Teachable and Podia both allow you to build and sell online products.
The main difference is each platforms’ focus. Teachable is designed for sharing knowledge through online courses and coaching.
Podia also allows you to create courses and coaching, but its main focus is communities.
- Teachable has a free plan
- Teachable is rated as the #8 platform on SupplyGem
- Teachable has a rating of 2.4/5 on Trustpilot
- Teachable is the winner of this comparison
- Podia has a free plan
- Podia is not ranked in top 10 by SupplyGem
- Podia has a rating of 3.9/5 on Trustpilot
- Podia is a great alternative if you want to create a community to go alongside your course
Podia and Teachable are built for creators to share and monetize their knowledge with their existing audience.
Teachable does this through courses, coaching, and digital downloads.
In contrast, Podia’s main focus is communities. However, you can also create courses, digital downloads, webinars, and coaching sessions.
Both platforms offer a free plan, so you can get started right away without committing to a paid subscription
Teachable vs Podia: Side-by-Side Look
| Teachable | Podia | Winner | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 Overall Rank | #8 | Unranked on SuppyGem | Teachable |
| ⭐ Customer Rating | 2.4/5 | 3.9/5 | Podia |
| 💵 Starting Price | $59/month | $39/month | Podia |
| 🔥 Discount | 33% on annual plans | 17% on annual plans | Teachable |
| 💸 Transaction Fees | $1 + 10% on the free plan; 5% on the Basic plan | 8% on the free plan; no fees on the paid plans | Podia |
| 💡 Demo or Free Trial | Free plan | Free plan | It’s a tie |
| 💻 Build a Website | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | It’s a tie |
| 📱 Mobile App | ✅ Yes | ❌ No | Teachable |
| 👩🏫 Create Courses | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | Teachable |
| 🧑🏫 Offer Coaching | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | It’s a tie |
| 👥 Build Communities | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | Podia |
| ✉️ Marketing Features | ✅ Yes, basic marketing features included | ✅ Yes, basic marketing features included | Podia |
| 🏆 Affiliate Program | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | Teachable |
| 🔗 Integrations | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | Teachable |
| 🤝 Customer Support | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | Teachable |
Teachable vs Podia: What Are They and Which Is Best for Me?
Teachable and Podia both allow you to create and sell digital products.
However, they prioritize different products. Teachable is best for courses, and Podia is best for communities.
Knowing what each platform does can help you choose the best one for your business.
What Is Teachable and Who Is It for?
Teachable aims to help creators share and monetize their knowledge by selling digital products.
You can create courses, digital downloads, and coaching programs to sell on your website.
It would work for online creators and those with an existing in-person audience that want to take their classes online.
What Is Podia and Who Is It for?
Podia is a platform that allows you to create, market, and sell digital products.
You can create a community, courses, coaching programs, webinars, and digital downloads.
The ability to create a community is one of the best features offered. You can set up paid membership tiers and encourage conversation and engagement.
It would work well for creators that want to create a website with an engaging community.
Teachable vs Podia: Pros and Cons
Teachable and Podia thrive in different aspects, so they would suit different creators.
Consider the pros and cons and your business priorities.
Teachable and Podia Pros
| Teachable Pros | Podia Pros |
|---|---|
| It has a free plan that allows you to create your first course | You can create a community on the free plan |
| The free mobile app is available on all plans | Podia is an affordable platform |
| Teachable has its own payment gateway | Includes email marketing campaigns and broadcasts |
Teachable and Podia Cons
| Teachable Cons | Podia Cons |
|---|---|
| The transaction fees are complicated | Podia offers email marketing, but you will likely still need to use a third-party marketing tool, so it might become redundant |
| There are limits on the number of products you can create on all the plans except the Business plan (which costs $665 per month) | You can’t create courses on the free plan |
| You need a Pro plan to create graded quizzes and provide certificates of completion | To add users to your accounts, you need to pay $20 per month per user |
Teachable vs Podia: What’s the Difference?
Although the platforms seem similar on the surface, there are some key differences that set them apart.
Understanding the differences can help you choose the right platform.
Teachable and Podia Differences
- Teachable has a mobile app that allows students to learn on the go
- Podia allows users to create a community
- Podia allows you to create marketing campaigns
- Podia offers live chat messages with students
- Teachable has its own payment gateway, which can automate affiliate payouts and allows you to get paid quickly and securely
- Teachable has course compliance controls
Teachable and Podia Similarities
- You can create courses on both platforms
- Add quizzes and certificates to your course
- Sell digital downloads
- Create coaching products
- Build a full website
- Integrate your platform with several third-party tools
- Send one-off emails to users
- Use upsells and coupons to increase sales
- Create product bundles
Teachable vs Podia: Feature Comparison
On first look, both platforms appear similar. They both allow you to create and sell courses and digital products. You can also build a website and use the marketing features to grow your business.
However, the features vary, and comparing them can help you choose which platform is best for you.
Course Creation and Student Experience
Winner for Course Creation and Student Experience: Teachable
You can create engaging courses on both platforms, and they offer similar features.
