This article is perfect if you want to select the best online course platform for your business. Online course platforms have proliferated alongside the popularity of course builder.
When people initially produced digital courses, the alternatives were limited, but hundreds of course builders have appeared since then. However, locating the optimal platform may be somewhat challenging with many possibilities. Here’s a list to simplify your decision and your life.
This article will provide an overview of the top online course platforms in 2022, examine their features and pricing, and help you select the ideal platform for your business. This article is based on comprehensive trials of multiple course platforms.
Let’s get started.
Best Online Course Platforms
1. Thinkific
Thinkific is the best option if you want a user-friendly course management system that allows you to launch your e-course in only minutes.
Thinkific offers a variety of services. Using drag-and-drop capability, you may create a course. Therefore, no specific abilities are required to publish and sell courses. This platform also incorporates multimedia materials such as video courses, quizzes, surveys, conversations, and Captivate files.
In addition, it has features that enhance your online classes, such as private courses, introductory lessons, different teachers, drip schedule material, and membership infrastructure. Creating a landing page is relatively simple. You may modify several themes to match your brand. You may design your page through drag-and-drop and use your domain if you already have one.
Additionally, a student monitoring option allows you to check your students’ progress at any time. This online course platform includes marketing tools to help you promote your online courses. The offered payment options ensure you get paid quickly. The platform takes all forms of payment. The best part is that Thinkific offers a free plan. Even though you have limited access, it’s more than enough to understand how it operates.
Thinkific Features
- You may make videos, quizzes, surveys, downloadable instructions, and more.
- It allows you to promote your education-focused selling themes.
- You can set the course’s expiration date.
- Thinkific provides drag-and-drop functionality for organizing site content.
- This platform offers complete access to CSS and HTML.
- It supports Google Adverb (a platform for advertising), Facebook, and more.
Thinkific Pricing
Regarding cost, Thinkific’s fundamental capabilities, such as content hosting, are free to use. Or, you may upgrade to their Basic ($49/month) or PRO ($99/month) plans for more features.
2. LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds is another well-known provider of online courses on the market. The emphasis is on providing an engaging learning experience.
Interactive Video Player, Interactive E-book Reader, Advanced Quiz and Exam Capabilities, Online Community Builder, and Copyright Protection are a few characteristics that set it apart from the competition.
In addition to the course development options, LearnWorlds has a robust page builder that enables you to construct attractive sales and other pages for your course website.
In addition, it provides helpful e-commerce capabilities such as payment processing, bundling, subscription plans, and promotional coupons.
LearnWorlds Features
- You may modify the logo, design, and theme to match your brand.
- It allows you to construct courses on responsive websites.
- This platform supports several languages.
- Notifications can be tailored to your specifications.
- You can use CSS and JavaScript to customize course pages.
- Learnworlds provides a portfolio of pre-built courses.
- You may launch your website more quickly.
- It permits the creation of endless courses.
- Offering students free classes is conceivable.
LearnWorlds Pricing
LearnWorlds price begins at $29 per month, plus $5 for each transaction. Alternatively, you may upgrade to their $99 monthly subscription to eliminate transaction costs.
However, their most popular and costly option is the Learning Center Plan, which costs $299 monthly.
LearnWorlds is the greatest online course platform in terms of learning and engagement features and is excellent for online courses with robust interaction components.
3. Mighty Networks
Mighty Networks enables you to create and control an online course, membership site, or professional network in a single location.
You may also use it to power your podcast, blog, and event space.
Mighty Networks makes it simple to construct and cultivate a healthy community around your course material, irrespective of the sort of online course you choose to develop.
You may also leverage your social media following to expand your Mighty Network and reach a new pool of prospective students.
Mighty Networks Features
- The ability to broadcast live and submit your videos is a game-changing innovation for course developers.
- The Mighty EffectTM customization technology guarantees that each member of your Mighty Network receives material that is specifically targeted to them.
- The Welcome and Discovery sections make it simple for new members to locate the necessary information and begin their course.
- You may expand your network to any size you choose without worrying about exceeding a restriction.
- Custom landing pages and domains enable you to brand your Mighty Network as you see fit, so your students feel at home.
Mighty Networks Pricing
Mighty Networks’ price begins at $109 per month for the course plan; however, the Business plan, which costs $189 per month, has more advanced features.
4. Teachable
Teachable is a comprehensive online course production platform comparable to Thinkific in terms of capabilities and features.
