Online course platforms have become one of the most advantageous modalities in education and online marketing. Hence, selecting the right platform to host online courses is an important decision.
There are plenty of choices out there, and it’s not always an easy thing to pick the perfect platform for your needs. I have reviewed several online course platforms for you. In this article, I will discuss the best online course platforms for your needs.
If you are an online marketer, then you should know the importance of creating an online course. This will help you to provide value to the audience and to make money at the same time. So, read on to find the best online course platforms that fit your learning preferences.
What are online course platforms?
Online course platforms allow you to easily create and host your courses. Additionally, you can create your community and generate revenue through these platforms.
Everyone is creating online courses, but choosing the best platform for your needs can be a challenge. To help you make sense of it all, I’ve put together a list of the top 10 online course platforms.
1. Kajabi
Kajabi allows you to build a membership or sell online courses, memberships and make money with webinars. It’s arguably one of the best online course platforms on the market. It is simple and easy to use.
The platform has every feature you could expect from a successful business in today’s niche market. The user interface is intuitive, and users can easily access their sales, memberships and payment information within one dashboard.
Features
- No coding necessary
- Support is available 24/7
- You can customize your domain or subdomain easily
- Static sites can contain as many pages as you want
- Uploading of video content is possible
- Upload images and videos using drag-and-drop
Pricing
- Basic: $119 per month
- Growth: $159 per month
- Pro: $319 per month
2. Thinkific
Thinkific is an online course platform and membership site for people who love to learn online. A Thinkific membership includes access to curated on-demand courses across a wide range of topics. It also has a community of like-minded students and teachers.
Best-in-class user experience. Designed to grow with your business. That’s why Thinkific is the best online platform for creating, hosting, and selling online courses. Thinkific is the perfect choice if you are looking for a bulletproof hosting service and an intuitive interface!
Features
- Email marketing and automation features
- Start for free with a simple plan
- Full HTML and CSS access
- You have complete control over your course website
- A customizable certificate of completion
- Create a custom domain
- Drag and drop feature for organizing web content
- Reporting and assistance with affiliate marketing
Pricing
- Basic: $49 per month
- Pro: $99 per month
- Premier: $499 per month
3. Teachable
Teachable is a complete online course creation and hosting learning management system (LMS). It allows you to create online courses for teaching anything. Professionals from Fortune 500 companies to solo entrepreneurs are using Teachable to catapult their careers.
The platform is designed for ease of use and includes all the tools you need for authoring. The platform also helps with promoting, selling, and delivering your online courses in a friendly and simple format.
Features
- Create captivating multimedia lectures with video, text, PDFs (ebooks), and audio files
- There is no limit to student numbers, courses, or coaching services
- Checkout with one click
- Storefront and sales page optimization
- On the pro plan, they offer live Zoom courses
- Over 130 different currencies available for international payments
- Quizzes with grades
- Certificates of completion for courses
- Theme customization for websites
- Pro plan users can have up to five accounts
Pricing
- Basic: $29 per month
- Pro: $99 per month
- Business: $249 per month
4. LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds is a dedicated online learning platform to teach professionals, students, and kids of all ages. There are many courses such as business, technology, music, arts, and much more.
It is a massive open online course (MOOC) and collaboration platform run by some of the world’s best universities. To help users achieve their personal and professional goals, they offer the best education available.
Features
- Interact with videos, e-books, and downloadable attachments
- Free courses are available
- Transcriptions of your courses are available
- Content with a white label domain name
- Students can take notes and highlight key points
- Certifications of completion
- A coupon and discount system is available
- Integration of social media
- Optimize your sales with an analytics platform
- Create your membership site
- An extensive knowledge base
- Support is available 24/7
Pricing
- Starter: $24 per month
- Pro Trainer: $79 per month
- Learning Center: $249 per month
5. Podia
Podia is an all-in-one solution to create your online platform. You can easily create an online store with Podia, and add courses, merchandise, private membership groups, and events to it.
Podia empowers creators to turn their passions into sustainable income. With Podia, you can build your online courses in minutes, share them anywhere, market them everywhere. It’s the best way for people to start a business with no risk.
Features
- Create online courses with audio, video, PDF, links, etc
- You can combine courses similar to each other
- Customize your website pages
- Live previews are available on Podia
- Students can access courses on tablets, mobile devices, desktops, and other devices
- You can allow or deny a user access to content
- Student management is made easier with this platform
- You have complete control over website elements
Pricing
- Mover: $39 per month
- Shaker: $79 per month
- Earthquaker: $179 per month
6. Ruzuku
Ruzuku is a knowledge-sharing network for students in every sense. Students or alumni of the academic institutes can use the tool to promote their lectures, seminars, and events on Ruzuku.
