Best Platform For Selling Online Courses: Creating And selling Online Courses
Are you an expert with valuable skills and passions? Well, creating and selling online courses is a great way to distribute that knowledge and make some money while doing so. But how many course creation sites are there, all offering different features, different pricing? So, how would you determine the Best online course platforms and which one will suit your needs best?
This article will be your walkthrough, discussing important factors to consider when choosing a course creation platform. You’ll also find a number of the best course-creation platforms currently in the marketplace: both all-in-one solutions and specialist platforms.
Table of Contents
Key Differences to Consider
When it comes to selecting a course creation platform, it is significant that you know the two key differences:
Course Creation Platform vs. Course Marketplace
You could think of a course creation platform as a place where you can build and sell online courses through your business. On the other hand, a course marketplace would be any place where you add your courses to a catalog with other instructors. The examples of course marketplaces include Udemy and Skillshare.
With marketplaces, you get visibility, but your earning potential is always capped by their commission payout structure. You may own your content, but you’ll only receive a percentage of the revenue. You don’t get the email addresses of your students either, which later marketing to them is problematic, pretty big since studies have shown over and over again, existing customers spend more and more often than new ones.
All-in-One Platform vs Specialist Platform
An all-in-one platform possesses everything needed for efficiently running an online business, from a website to email marketing and even the creation of digital products needed for creating and selling online courses by a course creator. These are ideal options for any businessman who wishes to make life easier and retains all their under one roof. In return, you may have to compromise some of your customization options or features.
Other firms may already have a website in place or set up an e-marketing system, or both. In these cases, an all-in-one platform would unnecessarily raise costs or be more than what you need. You will be better off with a specialist course creation platform. While these tools don’t have perhaps the fully integrated website and email marketing capability of the all-in-one solutions, they are super strong in course creation, student experience, payment processing, and product delivery. They also leave room and budget for you to select other specialist tools to complement your technology needs.
Key Features of the Best Online Course Platforms
As online courses are released and sold, the selection of a platform on which to create an online course may be just the thing to decide the fate of course creators. But what, in fact, does one look for in the best online course platform? Well, here are some key features that make certain platforms stand out:
1. Friendly Interface: The intuitive interface is important, both for instructors and students. An intuitively elaborated interface will let you smoothly use the course creation options, while at the same time you offer your students a flawless learning experience.
2. Customization of Course Features: A place that allows you to customize its course features according to your unique style and teaching methodology is priceless. Whether it be adding multimedia elements, quizzes, or interactive assignments, flexibility can sometimes be the key to student engagement.
3. All-in-One Marketing Tools: A great course platform should already include marketing tools to help you sell your courses. Integrations like email marketing, sales funnels, and landing page builders further scale in reaching and retaining students.
4. Powerful Analytics and Reporting: You would want to make sense of the performance of your course by having detailed analytics at your fingertips. The top platforms offer you insights into student engagement and course completion rates to let you know how sales are going, perfecting both your content and strategy.
5. Flexible Pricing and Payment Options: The platform should provide you with multiple pricing models and various options regarding payment processing. This flexibility allows you to accommodate different needs on the part of students and permit you to make the maximum potential revenue.
6. Strong Support and Resources: When you are experiencing technical issues, strong customer support can really make all the difference. Search for platforms that have great resources, tutorials, and active support teams that help and assist you.
7. Community and engagement features: The community building around your courses develops better student engagement. Similarly, platforms that have features for discussion forums, comments, or social interaction tools build up community learning environments, thereby enriching the experience of all participants.
8. Integrative Functions: The top online course platforms should provide great integration with any other tool you might use, such as email marketing services, payment gateways, and CRM systems. In this way, there is smoothness in workflow and overall efficiency in your business.
