The best course platforms to consider

Let’s talk about choosing the best fit platform as it often is the biggest challenge when it comes to creating online courses. Not only because there are so many different ones to choose from, but also because it's important to find something that fits your specific needs and also you just enjoy using... So what are some of the best course platforms to consider?

You can also listen to this post in a podcast episode -

It's important that the platform you choose is a good fit overall.

This time around, I want to take you on a journey of my personal favorites for several different categories.

Mind me, I've been working with online courses for a decade already, and I have had my fair share of platform insights and back end experiences.

First of all, I have to say, I always insist that there isn't one perfect fit, and if someone is trying to convince you to use a specific platform without actually knowing what you need, what are your preferences and what is your current business setup - RUN.

It's important that you evaluate what are the things that you specifically will need in the platform and what are your overall preferences before you make this decision.

If you want to explore more and learn how to choose the best fit platform for you, make sure to get my free platform guide.

Now let's dive in.

Keep in mind before choosing the platform for your course

First of all, we're gonna review low budget option and the best fit for getting started. And yes, both of these boxes are ticked by one platform.

And before I dive into the platform itself, I have to say that many first time course creators make the mistake of overthinking the platform itself and thinking that the choice of the platform is going to be the deciding factor in whether or not you can make the money.

That is not true.

Here's the thing, most of the platforms, most of the backend setups, especially for the course spaces, will be pretty much the same for all of the platforms, for all of the price ranges.

The differences are so small, and yes, some platforms offer you several more features you can do more customization in the back end and so on.

That is true, but ultimately that will not change whether or not your course is going to make money.

It's important to acknowledge that even the simplest, cheapest platform can bring you sales, because it's not the platform that is making the sales.

Platform is just the tool that you use to set up your course. Don't rely on it too much.

Don't think that you must invest thousands of dollars or hundreds per month just to have the best platform. That is not true.

And I have to say again, the simplest platforms can bring in just as much profit.

In fact, several of my clients that have made the highest sales have made them with some of the simplest platforms.

So now let's actually go to the platform for the budget option and for getting started.

The best course platforms to consider

Payhip - budget-friendly course platform to consider

My personal favorite on this list is Payhip.

Honestly, I don't know why this platform is not as popular as it could be, because it does have pretty much everything one might need, plus you can get started for free.

And by getting started, I don't mean like a 14-day trial. I mean you can use it for free, forever, if you choose to.

So this platform gives you a chance to create your own digital product store, set up and sell products like courses, memberships, ebooks, audio, downloads and beyond.

In fact, it also has the option to sell physical product.

The key pros for Payhip:

It's very versatile: you can set up and sell various digital products.
It's rather easy to use and it will be quick to learn, the backend setup is very straightforward.
On the other side, you will get all of the key features you need to set up and sell your product.
You can use it for FREE. The only expense here is that you pay 5% of the transaction fee from any sales made. But other than that, you don't have to invest anything before you actually start making sales.

The only other investment you have to consider when it comes to this platform is video hosting. They actually have built in video hosting available for $5/monthly.

And yes, $5/monthly is a ridiculously low price. I would definitely go for it. And if you pay for a year upfront, it's going to be like only $50.

You can go without it, or you can also host your videos elsewhere, for example, on YouTube, Vimeo or Bunny.net. But overall, the fee really is so low that for convenience, I would just go for it.

This platform also qualifies as my favorite for starters, for many different reasons, and one of them is the simplicity of the platform.

Despite having all the must have features, the overall back end setup is rather simple and straightforward. You can learn it in one evening.

It gives you an option to set up all you need before investing anything. And I think it's always a winning idea.

Thinkific - anoher great course platform for starters

And while we're on the topic of budget friendly and good for starters options, I would also qualify Thinkific for this specific category.

Earlier in 2024, Thinkific still had their free plan available but as of recently it has left the shelves.

Either way, Thinkific still can be a rather budget-friendly choice as well.

