Sharing knowledge, teaching people, coaching, and similar other things has become one of the best ways to earn money on the Internet. This can be done in many ways.
First and foremost, there is blogging, which is almost as old as the Internet itself. While some do think that it’s younger cousin, vlogging has replaced it, there are still those who prefer to read what they want to study and not just videos.
Video essays are another way to learn about videos. These short video presentations can offer a lot of insight into certain topics especially when talking about music, literature, film, or arts in general.
Education is also becoming more popular thanks to video lectures and tutorials. I remember back in school, especially when Math is the subject, my classmates and I would often search tutorials on youtube to solve specifically confusing word problems.
Growing up, it was such a novel way to educate and learn. The knowledge seemed to be spreading wider and more easily accessible to more people.
It was only a matter of time when formal courses, and education would also build a branch on the online world.
Then there it was, the Course building websites have come.
For those of you who prefer a more visual experience, here is a video review from Legit Marketing Reviews’ YouTube channel. To get a comprehensive overview of Podia, you may still want to check out our article below.
Course Building Websites Podiatry Springfield Or
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. While LMS can be used for remote or distance learning, it isn’t the only one capable of this. Distance learning has been a thing since 1924. Podiatry Springfield Or
Therefore, to be more precise, LMS is basically distance learning through the internet. LMS can either be hosted locally or via a vendor. Cloud hosting is a common method used by most vendors to host learning materials and courses. This is a SaaS (Software as a Service) model.
Learning Management Systems 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.
Ever since then, LMS websites and vendor sites seem to be here for good. Many of these websites, which have been around for a while, are now household names because of their popularity and use during the pandemic.
Then new websites have also come out, generating buzz and trying to be the next big thing.
These sites all share the same goal of creating and learning courses on the best platform, but some specialize in specific areas.
Podia an Overview
Podia is a Learning Management System that markets itself as an all-in-one platform. You can either sell individual courses, coaching, webinars or digital downloads online, or all of them together.
It is probably the most affordable LMS plan. As such, it is best suited for course creators that are looking for an inexpensive LMS solution. At its economical price, it offers to allow you to create unlimited products and courses, perfect for markets who want to sell digital products.
Podia website builder is very simple and there is no coding required. It is ideal for people who want to quickly get their digital courses or products online. However, it does not sacrifice customization.
Many users feel that Podia can be too restrictive when it comes to designing websites. This is because Podia’s website builder doesn’t require coding.
For some features that are lacking, Podia offers a wide range of integrations. From Zoom to Zapier, it allows for various email service providers, payment gateways, and analytics tools to be added to your website.
Podia Features
Podia 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. It even comes available on all Podia plans.
Talking about plans, except for the free one, every tier on Podia’s subscription doesn’t take transaction fees from any of your purchases. This means that you own the money no matter what you sell. Podiatry Springfield Or
> > 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’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’s marketing features allows for email marketing, however it is a very basic email marketing tool that allows you to send broadcasts and email campaigns. It lacks email templates and there is not really a place for more personalization and automation features.
Other marketing features offered by Podia include the ability to sell more products, give coupons to customers and pre-launch courses that can be used to generate interest.
Overall, Podia’s marketing platform does more than enough to increase your sales. The only thing that really lets it down is the absence of advanced automation. 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. Podiatry Springfield Or
There are very few templates available. It does not allow for HTML/Custom CSS customization. Although this may sound like a problem, some people would prefer it that way. {Non-techies would probably not notice and would prefer the ease of use.|The ease of use would be preferred by non-techies.
- Payment Processors – For Payment Processors, Podia integrates Stripe and Paypal for collecting payment from your students. Podia also does not take any transaction fees for any transactions or sales you make with your website.
However, Stripe and Paypal might charge additional fees. You still need to pay them. These fees are usually very low, so they shouldn’t cause any problems.
Podia Price
Podia offers four types of plans. Each plan has its own unique features. This include:
| Free ($0 per month) | Mover ($33 per month) |
|
|
| Shaker Plan ($75 per 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. It is easy to set up and users will be satisfied.
- Podia allows you to sell various digital products, from the usual courses, to memberships, webinars, and community or digital downloads. You can even sell these things in a bundle.
- In all their plans, Podia supports unlimited courses and products.
- 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. This function can only be used if you are on the Shaker or Earthshaker plans.
- You can send campaigns and broadcasts through their integrated email marketing. You can even add entrance and exit conditions for these campaigns.
- Podia offers over 1900+ integrations across various apps, email service providers and payment gateways. Zapier is an integration that can be used by those who don’t have native integration.
- Podia’s pre-launch mode is useful for testing out the waters and analyzing interest before going all in and full effort on a course.