The Best Online Course Platforms: Features and Pricing
| Platform | Key Features | Pricing |
|---|---|---|
| Teachable |
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| LearnWorlds |
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| ThriveCart |
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| Systeme |
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| Circle |
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| LearnDash |
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| Udemy |
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| Skillshare |
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| Coursera |
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| Thinkific |
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| Kajabi |
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| Podia |
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| Kartra |
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| LinkedIn Learning |
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| LifterLMS |
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Top 15 Best Online Course Platforms
You’ve got a good sense of the key differences now, so here are some of the Best online course platforms on the market today:
1. Teachable
Teachable is a well-recognized specialist course creation platform. It boasts an easy-to-use course builder that features a block-based editor where you get full customization of each one of your lessons to fit your needs. Classic sidebar view makes the student experience clear and clutter-free on this platform. The system at Teachable provides an integrated payment processor that will automatically handle US sales tax and EU VAT.
But their analytics dashboards and sales page builder are a bit underwhelming. As a work-around, you can use your main website to build out sales pages with CTAs calling back to your Teachable checkout pages. Actually, this applies to any specialist platform on this list.
Its latest weakness is that with Teachable, the increase in pricing has reduced the functionality of each plan. Fewer features are given with the basic plans due to which it is a little harder to justify the Teachable value proposition against other platforms.
Try Teachable
2. LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds (Web, Android, iOS) is the first in our list for being a highly customizable online course creation platform that provides unparalleled customizability for your eLearning experience.
Why LearnWorlds Is Unique
Think of LearnWorlds, where most other platforms ease their customization. It gives total freedom to the creator over what the course should look and feel like. As a matter of fact, LearnWorlds will even let you go granular with your customization: anything from color to typography, or down to the layout of your course page. It is as close to building a custom course website as you can get without hiring a web developer.
LearnWorlds provides not just the ability to be flexible in design, but it also integrates state-of-the-art AI tools that make life so much easier when creating courses. This AI course builder will not simply build a course based on some basic title; rather, it gives you control over the tone, types of media, the style of instruction, and even types of activities that you want the course to include. Moreover, with LearnWorlds’ Question Banks feature, you could organize your quiz and assessment creation by keeping reusable questions.
Key Features You’ll Love
- AI-Assisted Course Creation: Have course outlines and activities tailored with ease.
- Deep Customization: Take control of each aspect of designing—from layout to color scheme.
- Built-In Marketing Tools: Automate tasks that range from tracking purchases to sync with your email marketing tool.
- Real-Time Analytics & Assessment Tools: Observe student performance with deep insights.
- Community Engagement: Built-in social features spur interaction between learners.
- Mobile App Builder: Develop your own app for even greater personalization in learning.
Pros:
- Unmatched customization
- Intuitive, user-friendly interface
- Powerful AI tools to save your time
- Excellent customer support available 24×7
- White-label mobile apps
Cons:
- Lack of text-only lesson options
- No free plan exists
- In-app gamification – minimal
Who Is LearnWorlds For?
LearnWorlds is perfect for entrepreneurs, educators, and digital creators who want to give a completely branded online learning experience. It is also among the best options for businesses and professional trainers needing to onboard employees, customers, or other partners.
Price
- Starter Plan: $29/month + $5 per course sale
- Pro Trainer: $99/month
- Learning Center: $299/month
- High Volume & Corporate: For custom pricing, contact LearnWorlds directly.
Equipped with a feature-rich platform and expert advice, LearnWorlds has earned an enviable reputation as the partner of choice for organizations really serious about eLearning.
Try LearnWorlds
3. ThriveCart
Originated for being just a checkout platform for digital products and services, very lately, ThriveCart added functionality for course creation called ThriveCart Learn, which will enable all users of the ThriveCart system to create and sell online courses within the system.
With ThriveCart Learn, you have an easy curriculum builder where you can add modules and then individual lessons. You will use the block-based editor of ThriveCart to fully customize your content—from embedding videos to adjusting fonts and colors. On the other hand, unlike other course platforms we discussed, ThriveCart doesn’t natively host your files or videos. So, if you were to choose ThriveCart, you’d have to host your videos elsewhere, which may be with another tool.
The student experience within ThriveCart is pretty intuitive, much like many other course platforms. The fonts and colors are highly customizable, another reason why ThriveCart has become so popular.
