One of the most effective ways to make money online is by sharing knowledge, teaching others, coaching, or any other similar activities. 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.
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. To get a comprehensive overview of Podia, you may still want to check out our article below.
Sites for Course Construction Podia Vs Versus Populum
Learning Management Systems, also known as course building websites, are platforms, services or websites that provide digital content to a targeted audience.
One could even say that these websites allow for learning to be delivered remotely. LMS is capable of remote and distance learning. However, it’s not the only one that can do this. Distance learning is a reality since 1924. Podia Vs Versus Populum
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 were especially popular during the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic, when face-to-face school learning was impossible due to social distancing and isolation measures taken by different governments around the globe.
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.
It is probably the most affordable LMS plan. As such, it is best suited for course creators that are looking for an inexpensive LMS solution. 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. 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. It is only expected as its website builder does not need coding.
Podia has many integration options for those features that are not available. From Zoom to Zapier, it allows for various email service providers, payment gateways, and analytics tools to be added to your website.
Podia Features
Podia offers a number of features that allow its users to create a website and customize it in a way they want. You can also run your business with enough tools.
Podia is probably the most affordable LMS website. It has the best integration and membership 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. That means, whatever you sell, the money is all yours. Podia Vs Versus Populum
> > 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 simple and intuitive.
- Course Creation – Podia supports course creation with text, quiz, coaching and files. It does not support all lesson types, so it may be slower than the competition.
Podia’s Embed feature is a game changer. There are over 1900+ platforms you can embed from, including Soundcloud, Youtube, and TikTok. Podia also allows you to drip your content/lesson, so you can pace them in whatever way you want.
Overall, it has a superb course creation feature, but the lack of retention reports keep it from being perfect.
- Marketing – Podia has a few marketing tools that allow you to email market. However, it only allows you send emails and broadcasts. It 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.
- 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”. The majority of what you can do is limited to the colors and texts. Podia Vs Versus Populum
There are very few templates available. It lacks HTML/Custom CSS customization. While at first this may seem like a bad thing, there are those who would prefer it that way. {Non-techies would probably not notice and would prefer the ease of use.|The ease of use would be preferred by non-techies.
- Payment Processors: Podia integrates Stripe with Paypal to collect payment from students. Podia 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 plan has its own unique features. This include:
| Free ($0 per month) | Mover ($33 per month) |
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| Shaker Plan ($75/month) | Earthquaker Plan ($33/month) |
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Podia Pros and Cons
Pros
- Podia’s UI/UX is refined to the point that even non-techies are able to grasp its use easily. Users will find themselves satisfied when setting it up.
- You can sell a variety of digital products through Podia, including courses, webinars, memberships and digital downloads. These products can be sold together.
- Podia offers unlimited products and courses in all of their plans.
- You also have unlimited storage and bandwidth to host your videos. While you have the option, you don’t need to use Vimeo, Wistia or other video hosting sites.
- 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. Zapier is an integration that can be used by those who don’t have native integration.
- 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. It even lacks pre-made templates, a drag and drop editor and split-testing.
- Podia’s system does not have a course-compliance feature. Most of the time, the only report you can get is how many have finished a course. It lacks details.
- Podia is very basic in terms of customization. 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. Some that are missing include Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline and HTML 6 Content, assessments, etc.
- Affiliate program is also lacking. 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.
It is also very advanced, with a lot of features such as automation that the platform is perfect for course creators and marketers who already have the experience in the field. To fully utilize Kajabi’s capabilities, users need to have technical knowledge.
Kajabi 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. Most of Kajabi’s features, such as their website builder, are extremely customizable.
Probably where Kajabi shines the most is in its marketing tools. While it offers the usual bells and whistles, what investors and the Kajabi’s competitors really envy is their automation system. Yes, that’s correct! Kajabi 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 a lot to eliminate the need for funnel-building tools like ClickFunnel and other websites.
- Interface – Logging in to Kajabi brings you to its dashboard. It is clean and minimalistic with minimal clutter. Overall it gives off a very modern aesthetic. It is also easy to use. You can get to all of Kajabi’s features within 3 to 5 clicks.
Kajabi’s homepage also includes a search assistant that can help you navigate the site whenever you are lost or just too lazy to click on stuff. This 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 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 particularly useful if you are slowly introducing your content.
