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. |
Well-designed conversion-optimized templates and themes. | |
Powerful blogging and video-streaming capabilities. |
Best Online Course Platform For Automated Marketing
Third on our list of the best online course platforms is yet another elite all-inclusive solution, which seeks to attract online tutors with its comprehensive toolset for creating, promoting, and selling online courses.
More specifically, Kajabi deals with website creation and customization, online course building and administration, content uploading and organization, student enrollment and tracking, plus payment handling and processing. Then to sweeten the deal further, Kajabi has developed its features to support both beginners and advanced tutors.
But, that’s not all. The one area where Kajabi truly shines is marketing. Once you register and log into its system, you’ll find an impressive array of tools for advanced omnichannel campaigns and customer relationship management.
Kajabi is basically the best online course platform for you if you’re looking to leverage automated email marketing, webinar pages, upsells, and sales pages. You can count on it when it comes to generating leads, as well as nurturing and converting them into regular students. You even get to take advantage of contact segmentation capabilities, plus trigger-based sales pipelines.
Kajabi Online Course Platform Feature Highlights
- Website Hosting: SEO-optimized, unlimited hosting, safe and secure, resource auto-scaling, custom domain, drag-and-drop builder, high-converting page templates, customize, and embed forms.
- Online Course Creation and Management: View grades, track lesson progress, product blueprints, online community, product generator, online courses, subscriptions, gated-content, membership sites, course insights, create quizzes, drip content, unlimited free video hosting, plus add video, image, text, audio, PDF files, digital downloads, and more.
- Marketing and Selling Courses: Marketing pipeline blueprints, segmented personalized campaigns, marketing automation, email sequences, email broadcasts, fixed payment plans, weekly, monthly, or annual subscriptions, free course trials, single course price point, abandoned cart recovery, coupons, 1-click upsells, Stripe and/or PayPal integrated checkout, sales pages, opt-in pages, webinar pages, upsell pages.
Kajabi Online Course Platform Pricing
- Basic: $149 per month billed monthly, or $119 per month billed annually.
- Growth: $199 per month billed monthly, or $159 per month billed annually.
- Pro: $399 per month billed monthly, or $319 per month billed annually.
4. Best Online Course Platforms #4: Podia
Pros and Cons of Podia Online Course Platform
Podia Pros | Podia Cons |
All-inclusive online course platform. | Only 2 pricing plans. |
Robust marketing and automation features. | Limited site customization capabilities. |
Flexible online course memberships. | Lacks phone support |
Supports unlimited digital products, unlimited customers, and unlimited bandwidth. |
Best Online Course Platform For Selling Memberships
Trailing Kajabi is Podia, which rightfully earns its place as the 4th best online course platforms thanks to its creator-centric system. It’s an all-in-one online course platform alright, but, it’s best known for its well-optimized tools for selling not just online courses, but also memberships and digital products.
That said, one particularly outstanding thing about Podia is this- it’s not all about online tutors alone. Rather, it prioritizes other types of creators too. That’s why, among its userbase of more than 11,000 creators, you’ll find general creatives, entrepreneurs, and small businesses.
For over 6 years now, Podia has been empowering them with tools for marketing and selling all sorts of digital content. This allows their customers to conveniently access and download the materials without infringing copyright.
As an online tutor though, you’ll appreciate the fact that Podia is exceptionally ideal for managing online course memberships. It gives you the chance to set up membership sites separately from other digital products, after which you can proceed to enroll students at various levels.
And while you’re at it, Podia additionally grants you solid tools for promoting your online courses and converting the subsequent leads. I’m talking about email marketing, pre-launch courses, affiliate marketing, coupons, plus conversion-optimized checkout pages.
In a nutshell, Podia is a cheaper alternative to the likes of Kajabi and Teachable, especially when it comes to creating, marketing, and selling tiered online course memberships.
Podia Online Course Platform Feature Highlights
- Website Hosting: Custom URL, unlimited bandwidth, free hosting, free migration, customizable branding, live previews, live customer support, build your website, unlimited hosting.
- Online Course Creation and Management: Pre-launch courses, drip course content, unlimited customers, unlimited products, fully customizable, validate products, track and analyze performance, host live events, connect your groups, member discussions, bundle products, members-only content, unlimited membership plans/levels, digital downloads, upload any file, quizzes.