No other shopping cart tool comes close to the value offered by ThriveCart at its one-time lifetime price. Even adding in ThriveCart Pro and the Learn Plus optional add-on, you still get a combined price that comes out comparable, or lower than, a single year of a subscription to an average course platform on this list. That is hard to beat.
Try TyriveCart
4. Systeme
Systeme is also an all-in-one platform and the most affordable course creation for online business owners. They have a free plan with which one could sell one course without transaction fees.
The Systeme curriculum builder is super flexible, offering you a lot of blocks to work with, which could overwhelm some people, but it also gives you a lot of options. You can’t currently make much option to customize the colors of your course beyond a drop-down menu.
Systeme is so much easier to learn than I thought it’d be, and while the interface isn’t quite as modern compared with some of its competitors, if you want a free platform, Systeme is certainly a good choice.
Try Systeme
5. Circle
Circle is, right now, our top specialist pick for online business owners looking to place community front and center for one or more of their paid offerings. Not only does Circle give you a way to create an immersive private community for your business, you’re also able to create and sell online courses within that community.
Some different types of spaces you might create in your Circle community include a post space where people can have a facilitated discussion, an event space where you publish your upcoming schedule, and a course space where you can create curriculum. Within a course, sections group your individual lessons. This is the lesson builder that allows you to show or hide the main media—for example, a video—and, if you so wish, use the block-based editor in Circle to add additional text files or resources you’d like your students to have. You can also enable or disable comments to inspire discussion.
Circle also has iOS and Android apps so your members can keep interacting even on the go. Loads of online businesses have started doing this, and friendliness toward both the business owner and their members with Circle definitely goes in their favor.
It’s a good choice for business owners who want to sell memberships or courses that include virtual elements or community. However, if you envision truly passive income from your courses and don’t want to lead a community, then Circle might not be the right fit.
Try Circle
6. LearnDash
LearnDash is among the most powerful LMS plugins on WordPress trusted by universities, businesses, and course creators alike. It’s easy to use combined with a broad set of features that have made it one of the highest choices for designers, sellers, and managers of online courses efficiently.
The intuitive drag-and-drop course builder of the platform is one of its highlights, allowing educators to create complicated learning paths with ease. LearnDash ensures that everything—from quizzes and assignments to multimedia lessons—moves along smoothly and enjoyably in creating courses. You’ll get full customization of the learning journey possible, with features like drip content that lets you release course material on a set schedule and dynamic prerequisites.
Other strong points of LearnDash are gamification features: badges, points, and certificates that keep students engaged and would encourage them to finish their courses. This is quite helpful when it comes to keeping the interests of the learners for an extended period.
Who is LearnDash For?
LearnDash is great for individual course creators to big enterprises and educational institutions. This is especially good for those organizations that want deep customization, advanced content scheduling, or seamless integration with WordPress. Big businesses, universities, and even Fortune 500 companies use LearnDash to deliver learning content, including Digital Marketer and the University of Florida.
Pricing
- Plugin Pricing – Annual Billing:
- 1 Site License: $199/year
- 10 Site Licenses: $399/year
- Unlimited Licenses: $799/year
- LearnDash Cloud – Monthly/Yearly Billing:
- From $29/mo – monthly billing
- From $25/mo – annual billing
Key Features
- Focus Mode: The distraction-free environment in which students will remain focused on the course material.
- Flexible Quizzing Options: With eight question types and automated sequences, LearnDash has one of the most robust quiz engines available.
- Advanced Engagement Triggers: Automate interactions based on student actions, such as sending congratulatory emails upon module completion or encouraging reminders if they fall behind.
- Lesson-Timers: Lessons can have a minimum amount of time that needs to be spent by the student on them, such that they will not go further unless this time has been surpassed. This feature keeps them on track.
- Integration with More than 300 Payment Gateways: WooCommerce grants you the ability through LearnDash to sell your courses and accept payments through multiple gateways, including but not limited to PayPal, Stripe, and 2Checkout.
Pros:
- You can create a more personalized learning experience with drip content, gamification, and more.
- Sell courses that are flexible, such as memberships and subscriptions.
- Integration with marketing tools like MailChimp and WooCommerce.
- Free trial and automated email notifications.
