Top 10 Online Course Platforms in 2024 to Create and Sell Courses and Memberships
My favorite online course platforms to create and sell your online courses, training, online coaching, and starting your online teaching schools. Most of them have free plan for beginners.
Hello guys, if you are an online course creator, instructor, teacher, or blogger looking for the best online platform to create, host, and sell your online courses, eBooks, membership, and digital products and looking for best platforms, both free and paid then you have come to the right place.
In this article, I am going to share the best places to host and sell your online training courses. In this article, we will take a look at the best online teaching platforms like Teachable, Thinkific, LearnWorlds,, Payhip, Udemy, Kajabi, and Podia and analyze them to find out which is best for online teaching and selling online courses.
Online teaching is becoming bigger and bigger with so many bloggers, professionals, programmers are creating online courses and making good money. It’s a new avenue for passive income creators and I think it’s one of the best I know.
Why? because it’s a win-win for everybody.
For example, if a blogger creates an online course he earns money by teaching. Students get benefits because they learn from an expert who has acquired that knowledge the hard way by their own mistakes and practical knowledge, and online creators platforms like Teachable, Thinkific, Podia, and Kajabi benefit because they earn some fees and commissions.
So, it’s a win-win for all three parties — students, course creators, teachers, and platforms which makes it easy to create and sell a course online.
The biggest reason many people are creating online courses nowadays is that the industry is growing very fast. As per an estimate, the online learning industry is about to grow from 170 billion dollars in 2017 to around 350 billion dollars in 2024, which is phenomenal.
Another significant reason for creating an online course is that it scales well.
You just need to create a course once and then you can sell it multiple times to multiple people without actively working on it.
This is a powerful and genuine way to create a passive income stream and that’s why I have been asking people to create online courses as a side hustle.
Though, if you care for your students and your course, you should spend some time helping students, and updating your course material to keep it relevant and up-to-date, but that’s a very minimal part of the work, comparing to blogging, freelancing, writing, or any other online way to make money.
Now, that we are clear that creating an online course is amazing idea, let’s focus on the platforms which can help you to build and sell your online courses.
10 Best Online Course Platforms to Create and Sell Online Courses, Books, Membership, and Digital Products in 2024
When it comes to creating and selling courses online, there are many options like Teachable, Thnkific,LearnWorlds, Udemy, Kajabi, Skillshare, and Podia (previously known as Coach), Payhip, Gumroad, etc.
You will also find many detailed reviews of them on internet, but I have to choose based upon my own assessment, keeping some very important feature in mind like how easy is to create a course, marketing(sales), and cost.
1. Thinkific
When it comes to creating online courses, Thinkific is the market leader, with well 32,000 influential bloggers, programmers, marketers who have chosen them to host their courses. That fact itself says a lot about Thinkific because that many people cannot be wrong, they are also not beginners but many of them are experts and influencers.
Thinkific is simply amazing when it comes to course delivery and student engagement. It allows you to add multiple content types including videos, quizzes, text, PDF, surveys, etc.
You can also provide course completion certificates, the biggest selling point for courses nowadays as it allows students to showcase their skills on LinkedIn and their Resume. They also allow you to create learning paths with prerequisites and lesson locking, which is great for skill-based teaching.
They are also very cost-effective. Their free plan allows you to create up to 3 online courses with an unlimited number of students. Content hosting is also free, but if you are serious about your online course I suggest you to their Thinkific Grow Plan ($149/mo) to get features that are needed to take your course to next level. They also provide a one-month free trial to explore their professional plan, which is worth looking.
I have also written a detailed review of Thinkific Grow here, if you want to to learn you can also check that.
The only problem with Thinkific is that they don’t handle VAT (EU tax) for yourself, but they have documented their reason here and think that it’s unfair to charge VAT for many courses that otherwise would not have to pay VAT. You can read their reasons to learn more about it.
They also have a free plan which allows you to create one course but you can enroll unlimited students and also earn a sizable income as there is no transaction fee, you can read my full review of Thinkific Free plan here.
2. Teachable
Teachable is another wonderful platform or website which helps you to create and sell courses online. It’s very similar to Thinkific and there are only some subtle differences between them.
When it comes to course delivery, Teachable also allows you to add multiple content types including videos and quizzes to your course, drip your course content, create course completion certification, ensure course compliance and it also has a very well designed course player which together results in a great learning experience for the students, one of the most important factors for choosing Teachable vs Thinkific.
