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.
Blogging is the most popular form of blogging. It is almost as old and well-known as the Internet itself. Although some believe that vlogging is its younger cousin, blogging has not lost its appeal. However, there are still people who love to read the content they’re interested in and not just videos.
Video essays are another way to learn about videos. These short video presentations can offer a lot of insight into certain topics especially when talking about music, literature, film, or arts in general.
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.
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 time before formal education and education would also be available online.
Then there it was, the Course building websites have come.
For those of you who prefer a more visual experience, here is a video review from Legit Marketing Reviews’ YouTube channel. Do check out our article below, however, because it has a comprehensive overview of Podia.
Course Building Websites Samcart Vs Podia
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. Samcart Vs Podia
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.
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.
New websites are also popping up, creating buzz and trying their hand at being 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. You can either sell individual courses, coaching, webinars or digital downloads online, or all of them together.
Among all LMS, it probably is one of the most affordable price plan. 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.
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. That said, this simplicity sacrifices customization.
Many users feel that Podia can be too restrictive when it comes to designing websites. This is because Podia’s website builder doesn’t require coding.
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 provides many features that enable users to create websites and personalize them in their own way. It also offers enough tools to conduct your business.
Among the more affordable LMS websites, Podia probably has the best Membership and integration communities. You can even get it on all Podia plans.
Talking about plans, except for the free one, every tier on Podia’s subscription doesn’t take transaction fees from any of your purchases. That means, whatever you sell, the money is all yours. Samcart Vs Podia
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
- Interface – A sleek and minimal UI greets you upon logging in to Podia. It is very simple and intuitive that you can access most features mostly within just three clicks. Podia’s Interface is simply far from overwhelming.
- Course Creation – Podia’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.
Podia’s Embed feature is a game changer. There are over 1900+ platforms you can embed from, including Soundcloud, Youtube, and TikTok. Podia allows you to drip content/lessons, so that you can move them around in any way you like.
It has a great course creation feature. However, the absence of retention reports keeps it from being perfect.
- Marketing – Podia 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. This is to be expected from a basic platform such as 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. Samcart Vs Podia
It also only has a very few templates to offer. It lacks HTML/Custom CSS customization. Although this may sound like a problem, some people would prefer it that way. {Non-techies would probably not notice and would prefer the ease of use.|The ease of use would be preferred by non-techies.
- Payment Processors – For Payment Processors, Podia integrates Stripe and Paypal for collecting payment from your students. Podia also does not take any transaction fees for any transactions or sales you make with your website.
That said, there might be additional fees that come from Stripe or Paypal, as such, you still have to pay for them. 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. These include:
| Free ($0 per month) | Mover ($33 per month) |
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| Shaker Plan ($75/month) | Earthquaker Plan ($33 per 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.
- You can sell a variety of digital products through Podia, including courses, webinars, memberships and digital downloads. You can even sell these things in a bundle.
- In all their plans, Podia supports unlimited courses and products.
- Their unlimited offer also applies to storage and bandwidth where you can host your videos. While you have the option, you don’t need to use Vimeo, Wistia or other video hosting sites.
- You can use Podia’s built-in affiliate program to increase your reach. 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
- 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. There is no support for custom CSS/HTML customizations
- To create sales funnels and landing pages, you might need third-party apps or services such as WordPress or ClickFunnels.
- Only a handful of lesson types are supported. Some that are missing include Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline and HTML 6 Content, assessments, etc.
- The affiliate program is also missing. 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 that provides the user an all-in-one platform to create courses and products while at the same time 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 also allows you to sell coachings, memberships, communities, podcasts as well as other digital products.
Kajabi offers a mobile app that is different from other LMSs. This is because smartphones have quickly become the most preferred device for almost everyone. It really gives the company a boost in terms of the market.
Kajabi Features
Kajabi also offers a lot of features to ensure that their higher price point is worth every cent that you pay for. Kajabi’s website builder and many other features are highly customizable.