Cons:
- Pricing goes up with each additional feature or integration added.
- It is not SCORM-compliant, hence it has some drawbacks in compatibility for some corporate training courses.
- Doesn’t have video conferencing built-in.
Why LearnDash?
LearnDash is king when it comes to turning a WordPress site into an eLearning powerhouse, with boldness. The customizable features, flexible payment models, and the ability to easily integrate with other solutions offered by WordPress make it best among serious online education solutions. Whether you’re creating courses for a handful of local students or for hundreds around the world, LearnDash combines front-end user engagement tools with back-end flexibility so your course is professional and delivers results.
Try LearnDash
7. Udemy
Udemy revolutionized this online learning market, making instructors the heroes that can now share their knowledge with the world. Boasting over 73 million students in its global reach, and a community of 75,000+ instructors, it is not all about learning; it is about teaching, too. Be it a professional willing to share your skills or a creative mind with a passion to teach, Udemy has been offering you a well-supported and accessible platform to launch your online course.
Why Udemy?
This is where Udemy stands out; it’s extremely easy to create courses. It takes a user through step-by-step right from the creation of the video to publishing it. Unlike some websites, which would require one to have technical know-how, Udemy simplifies things for one. You do not need to have any elaborate equipment nor specialized knowledge of the web; you just create your content. Courses should include at least 30 minutes of video and five lectures, but other than that the creative direction is totally up to you: add quizzes, coding exercises, or discussion prompts to make learning even more interactive.
Another huge plus? Well, a great deal of people is inbuilt in the audience base at Udemy. With millions of students browsing their marketplace every single day, you are not required to be at square one regarding marketing. Besides, they do offer various marketing programs like email promotions and affiliate programs that will help lift your course to greater heights.
What’s in It for You?
And as far as support is concerned, Udemy is behind. Not sure if course content or video quality would be good enough? The instructors can submit a sample for feedback to make sure that the course covers high standards. And their Teaching Center is packed with a bundle of resources to help instructors in planning, creating, and marketing the course.
Added to this, Udemy gives marketplace insights valuable for anyone who wants to create a course. These tools enable you to research hot topics, understand demand, and see where the competition is. You can even see just how much top courses in your niche are earning, so you know what to expect before you hit ‘publish.’
Pros:
- Laid-out course creation flow that even beginners can easily get started with.
- Access millions of students already using Udemy to find a course like yours.
- Low design or editing skills needed; Udemy’s system is at a place where it’s seamless for course creation.
- Full marketplace insights to inform your course-building strategy.
- Ongoing support through multiple marketing programs.
Cons:
- The revenue-sharing on Udemy is steep: you keep 97% of sales made through your own efforts but share 50% or more with Udemy on organic sales.
- You have to embed video content. If you are camera shy, this could be a stumbling block.
- Udemy controls course pricing, and there are frequent discounts; hence your course may sell for less than you will have wished.
Who Should Use Udemy?
If you’re just starting out in this online teaching business and don’t have any big, fat list or following, then Udemy is a great place to start. It takes care of all the tech stuff, which means that you will not have to bother with it, thereby allowing you to just focus on creating valuable content. This Udemy marketplace brings students directly to your course, which might prove to be a godsend if you are just getting started with course creation.
With Udemy, one can get to create the first ever course on this highly streamlined system that comes with a huge inbuilt audience and effective marketing tools.
Among online course platforms, Skillshare is probably still the most accessible and creative-focused, ideal for people with artistic, entrepreneurial, and craft-driven skills. Whether you are a designer, photographer, writer, or practically anyone with a touch of creativity, Skillshare is your best bet to share your know-how and reach interested learners. The topics that this platform offers range from marketing and photography to doodling and hand painting—there’s something for every creative passion.
Tailor-made for creatives, the interface of Skillshare has been carved keeping the creative professional in mind. Be it photography or minor art as wall hanging, the platform is built to foster a vibrant learning community around creative undertakings.
- Ease of use: Setting up your course is really easy. You may upload video lessons, assign projects, and engage with students via discussion forums in just a few simple steps. It’s very easy to start teaching without some technical barrier getting in the way.
