Best Online Course Platforms in 2021

The global e-learning market to cross over $457 billion by 2026 with over 10% CAGR.

These are big numbers.

In addition, the current Pandemic has boosted the need for e-learning further.

On one side, Creators are finding ways to share their experience, knowledge, and skill with people

And

Another hand, some people want to improve their skills through some programs and courses that can add value to their lives.

And

The online course is the way to fill this gap and share your knowledge with the world.

You are right we are going to discuss the best online course platforms.

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What is an Online Course Platform?

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If you are new to online course platforms, these are the learning management platforms that give you the power to create an engaging online course that includes the following features:

• Videos, audios, PDFs, quizzes, interactive content, and downloadable files.
• Help you to create engaging landing pages that motivate visitors to buy your course after reading the content.
• You can price your course and collect payment through different modes of credit card, debit card, net banking, PayPal, and more.

Read: How to find the fair price of your online course?

• Helps you in creating your website or you can integrate your online course with your existing website like I have my website www.mendmyladder.com, I can integrate my website with the online course built in the Online Course Platform.
• You make the session more engaging by conducting live webinars and solve the queries of your students.
• You even create membership communities of like-minded people and engage them.
• Also, these online course platforms provide you with live support to resolve your queries related to course creation and its marketing.

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In this post, I have ranked and reviewed top online course platforms based on the user experience, pricing, features, ease of use and flexibility, customer support, and more.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links where I may receive a small commission at no cost to you if you decide to purchase the paid plan. However, these are the tools I fully recommend when it comes to launching online courses.

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What are the best Online Course Platforms

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• Thinkific
• Podia
• Teachable
• Learnworlds
• Gumroad

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1. Thinkific: Powerful and easy to features that start with $0 to $399/month

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It is a powerful platform that offers you to start your online course creation journey free.

Although the free plan has limited features but is enough for you to experience its power.

It is designed in a way that you can start with 1 student and can scale up to the millionth student easily with its powerful features.

Pros of Thinkific:

• Easily create an engaging online course through live classes and videos.
• Assess the performance of each student through quizzes, assignments, and exams.
• Provide continuous learning by creating an online-communities for your students
• Its easy drag-and-drop website builder and beautiful website themes let you create your professional website page in minutes.
• It has a facility to have your professional domain removing all Thinkific branding.
• Create and start selling your online course around the world and start accepting payments in 100+ countries.
• It offers you the flexibility to choose your payment terms monthly or annual subscriptions.
• It offers you to integrate with your existing website, e-mail list or CRM, and other tools.
• The Thinkific team is 24/7 monitoring so that your content remains safe and secure Don’t worry your online course in under 

Thinkific Pricing

All the plans come with 30 days satisfaction guarantee.

• You can access your funds instantly
• Easy-to-use drag-drop website builder
• Built-in SSL certificates
• E-mail and Phone support
• Secure cloud hosting
• Student notifications, and more

FREE $0:

• Unlimited students but limited courses (Very good for beginners. Initially, everyone starts with one course)
• E-mail support
• Conduct surveys and create quizzes
• Content hosting

 
BASIC $ 39/month: All features in FREE Plan plus the following:

• Unlimited courses and students
• Live chat support
• Offer discount coupons to grow your sales
• Affiliate reporting
• Drip content
• You get a custom domain
• E-mail integrations with third party services such as Aweber, Convertkit, Constant Contact, and Mailchimp

PRO $ 79/month: All features in BASIC Plan plus the following:

• 2 site admin account
• 5-course admin/author
• You can keep your courses private and hidden
• Flexible pricing options such as monthly, quarterly, annually
• You can generate recurring revenue by creating memberships
• Issue certificates
• Build communities
• Conduct live sessions with Zoom

 
PREMIER $ 399/month: you get all features of PRO Plan plus the following features:

• You get 15 group analysts
• 50-course admins/author
• The Onboarding package includes 30 minutes onboarding call to resolve your queries, online training package and a review of course launch preparedness.

