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. 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.
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.
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.
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. To get a comprehensive overview of Podia, you may still want to check out our article below.
Sites for Course Construction Podia Vs Upside Cash
Learning Management Systems, also known as course building websites, are platforms, services or websites that provide digital content to a targeted audience.
These websites even allow learning to be done 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 Upside Cash
Therefore, to be more precise, LMS is basically distance learning through the internet. LMS can either be hosted locally or via a vendor. Most vendors usually use the cloud to host courses or learning materials. 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.
Then new websites have also come out, generating buzz and trying to be the next big thing.
While these sites mostly share a common goal (to be the preferred platform of learning and creating courses) more or less, some of them specialize in certain areas.
Podia an Overview
Podia is an online Learning Management System. It claims to be all-in-one. It enables you to sell online courses, coaching, webinars, digital downloads, or you can sell all of them in a bundle.
It is probably the most affordable LMS plan. It is a great choice for course creators who are searching for an affordable LMS solution. It is affordable and allows you to create unlimited courses and products, which are great for digital product sellers.
Podia website builder is very simple and there is no coding required. Thus, it is a perfect fit for those who are in a rush and just want to get their courses or digital products out there. However, it does not sacrifice customization.
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.
Podia has many integration options for those features that are not available. From Zoom to Zapier, it allows for various email service providers, payment gateways, and analytics tools to be added to your website.
Podia Features
Podia offers a number of features that allow its users to create a website and customize it in a way they want. 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.
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 Upside Cash
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
- Interface – A sleek and minimal UI greets you upon logging in to Podia. You can access most features with just three clicks. It’s very intuitive and simple. Podia’s Interface is simply far from overwhelming.
- Course Creation – Podia’s course creation supports text, quiz, coaching, files, as well as embeds. 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 does not have email templates, and it doesn’t offer automation or personalization options.
Podia also offers other marketing features such as the ability to upsell your products, to giveaway coupons to potential customers, and even to pre-launch courses to drum up interest before really going all in.
All in all, Podia’s marketing platform is more than enough to boost the potency of your sales. What really brings it down however is the lack of advanced automation. But that is to be expected of a basic platform like Podia.
- Design and Customization – This is probably where Podia falls the hardest. 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 Upside Cash
It also only has a very few templates to offer. 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 does not charge transaction fees for any sales or transactions you make through your website.
That said, there might be additional fees that come from Stripe or Paypal, as such, you still have to pay for them. Usually these fees are very low so you probably won’t have a problem with them.
Podia Price
There are four plans available from Podia. Each with their own features. This 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. 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. 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. 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 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 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 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 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.
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.
Marketing tools are probably the best area where Kajabi shines. While it offers the usual bells and whistles, what investors and the Kajabi’s competitors really envy is their automation system. Yes that’s right! Kajabi offers automation in lots of its features, especially their emails.
One more thing that is unique to Kajabi is its Pipelines. Kajabi’s Pipelines offer 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. It has a modern, minimalist aesthetic. The accessibility is also satisfactory. You can get to all of Kajabi’s features within 3 to 5 clicks.
Kajabi’s homepage also includes a search assistant that can help you navigate the site whenever you are lost or just too lazy to click on stuff. This 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 creator is extremely 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. It already gives you a “skeleton” of the course, and all you have to do is fill it up with 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.
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. As of the moment, Kajabi does not offer live lessons.
The student’s side. Kajabi’s course delivery offers a sleek and minimal design. Your students will not be distracted by clutter.
- Marketing – Kajabi provides all the products you need to sell your products. You can sell upsells and order bumps using Kajabi. You can even customize this stuff to ensure more value for your money.
Email marketing is probably where Kajabi stands out the most. It allows you to do the basic functions of sending broadcasts as well as email sequences. Kajabi’s email marketing offers a variety of email templates. Podia Vs Upside Cash
Depending on what type of email you want to send, Kajabi has got it covered. However, Kajabi’s email marketing really gets powerful when you combine it with an automation function.
It makes your job easier and faster. You have many options. WIth Kajabi, you also don’t need to avail of 3rd 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 Upside Cash
- Kajabi offers a wide range of design and customization options. Even the lowest plans offer a variety of themes you can choose to match your brand or course. These themes have a very professional look.
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.
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 and PayPal as well as other third-party integrations. Some regions have even more gateways.
As for those regions who don’t have integration, you can use third party integration through Webhooks or Zapier.
Kajabi provides the checkout page on one page. This page can be personalized to include testimonials and sales videos to increase your product sales.
Kajabi Price
Because of its robust and feature-rich nature. Kajabi has the highest rates among all the LMS services found on the internet. You cannot also get a free trial. It is also a standard practice to name the different plans they offer.
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/month) | Growth ($199 per month) |
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| Pro ($319 per month) | |
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Kajabi Pros and Cons
Pros
- Kajabi offers a variety of courses that you can choose from
- Helps you get started with Blueprints and Templates
- Their email marketing solutions are the most advanced in the market with their automations
- 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.
- Also comes with a membership feature where you can sell or give exclusive products to members with different tiers
- Automation and advanced automation (with conditional filter) helps you finish tasks in your website easily and swiftly
- Has a very powerful theme builder that you can customize according to your needs. You can also access a code editor by paying more. This will allow you to truly flesh out your website.
