- Through working with clients,
as well as in my own business,
I've worked with a ton of different online course platforms,
some of them fantastic and others not so good.
So in this video,
I'm going to show you how to choose
the best online course platform for you.
We're going to look at the different types out there,
and then within each type,
I'm going to give you my recommendation
for the best platform of its kind.
And this will help you based on your particular situation,
so whether you've got a big budget, small budget,
whether you're experience, you love tech or you hate tech,
no matter what it is,
you'll be able to choose the best platform
for your particular circumstance.
So the first thing to know is that you've got
three main types of online course platforms,
you've got WordPress plugins,
you've got standalone course platforms,
and then you've got these all-in-one solutions
that promise to do not just your online course hosting,
but everything else as well,
meaning your website, the whole kit and caboodle.
So you first need to know what type is best for you,
and then once you know what type to use,
then you can choose the best platform of its kind.
So first, let's talk about the three different types,
what they are, what their differences are,
what their advantage and disadvantages are.
Before we get into the first one,
if you haven't done it already,
make sure you smash that Like button,
it really does help the channel,
helps me get videos like these out in front of more people.
And if you wanna hear more from me,
make sure you hit the Subscribe button,
hit that little bell, and you'll get notified
whenever I release a new video on digital marketing
and Facebook ads for online course creators,
coaches, and consultants.
So the first one we're going to dive into
is WordPress plugins.
So these are a plugin that go on your WordPress website.
so you obviously need to have a WordPress website
in order for these to work.
And then we'll turn it into a course
or membership platform for you.
These plugins are otherwise known
as a learning management system or LMS.
So the benefits of these.
Well, the first thing is they are low cost,
you can get started for a one-time purchase payment of $169
with one of the plugins
that I'll talk about soon in the video.
So it's cheap to get up and running
and you don't have that ongoing monthly cost
for the LMS itself.
They are also very feature-rich.
These things can pretty much do everything you can think of,
and if you need any additional features,
it's often just a WordPress plugin away.
Because WordPress is so expandable and so flexible,
you can actually use other plugins
to add features and functionality.
The other thing here is that the design is super flexible,
you can literally build out
and create a course or a membership site
that looks exactly how you want it.
Because again, it's on WordPress,
you can use whatever themes you want,
you can use different page builders.
Anything you want, especially if you know how to code,
or if you're willing to hire a coder,
you can do with a WordPress LMS.
So these things can handle your courses, your memberships,
they've got gamification, quizzes,
certificates and badges, forums,
pretty much anything you can think of,
these things will do it, they're very, very feature rich.
Now the downside of using something like this,
'cause it sounds pretty good so far, right?
But the main downside is,
you do need a lot of tech knowledge,
you need to be very comfortable with WordPress,
and you need to be comfortable with tech and setting tech up
in order to get this working properly.
Out of all the options
I'm going to talk about in this video,
this is the most difficult technically to set up
and you're going to have
a lot of different pieces you need to connect.
Plus, often when it gets to the design side of things,
you will run into little problems that need to be solved,
and if you're really not comfortable with tech,
it can be a challenge.
Which kind of leads me to the next downside,
which it can get expensive
if you need to hire developers all the time.
So while this is a very flexible, very robust way
to set up your online courses or memberships,
if you aren't really comfortable
with doing the tech side of things,
then you're going to be hiring a developer regularly
to come in and make any small changes that you wanna make.
Then obviously the cost can add up
if you are bringing people in
to work on it for you all the time.
Speaking of costs, there are additional costs
with using a WordPress LMS.
So obviously this just works as a plugin on the website
to do all of the core side of things
It doesn't handle your email marketing
or your email automation,
so you'll need a separate email service provider.
You'll need to cover web hosting
and then video hosting as well,
so you'll need something like Vimeo or Wistia
to actually host your videos
and then embed them on the site.
So between those extra things, there are additional costs
in addition to that one-time payment.
When it comes to checkouts,
because you'll need a way for your customers
to make a payment and process their credit cards
and everything like that, you can add this in,
again, it's just another WordPress plugin,
but it's just more stuff to set up.
And then the other thing to note here
is you'll need to manage things like security, downtime,
and little problems you might have along the way,
so they are all things to think about
when you're considering this.
So who is this solution best for?
If you've got tech skills, if you're happy to fiddle around
and get all this set up yourself,
or if you've got the budget to just bring somebody in,
and you want the most robust, most feature packed,
flexible solution possible,
then using a WordPress LMS is a good solution for you.
If you're somebody who doesn't like tech,
or who's not willing to hire out and bring somebody in
to help when you need them,
and you don't like fiddling around
in the back end of WordPress,
then stick around 'cause one of the next two options
that I'm going to talk about will probably be best for you.
And if you do like the sound of WordPress,
I'll share my favorite plugin with you very soon as well.
The next one we're going to talk about
is the dedicated online course platforms.
So these are software tools that are designed and built
purely to allow our course creators
and membership site owners
to build and host their online courses and memberships.