It encourages students to explore different perspectives, create new ideas and showcase their talent. The content shared on Ruzuku is organized in an easy-to-read and universal format well known to every internet user of today.
Features
- Rerun a previous course by checking and copying it
- It supports both audio and video streaming
- Sending course announcements via email is possible
- You can add a subscription to a specific course type
- It sends you a notification when a student posts a question
- It’s possible to integrate Ruzuku with Mailchimp (an email marketing tool)
- Host video broadcasts, slideshows, group chats, and more at this site
- You can create course-specific questions and answers
Pricing
- Bootstrapper: $99 per month
- Up-and-Comer: $149 per month
- University: $199 per month
7. Moodle
Moodle is among the best platforms in terms of creating online courses and learning platforms designed for self-directed learners. This learning management system (LMS) is used to facilitate online interaction between instructors and students in real-time.
Moodle has changed the face of online learning with its open-source course management software. Moodle can be used by teachers, students, or organizations of any type to create and run courses on virtually any subject. The most interesting part, it’s free!
Features
- An all-in-one calendar
- Easily create bulk courses and create backups
- Activities and tools for collaborative work
- An easy-to-use file management system
- A customizable site layout and design
- Logging and reporting in detail
- Include external resources
- Manage user permissions and roles
- Multilingualism
- Multimedia integration
Pricing
The website states that Moodle is Open Source software licensed under the GNU General Public License. Using Moodle is free for both commercial and non-commercial projects. It also offers the advantages of cost-efficiency and flexibility among others.
A MoodleCloud extension, however, is available. Pricing is as follows
- Starter: $120 per year for 50 users plus 250 MB of storage
- Mini: $220 per year for 100 users plus 500 MB of storage
- Small: $390 per year for 200 users plus 1 GB of storage
- Medium: $870 per year for 500 users plus 2.5 GB of storage
- Large: $1,540 per year for 1,000 users plus 5 GB of storage
8. Kartra
Kartra is transforming the way businesses, groups and companies connect and communicate. Built specifically for today’s always-on, ever-elusive audience, Kartra is modern, powerful, and efficient.
With Kartra you can create a course using a streamlined editor to produce great-looking learning experiences. Teams can simplify and improve communications through marketing, sales, education, and support.
Features
- A single platform for all your needs
- Integration with an internal checkout system
- The course can grow as the demand for it and the community grows
- Keeping your work in the cloud eliminates the worry of losing it
- Campaigns and funnels
- Integrations and APIs
Pricing
- Starter: $99 per month
- Silver: $199 per month
- Gold: $299 per month
- Platinum: $499 per month
9. iSpring
iSpring makes it easy for you to create and host your online courses. It’s perfect whether you’re creating courses as part of your business, or want a personal Udemy-style course to share with friends and family.
With iSpring, schools and businesses can quickly launch online courses. You can track grades and engage students, and purchase the course materials you need at a discount through the platform.
Features
- You can upload PPT, DOC, MP4, PDF, XLS files, etc.
- Provides support for SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model)
- No storage limit
- User and group management made easy
- Provide employees with material
- Reports on quizzes and simulations
- Receive notifications to stay on top of student results
- Personalize the portal to your liking
Pricing
The pricing plan depends on the number of active learners.
- 500 users (25Gb): $77 per month
- 1000 users (50Gb): $147 per month
- 2000 users (100Gb): $277 per month
iSpring offers custom pricing for custom users
10. MemberPress
Memberpress, by far, is one of the best WordPress plugins for creating and selling online courses. The plugin features attractive payment and discount methods, course content creation, etc.
It also provides membership statistics dashboards for user engagement insights. Imagine creating an online community or membership site on your WordPress blog or website in just minutes with no technical skills, and start selling access today!
Features
- You don’t need coding skills to use it
- Create courses for educators using the visual course builder
- The classroom mode provides students with a better learning experience
- Streamline course content, build memberships, and more
- Your online school offers many pricing options, including the ability to charge upfront and subscription fees.
- Payments can be made through multiple gateways such as PayPal, Stripe and Authorize.net
- No service fee
Pricing
Prices start at $149 per year for a single site license (no monthly fees).
