Are you looking for a better platform for hosting your online courses and memberships between Podia and Teachable?
Teachable is widely used by a lot of creators and has proven to be a giant in the e-learning industry.
On the other hand, Podia is a new entrant which has seen increased popularity in the past year. But does it have what it takes to battle good ‘old Teachable, feature to feature?
This is what I aim to find out with this Podia vs Teachable comparison piece.
They are both platforms for online learning and help you create amazing courses, host digital downloads, memberships, and much more.
Stay with me as we take a deep dive to find out the winner of the Podia vs Teachable battle.
And I hope you’ll be able to make an informed decision picking the better course platform at the end of this comparison article.
Overview. First.
Teachable vs Podia – Overview
What is Podia?
Podia is a platform that helps you turn your passion into income by selling online courses and digital products.
With over 20,000 content creators, Podia gives you all the tools you need to create an all-in-one digital storefront.
On the storefront provided by Podia, you can start selling digital products such as online courses, webinars, and memberships.
Podia is for you if you don’t have much in-depth tech or coding skills and you want to share and sell your knowledge online. The platform is really easy to use and has a user-friendly, intuitive interface.
Here are some of the features you get on Podia:
- Create and sell online courses and digital downloads
- Build membership sites to make money with Podia
- Build your digital storefront (and sales pages) to host all your products
- Collect payment with ease
- Give out coupons right from within Podia
- Send newsletters and run automated drip campaigns to keep your students engaged
And much more.
What is Teachable?
With over 28M students and 124,000+ instructors using the platform, Teachable is focused on being the go-to platform for online learning helping you to create, host, and deliver online courses with ease.
Teachable gives you the right tools you need to share and sell their knowledge with the world.
You can create, upload, publish, and sell online courses and digital products on the platform. It guarantees
They have a drag and drop page builder, user-friendly interface, in-built payment processing facilities, and more features so you can create a world-class learning experience for your students.
Here’re some of the features you get on Teachable:
- Upload your content in any format and structure it with ease
- Build your course area for your students
- Test the progress of your students and grade them with quizzes, surveys, and assessments
- Award certificates to your students
- Track the progress of your students with adequate analytics
- Create your course site (and landing page) easily
- Receive payment directly from your customers via credit card or PayPal
- Send broadcast emails to stay in touch with your students
- Manage affiliates to promote your course
- Stay unstuck while using Teachable with support options.
Podia vs Teachable Feature Comparison
Now to the meaty part of this Teachable vs Podia comparison. We’re going to compare both in the aspect of:
- Course creation
- Email marketing and automation
- Memberships and lots more…
Let’s get started!
#1. Course Creation
The course builder in Podia allows you to upload your content and create a course structure around it.
You’ll find it really easy to bulk upload your course content and digital downloads and then reorder into lessons and modules.
On the other hand, Teachable supports cloud importing so you can import content directly from Google Drive/ Dropbox, unlike Podia.
Plus, the Teachable course builder is more user-friendly than Podia. Unlike Podia, you can allow your students to download videos from Teachable.
Another distinct feature between the course builders is that Teachable supports multiple content types. You can upload multiple videos, quizzes, text, PDF, etc. in the same lesson and arrange them however you want.
Winner: Teachable.com
#2. Email Marketing
Podia has two email marketing functions available for you to stay in touch with your students.
The first option allows you to send one-time emails and newsletters to your students.
And the second option empowers you to run drip campaigns on the platform. The drip campaign feature in Podia allows you to send your students a sequence of emails for a pre-launch offer, for instance. Pretty cool automation functionality.
It can also let you choose a trigger for your campaign and performs a special email marketing action once that condition is triggered.
Teachable has quite basic email marketing features.
You can send emails to your students to keep the communication going or even a specific segment of your students. It lacks drip or auto-trigger email functionalities as it’s not an all-in-one platform.
Winner: Podia.com
#3. Memberships
If you’re looking to create more memberships than online courses, Podia is a great fit for you.
You can not only create product bundles but it also allows you to create individual “posts” for your students different from your courses.
You can use this one-off posts to deliver content to your students on an ongoing basis.
On the other hand, Teachable isn’t really built for memberships. All you are able to do is bundle your courses on teachable and sell them together for a monthly or an annual subscription.
Winner: Podia.com
#4. Payment Processing and Payment Model
Both Podia and Teachable allow you to have various pricing options for your products. Whether a one-time pricing or a recurring subscription pricing plan, they’ve got you covered.
Podia allows you to choose only one currency only at the site level, use and you can create a free trial of any length between for up to 365 days. Their payment processing is straightforward.
You can easily integrate your Stripe or PayPal account and watch your funds go straight into your account.
And Podia uses a multi-step checkout process that happens in a popup and you can embed it on an external website so people can complete payment without leaving that website.
Teachable allows you to price your products in multiple currencies.
And to accept payments, Teachable has a couple of options. First, there is the “Custom Gateway” where you can process payments with your own Stripe or PayPal account and you get paid instantly.