- Podia markets itself as creator-centric, as such, they take 0% transaction fee on all of your sales
- Podia also provides built-in quizzes, community, certificates, and community. You can even use the community page for memberships.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Cons
- 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 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 has very limited customization options. There is no support for custom CSS/HTML customizations
- You might need to use third-party apps and services to really create landing pages and sales funnels such as WordPress, or ClickFunnels
- Only a few lesson types are supported. Adobe Captivate and Articulate Storyline are not supported. HTML 6 Content, assessments, and other lessons may be missing.
- 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.
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 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.
Marketing tools are probably the best area where Kajabi shines. It offers all the standard bells and whistles but what investors and Kajabi’s rivals really envy is its automation system. Yes, that’s correct! 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 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 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 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. You can even combine these content and add them on a single course. As of the moment, Kajabi does not offer live lessons.
As for the student’s side. Kajabi’s course delivery is minimalistic and sleek. Your students will not be distracted by clutter.
- Marketing – Kajabi provides all the products you need to sell your products. It allows you to sell coupons, upsells, and order bumps. You can even customize this stuff to ensure more value for your money.
Kajabi’s strongest point is email marketing. You can send broadcasts and email sequences using this tool. Kajabi’s email marketing offers a variety of email templates. Podiatry Springfield Or
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. 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. Podiatry Springfield Or
- 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 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, PayPal and 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. 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 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 is Kajabi’s very own knowledge base that can help users with its functionality.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
| Basic ($149 per month) | Growth ($199 per month) |
|
|
| Pro ($319 per month) | |
|
Kajabi Pros & Cons
Pros
- Kajabi offers a variety of courses that you can choose from
- Provides Templates and Blueprints to help you get started
- Their email marketing solutions are the most advanced in the market with their automations
- This program allows you to use built-in assessments to help you grade and evaluate your students. These assessments 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. You can also access a code editor by paying more. This will allow you to truly flesh out your website.
- Comes with a blogging feature for promoting your brand
- 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. Podiatry Springfield Or
Cons
- It is more expensive. 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 can edit the default templates for your pages as you need.
- There are no guarantee badges available on the checkout page
- Kajabi doesn’t have their own payment gateway
- Kajabi’s community lacks some features that make it as engaging as the others.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Podia versus Teachable
Teachable an Overview
Teachable is one of the most popular online courses platforms. This LMS is used by course creators, teachers, professionals, coaches, entrepreneurs for business as well as teaching. You can even sell these courses, and coaching in a single bundle
Teachable’s greatest strength is its course compliance feature. This feature is mostly missing from most LMS and online course platforms. If they do have this feature, it will probably be lacking or not as advanced or robust.
Teachable offers advanced reports about student progress and video analytics to demonstrate 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 among the cheapest LMS available out there. Teachable even has a free plan that allows one course to be sold. It does have its 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. 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 – 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. Content type can be text, video, files, quizzes, code examples, custom codes, and upsells.
These files can be combined into one lecture. For example, you could add a quiz to a video lecture. Although this may seem like a difficult task, Teachable offers a bulk upload option that makes it easier to upload your files quicker.
Once uploaded, these files will become individual lectures themselves.
Teachable allows you to schedule drip delivery. This means that your content can be dripped depending on the time your student enrolled. That said, this feature only drips sections and not lectures. Podiatry Springfield Or
Then there is the course player, which has a neat feature of allowing students to add personal notes, for them to use while learning. The only problem is that you will need to use the power editor to modify this player.
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 is the area where Teachable stands out from the rest. This feature allows you to control the way students see and consume your lectures.
They can decide the order of the lectures and make sure they have watched the entire lecture. 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 provides basic marketing features like free previews, coupons and pre-selling courses. They function like the other LMS marketing features and they serve the same purpose of enticing others to buy your products.
As for email marketing, Teachable has the basic features that can get you what you need, however it does lack some features like, templates, sequences, and automations.If you think you want better options, you can integrate popular email services like MailChimp and ConvertKit as needed.
Teachable does not have an affiliate program. Because of this, you need to make affiliates on your own. It does however allow you to create affiliates for your product.
The website will handle the commissions of these affiliates through Teachable’s very own payment gateways. Podiatry Springfield Or
- 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. You can even find block layouts to make banners, images with text and email. You can even get pricing for your products.
You can use CSS/HTML, just like the themes, to add more personalization to your website.
- Payment Processors – Teachable is the only LMS service that has its 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.
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. 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 Cons and Pros
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.
