6 of the Impeccable Online Courses Selling Platforms in 2024
Did you know about 10 million college students opt for online distance learning courses! Further, about 63% of students in the US engage in online learning activities on a daily basis. These statistics show the shift from offline education to online course platforms. We are sure that you too have observed the same and are planning to earn side income by selling online courses. But there are too many tools, software, and platforms, to host and create an online course that leads to confusion.
Here, we have studied and curated a list of the best platforms to sell online courses in 2024. All have their own unique features to stand out in this list. If you want to be a part of an industry that is projected to reach a worth of $370 billion by 2026, you cannot skip this blog!
How to Choose an Online Course Platform (Top Criteria)
Before looking at the best online course platforms, you must understand how to choose the right platform. Here are the criteria’s that you should look out for in various course creation tools. You must also consider your goal to offer an online course that can range from monetizing your skills to generate interaction with your students.
- Course Customization Options: In an online course, you must be able to add various chapters, lessons, and customize your course layout. It should provide you with various options to take live sessions or put up pre-recorded material. You must be able to design your course as per your brand.
- Support of Diverse Content Format: An online course can contain text, videos, audios, images, PDF options and many other formats. The best platform to sell online courses provides support to such file types and lets you create an interesting, engaging curriculum.
- Assessment Support: Is the course builder platform allowing you to create quizzes? Or generate tests? Does it let you evaluate those tests and provide scores? Are you able to provide badges, various achievements, or certificates? These are some of the most important questions to address as such elements drive interaction. Without any student-teacher interaction, the course can get boring.
- Pricing or Payment Features: You must look at the pricing module and compare online course platforms. Are they providing a space to create courses for a fixed fee? Are they charging commission based on each sale? What will be the long term cost to host an online course on any specific platform? These aspects will let you analyze the cost and lay out a competitive price that profits you. Setting an online pricing strategy is a very crucial part to plan.
Now, let us consider each platform and understand their offerings for hosting an online course.
1) Udemy
Udemy is a platform of 70 million users and more than 900 million enrollments. Thus, it is a set online learning marketplace. You can opt to become a teacher on Udemy and post your own course. You need to apply to become a premium instructor on the Udemy Platform.
Top Features
- A guided course creation flow to launch your first course
- An in-built audience with the top online marketplaces for courses
- Minimal editing and design required as Udemy has a fix setup
- Support for video based courses
- Support to add quizzes, exercises, and discussion forums
Udemy is perfect to launch your first course as it provides support to teachers to understand the realm of online courses and give feedback and suggestions. There are tailor-made marketing programs that would support you further.
Pricing Strategy
It is free to publish on Udemy platform for up to two hours of video. It charges 3% for sales made through instructor coupons and 63% for all other course sales. Thus, this is beneficial only if you have a good grip on marketing and are sure of sales.
2) Skillshare
If you have a specific skill, are a working professional, or a subject matter expert, this platform is for you. Highly experienced educators and professionals with a specific skill launch their courses on this platform. If you fall under the category of arts, design, freelance, lifestyle, photography, blogging, you can be a teacher on SkillShare. They have a specific content, category, and class guideline. Unless you do not adhere to that, there is no hiccup on the platform.
Top Features
- Skillshare works on a membership model, thus a benefit of built-in audience from the beginning.
- The class is divided into video lessons, projects, and a discussion. Thus working on theoretical as well as practical aspects of a course.
- Offer one on one teaching modules on the platform.
- It has a very quick and easy setup for video course programs.
This platform charges a membership fee from the students and provides them access to all the courses on the platform. Thus, your course will have a vast audience from the beginning.
Pricing Strategy
Skillshare is free for creating a premium class and you can earn monthly royalties based on the amount of minutes watched on your class.
3) Teachable
If you are confident about your course building skills and are looking for a fully customizable online course platform, Teachable is your answer. With this, you can build an online teaching website and create a sales page to launch your course. It is a fully responsive module with compatibility across all devices.
Top Features
- Create a course with an easy drag-and-drop builder.
- Built-in e-commerce features to optimize your sales flow.
- Create courses, manage a coaching business, sell digital downloads, create a community and also build a consistent flow of income with membership options.
- Beta AI features to help generate a course, outline, summary, and lesson planning.