Try Thinkific

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2. Podia: All in one package under one roof starts from $39/month

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Name any digital product, you can sell it on Podia.

Pros of Podia

a) Online course:

• It is an online package to sell online courses with unlimited video, quizzes, drip content, and student content.
• Podia has unlimited video bandwidth for all its plan. So, you need not pay extra for third-party video hosting.

​b) Digital downloads:

• Sell anything like e-books, PDFs, checklists, spreadsheets, and more. These are the perfect lead magnets to collect the e-mail addresses, and build your audience and then pitch for your online course.

c) Launch your memberships website and start a recurring revenue model.

d) Webinars:

• One-on-one coaching with zoom and YouTube seamless integrations, and sell live coaching sessions with Podia.
• The popular scheduling platforms such as Calendly, Acuity, YouCanBookMe, and SavvyCal and integrate them with PODIA and conduct your coaching program seamlessly.

It has inbuilt email marketing features that let you eliminate the need for any third-party email service.

You can create a custom website without any coding knowledge required and can turn your fan into an affiliate through your affiliate program.

Podia Pricing

Its all plan comes with a 14-day free trial and no credit card is required.

• Mover $39/month
• Shaker $79/month
• Earthquaker $179/month

In all the 3 plans you will find:

• Everything is unlimited such as products, customers, sales, and files hosted.
• Zero transaction fees
• Free migration
• 7 days week support (live chat or email)
• Daily Live Q & A

While you can sell online courses, digital downloads, and webinars in all the 3 plans

• The Shaker and Earthquaker plans offer you can sell membership and coaching in addition to the above three.
• The custom website, customer messaging, and product bundles are common marketing features in all the 3 plans.
• The course certificates, affiliate marketing, embedded checkout, and third-party code are available in the Shaker and Earthquaker plans.
• Although you can add unlimited e-mail subscribers to your e-mail list but can send 5k per month under Mover plan, 15K and 50K in shaker and earthquake plan respectively.
• Whereas dedicated account manager, 1:1 video call for any help, advanced tips, and the best strategies to accelerate your online business in included as extras in the Earthquaker plan.

Try Podia

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3. Teachable: Easy-to-use features let anyone create online course in Teachable (Free to $249).

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Pros of Teachable:

• Build beautiful courses with easy-to-use software by anyone.
• Its powerful editor has the features that help in creating engaging multimedia lectures, videos, and coaching sessions.
• You can schedule your coaching session with Calendly and conduct your coaching session seamlessly.
• It has an exhaustive list of partners that let you integrate most of the important tools seamlessly with teachable.
• If you are not a designer don’t worry Teachable has all the ingredients to design the killer page for you from scratch.
• The fraud team tracks 24/7 all bay guys and keep them off from your domain, and let you create your online course and accept payments with peace.
• In addition, it has a 2048- bit SSL certificate that keeps your information safe and secure during their login and checkout.
• Even after, you need any support, the teachable support team to ready to help you out.
• It lets you accept payments internationally in 130+ currencies.
• All its plan includes unlimited videos, hosting and courses
  You can make the online course more interactive with basic quizzes, lecture comments, and student management features.
  

Teachable Pricing

• Free $0: The free plan includes all base features that are required to launch your online course successfully such as unlimited students, instant payout, unlimited courses, unlimited coaching, course design templates, product support, third party integrations, basic quizzes, and more
• Basic $29/month: Includes everything from FREE plan plus you can create coupon codes, drip course content, integrated email marketing, private student community, and course creator academy
• Pro $99/month: graded quizzes, no transaction fee, 5 admin-level users, advanced level support, course completion certificate, integrated affiliate marketing,
• Business $249/month: everything in Pro plus: 20 admin-level support, manual students support, bulk students’ enrolments, advanced theme customization, group coaching calls

The Pro Plan is the most recommended plan that has all the important features to accelerate your online business and is designed to boost the student’s engagement.