When it comes to course-specific platforms, Thinkific is one of the OG’s out there, it has been around for a solid while and have always been on top of the LMS lists.

On Thinkific, you will be able to:

Set up and sell courses, coaching sessions and digital products
Have landing pages and checkouts
Have all of your student spaces
They also have native video hosting included in the plans

Consider your must-haves when choosing a course platform

Now, keep in mind, if you have any specific must-have features in the platform, check them out before you dive into the setup.

Not all of these platforms will have the same level of functionality.

For example, when we're looking at Payhip versus Thinkific, I would consider Payhip as my first choice in most cases, but I would go for Thinkific if you want to include a community space in your offer.

In general, if you're now looking at both and thinking which one is the way to go, Payhip will be a simpler way to get started, and ultimately, the investment will be lower - even their paid plans are lower than Thinkific.

But if you would like to have a community space that is highly functional and fun to use, Thinkific has that, and it's way better than Payhip

And this is exactly what I mean when I say consider what you need.

When you have a list of those things that you want in a platform, it's a lot easier to actually weed out what is not gonna be a good fit for you.

So I can talk about them for as long as I want, but if there isn't one specific thing that you might need, you will just move on to the next one, right? So keep in mind my suggestions, but also definitely consider the things that you want to see on the platform and you want to include in your offers.

The best all-in-one platforms for courses

Now let's dive into all in one platforms.

Having an all in one platform gives you an opportunity to not only host and sell your online courses, but also it provides many other business specific features that you might need.

For example, on a platform like Kajabi, you can build your website and blog. You can build the mailing list and set up all of the back end funnels, as well as set up and sell many different types of products, including coaching offers.

Kajabi definitely is an industry leader and a favorite for many, especially when it comes to all in one platforms.

My own thoughts on Kajabi are rather inconclusive. I have to say, yes, the platform has many great features, and if you do need them all, or you need most of them, I would definitely go for it.

However, the price is rather high, and I often find my clients, as well as people online, not really using the features Kajabi is providing.

So if you are creating an online course specifically, and that is the setup you need, I would consider going with other options. Other options will be simpler, cheaper, faster to get started with.

Platforms like Kajabi will be a good fit for you if you want to have all of that set up in one place.

However, if you already have your own website, it might be a different discussion. If you have your own website, you might not really need Kajabi.

You want to focus on what you need, what are the features that you're searching for? And yes, if Kajabi includes most of what you need and for example, you want to keep your website, but you want to host all of your offers on Kajabi - it also makes sense.

But again, I have to circle back to the idea that if you're focusing on just creating an online course many of the options might be better than that. Get the free guide to check them out.

So Kajabi can be a good option if you really need it all, but keep in mind that it is more high priced.

Many people make the mistake of investing before being ready, and then just that expense is just on top of everything else and it can become very, very overwhelming.

What are some other all-in-one platform alternatives?

FGFunnels have recently made a name out of them as well. It’s very female-entrepreneur focused.

If there is ONE platform in this category that I’d stay away from - it’d be Kartra. The investment in the platform does not provide up-to-date user experience. And while you’ll see Kartra being a suggestion here and there, that’s the one platform I really would suggest to NOT use.

The best community-focused platforms

And last but not least, we have community focused platforms.

When creating a community is the main focus, you may want to consider community-focused platforms.

Two of my favorites in this category are Circle and Skool.

Circle

Circle is specifically designed as a community/forum space. And their setup actually is the OG setup of how all of the other community spaces are being organized.

This platform is really amazing if community itself is going to be your focus.

So for example, if you want to have a group space where your audience can gather to chat, they can ask you questions, you can share all kinds of insights or feedback or live videos, whatever that might be.

For example, you want to move your community away from Facebook and you want to make it paid or whatever is the case, Circle is your answer.

In Circle, you can also upload and sell courses, but it's not specifically designed for that, so they do have a course space for the $99 plan.

