As you’ve probably noticed, finding the best online course platforms is not that difficult for online students. Sadly, however, the situation is much different for online tutors.
Although Google might point you towards the most popular platforms for building and selling online courses, it takes a heck of a lot of time and effort to test each one out based on your particular needs.
And that’s not all. You still need to analyze and compare the pricing packages on various online course platforms. In the end, it could take you weeks or possibly months to even come close to identifying the best online course platforms that cater to not just your tutoring needs, but also your budget as well.
Ok, but then again, why on earth would anyone even subject themselves to all that trouble? What’s the big deal about building and selling online courses in the first place?
What’s In It For You
The fast-growing global e-learning market is set to hit $325 billion in value by 2025. In the US alone, over 6 million individuals are currently pursuing online courses, and the numbers are still expanding at an exponential rate. This places online tutoring in the league of the most promising ventures, alongside the likes of dropshipping.
That said, it doesn’t take much to join the bandwagon. With basic editing skills, you can easily create and sell online courses in pretty much any subject- photography, videography, law, IT, psychology, health, entrepreneurship, politics, history, language, you name it.
The only thing is, you can’t afford to compromise the whole thing with a randomly-selected online course platform. Everything- from your website to the corresponding courses and student portal- should be based on nothing but the best online course platform.
And how exactly do you choose the best online course platform?
The Tricks To Choosing The Best Online Course Platform
As you begin reviewing various platform options, it’s worth noting that not all online course platforms give you the chance to build and sell courses. Most of them, in fact, are built for managing and distributing corporate training programs.
But, it doesn’t end there. Turns out online course platforms also come with varying configurations and architectures. You’re bound to come upon categories like:
- All-In-One Online Course Platforms: In addition to the standard course building and management features, they offer web hosting.
- Marketplace Online Course Platforms: They provide a centralized all-inclusive marketplace for selling your online courses.
- Plugin/Add-On Online Course Platforms: You get to transform a regular website into an e-learning site by simply integrating the platforms, which come in the form of third-party plugins.
- Standalone Online Course Platforms: Unlike all-in-one platforms, standalone solutions allow you to proceed using their course tools while running your site on independent external hosts.
In each of these categories, you can expect to discover a wide range of options with different pricing variations. It’s at this point that you might want to take the following points into consideration.
Top Factors To Consider When Choosing The Best Online Course Platforms
- Your Business Needs: What do you intend to achieve with the online course platform?
- Your Students’ Needs: What kind of students do you plan to enroll in your online courses? What are their user preferences?
- Course Building Tools: How easy and intuitive is the online course creation process? What about the accompanying course organization framework?
- Course Management Tools: What type of features do you get for managing your online course? Tools such as online course registration software can ensure the signup process runs smoothly.
- Course Selling Tools: How do you get paid for your online learning programs? Where and how can you market your online courses?
- Student Interaction Channels: Which channels can you use to communicate with the students before, during, and after pursuing the online courses?
- Third-Party Integrations: Which third-party tools and platforms can you embed with ease?
- Customizability: How flexible is the online course platform? How far can you customize its components?
- Ease-of-Use: How long will it take you to learn the ropes? Do you need any technical skills to work with the online course platform?
- Cost: How much ROI does the online course platform stand to offer over the long haul? Which billing options does it offer? How much does the online course platform charge for processing transactions?
Lucky for you though, we’ll give you a headstart by narrowing down the options to the 10 best online course platforms.
Please note, though, that this is not just any random list of the leading online course platforms. We’ve carefully prepared it after years of extensive data collection and thorough testing across real-life use cases. Our team of researchers and bonafide online tutors were meticulous enough not to leave any stone unturned.
So, without further ado, allow me to present the current top 10 best online course platforms- along with their feature highlights, pricing packages, and potential weaknesses.
Top 10 Best Online Course Platforms For Building, Managing and Selling Your Online Courses
1. Best Online Course Platforms #1: Thinkific
Pros and Cons of Thinkific Online Course Platform
| Thinkific Pros | Thinkific Cons |
| Offers all-in-one online course tools. | Does not support live teaching. |
| Comes with a free plan. | Lacks native comment features. |
| Grants unrestricted access to HTML and CSS customization. | |
| Provides powerful marketing automation capabilities. |
Best Overall Online Course Platform
Thanks to its well-optimized all-in-one feature set, Thinkific outpaces the rest to take the top spot as the best overall online course platform.
So far, it has facilitated over 50,000 online course tutors, who’ve gone ahead to sell online courses worth more than $340 million. The secret to their success lies in Thinkific’s holistic approach- it provides not only course creation capabilities, but also all the essential tools for marketing courses, organizing courses, managing students, tracking KPIs, and processing payments.
Personally, I’m a big fan of Thinkific’s drag-and-drop site builder. I like the fact that it’s simple and intuitive enough to help you put up a complete website in minutes. And no, in case you’re wondering, you won’t need any coding or technical skills. Everything’s pretty straightforward.
In fact, that’s more or less the scenario when it comes to the rest of the processes. Thinkific manages to maintain a pleasantly seamless system of managing course materials, payments, clients, integrations, campaigns, and much more.
The dashboard itself is built to grant you quick and direct access to all the course tools. You can, for instance, make your way to the course creator, from where you can proceed to create your programs by dragging and dropping content.