- Marketing and Selling Online Courses: Bundle products, coupons, affiliate partners, embeddable “buy” buttons, 1-click upsells, payment plans, sales pages, conversion-optimized checkout, capture emails, segment lists, build funnels, drip email campaigns, send newsletters.
Podia Online Course Platform Pricing
- Mover: $39 per month paid monthly, with a discount of $78 if you choose annual billing.
- Shaker: $799 per month paid monthly, with a discount of $158 if you settle for annual billing instead.
5. Best Online Course Platforms #5: Ruzuku
Pros and Cons of Ruzuku Online Course Platform
Ruzuku Pros | Ruzuku Cons |
Generously provides unlimited data hosting, unlimited courses, unlimited students, and unlimited webinars. | Provides limited marketing capabilities. |
Zero transaction fees. | There are only two processing options- PayPal and Stripe. |
Supports multiple online course instructors and site managers. | Limited customization options. |
Incredibly easy-to-use. |
Best Easy-To-Use Online Course Platform
Coming in as the 5th best online course platform is Ruzuku, which also happens to be an all-in-one solution. This learning management system can support websites, customize webpages, create online courses, host students, deliver digital content, manage lessons, facilitate payments, and integrate third-party apps.
Notably, though, Ruzuku rightfully touts itself as an incredibly easy online course creator. It’s indeed one of the best online course platforms for tutors who want to quickly get their e-learning sites up and running. You’ll find its online course builder not only easy-to-use but also pleasantly responsive and intuitive. Ruzuku even manages to guide you through the whole process of creating, naming, and organizing your lessons.
All in all, it should only take you a couple of minutes to set up online courses on the platform. And while you’re at it, you’ll notice that Ruzuku is flexible enough to accommodate pretty much all the standard content types. You can add text, audio, video, images, as well as reference documents.
Ruzuku also allows you to specify how you’d like to deliver the content. You can, for instance, proceed with tiered programs, or choose to publish an evergreen course that grants learners direct access to all the lessons at once. Another possibility here is configuring the system to unlock new modules as students progress through the course levels.
That said, the students themselves are bound to have a good time here, as Ruzuku provides a well-personalized learning environment. You can, for example, set the system to promote discussions through social learning. Consequently, students get to join your course communities through their social media profiles.
Meanwhile, as they proceed with the lessons, you could further interact with them via teleconferencing, as well as dynamic quizzes. What’s more, Ruzuku allows you to embed external tools like MailChimp if you ever need to engage your leads through automated campaigns.
Ruzuku Online Course Platform Feature Highlights
- Website Hosting: Global content delivery network, dedicated, lightning-fast servers, dedicated account manager, comprehensive support, unlimited video, audio, and data hosting, multiple site managers, custom domain, daily backups.
- Online Course Creation and Management: Unlimited audio and video uploads, unlimited courses, unlimited students, polls and quizzes, unlimited webinars, multiple instructors, host video broadcasts, course-wide Q&A and forum, course community, students’ social profiles, on-demand (evergreen) courses with drip content, live (scheduled calendar-based) courses.
- Marketing and Selling Online Courses: Integrated payment processing with PayPal and Stripe, subscriptions and payment plans, coupons, your customers pay you directly, 0% transaction fees, send email announcements, integrate with MailChimp.
Ruzuku Online Course Platform Pricing
- Bootstrapper: $99 per month billed monthly, or $74.75 per month billed annually.
- Up-and-Comer: $149 per month billed monthly, or $83.08 per month billed annually.
- University: $199 per month billed monthly, or $125 per month billed annually.
6. Best Online Course Platforms #6: Udemy
Pros and Cons of Udemy Online Course Platform
Udemy Pros | Udemy Cons |
It’s a free online course platform for tutors. | Takes up a huge commission. |
Accommodates an unlimited number of online courses and students. | Cannot support a website. |
Markets online courses to an already extensive market of students. | Online tutors are pretty competitive on the platform. |
Provides email marketing and social media marketing. |
Best Online Course Marketplace
If you’re just starting your online tutoring career and don’t have the time or funds to put up an online course website, you might want to check out Udemy.