Now, these things do everything on the core side,
meaning you log in, you can upload your videos,
they host your videos
and all of your learning content for you.
You upload all of that,
you can set up your course in modules and lessons,
structure it all however you want,
drag and drop, it's very easy.
And then you can set all of that up
in a nice looking membership area or members portal
and get that up and running really quickly and easily.
The selling point of these platforms
is simplicity and ease of use.
They are designed for creators,
people who aren't necessarily comfortable
with the tech side of things,
who wanna create something
and get it out there as quickly and as easily as possible.
And that's the main benefit of these platforms,
they are quick and easy.
Like you can get up and running
really, really quickly with your course,
there aren't many things that you need to
plug in and connect to get these things working,
or there are a few,
but overall it's very simple.
They also cover things like building landing pages
and simple sales pages and even checkouts.
So they have a built in checkout
so that people can buy your course and get access
without you having to handle that outside
with a third-party tool.
Now, the downside to these things
is they are generally more expensive than a WordPress LMS.
Each of them have a monthly fee,
and they start at about 39 bucks a month.
Some have a free tier,
but those free tiers are quite limited
and they're more as a trial,
so I don't really consider that.
Sometimes as well on top of their fees,
they will charge a particular fee per transaction
or per student.
So although it might look really cheap at the start,
when we say 39 bucks a month,
when you actually consider the additional costs
that come in when you pay a fee per payment
or a percentage of each payment that you receive,
or a fee per student, or you look at, well,
the actual functions that you're going to want very soon
after starting your course are on the higher tier plans,
then it does get more expensive quite quickly.
But the main downside, I think is the limited flexibility.
So while these things are very feature-rich,
and they have pretty much every feature that you would want,
the issue here is the lack of flexibility.
So with most of these platforms,
they do look great, I will say that,
but you can't really customize,
let's say the layout of your courses
or the way everything looks
apart from changing a few colors and things like that.
It is quite limited in terms of the flexibility.
Also, if they don't have functionality that you want,
then you're kind of just stuck waiting,
hoping that they'll eventually add that functionality.
Versus the WordPress side of things,
which, you know, you can go out and find a plugin
or even custom code something
if you really want it that badly.
But for most people who use a platform like this,
they don't care for that sort of stuff, and that's fine.
And that's what you need to think about
when you're making this decision.
So who is this best suited for?
I would say it's for the creator
who isn't really interested in the tech side of things.
You've already got some sort of online business happening,
meaning you might have a website already,
you might have an email list already,
and now you wanna add courses
and you wanna do it quickly and easily without much fuss,
without having to deal with extra tech things,
and just get it up and running in your business
as quickly as possible with something that does look great,
is easy to use and that your users
are going to be familiar with.
Now, you'll notice there, that I did say
if you've already got an existing website
or some existing online presence.
And the reason for that, is because if you don't have that,
you might wanna consider the next option,
which is the in all-in-one platform.
So an all-in-one platform is pretty much as it sounds.
What they're trying to do is give you everything in one.
Now, what I mean by that is everything,
so not just the core side of things,
but a built in email service provider
or email automation system,
as well as hosting your websites.
So literally you use these all-in-one tools
to build out your entire website,
your landing pages, your sales pages, your checkout,
the whole kit.
They want you to basically use their system
for everything you do online,
apart from, you know, social media,
but from your website and everything around that,
these all-in-one systems
promise to provide everything you need.
So let's talk about the advantages of a system like this.
So the main benefit as you can imagine of a system like this
is the simplicity.
The idea is everything is in one place,
meaning you can manage pretty much your entire business
from this one system, okay?
So you log in, you can build your website
and everything else, and it's all-in-one place.
And the beauty of that, is that it's all connected already,
meaning you don't have to connect
your email service provider to your landing pages
or your sales pages, or your check out,
and all those different things,
it's all just connected and all works really well together.
Essentially, it can do everything
and it can do all of the basics pretty well.
For a look at the downsides,
the downside to start with is the cost.
These things start from about $19 to $149,
as kind of your entry level price points to get started,
sounds pretty cheap.
Again, but remember, that's the entry point.
If your business is going to grow
and we all hope it's going to,
then does go up quite steeply and quite quickly.
The other downside is these tools from my experience,
they're a Jack of all trades, but they're a master of none.
So yes, they can do everything,
but they don't do anything particularly well.
And I'll expand on that when I talk about
particular all-in-one platforms in a little bit.
And what I've found from people I've worked with
use these all-in-one platforms
is they always tend to reach a point
where there's something they can't do,
and then they have to go out and use some third party tool
and connect it in and kind of integrate that.
So it turns into an all-in-one that is really convenient
to something that ends up having bolted on different things,
because the all-in-one couldn't quite do
those more advanced things the user wanted,
so they end up adding things in,
which kind of defeats the purpose
of initially using that all-in-one.
Because it's more expensive
'cause you're meant to get everything included,
but then you pay extra for these other things,
and that's kind of my experience using these platforms.