And speaking of which, Thinkific has a very flexible course framework. It can host private and hidden courses, as well as membership sites, evergreen and expiring content, cohorts, drip schedule content, prerequisite lessons, plus multiple instructors.
What’s more, you get to engage your students through videos, texts, downloads, Google Docs, Typeform surveys, course discussions, and quizzes.
Overall, Thinfkific is a perfect balance between user-friendliness, accessibility, inclusiveness, and flexibility. You can even integrate more than 1,000 third-party business tools. And if you happen to have a limited budget, you’ll be pleased that Thinkific is one of the few all-in-one online course platforms that come with a free package.
Thinkific Online Course Platform Feature Highlights
- Web Hosting: Secure cloud hosting, daily backups, 99.99% uptime, 24/7 monitoring, expert customer support, built-in SSL, white-label, custom domains, custom site links, advanced CSS/HTML editing, branded course catalog, compatible with existing websites.
- Online Course Creation: Unlimited courses, student surveys, student discussions, voice-over PowerPoint presentation tool, pass/fail quizzes, downloadable content, built-in content creation tools, import existing content, create courses with any content type, plus full video and content hosting.
- Online Course Management: Easy course navigation, resume on any device, rich student environment, choose from built-in, Disqus, or any other third-party discussion tools, as well as create self-directed, scheduled group, and even hybrid classes.
- Online Course Selling and Marketing: Infusionsoft integration, ActiveCampaign integration, offer payment plans, drip (scheduled) content, coupons and promotions, affiliate reporting, advanced marketing, and email integrations, bundles and upsells, sell your courses to cohorts or organizations with groups, multiple payment methods and currencies, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), order tracking, conversion tracking, JavaScript tracking, offer free trials of your courses, launch a membership site.
Thinkific Online Course Platform Pricing
- Free Plan
- Basic: $49 per month billed monthly, or $39 per month billed annually.
- Pro: $99 per month billed monthly, or $79 per month billed annually.
- Premier: $499 per month billed monthly, or $399 per month billed annually.
2. Best Online Course Platforms #2: Teachable
Pros and Cons of Teachable Online Course Platform
| Teachable Pros | Teachable Cons |
| Comes with a comprehensive learning management system. | Limited marketing capabilities. |
| Facilitates extensive tracking and reporting. | Takes time to set up everything |
| Supports different types of learning structures. | |
| Offers student list segmentation. |
Best All-In-One Online Course Platform
Closely behind Thinkific is another popular all-in-one online course platform. Yes, that’s right- Teachable is also a cloud-hosted online course platform that combines pretty much everything under one roof.
In essence, you can comfortably use Teachable to set up a complete e-learning website, customize web pages, upload and organize your online course content, market online courses, enroll students, accept payments, manage students, interact with learners, deliver lessons, as well as track the corresponding variables.
All things considered, therefore, Teachable offers essentially the same framework as Thinkific. But, don’t get me wrong. They are not completely identical. There are some differences here and here.
In terms of popularity, for instance, it turns out Teachable is a much bigger brand than Thinkific. While Thinkific has attracted a decent crowd of online tutors, it comes nowhere close to Teachable, which has so far hosted over 100,000 instructors across a wide range of subjects. What’s more, Teachable’s tutors have cumulatively earned more than $500 million on the online course platform.
If you choose to join them, you’ll enjoy building, managing, and selling your online courses with Teachable’s straightforward tools. The interface itself is admirably clean and you should be able to create and customize your web pages and courses without any technical skills.
Your online students, on the other hand, are bound to have an easy time accessing courses and navigating through the content. And speaking of which, Teachable is particularly outstanding when it comes to video-based programs. You can use it for tutorials, webinars, presentations, and other types of interactive lessons.
Teachable Online Course Platform Feature Highlights
- Website Hosting: Drag-and-drop website builder, team hierarchies, 2048-bit SSL certificate, instant upgrades, 24/7 monitoring, custom domain, link your existing website.
- Online Course Creation: Unlimited courses, tests engine, survey engine, scheduling live events, learning paths (curriculums), online video content, change course default settings, can reuse PPTs, PDFs, videos, built-in authoring tool, assignments engine, synchronous virtual classroom, blended learning, asynchronous self-paced, asynchronous instructor-led, live video conferencing / webinar, live chat option, learner upload, course discussions, course page editor, content import.
- Online Course Management: Self-enrollment, automated enrollment (based on user data), attendance tracking, certification by curriculum and course, predefined certification templates, multiple grading scales, course history tracking, automated report scheduling, bulk user actions, multiple instructor support, student list segmentation, feedback collection.
- Online Course Marketing and Selling: Refund processing, student and revenue dashboard, payment processing, sales page templates, affiliate marketing, advanced pricing options, and coupon creation and management.
Teachable Online Course Platform Pricing
- Basic: $39 per month billed monthly, or $29 per month billed annually.
- Pro: $119 per month billed monthly, or $99 per month billed annually.
- Business: $299 per month billed monthly, or $249 per month billed annually.
3. Best Online Course Platforms #3: Kajabi
Pros and Cons of Kajabi Online Course Platform
| Kajabi Pros | Kajabi Cons |
| All-in-one online course platform. | Limited digital products and sales pipelines. |
| Powerful automated marketing and customer relationship management system. | Comparatively costly. |
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