When you have a course you want to provide, you need a way to get it to your audience. The best online course platform for you is a good start. With a good platform, you will have the ability to spread your course far and wide.
Sharing your knowledge can be very helpful for others and for your own wallet. You can earn money selling your courses, but also help others learn new skills. Let’s look at some of the best online course platforms to consider when you have a course to offer.
Top 9 Online Course Platforms to Choose From
1. Teachable
The best online course platform for beginners, Teachable offers affordable pricing and a user-friendly experience. It’s great for those looking to quickly create a course.
Beginners will like that the course is one of the cheapest on the list. It’s also very easy to set up, comes with unlimited everything, provides one-click checkout, and offers many other great features.
You can start for free with the core features at no cost. The free option will cost you $1 + 10% per transaction, however. You can still have unlimited courses and many of the core features without paying anything monthly.
If you want a better plan from Teachable, you can upgrade to one of three plans including:
- Basic – For $39 per month, you will get a lower per-transaction fee, members-only community, and much more.
- Pro – For $119 per month, you will get no transaction fees, more admin-level users, graded quizzes, and much more.
- Business – For $299 per month, you will get no transaction fees, 20 admin-level users, bulk student enrollment, and much more.
Each plan offers more features and more help to get your courses out to your students. all plans offer unlimited video, products, and hosting, along with student management and basic quizzes.
If you want to save on your package, choose the annual option. This payment plan will give you a monthly cost of $29, $99, and $249. You can start your course creator journey today with Teachable .signing up for free.
2. LearnDash
A top online course platform for WordPress users, LearnDash is a WordPress plugin. It’s the one platform you can use to sell courses with your WordPress website. The plugin is used by some very large websites, such as WP Elevation and the University of Michigan.
The Focus Mode is one of the top features, which will help students eliminate distractions when taking a course. LearnDash also offers a great course builder with all types of excellent features. They allow you to create email drip campaigns and build online courses on your own website to match your branding.
There are three packages you can choose from based on how many sites you need to use the plugin for. The different packages are:
- Basic – For $159, you get one site licensed and all the features you need.
- Plus – For $189, you get up to 10 site licenses, along with a ProPanel and all the features you will need.
- Pro – For $329, you get up to 25 site licenses, the ProPanel, and all the features you need.
All packages come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. All prices are billed annually, which makes the cost similar to other online course platforms on this list.
3. Podia
An all-in-one online course platform perfect for webinars, digital downloads, and memberships, Podia is a popular choice. They offer plenty of options for those creating standalone courses with audio, image, and video files. You can even create MP3x, PDFs, and quizzes with Podia.
Podia will pre-sell your course before it launches and offers you some of the best membership options on this list. This online course platform makes it easy to build your own online community. You can bundle products, offer tiered plans, and even integrate with Slack and Facebook groups.
This platform even allows you to run an affiliate program. You can view your affiliates and make payouts as you need based on your commission structure.
There are three levels with Podia and they do offer a 14-day free trial. The three levels are:
- Mover – For $39 per month, you’ll get all the core features, along with some of the sell features, and some of the marketing features.
- Shaker – For $79 per month, you get all the core and sell features, along with most of the marketing features, and the Podia branding is removed.
- Earthquaker – For $179 per month, you get all the features Podia offers including a dedicated account manager.
All three levels offer two months for free if you choose the annual plan. If you’re looking for the best online course platform for memberships, Podia is likely the right option for you.
4. Thinkific
Offering a free and paid option, Thinkific is a great choice. This online course platform offers everything you need to provide a high-end course experience including:
- Optimized sales pages
- Well-designed student dashboards with customizable options
- Ability to send an entire course at once or schedule it over time
- Customize your course website to fit your needs
- Free video hosting through Wistia
Plans start at just $39 per month. The customization makes it easy to brand yourself without your customers knowing you’re using Thinkific. This online course platform is even used by top brands, such as Fiverr.
Start with the free version to test the core features. Once you’ve decided Thinkific is for you, there are three options to choose from:
- Basic – Offers a great choice to get you started with all the necessary basic features for just $39 per month.
- Pro – The most popular option for those creating online courses at just $79 per month.
- Premier – For the more advanced users looking to create an education empire at $399 per month.
Thinkific gives you many benefits including marketing automation, email features, the ability to edit the code for your course site, customizable certifications, affiliate marketing, and more. Test drive it today with the free trial and find out if this is the best online course platform for you.
5. Kajabi
Known as a high-end online course platform, Kajabi offers great tools for your business. It’s not the best choice for smaller course creators, however. This is a program set up for those looking to create a business around courses.
When you want the best email marketing automation, Kajabi is a great choice. They provide fully automated marketing campaigns, along with funnels and frameworks for lead generation.
You will also gain access to excellent course site themes, making it easier to customize the entire experience. If you’re looking for one of the best high-end online course platforms, Kajabi is a great choice.
They offer all-in-one software to help you build your business. The Wistia video hosting is a helpful feature, as well. The biggest benefit is the massive focus on sales and marketing from this platform. You can even integrate PayPal or Stripe.
Kajabi is more expensive than many other options, but you get more, too. Monthly plans range from $149 to $399 per month, depending on the number of products you want to sell, the pipelines you want to create, and the number of contacts you will have.
You can start with the basic option and upgrade as you grow. They do offer a free trial, too. If you want to save on your package, an annual payment plan offers a nice 20% discount.