- It comes with a blog feature to promote your brand
- This eliminates the need to use third-party funnels that have their own version. You can even choose from many different templates for your pipeline. Podia Vs Upside Cash
Cons
- Is more on the expensive side. Their lowest plan costs $149 per month
- They have no available plans that support unlimited products. The lowest plan has only three products and three pipelines. The highest plan includes 100 products and 100 funnels.
- Kajabi lacks course completion certificates and course compliance features
- There are no page templates for your landing pages, thank you pages, and some others. You 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 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 is used by course creators, teachers, professionals, coaches, entrepreneurs for business as well as teaching. These courses and coaching can be sold together.
Teachable’s greatest strength is 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’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. 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 is actually very neat and brings about a modern feel. The right sidebar contains most features. It may take three to four clicks to get to sub-features.
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.
Lastly, Teachable seems to load its pages slower compared to other LMS, however this lag is negligible and I would have not noticed if I was not actively comparing websites.
- Course Creation – Teachable doesn’t provide any templates or pipelines to help you create courses. 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. This feature does not drip lectures, but sections. Podia Vs Upside Cash
There is also the course player. This allows students to add notes to their learning experience. The only problem is that you will need to use the power editor to modify this player.
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. With this feature, you are able to control how the students view 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.
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.
One thing that Teachable lacks is a dedicated affiliate program. You will need to create affiliates by yourself. That said, it does allow you to make affiliates for your product.
These affiliates will be paid through the website’s own payment gateways by Teachable. Podia Vs Upside Cash
- Design and Customization – In terms of overall theme, Teachable is really not that customizable. 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 < <
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 proper is more customizable than expected. They provide you with several building blocks depending on your needs. You can even find block layouts to make banners, images with text and 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 the only LMS service that has its own payment gateway. There are two payment options: Monthly Payment Gateway and Teachable Payments. The former is a godsend to EU students as they can handle EU/VAT calculations.
Teachable also has “Back Office” which is a service that will handle all affiliate payout. Unfortunately, to access the old Stripe or PayPal services, you will need to be on their professional plans.
Teachable Payment Processors simplify the payment and checkout process for customers and students.
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. To ensure which plan is for you, we have placed what they offer in each price point. 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) | Business ($299 per Month) |
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Teachable Pros and Cons
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
- It’s built-in course completion certificates can be combined with the course compliance giving you the ability to host academic courses
- The course player lets your students take notes and listen to your lectures, promoting active learning. It even has a subtitle feature
- 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 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.
- Includes video analytics and student reports. Podia Vs Upside Cash
> > 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 for non-techies
- Lacks a proper community feature
- To customize the course player, you would need to be able to code
- You will need third-party services to issue refunds
Thinkific versus Podia
The Overview of Thinkific
Thinkific is another LMS service that puts course building at the forefront. 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. 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. As such, most of the best features in this service can be found on the course creation.
However, this means that their marketing and selling aspects are not that good.
Thinkific 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.
You can access all features that Thinkific offers via the sidebar. These features are usually found and organized in a logical way. There are some features though that might be found in places you don’t think that they should be in.
The interface is overall decent but it has its flaws.
- 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. Thinkific also allows you to bulk upload your contents. 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 Upside Cash
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.
You can also manage your course with Thinkific in many 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. Worse, it may only be available for a specific tier or higher.
Thinkific allows for course bundles which can also be used for creating a membership site.
Thinkific does not have a sales funnel builder. You will also need integration. Even then, the whole checkout is a bit clunky with limited customization.
Email marketing at Thinkific is also very limited. You can only send your marketing emails to students who are already enrolled in your courses. You can only send marketing emails to students who are already enrolled in your courses.
Thinkific also allows you to add affiliates to promote your courses and products. The best part of it is that it allows you to select how many percent commission you can offer.
Affiliates will have their own dashboard that allows them to track the performance of each unique affiliate link. The affiliate tracking pixel can’t be modified and remains in place for 30 days.
- Design and Customization – Thinkinfic has a decent level of customizability. They offer three themes to choose from. 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 also allows you to import developer coded themes. If you have the technical know-how, you can also customize your themes using code.
Thinkific also offers 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 Upside Cash
- 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.
However, it seems like this is only available for the USA, UK, and Canada. Other than those countries, Stripe integrations and Paypal integrations can be used.
Thinkific Price
Thinkific offers four basic plans which includes a free plan. 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.
| Free ($0 per month) | Basic ($39/month) |
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| Pro ($79 per month) | Premier ($399 per month) |
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> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Thinkific Pros and Cons
Pros
- Thinkific’s permanent free offer is the Thinkific Free Package
- Has different course payment options for different types of 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
- Most of their features are not exactly 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
- Chat support is not available. Email support might take up to one day for a proper response. This also includes time zones.
The Verdict Podia Vs Upside CashPodia Vs Upside Cash
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 Upside Cash
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. 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. Podia is more suited to 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.
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 also has a more robust marketing tool compared to Thinkific, so that would be a plus for some people.
If you prefer to make courses than pay Teachable’s high prices, Thinkific is the right choice. Thinkific is also a good platform to get used to making online courses with, as their free plan requires little to no investment, despite being more limited. Thinkific does not have a course compliance feature. Instead, it focuses on positive and incentivized motivation. Podia Vs Upside Cash