Probably where Kajabi shines the most is in its marketing tools. 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 is clean and minimalistic with minimal clutter. It has a modern, minimalist aesthetic. The accessibility is also satisfactory. All of Kajabi’s features can be accessed in as little as 3 to 5 clicks.
Kajabi’s homepage also includes a search assistant that can help you navigate the site whenever you are lost or just too lazy to click on stuff. This can redirect you to features and tools inside of the Kajabi app.
Kajabi’s page load times are very fast and provide you a smooth experience.
- Course Creation – Kajabi’s course creator is extremely robust. It allows you to create different categories. You can choose the best option based on the course you’re presenting to students.
There are many options: online courses, mini-courses and drip courses. You can also create your own custom course. 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.
As for content, Kajabi allows you to use the following to make your courses: text, audio, vidoe, assessments, images and files. These content can be combined and added to a single course. At the moment, Kajabi doesn’t offer live lessons.
The student’s side. Kajabi’s course delivery is minimalistic and sleek. There is no clutter that can serve as a distraction to your students.
- Marketing – At its most basic, Kajabi offers all of the expected products to make your products enticing to buyers. You can sell upsells and order bumps using Kajabi. You can even customize this stuff to ensure more value for your money.
Kajabi’s strongest point is email marketing. You can send broadcasts and email sequences using this tool. Kajabi’s email marketing also provides you with various email templates. Samcart Vs Podia
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.
Not only does it make your job faster and easier. 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.
When used properly and effectively, it will increase your customer conversion rate leading to more sales. Samcart Vs Podia
- 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. If you pay for the highest plan Kajabi offers, then you will be given access to their code editor where you can even customize the most minute details.
Kajabi’s Page Builder allows you to create course pages, membership sites, checkout pages, landing pages, and many other pages. Each block can also be customized using a block system. Even then, they are already page-specific and function specific.
- For Payment Processing, Kajabi unfortunately does not have its own native payment gateway. It integrates Stripe 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.
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 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 include 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) |
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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
- With their automations, their email marketing solutions are some of the best on the market.
- This program allows you to use built-in assessments to help you grade and evaluate your students. These can also be automated
- 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
- Removes the need for third-party funnels with their own version of a pipeline. You can even choose from many different templates for your pipeline. Samcart Vs Podia
Cons
- It is more expensive. Their lowest plan costs $149 per month
- There are no plans available that support unlimited products. The lowest plan offers only 3 products and 3 pipelines, the highest offers 100 products and 100 funnels.
- Kajabi lacks course completion certificates and course compliance features
- There are no page templates available for thank you pages, landing pages, or other pages. You will need to edit the default page templates as needed
- Does not offer guarantee badges 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 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. However, this free plan can be very useful when you just want to test out the waters.
Teachable Features
- Interface – Teachable’s interface is actually very neat and brings about a modern feel. The right sidebar contains most features. 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.
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. Such set-up can be very difficult especially for those newer at designing websites.
Courses or Content are also divided into sections and lectures found inside each section. 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. Although this may seem like a difficult task, Teachable offers a bulk upload option that makes it easier to upload your files quicker.
These files can be uploaded once they are saved.
As for delivery, Teachable also allows for drip scheduling, meaning you can drip your content depending on when your student enrolled. That said, this feature only drips sections and not lectures. Samcart Vs Podia
Then there is the course player, which has a neat feature of allowing students to add personal notes, for them to use while learning. The only problem is that you will need to use the power editor to modify this player.
People who don’t know how to code could find themselves in this situation.
Also something to take note is Teachable’s Course Compliance Feature. This 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.
You can then pass the results on to Teachable for detailed reports. This is yet another tool you can use in order to teach students effectively.
- Marketing – Teachable offers basic marketing features such as free previews, coupons, and pre-selling a course. These features function in the same way as the LMS marketing features, and serve the same purpose: to encourage others to purchase your products.
As for email marketing, Teachable has the basic features that can get you what you need, however it does lack some features like, templates, sequences, and automations.If you think you want better options, you can integrate popular email services like MailChimp and ConvertKit as needed.