As for content, Kajabi allows you to use the following to make your courses: text, audio, vidoe, assessments, images and files. These content can be combined and added to a single course. As of the moment, Kajabi does not offer live lessons.
As for the student’s side. Kajabi’s course delivery offers a sleek and minimal design. 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.
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 Versus Populum
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. You have many options. WIth Kajabi, you also don’t need to avail of 3rd party sales funnels. They got you covered with their pipelines that you can customize as well.
It can be used effectively and correctly to increase customer conversion rates, which will lead to increased sales. Podia Vs Versus Populum
- 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 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.
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. They are 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.
As for the checkout page, Kajabi offers it in a single page. That said, this single page can be customized to add sales videos and testimonials to further upsell your products.
Kajabi price
It is robust and features-rich. Kajabi offers the best rates of all LMS services on the internet. They also do not offer a free trial. It has also become a common practice to include names for the different tiers that their plans have.
In the case of Kajabi they have the Growth, Basic, and Pro. All plans include access to Kajabi University. This knowledge base is Kajabi’s own and can be used to assist users with its functionality.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
| Basic ($149 per month) | Growth ($199 per month) |
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| Pro ($319 per month) | |
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Kajabi Pros & 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.
- Provides you with built-in assessments that allows you to grade and assess your students. These can also be automated
- A mobile app is available that allows students to access the courses from their phones.
- You can also sell or give products to members of different tiers through the membership feature
- Automation and advanced automation (with conditional filter) helps you finish tasks in your website easily and swiftly
- It has a powerful theme builder that can be customized to suit your needs. You can also access a code editor by paying more. This will allow you to truly flesh out your website.
- It comes with a blog feature to promote your brand
- This eliminates the need to use third-party funnels that have their own version. There are even many different pipeline templates available for use. Podia Vs Versus Populum
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 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
- 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. You can even sell these courses, and coaching in a single bundle
Teachable’s greatest strength can be found in its course compliance feature. This feature is 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 among the cheapest LMS available out there. It even offers a free plan that allows you to sell one course only. 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. Getting to the sub-features may need three to four clicks.
Although it does not include a search function, this is due to how easy it is for users to navigate from one option to the next.
Teachable’s pages load slower than other LMSs, but this is not noticeable and I wouldn’t have noticed it if I wasn’t actively comparing websites.
- Course Creation – Teachable doesn’t provide any templates or pipelines to help you create courses. Such set-up can be very difficult especially for those newer at designing websites.
The sections of a course or content are divided into sections. Lectures can be found within each section. You can choose to use text, video, files or quizzes.
You can even combine these types into one lecture, like adding a quiz after a video lecture in the same course. This might seem a hassle to set-up at first,but Teachable has a bulk upload feature that allows you to put up your files faster.
These files can be uploaded once they are saved.
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 Versus Populum
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.
People who don’t know how to code could find themselves in this situation.
Teachable’s Course Compliance feature is also worth noting. This is the area where Teachable stands out from the rest. This feature allows you to control the way students see and consume your lectures.
From deciding the lecture order to making sure they watch the whole video lecture. Quizzes can be used as a way to check their understanding before they are able to continue 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. 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. Because of this, you need to make affiliates on your own. That said, it does allow you to make affiliates for your product.
The website will handle the commissions of these affiliates through Teachable’s very own payment gateways. Podia Vs Versus Populum
- Design and Customization – In terms of overall theme, Teachable is really not that customizable. The service only gives you one theme. You can only customize very few things like the logo and branding, the fonts, as well as the theme and background color.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
That said, paying for the business plan will give you access to its power editor wherein you can use custom code that allows you to further modify the theme of your page.
The page builder proper is more customizable than expected. You can choose from a variety of building blocks to suit your needs. They even include block layouts for banners, images with text, 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 among the only LMS services that has their very 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 has a “Back Office”, which handles all affiliate payouts. Sadly, if you want to use the good old Stripe and PayPal services, you would need to be on their professional plan or higher.
Teachable Payment Processors simplify the payment and checkout process for customers and students.
