Udemy vs Teachable

Think about this:

Creating just one online course could earn you a nice income on the side month after month.  All from just teaching something that you already know.

Currently, I’m in the process of creating and selling my first digital course.  At first, I was really excited about the thought of what I was creating but over time I’ve found that this harder than I first thought.

One struggle I’m dealing with is what platform I want to put my course on.  One of the first platforms I came across a while back was Udemy.  However, I recently came across another platform called Teachable that also carry’s a lot of great benefits as well.

As you can guess this led me to do a little more research and in this article, I’m going to share what I’ve learned from this and also share which platform I plan to put my future course on.

So if you’re in a similar situation then keep reading.

Valuable Resource: Looking to create your first online course?  Then check out this free webinar “7 Steps to Launch Your Own Profitable Online Course” presented by Teachable.com

 

Udemy  vs Teachable Platform

To simplify things I broke things down by category and in each category I will share the good and the bad.  I also included a video below as well to help you get an overall look and feel of how both of these platforms work.  You can check that out at the end of the article.

#1 Marketplace

The most obvious difference between the two platforms is that Udemy has a marketplace while Teachable does not.   This can be a great thing for some or a huge downside for others.

For example, if you’re someone who’s new to online marketing looking to get started working with Udemy could be more advantageous because the marketplace could drive people to your course.

However, with Teachable, you could literally create your own marketplace instead of being in Udemy’s marketplace.  So you have to ask yourself do you want to work in Udemy’s marketplace or do you want to create your own.

#2 Pricing

Recently pricing changed with Udemy and you could price your course up to $300 and as little as $9.  Now all courses have to be priced between $20 to $50.  More than that all courses can change prices within $5 increments.

Update December 4, 2016: Udemy has since updated their pricing and now allow users to price their course as low as $20 and as high as $200.  

With Teachable you can price your course at any price you want to.  If you want to price your course at $497 go for it.  If you want to price it at $27 go for it.  The other great thing is that Teachable allows you to also set up payment plans or even a subscription based model if you prefer.  On top of that, you can even create a bundle of courses to sell at a certain price.

Pricing your course low isn’t all bad because with Udemy quantity is the name of the game.  More than that most people know that Udemy offers sales on all of their courses every month and most people rarely pay full price for a course.

When it comes to pricing it really depends on your goals.  If your goal is to build a following that you could eventually bring back to your own blog then Udemy is the answer.  If this isn’t your goal then maybe Teachable is the answer.

#3 Competitiveness

Another area to consider is the competitiveness of the platform.  With Udemy you’ll be competing with all the other courses in the marketplace.  For example, if you want to create a course on how to write a great resume you might be competing against several other courses on the same topic.

With Teachable you are creating your own marketplace which means no one is competing against you but yourself.  This eliminates people doing a price comparison against your courses.

However, another reason people tend to go with one course or another on Udemy is a number of students in your course.  For example, if your course has 10 students in it and a course similar to yours has 5000 students people will tend to go where the crowd is.

#4 Fees

When it comes to Udemy and Teachable both of them have very different fees they charge.  With Udemy they charge three different fees depending on how people find your course.

  • If they come directly from Udemy and buy your course then there will be a 50% split on the earnings.
  • If you send them to Udemy via a coupon code you’ll get 97% of the profit while Udemy will only get 0%.  Udemy doesn’t say who gets the remaining 3%.
  • If someone recommends your course as an affiliate you’ll earn 25%, the affiliate will get 50%, and Udemy will get 25%.

Side Note:  Their are a few other pricing guidelines if you would like to see all of them you can check them out by clicking here.

On the other hand, Teachable has a completely different pricing structure.

  • Free Account – You don’t pay any monthly fee but for every sale you make it will cost you $1 + 10% + credit card fees.
  • Basic Account – Will cost $39 a month + 8% + Credit Card Fees
  • Professional Account – Will cost $99 a month + 5% + Credit Card Fees
  • High Volume Account – Will cost $299 a month with 0% transaction fees up to $15,000 but Credit Card Fees will still apply.  If you pay $749 a month you’ll get 0% transaction fees forever.

Overall Teachable charges you far less in fees versus Udemy which is a huge upside but if you have to go to a high volume account with Teachable it can get costly as well.

#5 Control

When it comes to controlling this is another factor you need to think about when you’re putting your course on either of these platforms.  With Udemy once your course is on there, it’s there for life.  You can’t take it off of there, however, you still retain ownership of the course.

With Teachable your course is your course and you have complete control of it.  You can keep it on Teachable or even move it to a completely different platform.

However, one thing that is different between the two platforms is the user control.   The students that sign up to your course in Udemy stay within Udemy and if you want to send them a message you need to use their internal messaging system.

In fact, Udemy prohibits instructors from pushing them to your own mailing list.  With Teachable you have complete control here and you can do whatever you want for the most part.  Teachable also has an internal messaging system but you can download the names and email address of your students and bring them where ever you want.

#6 Usability

Another area that Teachable has over Udemy is that it allows you customize the look and the feel of your courses from the URL to the actual page and even allows you to include branding elements such as your logo and colors.

Udemy doesn’t allow you to change any of these kinds of elements.

#7 Coupons

Both Udemy and Teachable allow you to give coupons to your course however Udemy recently changed this and has now limits people to 50% off coupons.  With Teachable you can give the course away for completely free with a 100% off coupon.

Update December 4, 2016: You can also now offer up to a 75% discount on your course, however, the lowest discount you can go to is $10.

What’s also great is that both platforms allow you to set a time limit for how long a coupon will last.  So if you only want to it last a week you can do it.  This is probably the one area both platforms are very similar.

#8 Reviews

One area that has really discouraged me from using Udemy is the reviews.  With Udemy the whole system is based on reviews and it seems that people will do almost anything to get a review of their course.  In fact, it almost seems as if the review is more important than the person taking your course.

However with the new pricing changes on Udemy and only being able to offer a 50% off coupon this will hopefully curb people from giving away their courses for free to gain a review.

With Teachable reviews are not nearly as important, you’ll still want people to give you a review of your course to show social proof but the important thing is that everything won’t revolve around reviews.

#9 Affiliates

Both Udemy and Teachable also have the ability to offer your course to affiliates to sell as well.  With Udemy the affiliate gets 50% of the revenue while you and Udemy will each get 25% each.

On the other hand with Teachable you can decide how much of a split you want to do on your sales.  If you want to a 50/50 split or a 60/40 split it’s entirely up to you.

On top of that, both systems have dashboards that can show you how much your affiliates are selling and also show you exactly where all of your revenue is coming from.  I haven’t personally looked at these areas within both of these platforms yet but overall I feel both of them are comparable here.

#10 Overall Looks & Appeal

Finally,  the last area I want to look at is the overall look and appeal.  However, to do this part justice I decided to put together a quick video to share my thoughts here.  So check out the video below.

 

And the Winner is…

So now that I’ve shared the good and the bad you might be wondering which platform I plan to go with.  To be honest both platforms have their up’s and downs.  For me, I personally like Teachable the most since this platform gives me the most freedom and advantages.

If you would like to get started creating your first online course Teachable is the best way to go and the platform I plan to release my courses on.

So if you want to start creating your first-course click here now.

Cheers!