- Free to start: It’s completely free to sign up and publish courses on Skillshare. However, to get any money coming in, your course needs to be part of Skillshare’s premium catalog, through which you can earn royalties according to the time students have spent watching your content.
- Engaging Learning: Skillshare courses are interactive; they break down giant topics into bite-sized video lessons that are generally 2 to 5 minutes long and culminate in hands-on projects. This ensures that students learn something new and apply their skills right away. For example, a course on social media marketing might have its students create a real-world campaign for their Instagram profile.
Pros:
- Quick and Easy Course Setup: You can easily start creating your courses, and it takes a minimal amount of technical skill to get going.
- Creative Focus: Skillshare is great for creative professionals and for those teaching artistic or craft-related topics.
- Free Entry: It’s free to sign up, and one can easily publish courses, meaning there is no barrier to entry.
Cons:
- Video Requirement: The platform requires that your courses include videos. This may not be conducive to every teaching style.
- Smaller Customization: There are fewer options to customize the look and feel of your course than a few other platforms.
- No Assessments: There aren’t integrated assessment tools, such as quizzes or exams, which can be a drawback for more formalized learning paths.
Unlike other course-selling platforms, Skillshare works on a membership-based system. With a monthly subscription fee, students have access to all classes, and the instructors receive royalties from class sales. 30% of Skillshare’s income coming from its premium membership flows into a pool that is distributed among instructors proportionally to the time students spend taking their classes. The better, more engaging your content is, the more money you can get. On top of this, you can also make money by referring new premium members: $10 for each referral.
- Unlimited Course Creation: Instructors can create and host as many courses as they like to increase earnings by offering a variety of content.
- Mobile Access: Skillshare’s app lets students learn on the go and will make your courses more accessible and convenient.
- Student Engagement Tools: In-class projects and discussion boards keep students in a collaborative learning environment, showing and getting feedback on their progress.
- Social Media Integration: Instructors link to their social media profiles for easy follower building and course marketing.
If you are a newbie in online teaching and don’t have your audience yet, Skillshare is great. It is perfect for creators interested in making their money depending on course performance and not wanting to bother themselves with upfront costs. Whether it is building your side income or sharing your passion, Skillshare equips you with tools and community to thrive.
In short, Skillshare fully blends with the desires of any creative professional because of its creativity, community, and ease of use in making the art of online teaching excellent. With a supportive community, opportunities for growth await—actually, a platform where creators can learn, improve their craft, and teach.
9. Coursera
Coursera, an online learning platform, is committed to helping 129 million learners around the world achieve their goals by acquiring new skills through access to the best academic and professional teaching. It partners with top world-renowned universities, such as Stanford, and companies like Google and IBM, to offer a plethora of high-quality courses—from free introductory courses to advanced degrees.
Through Coursera, learners can upskill everything from data science and business to social sciences and beyond. They can also get several certificates and degrees that would hold considerable weight in today’s competitive job market. Whether you look for professional certifications, skill-building programs, or accredited degrees, Coursera would provide flexible learning environments for individuals and organizations.
Best Features:
- World-class Partnerships: The fact that Coursera partners with prestigious institutions enables it to ensure learners receive nothing but top-notch education from leading experts.
- Mobile Accessibility: The mobile application lets the student learn anywhere and at any time, increasing ease of access and convenience in education.
- Specialisations & Degrees: Along with single courses, there are broad courses that include a specialisation encompassing several courses, besides being fully accredited online degree courses.
Best For:
It is ideal for academics and professionals and corporate teams who look to learning for enhancement of knowledge and career prospects. However, it focuses more on experienced professionals and educators associated with partner institutions.
Pricing Options:
- Free Courses: Coursera offers a wide range of courses free of cost, wherein certificates can be bought.
- Paid Programs: It offers subscription plans, ranging from $399 per year for teams to enterprise solutions for more major organizations. However, teaching is by invitation, and course authors receive their compensation either in revenue sharing or fixed deals.
Support:
Coursera offers excellent support via help articles, email support, and specific channels for universities, businesses, and individuals so that the learning is smooth and fluent.