All of that is there, like the functionality is there, but it's not a course platform, per se. So if you want to do a course with a community, I would go for Thinkific instead.

But if you want to do a community where sometimes you might want to add in a course, or you might want to add in some master classes, you will want to consider Circle.

I moved from Teachable to circle myself several years ago when I realized that building a community and creating a membership will be my focus.

Igot tired from like that one sided communication that courses gave me. I loved creating the content. I loved putting it out there. I loved selling it and all the other related things. But I didn't love the fact that I don't have the communication, that I don't have the connection with people who buy my product.

That's when I realized that I'm gonna be putting all of my courses, all my master classes, all my offers, into Circle membership, where then I can have not only my offers, but also the communication with whoever joins, whoever purchases, and I can actually help one on one as well.

Now, all of that being said, it's also important to consider that on Circle the focus, again, is the community.

They offer all the key features but the experience will be different from any LMS platform -

They do have a checkout they do have payment plans you can do and the student management, but they do not have sales pages.

So unless you want to sell just through a checkout page, which will also be very, very simple, you will need to consider where you're gonna be building sales pages.

Where to build a sales page for Circle space?

Your website. If you already have your own website or you plan to get started, you can always build your sales page there. Most of my sales pages are based on my website.
Your email marketing platform. Most email marketing platforms will support simple landing page design. For example, this can be done on Mailerlite or Kit (these days you can sell your offers directly on Kit as well!)
Canva - Canva landing pages are increasing in their popularity and while they will NOT be the best long-term solution, you can always quickly make one happen to start selling
Page builders focused on landing pages, for example, Leadpages.

Skool

Now next up we have Skool.

Skool is definitely gaining popularity these days.

And the difference between Skool and Circle is that on Circle, you can white label your community. This means that you can add your domain name, you can add your colors. You can have your vibe completely.

While on Skool they do not have white labeling.

This means that your community domain will be skool.com/yourname. For me, this was a big, big downside, and especially if you are building a community with the vision of it becoming a big thing.

I think it's important that you do have an opportunity, even if you are not going to do it now, you have the opportunity to white label it. But that aside, the biggest bonus for Skool is that they have great gamification there.

They offer only one plan - it's $99 per month.

With that, you can:

You can upload courses.
You can have the community space, which is a lot like Facebook. So it can be very fun to use. It can be very easy to use. There's no learning curve for your students. So all of that like ticks, all of the boxes.
And the best part that they already mentioned is that gamification. This means that by taking action within your community, like by engaging with posts, writing comments, liking posts and so on, the community members will gain points, and as they gain points, they can unlock new content, which then can inspire them to be more and more active, right? This is amazing way to actually build an engaged community, because, truth be told, most of the community spaces online lack engagement for many different reasons.

We will probably talk about it another time as well, but in school, especially if you keep cultivating it, if you actually talk about the options that they can receive, and they can see that in their own dashboard as well. But ultimately, if you talk about it, if you invite them to take more action, that is one of the best platforms where that can be done,

Which one to go for? Circle vs Skool

Platform-wise, I prefer Circle - I absolutely love it. It's a really clean space. It's really fun. There are many different options for how you can organize it, and I feel like the offer for the price is really good as well. So the lower priced offer is $49 but you don't get courses. You don't have the live option either.

For $99 you get courses as well as live. So you can actually go live within the community, depending on what are your needs.

On Circle, even without the course space, you can still upload the videos, so you can still have your courses in there, even without that course like setup. There are many different pros and cons, but I personally love Circle.

I have thought about using Skool and have tried it for some experiments - it can be really fun and if a simple, quick start is what you seek, it might be the best option to go for, just for that gamification element.

But I realized that it's not really a good fit for me, as white labeling is very important.

Choose the best product platform for you

And to wrap this up, I want to remind you to check out the free Platform Guide.

It goes through not only several different platforms and their pros and cons, but also how to actually choose the best fit for you. What are some of the things to keep in mind?

TAKE YOUR NEXT STEPS

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