Teachable is an online platform that allows educators, creators, and other experts to create and sell online courses and other digital products.
But for all the good things Teachable has to offer, it struggles with several issues.
For starters, it is one of the more expensive platforms, charging users at least $305 per month (excluding a 5% transaction fee). This makes it too expensive, especially for creators or experts just starting.
Today’s article will cover seven Teachable alternatives that deliver a better experience where Teachable falls short.
What are the reasons to consider alternatives to Teachable
Let’s look at some of the key reasons why people seek Teachable alternatives. These are also the factors we looked at when selecting the alternatives to Teachable.
High pricing
Teachable is one of the most expensive online course builders. Sure, the platform has a lot to offer. Beyond creating and selling online courses, it helps you build a community, for example. It also comes with some sales and marketing tools to help you promote your digital products.
For example, it supports email marketing as well as affiliate marketing.
Unfortunately, it’s still hard to justify the price tag, especially when you consider that other alternatives provide just as many tools at a fraction of the price.
For example, the basic plan, which starts at $305 per year, lets you create a maximum of 5 products of each type (online course, coaching, and downloads). But it doesn’t support affiliate marketing, and it doesn’t allow you to upsell products.
Not to mention, you’ll get charged 5% in transaction fees (for every payment), and your products will have the Teachable branding.
To get around those issues, you must part ways with at least $929 per year.
Now, compare that to a Teachable alternative like GetResponse. Yes, that’s our platform. But check this out.
For only $48.30 per month, you get access to our content monetization tool that allows you to create and sell online courses and monetize your knowledge through other tools like a premium newsletter.
Besides that, you’ll get unlimited access to our marketing tools, which include email marketing, autoresponders, website & landing page builders, and marketing automation tools.
Unresponsive customer support
Teachable users have complained a lot about unresponsive customer support. One customer complained that one of the tickets was ignored after four months of waiting.
The customer service you get is even worse if you’re not on their Pro plan or higher.
For example, the basic plan doesn’t provide live chat support. That essentially means you’re left to get solutions through the knowledge base. Not that a knowledge base is terrible, but you’ll definitely want better and more responsive support, especially for issues affecting your bottom line.
Limited features
The other major issue with Teachable is the limitations of some of its features. For example, the platform allows you to create a website through a site builder.
Though helpful, the tool has very limited customization options. You won’t get as many templates to work with compared to a tool like GetResponse, for instance.
Some users have also complained that the platform gets buggy and can crash when you upload large files like videos.
[TL;DR] Top 7 Teachable alternatives
| Platform | Key features | Starting price |
| GetResponse | AI-powered course creator, interactive quizzes, student feedback system, marketing tools included, issuance of certificates. | $48.30/month |
| Teachery | Live course editor, hubs and memberships, commenting | $49/month |
| Thinkific | Drag-and-drop course builder, AI course generator, community builder, digital downloads. | $36/moth |
| Podia | Online course creator, coaching platform, marketing tools for preselling and upselling, global tax support. | $33/month |
| LearnDash | Drag-and-drop course creator, AI quiz builder, dynamic content delivery, badges and certificates. | $199/year or $24/month |
| Might Networks | People Magic AI, Mighty Co-Host for community building, supports live and recorded courses, event live streaming via Zoom. | $41/month (community) or $99/month (courses) |
| Skillshare | Class creation tool, digital product sales, 1-on-1 coaching, community engagement tools. | Revenue-sharing model (no upfront costs) |
7 best Techable alternatives to build and sell courses
Here is a detailed breakdown of every alternative to Teachable.
1. GetResponse
GetResponse is the best Teachable alternative because it offers more value at a fraction of the cost.
The least you’ll spend with Teachable is $305 every year. You’re also going to lose money through the 5% transaction fees charged on every payment. And for this price, you won’t get any of the vital marketing tools you need to scale your business.
Now, compare that to our course-building platform. We charge you only $48.3 per month, which comes to about $579.6 per year. Yes, it’s higher than Techable’s, but you get a suite of solutions. For starters, we let you create unlimited courses, unlike Teachable’s cap of 5 products of each type.