Pros:
- Huge variety of courses and programs of study from top-ranked global institutions.
- A fully functional learning mobile application for learning anywhere and at any time.
- Superior quality of students’ and instructors’ tools and resources.
Cons:
- You can’t create courses on your own; it’s strictly invitation-only for instructors to create courses.
- Not really ideal for first-timers in creating courses, but rather a place for professionals.
Coursera remains one of the best e-learning platforms in which the benchmark of online learning remains unrivaled.
10. Thinkific
Another well-established specialist platform is Thinkific that has been a reasonably popular alternative to Teachable these last years. In Thinkific, you can add a number of lesson types: assignments, surveys, and more customizable quizzes, which is enormous plus. Through this classic sidebar view, students can watch videos, access downloadable resources, and take part in discussions.
One key improvement is that, starting in 2022, Thinkific moved to a single-step checkout process. In the past, through its two-step checkout process, buyers had to go through creating an account first and then another step to finalize payment, which created friction in the buying process. Thinkific also continues to develop its very own payment processor, T-commerce, including an all-new Sales Tax Solution where it will automatically collect and remit on your behalf for taxes charged to US and Canadian buyers.
Thinkific has a free plan, through which you can create and sell your course while having no additional transaction fees taken off. With that said, their option is one of the most affordable ones on this list. For the most part, most business owners will find their plans straightforward and filled with value.
11. Kajabi
Kajabi is our number one pick in the all-in-one platform category for online business owners. From Kajabi, you are able to sell online courses and digital products and build a full website, publish a blog or podcast, host a community, sell services, and build your email list, all from one place.
This price of Kajabi is pretty competitive, considering you would use most of its features. It is a pretty user-friendly course builder in which you can add modules and lessons. In every lesson, you can feature a video, audio, or none of the above. You can also add extra information to that area by using the Rich Text Editor. You can attach downloadable resources and turn comments on or off.
Kajabi has two layout options for the student view: Momentum and Premiere. Both are customizable and have their pros and cons, so it will all come down to your personal preference.
Kajabi will be just perfect for those business owners who appreciate ease and simplicity, and like to manage all in one place. Another advantage of Kajabi is the wide ecosystem of third-party specialists and service providers, which means that whatever you need—from a website template to a virtual assistant, or even building-your site—it would be really easy to find support for your business growth.
The downside of simplicity is constraint. Advanced site customizations or email automations may not be able to do what you want through Kajabi—though highly capable. If you have a specific vision, then an all-in-one platform is simply not for you.
In a nutshell, Kajabi is great if you don’t just need a course-creating platform but an all-in-one home for your business.
12. Podia
Podia is another great all-in-one platform that is more affordable than Kajabi. For such a minimal platform, it allows you to create a basic website, publish a blog, and make a community to sell courses and digital products. You can also add an email marketing add-on called Podia Email, which makes it really a true all-in-one experience.
Two of the biggest strengths of Podia have long been its simplicity and friendly pricing. For some users, though, this minimalism can be limiting. For example, its course curriculum builder lets you add sections containing individual lessons, but there are only five lesson types at the moment. To create a video lesson, you need to upload your video file and then use Podia’s block-based editor to add either PDFs or text to the lesson. They still don’t have quizzes, assignments, or gamification; that might be deal-breakers for some business owners.
The student view in Podia is also very minimal. You can add your logo and colors to the top navigation, but the white sidebar and white background are default settings that can’t currently be changed. The website builder is also very basic.
If simplicity is your thing, then Podia may be worth considering. Otherwise, if you’re after customization or advanced features, this may not be the ideal pick.
13. Kartra
Kartra is a powerhouse when it comes to online courses. You can do everything on Kartra; it is an all-inclusive platform, and it’s everything you will want when managing every single thing related to your course business. Whether building your course, nurturing your audience, or even growing your revenue, Kartra brings it all under one roof. You easily get to create marketing funnels, run email campaigns, manage leads, and even run your eCommerce storefront without using multiple tools.
Further, one of the best features is that it allows you, via Zapier, to connect your favorite business and marketing tools and gives you flexibility in shaping up your tech stack. That makes Kartra rather versatile for even full-control entrepreneurs.