- You can combine the built-in certificate of completion with the course compliance to allow you to host academic courses
- Its course player allows your students to take notes while watching or listening to your lecture, thus promoting a pro-active learning environment. It even has a subtitle feature
- HTML/CSS scripts can be embedded to lectures, opening up a lot of interesting and engaging opportunities.
- 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
- Has an ios App to allow your students consume the content whenever or wherever
- Payment processing platforms has an ability to handle EU/VAT sales
- It does not need to be integrated with other services, as it has its own payment gateways.
- Its native payment gateways have a “Back Office” that processes payouts for affiliate commissions and other complex payments.
- Includes video analytics and student reports. Podiatry Springfield Or
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Cons
- Their free plan lacks a lot of feature to even call it a plan
- Basic plan charges a 5% fee for your sales
- They do not use a drag and drop builder. They use custom CSS and power editors. This is bad news to non-techies
- A lack of a community feature
- To customize the course player, you would need to be able to code
- You will need third-party services to issue refunds
Podia versus Thinkific
Thinkific an Overview
Thinkific is another LMS service that puts course building at the forefront. You can create a website and then 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. They do charge a transaction fee.
Thinkific is the “go to platform” for online courses.
Thinkific’s core focus is on its curriculum creation capabilities. This is why the course creation features are the most important.
This means their selling and marketing aspects are poor.
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.
Overall, the thinkific interface may be decent, but there are parts where it feels clunky and unoptimized.
- Course Creation – Thinkific’s greatest strength is found on its course creation mechanism. 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. You will need to organize each lesson separately to make the bulk upload work.
Thinkific allows you to drip-feed your content, allowing you to manage and pace your course. Podiatry Springfield Or
While it does not have a course compliance option like that of Teachable, Thinkific allows you to incentivize your students by using awards, leaderboards as well as scoring to motivate them in finishing your course.
Thinkific also allows you to manage your course in different ways. You can manage discussions, answer questions from students, and even approve or hide discussions.
You can also manage assignments and quizzes with Thinkific.
- Marketing – This is probably where Thinkific is at its weakest. Most of their marketing features only include the essentials. Worse, it may only be available for a specific tier or higher.
Thinkific offers course bundles that can be used to create a membership website.
Thinkific does not have a sales funnel builder. You will also need integration. Even so, the checkout process is somewhat cumbersome and offers limited customization.
Email marketing at Thinkific is also very limited. Your marketing emails can only be sent to students already enrolled in your courses. You can only send marketing emails to students who are already enrolled in your courses.
Thinkific also allows you to add affiliates to promote your courses and products. 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 can be thought of as presets that allow you to choose your site’s aesthetic.
That said, their level of customizability is not as good as Kajabi. Thinkific allows you to import themes that have been developed by developers. You can customize your themes with code if you have the technical knowledge.
Thinkific also offers a drag-and-drop page builder. In this builder, each block is called a section and there are 20 of them. It’s very simple to use, and you can add sections to your page in just one click. Podiatry Springfield Or
- 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.
This is not available in Canada, the UK and the USA. Outside of those regions, Stripe and Paypal integrations are the other alternatives.
The Thinkific Price
Thinkific offers four plans, including a free one. Their free plan is one of the best as it give you the most features only being limited to the number of courses you can make and sell with them.
Thinkific also offers a Growth option that provides more powerful tools to their Pro plan. Thinkific Plus is also available 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
- Different course payment options available for different students and schools
- No transaction fees for any payments made by learners
- The premium packages gives you an unlimited number of online purses
- 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.
- You can use Thinkific to give incentives such as leaderboards, awards, and scores to motivate your students.
Cons
- Most of their features are not exactly user friendly.
- 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.
- Very clunky checkout page
- Does not have chat support. For a prompt response, email support can take up to one working day. This includes time zones.
Verdict Podiatry Springfield OrPodiatry Springfield Or
We can now see how Podia compares with other Learning Management Systems. Through this, I hope you can find the right platform to host your products, courses and businesses.
Verdict: Podia versus Kajabi
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. Podiatry Springfield Or
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.
If you don’t have the budget but still want a personal touch, Kajabi is the right choice. Also, if you would want an easier time in marketing and updating your customers, Kajabi’s automation and advanced automation has got you covered.
Verdict: Podia versus Teachable
This matchup is much more difficult to compare to the one 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 offers a stronger course-building platform than Podia. Teachable’s most distinctive feature is its course compliance, which allows you to monitor the progress of your students.
Verdict: Thinkific versus Podia
This is a simple statement that Thinkific is essentially a cheaper version Teachable. As such, picking between the two would be the same as choosing between Podia or Teachable.
If you want to sell your digital products, Podia is the right choice. Podia has a stronger marketing tool than Thinkific. This would be a benefit for some.
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. Podiatry Springfield Or