6. LearnWorlds
Offering many different ways to interact with your students, LearnWorlds is another good online course platform. They offer interactive videos, quizzes, gamification, and more. The student dashboard isn’t as nice as some of the others, but there are many good features of this platform.
You will gain access to many interactive elements, such as e-books, downloadable attachments, videos, and gamification. With LearnWorlds, you can even offer free courses. The custom domain name and white-labeled content will be very helpful, along with the ability to create discounts and coupons.
LearnWorlds is easy to integrate with social media and offers the ability to create a membership site. You can even extract the transcript from your courses.
Start with a free trial and test out the level you prefer. LearnWorlds offers four levels to choose from:
- Starter – For just $29 per month, you can gain access to the basic features you need to launch your course. This is a great option for beginners and does come with a $5 fee per course sale.
- Pro Trainer – If you want even more features and no transaction fees, the Pro Trainer is the right option at $84.15 per month. It’s best for professional trainers and those needing access to multiple instructors.
- Learning Center – When you have a larger team of instructors and you need even more features, the Learning Center option is right for you. It comes in at $254.15
- High Volume & Corporate – LearnWorlds also offers a high-volume package with the best of the best features and options. Pricing varies, depending on what you need.
All packages come with a nice discount if you subscribe annually. The monthly cost on the annual package is $24, $79, and $249.
7. Academy of Mine
A high-end eLearning platform perfect for those looking for a learning management system, Academy of Mine is a great option. It works for many business niches and offers plenty of excellent features. They don’t just want to help you launch your course, but also sell it with excellent marketing tools.
Academy of Mine is big on personalization. They want to help you create what you want to create. You can start with a 30-day free trial. The pricing is rather steep, but they are designed for larger businesses in mind. Monthly costs are $599 or $899. If you need an enterprise package, they offer custom pricing on a case-by-case basis.
8. WizIQ
Another good online course platform for educators and teachers is WizIQ. This platform makes it easy to create a virtual classroom. You can teach live interactive online courses to your students with plenty of tools to help.
WizIQ offers a 14-day free trial to get you started. It’s a great platform for creating a virtual classroom, creating online courses, and offering assessments and tests. You can even choose a package allowing you to pay for what you use. The packages are split into two categories with live classroom options and learning management system options. You will have to contact WizIQ for a price, but packages start as low as $25 per month.
9. Ruzuku
One of the easiest options for your online course platform is Ruzuku. You can create a step-by-step online course in minutes. If you’re looking for a very quick way to create a course, this might be the right option for you.
Ruzuku will work with Infusionsoft, MailChimp, PayPal, and Stripe. There is no transaction fee, either. Your package will also come with unlimited students and unlimited courses. They offer three levels:
- Bootstrapper – For $99 per month, you can have one instructor with many unlimited features.
- Up-and-Comer – For $149 per month, you will get to add in unlimited webinars, polls and quizzes, and the ability for subscriptions and payment plans.
- University – For $199 per month, you get multiple instructors, your own domain, multiple site managers, and a dedicated account manager.
All three plans offer a discount if you sign up for the annual payment plan. The cost will be $74.75, $83.08, and $125 per month on the annual plan. All plans also include unlimited courses, students, audio, video, data storage, and more.
Frequently Asked Questions about the Best Online Course Platforms
What are online course platforms?
Also known as a learning management system (LMS), an online course platform allows you to create and provide a course for students. It’s a way to set up digital classes, virtual courses, webinars, and other types of courses. Some online course platforms are better for one type of course than another.
Why are online learning platforms so popular?
Before 2020, these platforms were gaining popularity due to more students wanting to work at their own pace from home. Many people were seeking out online courses to learn new skills.
Since 2020 and COVID, online learning platforms have become incredibly popular. They make it possible for companies to teach employees, schools to teach students, and for anybody to learn from the comfort of their home.
How do I create an online course and sell it to make money?
If you’re a teacher at heart or you have something to offer others, you can create a course. This can be done with one of the platforms listed above. However, it’s best to start with your end goal and work backward from there.
For example, if you would like to create an online course and share it with 1,000 students, start with that as your goal. Then, figure out the steps you will need to go through to achieve this goal. Of course, you can shoot higher and set a goal to create 10 online courses a year, or something similar.
After you have a plan in place, you will likely need an online course platform. With one of the best choices above, you will be well on your way to creating and selling your online courses.
Which types of online courses are the most popular?
The Online Course Report lists the 80 highest-rated on-demand courses, which is a good way to see what’s popular online today. This list includes many options from SEO courses to science courses to web development courses to programming courses.
Many courses related to technology are very popular today. With the boom of computers, the internet, and artificial intelligence, more and more students want to learn the necessary skills for a career in technology.
How do I choose the best online course platform for me?
There are nine top choices found above for online course platforms, but they are not all the same. You will need to figure out which one offers the right features, tools, and price for you. Most offer some type of free trial, which is a great way to test-drive the platform.
If you’re not sure which online course platform is right for you, start with a free trial. This can help you find the right option, or eliminate one from the list. You will likely learn some of the features you like and some you don’t care for, as well.
It can be a bit of a trial-and-error process to choose the right platform. However, some will cater specifically to what you need or don’t need.
When you’re ready to become a creator of online courses, you need the right platform. With a good platform, you will be able to easily create the best courses possible and share them with your students. Choosing one of the best online course platforms listed above will certainly help you create and sell your courses.
Jordan Fabel
Covering different 'paths' that people's lives can take. Creative, foster parent, ticket dismissal, you get the idea. Exploring the requirements, certifications, exams, and obviously, approved courses along each path.