So who's it best for?
I think these are great if you're just starting out
and you've got nothing.
You've got no website, no email list,
no course hosting platform, nothing at all,
and you're just getting started
and you're really not comfortable with tech,
and you want something that's literally drag and drop,
like get started in a few clicks, very simple, good support,
then these platforms are probably a good fit for you.
All right, let's talk about the best of breed
in my opinion for each of these platforms.
But before we do, just a reminder,
if you haven't smashed that Like button already,
please go ahead and do that,
it makes a huge difference in the channel.
All right, so starting off with the WordPress LMS
or the WordPress plugins
to manage your courses and memberships.
The market leader and I think the best one by far
is LearnDash.
So the first thing I'll say about LearnDash
is it has about every feature you could possibly imagine,
very feature rich,
and they are constantly developing and updating this.
I think it's on version three at the moment,
they are constantly improving the platform.
The second thing is,
it starts at about $169 one time payment,
meaning you get access for life for that price.
So not only is it the best in of features, functionality,
they have great support,
and it is very cheap to get up and running with LearnDash.
There are competitors out there with great features
and solid platforms like AccessAlly and MemberMouse,
both really good plugins.
But the downside of those is they do come with a monthly fee
and the monthly fee is actually almost as expensive
as a dedicated course platform,
which we're going to talk about shortly.
So, if you're considering a WordPress plugin,
I would go with LearnDash,
it's got all the features you need,
it's very, very well-priced, great support,
and they're continually working
and updating this platform as well.
And I would even say, in my experience,
it is very simple to use once you've got it set up.
Creating your courses in there, it is drag and drop,
and it is quite easy to do.
Next stop, your dedicated course platforms.
So the big players in this space
are Teachable, Thinkific, and Podia.
Each of these are all actually quite similar
in terms of features and functionality.
The one that stands out with having a few extra features
and a few things that the others don't is actually Podia.
So Podia has webinars built in,
and it also has a bit more robust email marketing,
so you can broadcast to your entire list there
and manage a bit of email list,
and you do have some basic automation inside Podia as well.
So it's kind of creeping towards that all-in-one,
but it's not there yet.
So in terms of those three,
my preferred option is Thinkific,
that's what I use at the moment,
though, a close second is Podia.
As I said, with these, consider each of these options,
I would consider Thinkific and Podia,
and even Teachable if you're using that,
or if you're thinking of using that,
it's a fantastic option as well.
You can't really go wrong with either of them,
but Thinkific, number one, Podia, number two.
Moving on to the all-in-one platforms.
So the two main players in this space are Kajabi and Kartra.
And again, both of them promise to do
pretty much everything across your entire web presence,
meaning your website, email marketing.
And they do have much more sophisticated email marketing
than Teachable, Thinkific and Podia,
as well as landing page builders, checkouts, sales pages,
all of that kind of stuff.
So they do all of that and I think the winner for me,
after using both is quite easily Kajabi.
I think Kajabi are doing a fantastic job
in the all-in-one space,
and have really taken the lead in doing so.
Every time I've used Kajabi,
I found the interface easy to use from the backend,
meaning setting things up as the owner of the site.
And I find from a student perspective as well, it is nice,
it looks really good on the core side of things.
The downside again is, as I mentioned,
when I've used Kajabi, the email functionality
isn't as good as a dedicated email provider,
same as the landing pages and sales pages, they work,
but again, they don't have the flexibility
of a dedicated landing page or sales page builder,
so that's what I find.
Kajabi, on the other hand, I look, it's not a bad tool,
I'm not saying it's a bad tool, but it's more clunky,
I find more difficult to use,
and I find it's lacking in a few features as well
compared to Kajabi.
So again, just my opinion,
but that's what I recommend out of those two.
So let's just wrap this up.
If you are tech savvy,
and you are happy with working on the backend,
you're comfortable with WordPress,
and you want the most feature-rich, fully flexible solution
out there to host your courses and membership sites,
I would go with a WordPress plugin or a WordPress LMS.
And out of those, LearnDash is my preferred solution.
Now, on the other hand,
if you don't love the tech side of things,
if you're not really comfortable with that,
and you just want something that looks great,
is easy to use,
works really well from the customer side as well,
and presents a really nice user interface for your users,
then a dedicated course platform
is probably going to be a great fit,
especially if you've already got things like a website
and an email list anyway,
then you don't wanna pay for an all-in-one platform.
So a dedicated course platform like Thinkific,
which is my preferred option,
or even Podia as a second option,
those are probably going to suit you best.
And then last, if you just want the easiest thing to use,
if you don't already have a website or an email list,
and you just want everything packaged up
all-in-one quick, easy, no tech hassles whatsoever,
then an all-in-one platform might be best for you.
And for that one, I've known to say
Kajabi is the best option in my opinion.
Now I've put links to each of these
in the description below, so you can click down there
to check any of these course platforms out.
And if you wanna learn how to market your online course,
then check out this video for help with that.
(bright soft music)