Why Creators Love Kartra
Kartra is not all about course creation; it is also about building a thriving community around your course. With top-notch engagement features, you’ll have amazing ways to keep your students motivated and scaling easily. What’s more, a highly-rated customer support system supports creators and their students alike through live chat and support tickets, thus enabling you to iron out all the issues fast and let everything run seamlessly.
Key Features:
- Internal Marketing and Sales Tools: Organize everything from receipt of credit card and PayPal to beautiful sales pages using their drag-and-drop builder. You can segment customers with multiple funnels and campaigns, or even manage affiliate marketing with flexible commission structures.
- Kartra Marketplace: Sell marketing funnels to expand your business, or leverage other users’ resources for your own strategy sharpening.
- Dedicated Help Desk: The help desk is easily accessible to both students and creators, and troubleshooting or support is just a click away to make it seamless for everyone concerned.
- Seamless Zapier Integrations: You can connect Kartra with your favorite tools via Zapier, making the platform even more adaptable to your needs.
Pricing:
- Starter Plan: $99/month
- Silver Plan: $199/month
- Gold Plan: $299/month
- Platinum Plan: $499/month
For whom is Kartra designed for?
If you’re an entrepreneur looking to manage multiple courses, marketing funnels, and business operations in a single roof, Kartra will give you the highly efficient solution that scales as you grow. It befits creators that want to integrate community building, marketing, and sales with ease without losing their eye on scaling opportunities.
14. LinkedIn Learning
As a matter of fact, LinkedIn Learning is much more than just a part of online education. It is a powerful tool in career development seamlessly integrated with the professional network LinkedIn. LinkedIn Learning gives you access to a series of high-level classes that will help improve your business, technology, creative, and personal skills instructed by expert trainers. With its unique ability to bridge learning and professional development, it also allows individuals to directly showcase their new skills on their LinkedIn profiles, thus making it the right fit for professionals looking to gain practical, job-related knowledge.
Among the featured highlights for LinkedIn Learning are the different ways in which learning is imparted, ranging from video tutorials down to quizzes and even assignments. The whole concept has been so designed that it enhances the process of learning itself. Learners can earn certificates after course completion, thereby adding credibility to their achievement with an increased chance of career advancement.
Best for
If you are a course creator and wish to share your skills with a very professional audience, then this platform is your ultimate choice. Well-established, with a gigantic user base, it offers creators the opportunity to reach learners who are serious about improvement in skills and career advancement.
Pricing for Course Creators
One of the major advantages of LinkedIn Learning course instructors is the fact that there are no production or hosting charges in advance. However, the platform has a revenue-sharing model in which it pays some selected instructors of their courses through upfront payments and long-term royalties.
Support
Extensive support is available through LinkedIn Learning via a help center featuring frequently asked questions, troubleshooting guides, and tutorials. From technical questions to account needs, the customer service representatives at LinkedIn can assist. There’s also e-mail support, and community forums in which users share and discuss experiences.
Pros:
- Access to a huge professional audience
- No upfront production costs
- Earn royalties and upfront payments
- High-quality standards for eLearning content
- Course creation support provided
Cons:
- Instructor approval process is highly selective
- Low control over course pricing and access
- No direct relationship with learners
- Creative freedom may be restricted because the guidelines could be very strict
- Royalty payments based on engagement metrics, such as minutes watched
Who Is LinkedIn Learning For?
It is ideally meant for subject matter experts who would want to position themselves with authority and visibility by leveraging the power of LinkedIn’s vast social media network. Course creators have to go through a filtering process, making those that get through feel highly credited and recognized in the relevant field.
Notable Features
- Mobile App: Its mobile app helps one learn anywhere and anytime with ease.
- LinkedIn Learning Representatives: These representatives help instructors with the course-creation process to ensure the content is excellent and professional.
Student Pricing
- Monthly membership: $29.99/month (billed monthly)
- Annual membership: $19.99/month (billed annually)
With LinkedIn Learning, professionals ready to take the next step in their careers and instructors ready to share the knowledge that will get them there find a dynamic platform that links education to career building.