With over 50 million students and more than 130,000 online courses, Udemy is undeniably the most popular player in our list of the best online course platforms. But, make no mistake about it. Udemy doesn’t offer an all-in-one learning management system like Thinkific, Teachable, Kajabi, Ruzuku, and Podia.
Instead, Udemy is an online course marketplace that functions more or less like Amazon and Alibaba. It simply publishes online courses from different tutors on a centralized market, from where students manage to pick their preferred programs.
The best thing about such a framework is, you won’t be required to set up your own website. Udemy allows pretty much anyone to create and publish online courses on its marketplace. This process, as a matter of fact, is as simple as signing up, setting up your instructor profile, and then uploading your course lessons.
You can offer online courses in fields such as teaching and academics, music, health and fitness, photography, lifestyle, marketing, design, personal development, office productivity, IT and software, finance and accounting, business, and development. Each new course is typically organized into modules and lessons.
Now, publishing your online courses here means two things. The good news is, you get to take advantage of a ready market. As one of the most popular online course marketplaces on the web, Udemy regularly attracts millions of students.
The unfortunate bit is, you’ll be competing for attention with thousands of other online tutors. So, although Udemy saves you the trouble of building and promoting a website, you still need your marketing A-game if you intend to outshine the rest of the tutors.
However, once you start enrolling students, the money won’t flow directly to your account. Rather, all the payments here are processed by Udemy, with online tutors getting a portion of the revenue on a monthly basis.
Udemy Online Course Platform Feature Highlights
- Online Course Creation: Unlimited courses, unlimited students, voice-over presentations, course catalog, course quality checklist, instructor profile, course description, course title, pre-launch mini-course.
- Online Course Management: Student completion certificates, built-in student discussion, quizzes, surveys, exams, educational announcements, measure learning engagement.
- Online Course Marketing and Selling: Affiliate program, coupons and promotions, course reviews (social proof), action-based email campaigns, retargeting ads, ad hoc email campaigns, course marketing, “highest-rated” badge and a “best seller” badge, course landing page SEO, social media promotion, course promotional video.
Udemy Online Course Platform Pricing
Udemy is generous enough not to charge its tutors anything. Online course creation is completely free of charge, without any hidden charges or prequalification conditions.
7. Best Online Course Platforms #7: Skillshare
Pros and Cons of Skillshare Online Course Platform
Skillshare Pros | Skillshare Cons |
It’s a free online course platform for tutors. | No direct means of earning from your online courses. You only earn through monthly commissions. |
Offers a $10 commission for each referred subscriber. | Cannot support an online course website. |
Connects online tutors with a wide audience base. | Limited marketing capabilities. |
You can get started without building a website. | Only optimized for videos. |
Best Online Course Platform For Commission Earnings
At the 7th position in the overall best online course platforms list is Skillshare, which trails Udemy as the 2nd best online course marketplace. That means it also offers a shared marketplace for selling online courses to a wide audience base.
It’s worth noting, however, that Skillshare is not entirely identical to Udemy. While Udemy gives tutors the privilege of setting their course prices, Skillshare chooses to compensate you based on the viewership your courses attract.
How does that work?
You see, unlike the rest of the best online course platforms we’ve reviewed, Skillshare offers students access to all its courses for a standard fee. They become members once they subscribe to one of its three premium plans, which are then renewed periodically.
The revenue you subsequently make from that depends on how popular your online courses are on the platform. Skillshare works out its tutors’ monthly payouts based on their course’s overall viewership in minutes.
That, of course, makes video the main content option when you’re working with Skillshare. The platform even allows you to organize them into modules and lessons.
And while you market the resultant online courses, you might also want to promote Skillshare itself. Each subscription referral you send to the platform translates to a $10 commission.
Skillshare Online Course Platform Feature Highlights
- Online Course Creation: Catalog of premium classes, building channels, interactive project steps, introduction videos, self-paced courses, workshops, class outline, content pre-publish, video editing.
- Online Course Management: Group classes, offline viewing-premium students, networking, shared learning experience, skill tags, discussion boards, teacher stats.
- Online Course Marketing: Skillshare followers, referral link, free course access link, trending on Skillshare, social media marketing, email marketing.
