According to research, the online education industry will be worth $325 billion by 2025.
Are you ready to become a trusted online educator in your industry?
Nowadays, many people want to create a course, program, or membership but need help deciding what platform to use. Should you go with Udemy? Or Skillshare? You can teach on YouTube or use a skill-based freelancing website. It can be tough to know where to begin. Don't fear because we will cover some popular platforms and help you decide which is right for you!
Bust out the yin & yang dice, and let's discover the answer together!
These online learning platforms will help you:
Create an online course, program, or membership.
Build sales pages so you can sell your offers.
Price your offer and collect payments (either one-time or in installments).
Upload your videos, add assignments and quizzes, create interactive content, and engage with your students.
Create membership communities.
Host live webinars.
Here are some popular online course platforms.
1. KAJABI
Kajabi can deliver a high-end course experience, and it has so many amazing features for someone looking to create a signature online program - making it my top pick!
Basic: $119/mo
Growth: $159/mo
Pro: $319/mo
You can use Kajabi to showcase your expertise by creating various content types, including online courses, coaching programs, podcasts, membership sites, and more.
When it comes to email marketing automation, it's the best. Pre-sale, pre-webinar, drip course, and upsell emails all require automation, and Kajabi excels at it.
You can create fully automated marketing campaigns and funnels using their "Pipelines" feature. These are pre-made lead generation frameworks with copy that is optimized for conversions.
Additionally, it has strong course site themes, digital product sales capability, a customizable checkout, and blogging features.
Course insights that show you your students' performance in detail
Depending on your Kajabi plan, you can create as many courses as you want, thanks to unlimited video hosting.
No need to learn how to code— you can select a template and make your updates with just a few clicks!
Your courses are SEO-optimized to rank highly in search results.
Hosting for your classes and promotional materials is unlimited.
Your data is always protected, safe, and secure.
Promoting your courses is simple with one-click marketing sequences.
Without prior design or coding knowledge, a website builder enables you to create a professional website in minutes.
Overall, it has more integrated tools and features than any other high-end course platform on the list.
2. THINKIFIC
Pricing: $99/month
Free - Try Thinkific to build your first online course and community at no cost to you.
Basic - $36/ month: Gain access to core features and essential tools to successfully launch your online learning business.
Start - $74/ month: Unlock additional features designed to help drive student engagement and create a fantastic student experience.
Grow - $149/ month: Grow your online business with even more advanced tools to help you increase sales and diversify into different learning products.
Key Features
You can customize Thinkific websites for your courses: Pick from a wide array of templates designed by experts or start from scratch.
Drag-and-drop course builder: Create, design, and rearrange lessons and chapters easily to build your courses.
Thinkific allows you to change the design of your student dashboards Videos, text, and any other downloadable file type can all be added to the same page.
Sales pages look great and have excellent optimization.
Your course content can either be fully available or drip gradually.
Hosting videos on Wistia is free (a great value).
3. SKOOL
Skool, initially developed to simplify online learning, has since become one of the most well-liked platforms for online courses.
Pricing: $99/month
1 group
All features
Unlimited courses
Unlimited members
Key Features
The community feature makes it simple to access everything you need to create a team.
You can create courses on any subject with Skool and easily follow your students' development.
Using the calendar feature, you can keep track of any upcoming events you have.
You can easily update your students using their email broadcast feature.
Keeping track of all the various people, you're working with is made much easier by the chat, notifications, and profiles.
Admins can easily create posts, ask questions through polls, share links and documents, and more.
Skool is undeniably worth looking into if you're looking for a more user-friendly version of any current course platform available.
4. MIGHTY NETWORKS
Best For Creating Communities. Mighty Networks allows you to build and own your online course, membership site, or network—all in one place.
Pricing:
The Community Plan: $33/mo
The Business Plan: $99/mo
Key Features
You can use it to power your podcast, blog, or even your physical event space.
You can build a community-based course that emphasizes member challenges, events, and activities rather than just your course curriculum. You can also create a live cohort-based program focusing only on the course curriculum.
With Mighty Networks, starting and growing a vibrant community around any online course you want to design is simple.
Additionally, you can use your social media fans to expand your Mighty Network and gain access to a whole new group of prospective students.
You can live stream and upload your videos, a feature that is a game-changer for course creators.
The Mighty Effect™ personalization technology ensures that every member of your Mighty Network sees content tailored just for them.
The Welcome and Discovery sections make it easy for new members to find the content they're looking for—and get started on your course.
Unlimited members mean you can grow your network as big as you want without worrying about hitting a limit.
Custom landing pages and domains let you brand your Mighty Network however you want, so it feels like home to your students.
With an easy-to-use desktop and mobile interface, Mighty Networks is one of the most user-friendly online course platforms. It's simple to navigate and find the content you're looking for—whether you're a community member or an administrator.
5. LEARNDASH
LearnDash is a WordPress plugin and the platform required to sell courses through a WordPress site.
Pricing:
1 Site: $199 per year
10 Sites: $399 per year
Unlimited: $799 per year
Key Features
Drag & Drop Course Builder: Create and customize your course in minutes
Course creation wizard: Build an entire program from an existing YouTube playlist.
Advanced Quizzing: Choose from eight different question types.
Challenge Exams: Let students test out of prerequisites to advance.
Certificate Builder: Create certificates to recognize student achievements.
Course Grid: Display courses in a responsive grid with up to 12 columns.
Dynamic Content: Drip-feed lessons and manage how users can navigate through coursework.
Coupons: Offer flat-rate or percentage-based discounts.
Integrity: Protect your course from plagiarism and spam.
Video Progression: Require students to watch videos to completion.
Integrations: Manage programs seamlessly alongside your favorite tools.
This popular WordPress LMS plugin is used by some big websites using LearnDash, including Yoast, Infusionsoft, the University of Michigan, and WP Elevation.
6. TEACHABLE
Best Online Course Platform for Beginners. Try Teachable if you're looking for a quick and straightforward course builder.
Pricing:
Basic ($29/month): 5% transaction fees, two admin users, drip content, course builder, members-only community.
Pro ($99/month): Basic features, plus no transaction fees, five admin users, advanced reports, and course certificates.
Business ($249/month): Pro features, advanced coding customizations, 20 admins, bulk student enrollments, and group coaching calls.
Key Features
Make beautiful, lucrative sales pages to aid in the sale of your courses. Teachable makes it simple to create a page that turns visitors into customers.
Use PCI level-1 compliant payment processors, to ensure that your data is always safe and secure. Teachable will handle all the administrative tasks so you can concentrate on what matters most—teaching your students.
Connect to your domain using theirs, or use Teachable's built-in domain to get going right away.
From your Teachable account, you can schedule and host webinars, talk live to your students, and more. Engage with your students in fresh ways.
Set up online courses that fit into your busy schedule. Finding the time to teach is simple with Teachable.
You can also change the look and feel of your course with a few clicks.
Additionally, several tutorials demonstrate using the site's various theme features.
Get paid quickly on your preferred schedule—monthly, weekly, or even daily—no third-party system needed, with teachable: pay.
Connect with the tools you already use and love. They offer direct integrations with MailChimp, Zapier, ConvertKit, Google Analytics, Segment, and more. Plus, you can use their public API to automate your workflow further.
Optimize student engagement. Use bespoke student-side features like comments, quizzes, and certifications of completion to drive learning outcomes and student satisfaction.
Whether you are passionate about teaching, want to expand your audience, or are simply looking to make money from your courses, there is a platform to support you in achieving your objectives.
When choosing a tool to launch your course, program, or online membership, consider your budget, time constraints, current online following, and earning potential.
This is it for now!
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