Why you might need online course platforms
1. A better communication system
One of the core functions of online course platforms is to provide a better communication system for instructors and students. A lot of students feel lonely when they study online.
The lack of communication can result in frustration, and even affect learning outcomes (especially for younger students). Here is one of the ways online course platforms help users to relieve loneliness while providing better communication.
2. It retains information better
You may want to spend more time looking at online course platforms. This is because, with the various features that they have, one can retain information in a better way. It is something to think about at some point in time.
I’ve found from personal experience that online course platforms are even better than book reviews on retaining information. The reason is that you can repeat the course as often as you like at no extra charge. This is awesome to keep the information fresh in your mind.
3. It gives students more flexibility than in-person training
Most people cannot stop their everyday activities to attend a class for months. Online course platforms give them the flexibility to learn wherever they are and whenever it is convenient for them.
The internet makes learning easier than ever. Online courses provide students with complete flexibility in their learning habits and schedule. This will allow you to work at your pace. This is a big plus for working professionals.
4. It allows you to design your curriculum
Every person has a completely different way of learning. Some students find it easier to learn something when it is shown to them in a video, and others prefer looking at a text.
Having the ability to design your curriculum allows you to cater to your specific learning style. I’m not one for reading, but if I see something on video, then I’m more inclined to watch it.
Generally speaking, these online course platforms allow you to design your curriculum and tailor the content for specific roles or jobs relevant to your organization.
5. Multimedia learning
In a multimedia course, text, images, audio, videos, graphics, and other elements are mixed with each other to communicate a message. This can be done for individuals, groups, or companies.
The use of different media types in learning content provides a variety of ways for learners to learn, process, and retain information.
FAQs
What are the most popular online courses these days?
Online courses have grown in popularity over the past few years and are here to stay. The most popular courses that people want to take online are computer programming courses, language courses, and business courses.
Another thing that is catching on now in schools is using online learning environments as a method for taking some classes. This allows students to learn at their pace but remain in brick-and-mortar schools.
How profitable are online courses?
Online courses can be a profitable online business. You can make money from the people who enroll in your course. You can then charge for any extra products and services that you will offer to your members to boost sales.
The benefits of online courses are plenty. However, you should not go in for online course building just because it will be profitable. You should look at all opportunities available to start making money with online courses.
Who should use online course platforms?
Anyone interested in online courses should look into platforms. These online course platforms make it easy to share content with your learners and publish your course for others to access.
You’ll find courses across a wide variety of topics from different instructors who are committed to teaching.
How can eLearning be made more effective?
eLearning is a more interactive way of learning. The approach is both formative and summative, as well as decentralized for self-learning.
The success of eLearning is predicated on its effectiveness. It is typically measured by its ability to deliver a training objective. In other words, satisfied users will be successful students.
To be most effective, the eLearning course design should ensure that specific training objectives are met with content that is arranged logically and sequentially.
How can I choose the right online course platform?
Online learning is growing at a fast pace and many online course platforms are available. You should be careful when choosing online course platforms since not all of them are right for you. A good online course platform should have minimal administrative tasks and few hidden fees.
Furthermore, it should provide easy sharing tools among your study group or with community experts. It should also offer flexible payment options and good mobile app integration.
Explore the most popular 10 online course platforms and learn which one will be the right choice for you.
Does it take a long time to create an online course?
Yes, it takes a long time to create an online course. The process of creating a course takes a lot of time. You also have to turn it into a product and upload it to a platform that will provide you with a large audience.
You must make sure that the syllabus of your online course focuses on the audience for which it was designed. In addition to editing and polishing each video recording, make sure everything flows smoothly and is in sync with its content.
Final thoughts
This “online course platforms” list attempts to serve you the best online course platforms that are available. To create this list adequately, I have conducted research about which online course platform is considered the best.
This helps me to present you with a valuable comparison of the leading companies. To help you choose the right online course platform for you, I have included various criteria such as cost and features. Hope you like the list and can find it useful and informative.
Thinkific, LearnWorlds, and Teachable are good platforms for online courses that support blogging. If you want a platform that does everything for you, I recommend Kajabi.
In addition, Thinkific provides the best overall platform with the most flexibility for customizing your courses. The last recommendation I have is Podia for digital membership for digital products. If you want to run a membership website on a WordPress website, I recommend MemberPress.
For more information about app/platform reviews and comparisons, visit the blog. In addition, you will find several useful resources for your blogging and marketing needs.
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