- Create in-depth quizzes, tests, and even automate subtitles and translations.
- Affiliate marketing tools and support for detailed analytics.
Teachable provides you with three amazing templates to get going. It also supports all kinds of multimedia to diversify your course content.
Pricing Strategy
If you are unsure about creating a course on Teachable, opt for its free course launch program. This is one of the best free online course builders. Here, you will introduce your course for free with a $1+10% transaction charge. If you get comfortable with the platform, you can opt for their premium plan starting at $39/month.
4) Thinkific
This is a feature-rich platform that will help you create and sell courses in no time. Thinkific not only provides an online course platform, but also helps you create learning communities, live events, and digital downloads.
Top Features
- Comes with an online mobile application for easy access.
- Support for email marketing and digital marketing right from the platform.
- Manage payments with an in-built platform called Thinkific Payments.
- AI driven marketing tools and course building support.
- Support for rich multimedia content like quiz, survey, discussions, google docs and drive links.
Thinkific offers coupons, group enrollment, upsells, and even free trials. With a support of over 100 currencies, this can be a great tool.
Pricing Strategy
You can experiment with one course on this online course platform. If comfortable, the basic plan starts at $36 per month.
5) Kajabi
Kajabi is another option to efficiently build and sell your courses. Apart from the online courses and digital downloads, you can sell membership, training portals, file downloads, and much more from the single platform.
Top Features
- Easily create a Website with a powerful builder
- Provides a seamless mobile experience with its ready-made mobile app that can help overcome the barrier of accessing an online course through a mobile browser.
- Advanced marketing funnel from landing pages to opt-ins.
- Generative AI feature to aid you in course building process
- Works as a complete automated CRM that can help you with triggered emails, coupons, and product access by setting simple rules
Pricing Strategy
The Kajabi platform starts at $55 per month and offers a single product out of their portfolio. You can choose the online course as your single product. If you want to integrate memberships, communities, advanced marketing, you would need to opt for a higher plan.
6) ARMember Online Course Add-on
If we talk about the most cost effective online course platform with certificates, it’s ARMember with its Online Course add-on. From launching tiered membership levels to providing digital downloads, opt-in forms, email marketing, online courses, and even setting up drip rules; ARMember is the all-rounder platform.
Top Features
- Add audio, video, images, HTML to your courses.
- Set-up assessment after each chapter and allow access to the next chapter only after completion of the previous one.
- Generate course completion certificate by using ARMember for online courses.
- Manage multiple membership levels for a steady flow of income and provide courses based on the plans.
- In-built features for email marketing and selling individual posts.
- Scope to create an exclusive online community of members.
Pricing Strategy
The ARMember core Plugin is available for free. Get the online course addon at a minimal price of $35/year for access on a single website. You can opt for ARMember pro Plugin which is available at the rate of $69 for a lifetime access.
Comparison of Online Course Selling Platforms
| Course Selling Platform | Best For | Pricing |
|---|---|---|
| Udemy | Selling First Time Courses at lower risk | – Free to publish – 3% fee for sales via instructor coupons 63% fee for other sales |
| SkillShare | Creators and Skilled Professionals to monetize their skills | – Free for creating a premium class – Earn royalties based on minutes watched |
| Teachable | Creating an online school with varied marketing features | – Free course launch program – $1 + 10% transaction fee – Premium plan starts at $39/month |
| Thinkific | Selling diverse offerings like downloadable and creating communities | – Free for one course
– Basic plan starts at $36/month |
| Kajabi | Robust and advanced marketing with premium features | – Starts at $55/month – Higher plans for additional features |
| ARMember | Budget-friendly package of features for memberships, courses, and marketing | – Core Plugin: Free Lite Version – Online Course Add-on: Starts $35/year – ARMember Pro: Start at Just $69 |
Wrapping up the Course Creation Platforms
There are multiple aspects to each platform. Thus, you must have a goal set in your mind. Further, imagine how you want to ace up your online course selling platform for the future. Based on that, choose a platform that can grow with you. Apart from the in-built marketing support of each platform, you will have to learn how to attract students to your online course. If you are finding leads your way, you will have to pay less commission fee for platforms like Udemy. Make sure your offering is valuable and is true to the price you charge.
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Brian Denim
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