Though Teachable’s USP is their powerful sales and marketing features like coupons, highly optimized 1-step checkout process, 1-click upsells, EU VAT handling, as well as a suite of services to manage your finances and paperwork, trust me no online course creator like to manage accounting and taxes.
Coming back to their pricing plans, unfortunately, they don’t have any free plans but they provide 14-day-free-trial of their professional plans which allows you to host unlimited courses without any transaction fee.
What I recommend is to choose their basic plan (29$ per month) or even better professional plan (99$ per month) when charged annually. To start with you can choose the basic plan and when you got some success, switch to their professional plan to make it even bigger.
3. Podia
Podia (previously known as Coach) is a relatively late entrant in the hosted online course platform market that lets you create and sell online courses and other digital products like memberships, PDFs, e-books, and templates.
This was the one platform I got my first exposure to with online course creation but unfortunately, I didn’t launch the course as I wanted to make it great.
When it comes to teaching and online learning experience Podia allows you to create engaging multimedia lectures with videos, audio, text, PDF, etc. which are then delivered through the beautifully designed course player and creates an amazing learning experience.
Another useful feature that Podia offers is for building membership sites, which is not available on many other online course platforms like Thinkific and Teachable (at least I am not aware).
So, apart from bundling your courses, you can also create individual posts that work great for delivering one-off content on a regular basis and making some side income.
Podia also has many plans which you can choose like their basic plan which called Mover, a professional plan known as Shaker, and the ultimate plan known as Earthquaker. The best thing about them is that they all come with 14-day-free-trial and you don’t need to enter your credit card as well, which makes it really easy to try them.
I recommend you to join their professional plan known as Shaker which allows you to maintain an email list of 15K members. It also allows you to create and sell membership and affiliate marketing.
4. Payhip
Not many people know but Payhip is a great platform build and sell your online courses in 2024. It’s one of those platforms which not just allow you to sell your online courses but any kind of digital products like eBook, membership, and even online coaching classes.
Yes, you heard it right, you can sell digital downloads, courses, coaching
and more from one simple platform. They are now even allowing you to sell your physical project and all of these for just a fraction of cost of what other platforms like Thinkific and Teachable charging. They even have a free account where you can sell unlimited courses for free with just 5% transaction charges.
That’s why many creators, especially first time creators and instructors love Payhib, more than 130,000 creators have already selling their books, courses, and digital products on Payhip,
One of the many things I like about Payhip their simple interface and easy integration, but their customer service is also great and you can count on them.
Much like the platform, their pricing is also simple, you can start with free and then move to PRO to save money and increase revenue.
Here is the link to join PayHip for free — Payhip Free account
5. Gumroad
This is another platform which allows you to create and sell your online courses, digital products like eBooks and membership as well as Physical products like wooden items.
I love Gumroad personally and using it for selling my Java and Spring eBooks. Earlier they had a personal plan where you just pay $100 and then pay 3% transaction fee and sell unlimited products and courses but now they have also streamlined it and charge progressive transaction fee.
This is what Gumroad says when it comes to pricing
We want you to live a better life, not focus on fees. That’s why we have no monthly charges and only take a small cut of every sale. Plus our percentage gets smaller as you grow. Win/win.
And this is how their transaction fee are:
But, I really like Gumroad for their flexibility. You can start for free and grow slowly which is the biggest advantage and when you start making money, you will be glad to pay some and when you really start making money, they will take even smaller cut.
6. Kajabi
Kajabi is one of the best but expensive online platforms that allow you to do much more than just hosting and delivering online courses or memberships. You can not only build a beautiful course website but also create a blog, build sales funnels, do email marketing, etc.
Apart from all the important course creation features which Teachable and Thinkific offer, it also provides some powerful features like Community, Assessments (quizzes and assignments), Automation, learning paths, etc. which will help you create a great learning experience for your members.
The only downside of Kajabi is their pricing, which is also fair because they offer so many features and provide an all-in-one platform for creating online courses. Kajabi’s pricing starts from $149/mo and their most popular plan costs $199/mo.
Unlike Teachable, Kajabi doesn’t charge you a single dollar transaction fee whether you choose their basic or professional plan.
7. Academy of Mine
Academy of Mine is another (not so popular) option for creating, hosting, and selling online courses. It allows you to build a fully-fledged website to host your online courses and start selling them.