Skillshare Online Course Platform Pricing
Just like Udemy, Skillshare is a free online course platform for tutors.
8. Best Online Course Platforms #8: LearnDash
Pros and Cons of LearnDash Online Course Platform
LearnDash Pros | LearnDash Cons |
Converts a regular WordPress site into a fully-fledged learning management system. | Only supports WordPress sites. |
Supports a wide range of third-party integrations. | Limited marketing features. |
Facilitates advanced student quizzes. | |
Supports an unlimited number of students and courses. |
Best Online Course Platform Plugin
As a plugin-based solution, LearnDash introduces a new twist to our best online course platforms series.
It’s not a universally-compatible plugin though. Rather, LearnDash is only built to integrate with WordPress websites.
And in so doing, it manages to convert a standard site into a fully-fledged learning management system. That means you get all the essential capabilities- from online course creation and management to student enrollment and payment processing.
Now, the unfortunate bit is, you need to have a functional WordPress site to leverage LearnDash. It’s not the type of online course platform that can support you from the ground up.
But, if have a valid site already, it should be smooth sailing with LearnDash. Once you install and integrate the plugin from your WordPress dashboard, you can go ahead and set up dynamic online courses, as the whole layout here is quite clear and straightforward.
The LearnDash drag and drop builder, for example, is great for organizing courses into lessons and topics. Additionally, you can introduce drip-fed content, as well as prerequisites, lesson timers, assignments, and quizzes.
But, it doesn’t stop there. LearnDash further gives you the privilege of creating student certificates, which you can then go ahead and issue learners based on custom criteria. In the meantime, you can also count on LearnDash’s smart reporting tools to give you accurate insights into the students’ progress.
Another benefit that you get to enjoy courtesy of LearnDash is access to a wide array of native integrations. Although the plugin itself is considerably robust, you can only get the best out of it after embedding third-party tools.
When it comes to payment processing, for example, you might want to bring in specialized payment gateways like PayPal. Otherwise, you could also integrate tools that power membership tiers, discounts, automated campaigns, etc.
That’s not to say that LearnDash in incapable of running and managing its own campaigns. You can, in fact, set up email triggers based on various user activities.
In a nutshell, therefore, we can agree that while LearnDash is admirably flexible, it’s still a solid online course platform on its own.
LearnDash Online Course Platform Feature Highlights
- Online Course Building: Drag and drop course builder, create a guided learning path, drip-feed content, dedicated virtual learning environment, any type of media for course content, works with modern WordPress themes, multisite installation, unlimited courses, unlimited students.
- Online Course Management: Official certificates based on quiz performance, award points for completing courses, LearnDash Gradebook, course-specific forums, custom messages, question banks, quiz timers, expire content access, indefinite content access, assignment management, detailed reporting, group management, automatic email notifications, robust user profiles.
- Selling and Marketing Online Courses: Allow organizations to purchase course licenses in bulk, offer your courses in bundles, course membership levels, course shopping cart, coupon support, affiliate programs, charge a one-time fee for your courses, as well as recurring payments and subscriptions.
LearnDash Online Course Platform Pricing
- Basic: One-off fee of $159 for 1 site license.
- Plus Package: One-off fee of $189 for up to 10 site licenses.
- Pro Package: One-off fee of $329 for up to 25 site licenses.
9. Best Online Course Platforms #9: WizIQ
Pros and Cons of WizIQ Online Course Platform
WizIQ Pros | WizIQ Cons |
Provides a robust system for setting up and managing virtual online classes. | It doesn’t host fully-fledged online course websites. |
Support a wide range of course payment options. | Comes with limited marketing capabilities. |
Delivers a highly interactive learning environment. | |
Gives you the option of setting up live classes as well as online courses. |
Best Online Course Platform For Engaging Learning Environments
Founded in 2007, WizIQ is a comprehensive cloud-based learning management system for creating, managing, and tracking online lessons. But, get this- it’s not built like Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi, Ruzuku, and Podia. Rather, WizIQ is more of a system for hosting virtual classrooms.
In essence, WizIQ is uniquely built to drive engaging and interactive learning environments without overburdening instructors. It automates many of the standard back-end tasks, allowing you to focus more on running the business.