Try Teachable

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4. Learnworlds: Start selling online courses from your website through risk-free and affordable Plans with 30 days money-back guarantee

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Pros of Learnworlds

• It has a feature that makes your video more interactive by automatically extracting the transcript from the video, placing it in the right place. Hence, boosting the student’s engagement.
• Its drip feed feature helps you in scheduling the delivery of your online course.
• You can boost the student’s engagement by adding notes and highlighting the course content in multiple ways.
• Make your course more interactive with self-assessment quizzes, assignments, formal tests, and issue completion certificates to your students.
• You can even check the statistics about the student’s interaction with your videos from starting to completion. Gives you the idea of where you need more improvement to make the video more interactive.
• The integrated social media networks allow you to create an online community of the students that let them share their ideas, knowledge and hence making it a more enriching experience for them.

Learnworlds Pricing

Basic features that are common in all the plans are:

• You can upload unlimited courses
• You have the  freedom to promote your brand
• Multilingual User Interface
• Grow your audience by capturing leads
• Accelerate your sales with discount coupons
• Make your online course more interactive with quizzes, assignments, and offer certificates
• Over 400 beautiful ready-made templates to make your website professional
• Customize your font to match your needs
• You can send a daily newsletter to your students

i) Starter: $29/month:

• Site builder up to 3 pages
• 1 admin
• Unlimited paid courses
• 2 popup builders
• 5 payment gateways
• Free SSL certificate
• Drip feed courses
• 24/5 email support
• Built-in community

 
ii) Pro Trainer: $84.15/month:

• Unlimited landing pages
• Complete website builder with a blog
• 5 admin/instructor
• Unlimited popups
• Custom certificates
• Conduct Live classes and webinars through Zoom and Webex
• Affiliate management
• 24/7 priority e-mail support

 
iii) Learning Center: $254.15/month

• Bulk user actions
• Course insight reports
• 20 admin/instructor
• Scheduled automated reports
• Integrations with API
• Webhook integrations
• 1-hour premium onboarding

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iv) High Volume and Corporate:  you can book a demo and learn more about the features and the pricing.

Try Learnworlds

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5. Gumroad: ​The most affordable and easy online course platform available ( FREE to $ 10/month)

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It is very simple to get started with GUMROAD.

​Take its FREE plan, create your online course, start selling and grow.

Pros of Gumroad:

• Personalize your landing page to make it attractive and professional.
• You can easily import your email list, export your fans and followers
• You can use workflows to share your content with your audience.
• GUMROAD supports you in making your online course a successful project from creating to the marketing of the course.
• It is super simple to start selling your digital products with GUMROAD.
• Offer a discount on your products and grow your sales
• You can even offer your online course on rent. The students will have a total of 72 hours to watch within 30 days.
• You can sell multiple versions of the product such as
• Easy and simple checkout with major credit cards and PayPal.
• Start recurring revenue by charging on a monthly, quarterly, annually basis for your product

Gumroad Pricing

a) Creator $0: Unlimited products to sell from an e-book, digital download, spreadsheets, Membership, Podcasts, and online courses

• Real-time analytics
• SD streaming

b) Pro $10/month

• You can add your CSS
• Use your domain
• Unlimited posts and workflows
• HD streaming

Try Gumroad

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Final Words:

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I have created my online course in GUMROAD and believe me it is very easy and simple.

You too can do it in minutes.

Moreover, it is affordable too.

I feel GUMROAD is best for students who are looking to share their skills.
They can very easily upload their online course using its FREE plan and start selling in minutes.

The overall good platform for anyone is THINKIFIC.

​You can start your online course through its FREE plan and then upgrade to the higher plan as your need grows.

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• How to start your online store in 2021?: A complete guide
• How to start your Personal Finance website and make money?
• How to choose best social media platforms to accelerate your online business?