Secondly, you’ll get unlimited access to the best marketing tools, including website and landing page builders, marketing automation solutions, email marketing tools, autoresponders, and powerful integrations.
The basic Teachable plan cannot get you these tools. You’ll need to spend at least $929 a year to come close to this. Even worse, chances are you’ll need to pay for other solutions and integrate them with Teachable to get the functionality you want.
For example, many users integrate Teachable with GetResponse to access our marketing features.
GetResponse key features
- AI-powered course creator – You don’t need any coding or design skills to build and sell your online course. GetResponse’s AI helps you generate your course outline, structures the course, and supports course content creation to help you build a multi-module course in minutes.
- Create interactive quizzes – Keep your students engaged with interactive quizzes and assessments. Our AI can analyze your course content and suggest relevant quizzes for the different lessons and modules.
- Supports student commenting and ratings – Let your students share their feedback through comments and ratings to help you improve your course. This should generate a ton of social proof that’ll help you sell your course to even more potential students.
- Issue students with certificates – Your students should have something to show for their hard work. GetResponse lets you issue certificates to students to reward them for course completion. This can be a major selling point when promoting your online course.
Pros
- You’ll get access to the best marketing tools
- It’s very cost-effective
- The platform also helps you create and sell premium newsletters
Cons
- There’s no mobile app yet but it’s in the works.
Pricing
We only have one plan for course creators, which starts at $48.30 per month. This plan supports up to 500 students. The pricing adjusts as the number of students increases. Check out the plan here.
Key takeaway: GetResponse is a great Teachable alternative if you want a cost-effective option that allows you to create, launch, sell, and promote your online course and other digital products from one platform.
2. Teachery
Teachery is another alternative to Teachable that allows you to create and sell virtually any digital product. It could be an online course, templates, membership hubs, or coaching.
Teachery also stands out because, unlike the other Teachable alternatives, this platform is currently running a sale where it charges users only once. This limited-time offer charges you once and lets you create and sell products forever. Unfortunately, we’re not sure how long the deal will last.
Teachery key features
- Live course editor – The live course editor makes it fairly easy to create and launch a course. It also supports translation in various languages.
- Hubs and memberships – You can create a membership product where users pay to access your resources. This is a great way to build recurring income from your knowledge.
- Comments and community – Teachery supports commenting through third-party integrations with tools like Disqus.
Pros
- It supports extensive customizations through global color palettes, a global font selector, a style selector, and custom CSS.
- Allows you to create a sales page for your course with the sales page editor
Cons
- The landing page builder does not have advanced features compared to other alternatives on this list.
- It doesn’t support email marketing, so you’ll need a separate subscription with a different tool for that.
Pricing
Teachery costs $49 per month. This plan gets you unlimited courses, unlimited students, unlimited landing pages, custom domains, and student analytics. However, you will likely spend more as you start using third-party solutions for functions like email marketing.
Key takeaway: Teachery can be a great alternative to Teachable if you’re able to get the pay once-use forever deal before it runs out. Otherwise, the tool can end up being too expensive for what you get (or don’t get, e.g., email marketing, a good landing page builder, etc.)
3. Thinkific
Thinkific is a popular platform that allows experts to monetize their expertise through online courses, memberships, coaching, and other digital products.
You can build your products from scratch or use the platform’s AI tools to accelerate the process.
Thinkific key features
- Online course builder – Thinkific offers an intuitive drag-and-drop course builder. It also has an AI course generator and course templates library. Plus, you can bulk-import existing materials and use them for creating online courses much faster.
- Digital downloads – The platform lets you create and monetize assets like ebooks, how-to guides, templates, spreadsheets, imagery, and even audio.
- Community builder – One of the best ways to create stickiness with your digital product is through an engaging community. Thinkific helps you build a community with a moderator, notifications, and member profiles and mentions. You’ll also get community analytics to show the growth and performance of your community.