Secondly, you have the “Teachable Gateway” which pays immediately only if you’re in the US/Canada. But this option has a delay of 30-60 days if you’re outside the US/Canada.
Apart from supporting Apple Pay and Google Pay as payment options, this Teachable Gateway allows you to use Stripe and PayPal to process payments even if you’re in a non-supported country.
And you can their BackOffice to collect tax forms from your authors and affiliates and automatically payout to them every month.
Teachable has a well-optimized, 1-step checkout process that allows you to add one-click upsells on the thank you page.
Winner: Teachable.com
#5. Integrations
Podia’s integrations are kinda limited. But they’re constantly adding new direct integrations.
To run automated email campaigns, they let you directly connect with a variety of third-party email platforms majorly which includes ConvertKit, Mailchimp, Drip, AWeber, ActiveCampaign, GetResponse, and MailerLite.
Asides from email solutions, Podia also integrates with Google Analytics for analytics and Stripe and Paypal for payment processing. In case, you can’t directly integrate with your favorite app listed, you can use Zapier to rescue.
Talking integration with email marketing solutions, Teachable only directly connect with just MailChimp and ConvertKit.
And it has a robust Zapier integration so you can integrate with thousands of your favorite third-party apps.
Winner: Tie
#6. Customer Support
Podia customers on all plans receive the same great support.
They have a live chat support option and you get responses within 5 – 10 minutes during work hours using this option.
Asides from the Podia live chat option, you can also get support via email as a Podia customer but no telephone support. Podia has a robust knowledge base where you can find various content on how to use the platform.
And to cap it up, they offer free migration to new creators switching to Podia from another platform. Huge advantage.
With the free migration Podia offers, you don’t have to worry or lift a finger in moving your online course content and digital downloads from other e-learning platforms to Podia. Podia’s efficient support team would do it all for you.
Teachable also has an extensive knowledge base where you can find how-to articles on using the platform.
They offer email support on the free plan and Basic plan.
On the Teachable professional plan or above, you get access to their live chat support as well. Lastly, Teachable has a highly engaged Facebook community where you can ask questions and gain value from other Teachable users.
Winner: Teachable.com.com
Podia vs Teachable Pricing
Podia Pricing
You get two interesting pricing plans with Podia.
And each plan comes with its unlimited features and zero transaction fees to sell your online courses without hassles. Unlike Teachable, Podia does not have a free plan. If you want to test-drive the platform and see which plan is right perfect to use to build your online course, a 14-day trial is available for you.
You don’t even need your credit card for the trial period and you can cancel anytime. Podia gives you a little discount if you decide to pay yearly instead.
Let’s see each of the pricing plans Podia offers.
Mover Plan for $39 per month
Great for beginners and first-time digital product creators launching their first online course and digital products, the Mover plan allows you to save $78 when you pay yearly ($390 billed annually).
You pay zero transaction fees and here’re the features you get on this plan:
- Your storefront
- Online courses
- Digital downloads
- Webinars
- Email marketing
- Messaging
- Additional teammates ($20/mo each)
- Zero transaction fees
- Unlimited everything
- 7-days-a-week support
- Free migrations
Shaker Plan for $79 per month
The shaker plan is perfect for experienced digital product creators with large businesses. You get to save $158 ($790 billed annually) and get the following features:
- All features in Mover plan plus
- Memberships
- Blog
- Offsite Buy Buttons
- Affiliate marketing
- Third-party code
Teachable Pricing
Teachable has four pricing plans which include a free plan. On each pricing plan, you get an unlimited number of courses, students, hosting, and video storage.
Teachable charges you transaction fees when you withdraw your payments and the fees differ with each plan.
You also get a discount when you pay yearly instead of on a monthly basis. Click here.
Here are all the features Teachable offers on its base plan:
- Unlimited video
- Unlimited courses
- Integrated payment processing
- Unlimited hosting
- Student management
- Lecture comments
- Basic quizzes
- No fees on free courses
- VAT (value-added tax) for EU
Now, let’s dive in and take a look at each of the various pricing plans Teachable offers.
Free Plan
Teachable’s highly restrictive free plan lets you test drive the platform with access to all the features on the base plan and a maximum of 10 students.
Plus, you get charged a $1+10% transaction fee for every sale you make on your teachable courses.
Basic Plan for $29 per month
This plan is great for beginners and course creators whare just starting out with creating an online course and building an online business.
The plan goes for $29 per month when you use the discount and pay yearly ($348 billed annually).
You get the following features for creating your online course on the Teachable Basic Plan:
- All base features
- Unlimited students
- 5% transaction fees
- Instant payouts
- 2 admin-level users
- Product support
- Course creator training
- Custom domain support
- Coupon codes
- Drip course content
- Integrated email marketing
- Third-party integrations
Professional Plan for $119 per month
This is the most popular Teachable plan and you get access to most of the features in Teachable. When you pay yearly, your bill reduces to $99 per month ($1188 billed annually) and you get the following features:
Here’s what Teachable offers on the professional plan to create your online course:
- All in the Basic plan
- Unlimited students
- No transaction fees
- Instant payouts
- 5 admin-level users
- Priority product support.