Teachable allows you to add numerous material kinds (videos, quizzes, etc.) when it comes to course distribution, drip your course content, produce certificates natively, and assure course compliance.
In addition, the course player is well-designed, resulting in an excellent learning experience.
In addition to online courses, Teachable allows you to establish a “Coaching” product that facilitates the operation of your one-on-one coaching program.
In addition, it provides sophisticated sales and marketing tools, such as discount codes, a highly efficient one-step checkout procedure, one-click upsells, sales tax management, and a suite of services for managing your funds and paperwork.
However, Teachable’s website creation options are quite limited. It is tough to change the appearance and feel of your website because it lacks site templates, and the page builder has restricted editing capabilities.
Teachable Features
- It allows you to build multimedia presentations incorporating audio, video, text, and PDF files.
- Importing content from Google Drive, OneDrive, or Dropbox is possible.
- This LMS site provides page editors that facilitate the creation, customization, and launch of new courses.
- You may design quiz questions.
- Allows you to give certificates upon completion of a course.
- You may use Google Forms to get student feedback.
- Teachable accepts payments in over 130 different currencies.
Teachable Pricing
As far as pricing goes, Teachable is a reasonably priced platform. It features a free subscription that allows for one course, an infinite number of students, and basic course-building capabilities.
However, if you are a genuine business owner, you will need one of the premium plans. For extra features, you may choose between their Starter Plan ($29/month + 7.5% transaction costs) and Builder Plan ($69/month + 0% transaction fees).
5. Podia
Podia is an intuitive platform that includes everything a digital publisher needs to develop and sell online courses on their course website.
As a course platform, Podia allows you to organize a webinar, produce downloaded content, construct a membership community, and even provide a live chat for a simple connection with your students to boost student engagement. With Podia, you have access to all you want, and their live chat widget is a highly distinctive difference.
Podia Features
- Combine Courses: This program allows you to combine courses that are related.
- Digital Downloads: Easily accessible PDFs, checklists, and ebooks.
- Locked Content: Grant or revoke a student’s access to content in your learning management system.
- Email List Marketing: Email marketing automation is one of Podia’s greatest built-in capabilities.
- Multimedia Courses: Include video, audio, PDF, photos, text, etc., in your courses.
Podia Pricing
The cost of Podia is inexpensive and has secure Podia payment gateways. It offers a free plan (8% transaction charge) that permits you to generate one digital download and one Coaching product. On the free plan, you can only create draft courses.
You will need to switch to a premium plan if you wish to develop online courses or avoid transaction costs.
On the Mover ($39/month + 5% transaction fee) plan, you may develop and sell digital downloads and online courses, but no affiliate marketing. These features are exclusive to the Shaker plan ($89/month) and higher.
6. Kajabi
Kajabi is an all-inclusive online course builder that enables you to construct a beautiful course website, host all material (including videos), sell online courses, deliver your information professionally, and engage your students.
Kajabi, in contrast to Thinkific, is not just focused on providing fundamental tools for producing and selling courses and memberships. In addition, it offers the capacity to construct marketing funnels and conduct email marketing. Kajabi is the greatest all-inclusive platform for online courses.
Regarding course delivery and student involvement, Kajabi does really well. In addition to all the fundamental course development tools, it provides powerful features such as an iOS/Android mobile app, community, assessments (quizzes and assignments), automations, learning pathways, etc. This will help you create an excellent learning environment for your members.
Moreover, the Kajabi course player provides the most beautiful design choices of all the platforms we have examined, allowing you to give your courses a premium appearance and feel.
In addition to online courses, Kajabi allows you to develop digital goods such as “Coaching,” “Community,” and “Podcasts.” You will find them beneficial if you want to offer these goods individually or incorporate them into your membership website.
Again, Kajabi does admirably when it comes to site-building.
There are ten or more pre-built site themes available for selection. In addition, the page builder provides several customization choices. Additionally, you may build a full-fledged blog or podcast using the Kajabi platform.
With its sales and marketing tools, Kajabi finally brings it to the next level. It offers a sales pipeline builder and Kajabi 30-day free trial that makes it simple to develop complete workflows for increasing your email list, introducing a product, hosting webinars, and generating sales.
It also has email marketing automation tools, allowing you to follow up with prospects and send them automated sales emails.
Kajabi Features
- Course insights that provide a detailed view of your student’s performance.