One of the best things about the Academy of mine is its powerful LMS features. It has inbuilt support for Certificates, Gamification, Discussion Forums, GradeBook, etc. These features can be a game-changer for boosting student engagement and enhancing their online learning experience.
Academy of Mine’s pricing starts from $9997, which may seem quite high for individual instructors and course creators but if you already have a decent number of courses and students and want to scale your e-learning business then exploring Academy of mine can be a good option.
8. iSpring Suite
iSpring Suite is another great tool to create and launch your online course in 2024. It gives you everything you need to build great online learning content.
It allows you to create online courses, cheat-proof quizzes with 14 question
types, video tutorials, role-play simulations, and other interactive content for any possible learning scenario.
The tool is extremely easy to use and comes with ready-made slide templates and visual assets so you can produce good-looking courses from day one — even if you have no design skills.
And, if you are wondering if there is a support for selling your course like Teachable Discover or Gumroad Discover then let me tell you that iSpring Suite is integrated with an online course selling platform, iSpring Market. Which allows you to promote and sell courses, build a customer base, and track revenue — all in one place.
It’s especially valued by users for its user-friendliness — you don’t need any tech skills to create a marketplace, add your courses, and set a price. You can put your courses for sale once and simply keep track of how much income you’ve received.
All the content created with iSpring Suite, including courses, quizzes, videos, and sims, is fully compatible with iSpring Market. This makes the bundle a perfect match for those who want to build engaging interactive courses and get started selling courses online.
When it comes to pricing iSpring doesn’t provide free pricing plans, but you can get free trials of iSpring Suite and iSpring Market to get a taste of it. With Gumroad raising its flat fee to 10%, a lot of people are looking for Gumroad Alternatives and it sees iSpring is worth looking.
If you already have a course or digital product, I suggest you to join iSpring Suite Max, is bit expensive but totally worth it but if you are starting then iSpring Suite is more than enough. For freelancer they even give you discount as shown below:
9. LearnWorlds
This is another great online platform to start your online course business or sell any digital stuff like eBooks. LearnWorlds features everything a digital entrepreneur needs as an all-in-one online course platform.
It has a wealth of course creation features that allow you to build interactive content, a built-in community, in-depth learner and course analytics, live sessions, key promotional tools to sell your online courses, and a native mobile app.
If you want to take LearnWorlds subscription then there is no better time than now as they are offering 37% discount on Cyber Monday.
Here is the link to learn more — LearnWorlds Cyber Monday Deal [37% OFF]
10. Udemy
Many people don’t realize but Udemy is one of the best place to create your online course in 2024. In fact this is one place where you can easily sell your courses and make money even if you don’t have any online presence or existing audience and I can say that become I also have more than 10 courses on Udemy.
If you don’t know, Udemy is one of the largest online learning platforms. It allows instructors to create and sell courses on a wide range of topics. This means you can create course on whatever topic you have, no restriction.
It also give you platform where you can upload your lesson, creating coding exercises, and add few features which are essential for online course.s
That’s all about the best online platforms to create and sell training courses in 2024. You have so many choices available but Thinkific and Teachable are market leaders and many programmers, bloggers, teachers, instructors, and marketers have chosen them. I also recommend starting with either the Thinkific or Teachable platform.
What I like most about Teachable is that they make every effort for their course creator to be successful. They provide a lot of useful training, webinars, and knowledge material on how to create successful online courses.
If you are new to online course creation, I highly recommend you to check out their 7 Steps To Launch Your Own Profitable Online Course, one of the best guides for new instructors who want to create successful online courses.
In this article, I have purposefully omitted Udemy, Pluralsight, Educative, and Skillshare because they are just a marketplace and don’t provide you full control of marketing and sales.
No doubt, Udemy is still a great platform to sell your course but if you are thinking long term, you should choose any of the above platforms to start with, I personally recommend Teachable to start with.
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Thanks for reading this article so far. If you like these best Online Course Platforms then please share them with your friends and colleagues. If you have any questions about creating and selling online courses then please drop a note.
P.S. — If you decide to join Teachable, I suggest you take their professional plan, which costs around $99 per month. In this plan, you don’t need to pay the 5% transaction fee you have to pay for selling your courses on the basic plan, and you also get access to many more useful premium features like Course Completion Certificates, integrated affiliate marketing, and Support.