Teachable does not have an affiliate program. Because of this, you need to make affiliates on your own. It does however allow you to create affiliates for your product.
These affiliates will be paid through the website’s own payment gateways by Teachable. Samcart Vs Podia
- Design and customization – Teachable is not very customizable in terms of the overall theme. You can only choose one theme. You can only customize very few things like the logo and branding, the fonts, as well as the theme and background color.
> > Click Here to Check Out Podia < <
Nevertheless, if you pay for the business plan, you will have access to the power editor. This allows you to use custom code to modify the theme of the page.
The page builder itself is much more customizable than you might expect. 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.
You can use CSS/HTML, just like the themes, to add more personalization to your website.
- 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. Unfortunately, to access the old Stripe or PayPal services, you will need to be on their professional plans.
Overall, Teachable Payment Processors make it easier for your students and customers to easily make payments and checkouts.
Teachable Price
Teachable offers four plans in total if we count the free one. These plans are similar to the others in terms of accessibility and features. We have listed the features and prices of each plan to help you choose which plan is right for you. 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/month) |
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| Pro ($119 per Month) | Businesses ($299 per month) |
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Teachable Pros and Cons
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
- 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 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
- 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 also has “Back Office’ that process payouts for affiliate commission and other complex payment
- Has an in-depth student reports and video analytics, Samcart Vs Podia
> > 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
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. They do charge a transaction fee.
Thinkific flaunts itself as the “go-to platform for running an online course business”.
As such, Thinkific puts its core focus on it’s curriculum creation capabilities. 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.
Useful Features
- Interface – Logging into Thinkific brings you to the admin area. This is your central point for all things Thinkific Platform.
You can access all features that Thinkific offers via the sidebar. These features are usually found and organized in a logical way. You might not be able to find certain features in the places you think they should be.
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. 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 also allows for drip-feeding your content to easily pace out and manage your course. Samcart Vs Podia
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 manage discussions, answer questions from students, and even approve or hide discussions.
Thinkific also allows you to manage quizzes and assignments as much as possible.
- Marketing – This is where Thinkific is weakest. Most of their marketing features only include the essentials. What’s worse is that it might only be limited to a certain tier or higher.
Thinkific allows for course bundles which can also be used for creating a membership site.
Thinkific also lacks a sales funnel builder and as such, you will need to use integration. Even then, the whole checkout is a bit clunky with limited customization.
Thinkific’s email marketing is also severely limited. You can only send your marketing emails to students who are already enrolled in your courses. 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.
Your affiliates will also receive their own private dashboard to monitor the performance of the unique affiliate links. However, the affiliate tracking pixel cannot be changed and is permanently set to 30 days.
- Design and Customization – Thinkinfic’s level of customizability is fairly decent. 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. 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 is very easy to use and you can add a section to your page with only just 1 click. Samcart Vs Podia
- Payment Processors – Thinkific has their own payment processor called Thinkific Payments. This is part of a tool called TCommerce suite of tools. This tool offers seamless shopping, subscriptions and payment plans.
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.
The Thinkific Price
Thinkific offers four basic plans which includes a free plan. The best plan, the free one, is the best. It gives you the most features and limits the number of courses that you can create or sell.
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 per 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 free package is permanently free
- Has different course payment options for different types of 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.
- Thinkific allows you to put incentives like leaderboards, awards and scores as a way to motivate your students.
Cons
- Many of the features they offer are not user-friendly.
- The lack of custom options would be disappointing for beginners, and it could lead to them getting lost in the ocean of code.
- Marketing features are very weak.
- 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 Samcart Vs PodiaSamcart Vs Podia
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
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. Samcart Vs Podia
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. 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 offers a stronger course-building platform than Podia. Also, Teachable’s greatest and most unique feature is its course compliance which helps to properly monitor your student’s course completion.
Verdict: 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 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. Though their plan is more limited, Thinkific can be used to learn how to make online courses. Bear in mind, Thinkific has no course compliance feature and puts focus on a more positive and incentivized motivation. Samcart Vs Podia