- Marketing tools – Thinkific has a built-in landing page builder, integrates upselling tools to boost your average order value, and supports group orders that allow you to sell multiple products in bulk.
Pros
- You can build self-paced, cohort, or scheduled courses to match different student expectations.
- It supports live sessions through Zoom.
- The platform allows you to monetize your knowledge through virtually any digital product.
- It offers a white-label mobile app
Cons
- Thinkific has a lot to offer, which makes it quite overwhelming at first.
- The branded mobile app is sold as a separate add-on, costing $199/month.
- Completion certificates are only available in the higher tier plans, costing at least $74 per month.
Pricing
Pricing starts at $36/month, making it one of the cheaper Teachable alternatives. However, some of the most exciting features are locked in the high-tier plans. That includes bulk sell checkout, after-purchase flows (like upselling), advanced CSS editing, zoom meetings, completion certificates, and assignments.
Key takeaway: Thinkific is a great Teachable alternative if you’re willing to spend at least $74 per month. This package offers more exciting features to help you deliver a pleasant student experience.
4. Podia
Podia helps you create an online store where you can sell different products, such as memberships, online courses, downloads, coaching, and tickets.
The platform also provides marketing tools to help your online business succeed. For example, it has a built-in website builder, an email marketing solution, and SEO support.
Podia key features
- Online course creator – Podia lets you build an engaging course with as many modules as you want. You can add videos, quizzes, audio files, downloadable assets, and embeds to make your course more insightful and engaging.
- Coaching platform – You can focus on coaching your clients as Podia handles the technicalities in the background to ensure a seamless experience.
Pros
- It provides marketing tools to help you presell and upsell your digital products.
- It integrates with popular payment options like Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.
- Offers instant payouts
- You can build a waitlist
- Offers global tax support
Cons
- The basic plan, called Mover, attracts a 5% transaction fee. This is excluding the fees charged by payment processors.
- It becomes expensive quickly as your business grows.
- Limited customization and branding options
- It doesn’t have a mobile app
Pricing
Podia’s paid plans start at $33 per month. This plan will give you most of what you need to build and sell online courses and other digital assets. However, it lacks a few critical features like affiliate marketing and PayPal integration. It also limits you to just 100 contacts for email marketing.
Also, you will incur additional charges as your email list grows. This means the costs can add up quickly as your course and business get popular.
Key takeaway: Podia tries to be an all-in-one platform where you can create, sell, and promote your digital products. But we’ll encourage you to consider potential future costs as your online business grows. So, Podia is an option worth considering if you can live with the drawbacks.
5. LearnDash
LearnDash is a learning management system that integrates with WordPress to help you create and sell online courses from your website.
The platform also has another product called MemberDash that allows experts to create membership sites.
LearnDash key features
- Drag and drop course creator – The platform helps you customize your course theme through a landing page builder. You can also gamify course content, leave comments, and award points to your students.
- Course creation wizard – This tool lets you create a course in minutes by just pasting a link to a video playlist link.
- AI quiz builder – This makes it easier to create quizzes with different question types.
- Dynamic content delivery – You can deliver your course through a linear format, as drip-feed lessons, or open progression.
Pros
- It lets you keep courses and students’ data on your own website
- It lets you create quizzes and assignments to engage your students
- The platform doesn’t take a cut from your course-selling earnings
- Award students with badges and certificates based on performance or course completion
Cons
- You don’t get any free trial. You can only sign up for a demo.
- You must be familiar with WordPress to get the most from LearnDash.
- You’ll need to build a WordPress website and pay for hosting separately unless you go for the LearnDash Cloud package.
- Some technical knowledge is required to integrate and maintain the LMS with your WordPress site.
Pricing
LearnDash LMS costs $199 per year. This gives you all the course-building features. The only difference is it integrates with just one website. The next plan supports up to 10 websites and costs $399 annually.
Unfortunately, critical features like analytics are sold as separate add-ons ($99 per year) through a tool called ProPanel.