You can, for instance, come up with a branded user-friendly student portal for delivering self-paced or time-bound courses. This is where you even throw in interactive multimedia content such as videos, high definition webinars, or virtual tutorials.
It’s also possible to conduct live classes, plus multimedia tests and assessments, while interacting via live chat and digital whiteboard facilities.
Then to help you keep tabs on everything, WizIQ provides course analytics and reporting.
WizIQ Online Course Platform Feature Highlights
- Online Course Creation: Design and customize your eLearning interface, deliver a mix of active and passive learning, video-based content, text-based learning, auto-alignment of the courseware, course structure template, support for all content formats, integrated cloud storage, import, upload, embed content, brand your courses, collaborative code editor, integrated library.
- Online Course Management: Chat in real-time or send learners notifications related to the class schedule, replicate face-to-face learning environment with a whiteboard, breakout rooms, discussion forums, screen-sharing, and live polling features, subjective or objective tests, quizzes, and assessments, deliver all types of learning – live, micro, flipped and self-paced, automate admin tasks, real-time online collaboration, automated server-side recording, high-definition video conferencing, certificate of completion.
- Online Course Marketing and Selling: Collect payments online via already integrated e-commerce plug-in, transaction management, plus create paid scheduled or self-paced courses.
WizIQ Online Course Platform Pricing
WizIQ starts at $25 per month and it offers different pricing tiers for live classes and online courses (powered by its learning management system).
10. Best Online Course Platforms #10: LinkedIn Learning
Pros and Cons of LinkedIn Learning Online Course Platform
LinkedIn Learning Pros | LinkedIn Learning Cons |
Saves you the trouble of setting up an online course website. | You can’t directly monetize your online courses. |
It’s well-optimized for tutors who specialize in professional courses. | Is only best for professional courses. |
Tutors can access the platform for free. | Not just anyone can build their courses on the platform. You can only become a tutor after applying and getting accepted. |
Has a robust analysis and assessment engine. |
Best Online Course Platform For Professionals
Finally, at number 10 is LinkedIn Learning, which also happens to be the youngest brand in our best online course platforms list. And, as you’ve probably figured out already, LinkedIn Learning is a subsidiary of the LinkedIn social site.
Previously, however, the platform was known as Lynda.com. It was only until 2016 that Microsoft acquired it and rebranded the whole thing, making it a video-based course platform specifically for professionals. It’s the type of place you go to learn career skills like public speaking, leadership, and personal branding.
That said, LinkedIn Learning is a bit like Skillshare. It offers a premium subscription option, with which learners manage to access all the available online lessons. So, you don’t have to worry about building a website.
Instead, you’ll be expected to develop high-quality instructional content using video demonstrations, as well as slideshows, and audio presentations. You can also integrate digital files such as PDF, plus assessment quizzes.
Ultimately, the learners who successfully graduate from your courses will get credits that’ll subsequently reflect on their LinkedIn profiles.
LinkedIn Learning Online Course Platform Feature Highlights
- Online Course Creation: Learning paths, content libraries, video content, interactive content, projects, course recommendation engine, channels.
- Online Course Management: Assessments, chapter quizzes, course notes, exercise files, certificates of completion, learner history, Q&A, advanced analytics, manager portal, comprehension checks, skill gap analysis, shareable course playlists
LinkedIn Learning Online Course Platform Pricing
While LinkedIn Learning charges learners, it’s a free online course platform for tutors.
Conclusion: Which Is The Best Overall Online Course Builder?
Now that’s one heck of a list. Although it took us quite some time to compile, we’re glad we’ve covered all the primary categories of online course platforms- from the best all-in-one online course platform to the best learning management system for professionals.
All in all, though, I’d say it’s a tight battle at the top between Thinkific, Teachable, and Kajabi. While Thinkific is today’s overall best online course builder, there’s a very thin margin between the three principal contenders.
Each of them provides a robust, fully-featured all-in-one online course platform, with all the essential tools you might need for building, managing, marketing, and selling your online courses.
So, in all fairness, I guess it all comes down to your specific preferences and budget. If you’re on a budget, you’d probably go for Thinkific, while marketers and enterprises would settle for Kajabi. Teachable, on the other hand, feels like a perfect balance between the two.
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