Teachable Price
Teachable offers four plans in total if we count the free one. Like the others, these plans differ in accessibility and features. We have listed the features and prices of each plan to help you choose which plan is right for you. That said, you can try the free plan, which acts as a free trial to test Teachable’s environment.
| Free ($0 per month) | Basic ($39 per month) |
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| Pro ($119 per Month) | Businesses ($299 per month) |
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Teachable Cons and Pros
Pros
- It’s paid plans allows you to host unlimited courses
- It has the best course compliance features making it the best option if your focus is on teaching
- You can combine the built-in certificate of completion with the course compliance to allow you to host academic courses
- 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 has a robust membership feature to allow for exclusive content depending on membership tiers
- Bulk upload makes your workflow easier
- 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 Versus Populum
> > 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 do not use a drag and drop builder. They use custom CSS and power editors. This is bad news for non-techies
- A lack of a community feature
- You would need to know how to code in order to fully customize their course player
- When issuing refunds, you would need to avail of third-party services.
Podia versus Thinkific
Thinkific an Overview
Thinkific is another LMS service that puts course building at the forefront. It has everything you need to create a web page and start building your courses.
It is easy to use, making it one of the best online course creators. In fact, it is so beginner friendly that Thinkific’s very own free plan allows you to create three courses, with no investment required. Granted, they do take a transaction fee.
Thinkific is the “go to platform” for online courses.
As such, Thinkific puts its core focus on it’s curriculum creation capabilities. As such, most of the best features in this service can be found on the course creation.
This means their selling and marketing aspects are poor.
Useful Features
- Interface – Logging in to Thinkific will take you to the admin area. This will be your hub that allows you to navigate the whole Thinkific Platform.
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 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 lets you use many media types, including videos, pdf, audio and Google Docs. You can also create storylines and captures. You can also bulk upload your content to Thinkific. 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 Versus Populum
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. 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 also lacks a sales funnel builder and as such, you will need to use integration. Even then, the whole checkout is a bit clunky with limited customization.
Thinkific’s email marketing is also severely limited. Your marketing emails can only be sent to students already enrolled in your courses. As such, the best you can do is to tell them about new courses or products as well as send the email updates.
Thinkific 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’s level of customizability is fairly decent. 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.
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 uses a drag and drop page builder. In this builder, each block is called a section and there are 20 of them. It’s very simple to use, and you can add sections to your page in just one click. Podia Vs Versus Populum
- Payment Processors – Thinkific has its own payment processor, Thinkific Payments. This is part of a tool called TCommerce suite of tools. This tool offers seamless shopping, subscriptions and payment plans.
However, it seems like this is only available for the USA, UK, and Canada. Outside of those regions, Stripe and Paypal integrations are the other alternatives.
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.
| 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 < <
Thoughtific Pros and Cons
Pros
- Thinkific’s free package is permanently free
- Different course payment options available for different students and schools
- There are no transaction fees on payments made by learners
- Premium packages give you unlimited online purse options
- The page builder is simple to use and can be customized with coding knowledge.
- It comes with a strong course builder that will make your course engaging.
- Thinkific allows you to put incentives like leaderboards, awards and scores as a way to motivate your students.
Cons
- Many of the features they offer are not user-friendly.
- 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.
- Checkout page very clunky
- Does not have chat support. Email support might take up to one day for a proper response. This also includes time zones.
The Verdict Podia Vs Versus PopulumPodia Vs Versus Populum
With all those laid out in hand, we can finally see how Podia compares to other Learning Management Systems. This will help you find the best platform for your courses, products, and businesses.
Verdict: Podia versus Kajabi
Podia and Kajabi function pretty similarly as they are both all-in-one platforms. The two main factors that will determine which platform you choose are price and customization. Podia Vs Versus Populum
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. Kajabi offers advanced automation and automation for marketing that will make it easier to update your customers and market to them.
Verdict: Podia versus Teachable
It is more difficult to compare this matchup to the one mentioned above. Teachable and Podia specialize in different things and as such, your choice would depend on your business’ direction.
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.
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. Also, Teachable’s greatest and most unique feature is its course compliance which helps to properly monitor your student’s course completion.
Verdict: Podia versus Thinkific
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 also has a more robust marketing tool compared to Thinkific, so that would be a plus for some people.
You should choose Thinkific if you would rather focus on making courses, but you don’t want to pay Teachable’s high prices. 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. Bear in mind, Thinkific has no course compliance feature and puts focus on a more positive and incentivized motivation. Podia Vs Versus Populum