Alternatively, you can go for LearnDash Cloud, which comes with a fully hosted website integrated with LearnDash LMS, ProPanel, and other premium plugins. This package starts at $24 per month.
Key takeaway: LearnDash is a teachable alternative worth considering if you want a tool that supports selling courses from your own WordPress website.
6. Mighty Networks
Mighty Networks is a community-first platform that allows creators and educators to build thriving online communities where they can sell their digital products. This makes Mighty Networks a decent Teachable alternative if community building is your primary concern.
Might Networks key features
- People magic AI – This AI brings together people with the same interests and goals.
- Mighty co-host – This tool helps you build a community pitch and landing page and start a community by just answering one question.
- Online course platform – This platform lets you charge one-time or subscription fees to access your courses. You can teach your course live or upload pre-recorded content. The course can be accessed via the web and an iOS or Android app.
Pros
- It supports a feed where members can share videos, GIFs, images, questions, and polls.
- Create events like high-ticket masterminds, meetups, and conferences. You can live stream these events through a Zoom integration.
- Provides premade icebreakers, polls, questions, and welcome checklists.
- Has an AI tool to help with course creation and community management.
Cons
- The package that supports courses is pretty expensive
- You must integrate it with ConvertKit to run powerful email and other marketing campaigns.
- All plans attract a transaction fee.
- It only integrates with ConvertKit, so you can’t use it with other marketing platforms you could be using.
Pricing
Mighty Network Starts at just $41 per month. However, this plan only supports community building and management with events and polls. To host courses and challenges, you must upgrade to the course plan, which costs $99/month.
Key takeaway: Mighty Networks is a decent Teachable alternative if your priority is building an online community and selling your products to them.
7. Skillshare
Skillshare is an online learning platform that allows creators to record and share video courses. The platform focuses mostly on creative topics like music, digital illustrations, graphic design, photography, creative writing, film, and animations.
However, creating a course on Skillshare is not as straightforward as other online course platforms we’ve covered. You need to sign up as a teacher and submit an application demonstrating your expertise in the field you’re interested in.
Your application will be reviewed, and you can only start creating the course once approved.
Skillshare key features
- Sell digital products – The platform helps you create and sell digital products like design templates and ebooks.
- Host 1-on-1s – You can host one-on-one coaching sessions with students within the platform.
- Create a class – The class upload tool helps you create and launch your class quickly. You’ll get access to class planning templates and different class formats. Also, the platform helps you create a mandatory project that allows your students to apply what they have learned.
Pros
- Offers community engagement tools like discussion boards.
- Skillshare promotes courses within the platform and through ads to attract more potential students.
- $0 upfront costs since you don’t pay anything to upload your course
Cons
- You don’t have much control over your business.
- You can’t set your own course pricing.
- The platform mostly focuses on creative subjects/topics.
- Limited control over your course and student interactions.
Pricing
Skillshare does not charge you anything for uploading your course. Instead, it charges learners a monthly subscription. Creators then earn royalties based on how many minutes students spend watching their videos. You’ll also earn extra for the students you refer to Skillshare.
Key takeaway: Skillshare is worth considering if you want an online course platform with an existing user base for your creative course. The platform attracts high-quality audiences thanks to its partnerships with major creators and experts like Ali Abdaal, Marques Brownlee, and Lily Singh. It’s like a high-quality online course marketplace.
Still, its revenue-sharing strategy may not be ideal for some people. The lack of complete ownership and control can also limit your ability to scale your online business.
In closing
You don’t have to endure Teachable’s bad customer support and the expensive price tag. This article has shared seven incredible Teachable alternatiaves that are either cheaper or at the same price range but with better offerings and customer experience.
Each of these alternatives will suit different users. For example, GetResponse is great for any creator looking for a cost-effective solution that gives you more control over your business.
Mighty Networks is a decent option if community building is a big part of your online course strategy.
Skillshare, despite its considerable shortcomings, is worth considering if you’re focused on creative courses.