- Graded quizzes
- Advanced reports
- Unbranded website
- Course completion certificates
- Course compliance
- Integrated affiliate marketing
Business Plan for $299 per month
This plan gives you the best of Teachable with unlimited access to all features. Your bill reduces to $249 per month ($2988 billed annually) when you pay yearly and here’re the features you get on the Business plan:
- All in Professional plan
- Unlimited students
- No transaction fees
- Instant payouts
- 20 admin-level users
- Priority product support
- Manual student imports
- Bulk student enrollments
- Custom user roles
- Advanced theme customization
- Group coaching calls
Frequently Asked Question on Podia vs Teachable
Which is more expensive, Podia or Teachable?
In my opinion, I would say Teachable appears more expensive than Podia. Because of the higher pricing tiers up to $399 per month available on Teachable. While on Podia you get all the advanced features on the $79 per month plan.
Do Podia and Teachable have trial periods?
Yes, both have a free 14-day trial period.
You can get started with Podia here.
You can get started with Teachable here.
Do Teachable and Podia have refund policies?
Yes, both Podia and Teachable have a money-back guarantee. But, I still think the free trial periods are okay enough for anyone to make a smart decision on whether to stay or not before getting charged for the monthly plan.
Can I build my marketing sales funnel on Podia and Thinkific?
The short answer is NO.
While I so much love the concept of sales funnel – none of the above platforms can be used for creating a complete marketing funnel.
While Podia offers some level of marketing and selling capability – it doesn’t come near as a sales funnel software. You can check out these funnel builders on which to use for building complicated marketing funnels.
But if you want a straight-up recommendation – go with either Kartra or ClickFunnels.
Is Podia better than Teachable?
The main difference between the two is that Podia provides better marketing and membership features, while Teachable offers better course creation features.
The thing is, Teachable offers more when it comes to course creation. You have an option for offering certificates, provides better analytics, flexible course builder, forms, surveys, assignments, and graded quizzes.
While Podia wins in providing a better email and automation feature and affiliate center.
Which is better for courses?
Without mincing words, Teachable is incredibly and reliably better for online courses.
Which is better for digital downloads and eBooks?
Podia is by far!
Podia has a special feature that takes care of helping you market and sell your digital downloads or eBooks. Conveniently.
Podia supports all kinds of digital products, from text, images, audio files, quizzes, PDFs, and links to more complex files like PSDs, and so much more.
Which is better for webinars?
There are over a dozen webinar platforms for businesses in the industry you can integrate into your chosen course builder. However, Podia gives you the ability to create webinars through the native Zoom integration or you can embed YouTube live.
All within Podia. Plus, they also take care of automating the process and sending reminder emails.
So, yeah you should definitely go with Podia for webinars.
Is Podia worth the price?
Podia is awesome no doubt. But it wasn’t designed for every marketer and online business owner out there.
For those looking for a cheap, flexible, and easy to use course creator and tool for selling their marketing their digital downloads – Podia is well worth every penny.
One aspect Podia stands out is how remarkably easy to use. And really straightforward to set up a membership.
Is Teachable worth the price?
In my opinion YES, Teachable is worth the price. The best Kajabi alternative out here. A very reliable and trusted and online course and membership platform with over 100k users.
But first, you really need to ask yourself, what you wish to achieve with it. And how you plan to sell your knowledge to your target audience.
Podia vs Teachable: Which should you use?
With the important features as seen in this Podia vs Teachable guide, both platforms have shown that they are great, easy to use solutions for your online courses, digital products ad memberships.
But they both have their strengths and weaknesses. Obviously!
And thankfully, they both have free trials for those who’d like to have a firsthand taste before any financial investment.
Teachable was essentially built for online course creation and it does a pretty good job at that. It has awesome course creations tools and learning engagement tools by allowing you to give quizzes and award certificates to your students.
You can also see reports on all your courses. Want to try out Teachable for a while?
They have a free forever plan or you could sign up for the 30-day free trial of their paid plans.
Podia, on the other hand, has core features of building memberships and selling digital products. With Podia, you can create and sell online courses on the platform but it doesn’t do a better job than Teachable in that aspect.
And with two pricing plans, Podia is more affordable than Teachable. If you want to try out Podia for a while, there’s a 14-day free trial waiting for you on the platform.
You don’t even have to enter your credit card details for the trial making it risk-free.
Here at https://podia.com/14days-trial/
If you’re focused on creating and delivering your online courses for your students, go for Teachable.
And if you desire something more like being able to create memberships and sell digital products, then Podia has the capabilities you need.
I hope you got value out of this Podia vs Teachable guide.
Let me know the right option for you out of the two (and any questions) in the comments below.
