only just 1 click. Podia Vs Samcart
- Payment Processors – Thinkific has their own payment processor called Thinkific Payments. This is part of a tool called TCommerce suite of tools. This tool offers seamless shopping, 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. 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.
| Free ($0 per month) | Basic ($39 per month) |
|
|
| Pro ($79 per month) | Premier ($399 per month) |
|
|
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Thinkific Pros and Cons
Pros
- Thinkific’s permanent free offer is the Thinkific Free Package
- Has different course payment options for different types of students and schools
- No transaction fees for any payments made by learners
- Premium packages give you unlimited online purse options
- Their page builder is easy to use, and it can be further customized if you have the coding know-how
- 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.
- Marketing features are very weak.
- 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 SamcartPodia Vs Samcart
With all those laid out in hand, we can finally see how Podia compares to 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. The two main factors that will determine which platform you choose are price and customization. Podia Vs Samcart
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. 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
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. 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 has a more robust course building platform compared to Podia. Also, Teachable’s greatest and most unique feature is its course compliance which helps to properly monitor your student’s course completion.
Verdict: Thinkific versus Podia
There is nothing really much to say here except for the fact that Thinkific is basically like a cheaper version of Teachable, as such picking between these two would be basically the same as picking between Podia and Teachable
You should choose Podia if you wish to focus on selling your digital products and you would prefer an all in one digital platform. Podia 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 Samcart
