8 Best ONLINE COURSE PLATFORMS 2024 (Teachable vs. Thinkific vs. Thrivecart, Kartra, Learnworlds)

hi Anastasia here I've been selling online courses since 2018 and made about $220,000 from just one course in the first pandemic year I was worried people wouldn't buy due to the panic and saving mindset but just the opposite happened and since that year even more people turned to online education my video from the last year on this topic was quite popular but online course platforms are always updating their features and pricing structure so I owe you an updated video for this year I will focus on my real experiences with platforms on their support quality and on the hidden drawbacks of these platforms that you can only find out about them by using the platforms it's easier by the way to compare the features of the platforms side by side in a blog post format so I will also link my detailed article in the description below and you can check it later now course platforms fall into two main categories just the course platforms and CRM integrated platforms with email marketing tools so let's get started with just the course platforms which are usually more suitable for beginners and thinkific is the first in my review because I've been using it for about 4 years it's one of the most budget friendly options out there it is a course platform not a CRM meaning that I still have to use another tool in my case I use Mand for emails I used it for so many years not only because it was cheaper than others think if you actually offers a great course experience for both creators and students you can build customizable course websites design sales Pages you can release your course all at once or maybe in parts and it even includes free wisy video hosting which is a big deal if you don't believe me just check how much you would pay for your own wisy account each month you can use thinky fic on a forever free plan if you have just one course which is great and it's one course course but with unlimited students and it has no hidden cost meaning that they won't even charge you a percentage of your course sales like many other platforms do it's perfect if you're not sure when you will start making enough money to afford the monthly fees and their paid plans begin at just $49 a month and I've been on the basic plan on thany fig for ages and I've got everything that I needed now thany fix support team is what really always surprised me I haven't needed them so much but when I did their answers were actually meaningful and they really tried to find a solution by the way even if some of the issues were not even related to thinkific itself but to some integrated apps with my platform again I think that thinkific is ideal for beginners because you can stay on their free plan without paying for a domain or hosting and it hosts your video lessons and sales Pages for free I've been using thinkific for many years and you can tell it was was great because I was very hesitant about migrating from it but at some point in business you actually start looking for more advanced Solutions simply because you can afford them and the platform that I'm currently migrating all my courses to is called Thrive card by the way we will talk about a bunch of platforms today but if you're interested in my review for a specific platform then feel free to check the time stamps in the description below this video now Thrive card I use it first just for my check out Pages because they're more flexible than thinky used to offer you can add customer reviews and other elements in a simple blog Editor to those checkout pages and they also have learn plus which is an online course platform but the downside compared to thinky is that you cannot host your videos on Thrive card you need to host them on a separate platform and that's an additional cost but for this I actually found a very affordable solution called bunnynet and I I'm paying not that much at all about $10 a month but actually depends on the streaming volume that you need and it depends on how big your video files are you could be paying a lot less than $10 if you have just one smaller course um even like just a couple of bucks a month or you could be paying more if you have multiple courses and thousands of students that go through them then you simply embed your video lessons from b.net in your Thrive card learn lessons and I personally like the minimalist Des design of Thrive cart course platform and another advantage of Thrive card for established course creators is their lifetime offer I don't know if uh it will be still available when you watch this video but basically you could pay something that's like an anual plan on most of the other course platforms but you have to pay it UPF front and that would be it you then can use the Thrive card for as many years as you want while I'm recording this video this lifetime deal is still on their site but I can't cannot promise it will be there for much longer so check out my links to thrive card and Thrive card learn in the description below next let's talk about teachable this is the next platform I'd like to cover and it's very similar to thinkific but it has a bit different payment structure and different fees overall teachable and thinky have very similar features teachable is a little more expensive on the monthly fee but there are also several extra fees from each sale that you have to make through teachable this was the biggest Pitfall for me you see I actually started selling my first online course on teachable but I had to migrate it to think if in about 10 months because teachable added those extra commissions from each sale for using their Gateway the free plan on teachable is not like really free on thinky fig because you will still pay $1 plus 10% from each course you sold and you could make the math and you might end up paying in these fees more than you're paying in the basic paid plan on the basic plan with teachable you will still pay a 5% fee per transaction in addition to the price of the plan so you again will end up paying more than on the basic plan with thinkific you also don't get to have Affiliates for your course on the basic plan on teachable which is included on the basic plan with thinky so with teachable you're kind of forced to use the plan that costs $159 a month if you want to avoid transaction fees and if you want to have Affiliates it probably sounds like I'm quite biased when I compare think IFI un teachable if it does well you're right I am biased and that's what this whole video is about right you wanted to know a real person's real opinion if that's what you were looking for in this video then give me a like or a comment below so that I know that I'm on the right track so I switched to thinky Fe and I used it for 4 years over just 10 months on teachable but if you compare the pricing structure definitely think if wins with their free and basic plans now just like in many other Industries early adoption of AI tools can help us online course creators get ahead of competition 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