15. LifterLMS
If you want an online course creator and manager without headaches, then LifterLMS is possibly the ideal companion. The powerful LMS WordPress plugin is for anyone: from a solopreneur who wants to sell his or her courses to big educational enterprises seeking complex solutions. Having a strong community with 4 million students and having created 6 million courses, LifterLMS is one of the biggest players in the online education space.
Why Choose LifterLMS?
In LifterLMS, the unique blend of flexibility and power you need is limitless. Free and open source by nature, this plugin gives you the freedom to mold your learning environment with your simple or special needs. You can build one course, membership sites, and even MOOCs-large open online courses-with LifterLMS. You center yourself around the core free plugin and build your online learning platform out with various add-ons to make learning engaging.
Best For:
This platform will be ideal for:
- Small to medium businesses wanting to offer training.
- Training organizations wanting more advanced course management tools.
- Educational institutions in need of an easy-to-use LMS platform.
Pricing to Fit Your Budget
LifterLMS offers a few different options depending on needs:
- Core Plugin: Free
- Earth Bundle: $149.50/year
- Universe Bundle: $249.50/year
- Infinity Bundle: $749.50/year
While the core plugin is free, the more your needs expand, the more you’ll be investing in added features, but the value delivered is certainly worth it.
Key Features
Of all the features within LifterLMS, one of the standouts is their customizable feature selection. You can purchase individual add-ons starting at $99 each per year or opt for comprehensive bundles such as the Universe Bundle for $299/year or the Infinity Bundle for $999/year. And here are some of those noteworthies that make it shine bright:
- Engagement Tools – Keep students motivated and involved with gamification features, completion badges, and course certificates.
- Flexible Payment Options: Integrate seemlessly with popular payment gateways such as Stripe, PayPal, and Authorize.net; offer flexible payment plans and enrollment options.
- Powerful Analytics: Keep track of student performance and behavior with comprehensive reporting so you can make data-driven course improvements in real time.
- Instructional Design Support: LifterLMS leads you through how you can structure your content for maximum engagement to make sure your courses soar.
Support When You Need It
With LifterLMS, one is never alone. They have responsive customer support, with responses to tickets in about 12 hours. For free version users, community forums go a long way in figuring out problems and sharing ideas with other users.
Pros:
- Free trial available to get you rolling.
- Automated mailing system for engaging students within your courses.
- Integrates perfectly with marketing tools such as MailChimp and WooCommerce.
Cons:
- Costs really add up with every other add-on.
- Lacks SCORM compliance, which may reduce its application in some ways. No native video conferencing feature to connect with people in real time.
LifterLMS is incredibly powerful but scales down to your needs. Whether you’re a solopreneur looking to share your expertise or a developer desiring to create course portals for your clients, LifterLMS has got your back. With an extremely rich feature set and dedication to improvement in the learning experience, it certainly stands as one of the best online course platforms today.
More Online Course Platforms Worth Considering
Here are a couple of other systems that I get asked about a great deal:
- Experify: Most gamification features for creating online courses, but the course experience is hard to navigate without the classic sidebar with the outline.
- Gumroad and Patreon are both missing any real course building capability and have crazy-high transaction fees-5-12% for Patreon and 10% for Gumroad-and therefore cannot be recommended for use at scale.
- HighLevel: An all-in-one platform that includes deal creation and CRM management, which might be a good fit if client work is going to be part of your long-term growth strategy.
- Squarespace: You have the option to create and sell courses directly in your Squarespace, but they take a 9% transaction fee unless you buy a paid monthly add-on
Takeaway
There is no single best course creation platform that fits all. It all depends on your needs and preferences.
By creating a needs assessment to identify the right platform, list out any of the must-have features that are important to you. First, consider whether you need an all-in-one or a specialist platform, and then drill deeper into your needs.
When you have this list, comparing platforms will become much easier, using our free side-by-side comparison or by starting one or two free trials.
Just remember most of us don’t have one right tool, just the one that feels best for you right now. Run a few tests, see what feels right, and then trust your gut. Any decision will be a good one.
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