Teachable Pricing, Features, Reviews & Comparison of Alternatives

Pros
My favourite thing about Teachable is it 'just works' out of the box. Most of its functionality is intuitive and it doesn't try to add a million features that most people won't use. It's a software tool that knows what it is and who it's for. It makes it very easy to make a good looking site and get a course up for sale. Anyone can get started and be able to do most of what they need to be able to do to create a profitable online course business easily.

Cons
The drawback is in that final 5%. It's easy to make a good looking site, but not easy to make an amazing looking site. I have in the past had some issues with their affiliate system and with their support staff, but to be fair this was in late 2016 and they have made big improvements since then. I would like to see them roll out new features more consistently so that their users are on the cutting edge of online course technology rather than just slightly behind. Teachable is also best for people that don't want to integrate multiple tools. This is also a good thing as it stays focused, but I think it's worth noting here as a potential user should consider that what they get with Teachable is what they get. Don't start using it expecting to link it with a forum later if you don't love how their commenting system works (for example).

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
It's probably one of the better choices when it comes to making courses online. First of all, you get a lot of options to integrate with 3rd party software which is great since you don't have to start from scratch in some aspects. Second, it's really easy to start teaching your audience online with Teachable. You can easily add new courses, record some lessons and launch! You get great payment options to choose from to give your customers some variety, also, it's easy to setup your page to make your "classroom" look even better.

Cons
It does take time to setup everything if you're planning to work on many courses and uploading a lot of material. While you can get most of it done by the time your free trial is over, it's always great to upgrade from the start to be able to take advantage of the premium features Teachable offers. One more thing is that, it's a bit pricey compared to other choices however, if you want great quality, it will cost you.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
Incredibly easy to use. Very fast to deploy a complete course with almost zero technical skill. fast and comprehensive support. Their free pricing offers a zero cost startup. It's so good that I introduce Teachable to every student I teach.

Cons
I love their concern about security. Just sometimes, and this is not a complaint, I offend by logging in from a different machine. That invokes two-factor authorization. It's not a problem at all, of course, but it's the feature I like least. Call me lazy.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
The teaching platform (curriculum videos, PDFs, etc.) is good and uploads are easy. I found that building a sales page was not difficult and sending people to the sales page with discount coupons was a smooth process. Payments were collected and paid out promptly at the end of the month (for my plan). Support is by email only (no chat) and took a couple days but the answers were helpful. The plans are reasonably priced for individual teachers and consultant.

Cons
I have experienced serious problems with their built-in email application. Since this is the primary way teachers communicate with students, it should be a priority for them. There were days when it wasn't working when I needed to send links to live classes and webinars. It's difficult to customize "Welcome" emails and there's no way to schedule sends or save drafts. They recently announced that all emails would come from a strange looking email address that belongs to them (and has been labeled "spam" by my email hosting service). I've drawn their attention to these problems several times. The response is polite but there has been no move to improve the service. It's a very amateurish response. I would recommend looking at other services first OR be prepared to use a third party email service every time you want to reach your students, including new sign-ups.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 4/10

Pros
* Customer Service * Ease of use * Pretty nice admin interface * Although there is not much you can do to theme your school without getting into code, what they have out of the box is pretty tasteful in terms of typography and layout

Cons
* No built-in contact form capabilities, and I don't know that you could code your own (if you're tech savvy enough), so that leaves you with a cheesy free embed form that will have someone else's branding on it, or paying at least $10 a month for a white-labeled contact form. I mean, what sort of paid online school doesn't have a "Contact Us" page with a form (as opposed to just an email address)? * Hefty fees if you want to have payments automatically sent out to other authors automatically (wish I knew this before I signed up!). * No ability to sell gift certificates without going through a very manual convoluted process

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 6/10