- Unlimited video hosting permits the creation of as many courses as desired.
- Publish easily to your website with a few clicks — no need to learn to code!
- Optimized for SEO so that your courses rank highly in search engine results.
- Unrestricted hosting for your courses and promotional materials
- Safe and sound, so that your data is always safeguarded
- One-click marketing sequences make promoting your courses simple.
- A website builder enables you to construct a professional website in minutes without requiring design or coding knowledge.
Kajabi Pricing
Pricing for Kajabi begins for Kickstarter at $79 per month, and their most popular package Growth, costs $249 per month. Kajabi does not collect any transaction fees, regardless of your selected pricing tier.
7. Kartra (Course Builder)
Kartra is one of the greatest platforms for online courses since it is not limited to courses alone. With Kartra landing page templates, you can access many features, such as checkouts, the option to construct a membership site, and the opportunity to host your affiliate network. Because of this, it is the greatest online course platform for individuals who wish to establish a genuine community.
I believe this platform is useful for individuals interested in creating courses and expanding their business beyond the scope of a simple course platform. When using this platform, you will have access to enhanced tools and features for promoting your course, in addition to administrative capabilities.
Kartra is ideal for anyone seeking to establish online courses and a community surrounding their course, with the ability to add extra capabilities in the future.
Kartra Features
- Internal Checkout Platform: Kartra enables users to check out using their software, eliminating the requirement for a third-party interface.
- Kartra Pages: This feature enables users to rapidly construct high-converting landing pages, improving your capacity to gather email addresses and motivate visitors to take action.
- Funnels and Campaigns: It is incredibly beneficial to run many funnels and campaigns since this enables you to regulate how people travel to become students.
- Membership Sites: With this all-inclusive platform, you may take far more than one or two courses. They enable the creation of membership sites.
- Helpdesk: Assisting students with technological issues is more prevalent than expected. The platform’s basic service includes a helpdesk component to facilitate this.
- Additional Integrations and APIs: Although Kartra offers a multitude of specialized features, they recognize that you may choose to collaborate with other platforms. Therefore, they provide integrations with several different systems.
Kartra Pricing
The Kartra Starter package costs $119 per month and includes all of the platform’s features. However, the plan restricts the number of courses, videos, and emails, which may be lifted by upgrading to the Growth plan ($229/month).
If you intend to create a full-fledged eLearning business, Kartra is not your best option. But if you need to construct a few straightforward online courses and need more robust marketing capabilities, Kartra will serve you well.
8. Ruzuku (Online Course Platform)
Ruzuku is an outstanding online course design software that guides you through the process of developing your course. You may construct your course’s material, reorganize or modify the phases, set a launch date, and begin selling them to make cash. It integrates with technologies such as Infusionsoft, Mailchimp, PayPal, and Stripe for payments.
Once you begin producing or selling online courses on Ruzuku, you can access the Ruzuku community, where you may receive assistance in course design from other team members. Ruzuku asserts that their course-building procedure is absurdly simple, and even a novice can accomplish it without prior coding experience.
Kartra Features
- You can review and duplicate an earlier course to rerun it.
- It permits the hosting of both audio and video streams.
- You can notify people about a course via email.
- Ruzuku allows you to subscribe to a particular course type.
- It alerts you each time a student writes a question.
- Ruzuku may be integrated with Mailchimp (an email marketing software).
- This website allows you to host video broadcasts with group chats, slideshows, and other features.
- You can develop questions and answers specific to a course.
Ruzuku Pricing
Ruzuku has three different price choices. The free plan, core plan $99/month, and Pro plan $199/month.
What Are Online Course Platforms?
The top online course platforms facilitate the creation of online courses for teachers to sell to their students. You may think of them as virtual versions of typical classrooms.
By giving students a variety of media formats, such as video, photos, audio, downloadable files, text, and, on certain platforms, interactive components such as quizzes and whiteboards, instructors may build an engaging virtual classroom.
Students will take the course, learn via lectures, classroom activities, examinations, and quizzes, and take notes, just as they would in a regular classroom. The majority of platforms also provide certificates of completion upon course completion.
Best Online Course Platforms – Final Verdict
As you can see, many online course platforms are on the market, making it challenging to pick the best one. Therefore, keep things basic!
You should determine the course platform you will use depending on your general needs and technical expertise. Then, analyze the platforms in that category based on their capabilities and your budget.
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