Teachable wins the course creation and student experience section, as you can create and sell courses on the free plan.
On Podia, you need a paid plan to sell your first course. Podia doesn’t limit the number of courses you can create like Teachable does.
Both platforms have the following course creation features:
- Drip-feed content.
- Create quizzes.
- Structure courses by sections and lessons.
- Offer certificates of competition.
- Limit the number of sign-ups.
- Add files and text and embed files or videos to your lessons.
Teachable allows you to build a more custom lesson than Podia. You can design the way your lesson page looks with different content blocks.
You can also set course compliance controls, including requiring a user to complete a lesson to continue with the course.
Teachable has graded quizzes. The results are shown in reporting, along with progress within lessons and which parts of your videos are watched.
On Podia, there are no graded quizzes, and you can only see which lessons they’ve completed.
Website Builder
Winner for Website Builder: It’s a tie
Both platforms allow you to create a website to establish your brand or school and sell your products.
The site builders are both easy to use and use a click-to-edit page builder.
You can edit pages on Podia by clicking on the elements on the page. You can add sections, edit them, and move them around.
On Teachable, you use the sidebar to make changes to your pages.
On both platforms, you can create new pages, update fonts and colors, and you have the ability to remove the platform’s branding.
Both platforms allow you to create your own sales pages, but on Teachable, you can edit your checkout page too. This can help optimize sales.
In contrast, Podia’s checkout is a pop-up window that can’t be edited.
Digital Products
Winner for Digital Products: Podia
As well as courses, both platforms allow you to create a variety of other digital products and bundles of products.
Teachable and Podia both include coaching and digital downloads.
Podia includes a few additional digital products, including communities and webinars.
Teachable Digital Products:
- Coaching – Use Calendly to allow users to book slots with you and create milestones on either enrolment dates or fixed dates. Fixed milestone dates are a great way to host recurring group classes.
- Digital Downloads – Attach up to 2GB of files and sell them to users.
Podia Digital Products:
- Coaching – You can embed a booking calendar and allow users to book coaching sessions with you. Podia allows you to use Calendly, SavvyCal, Acuity, or YouCanBookMe.
- Digital Downloads – Attach files or multiple files and sell them to users.
- Community – Create a space where users can interact and engage with your business. You can create private topics that only specific members can access. This would be perfect for creating a private topic for users of specific courses. You can also manage mentions, posts, replies, and comments.
- Webinar – Sell a Zoom webinar or meeting or YouTube live webinar. Choose the start time and date and upload a replay for users who miss the live webinar.
Sales, Payments, and Marketing
Winner for Sales, Payments, and Marketing: Podia
Podia is the winner as it includes better email marketing features and a live chat. Podia also doesn’t charge transaction fees on any of the paid plans, but there is an 8% transaction fee on the free plan.
Teachable charges $1 + 10% transaction fee on its free plan and 5% on its Basic plan.
One of the main benefits of Teachable is its built-in payment gateway, Teachable:Pay. As well as Teachable:Pay, Teachable also accepts credit and debit cards, PayPal, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Stripe.
On Podia, you can use either Stripe or PayPal to accept payments, and PayPal is only available on paid plans.
There are some similarities between Podia and Teachable sales, payment, and marketing features, including:
- Offer free and paid products.
- For paid products, you can sell subscriptions and one-time purchase payments. Teachable also allows you to create a payment plan with a fixed number of payments.
- Send email broadcasts.
- Use coupons and upsells to encourage users to spend more.
There are some differences. Including the following:
- As well as email broadcasts, Podia allows you to send email campaigns.
- Podia has a live chat feature so that you can communicate directly with your audience.
Affiliate Program
Winner for Affiliate Program: Teachable
You can create an affiliate program on both platforms to help you increase your sales by using a team of affiliates.
On Teachable, this is available on the Pro plan and above, and on Podia, this is available on the Shaker plan.
There are similarities between the platforms, including that you can set the commission percentage and set product-specific commissions.
Teachable has some additional features, including setting the link attribution window and creating an application form for affiliates to complete.
The main difference between the affiliate programs is the payout methods.
- Podia Payout Method – Payouts need to be made manually, but there is a “Pay via PayPal” button that makes sending payouts to your affiliates easier.
- Teachable Payout Method – Teachable automatically manages your payouts if you have BackOffice enabled. Affiliates are paid on the first business day of every month after the 30-day hold.
Both platforms also allow you to manually manage your payouts if you want to do so.
Integrations
Winner for Integrations: Teachable
The integrations you can access on both platforms vary by plan.
Teachable offers more integrations than Podia.
However, Teachable lacks features such as email marketing and creating a community, so it makes sense that it offers more integrations to fill these gaps.
Teachable offers the following integrations:
- ActiveCampaign
- AWeber
- Circle.so
- ConvertKit
- Meta Pixel
- Google Analytics
- Mailerlite
- Mailchimp
- Segment
- Sumo
- TikTok Pixel
- Zapier
All the paid plans include access to third-party integrations. To use Zapier and Public API, you need a Pro or Business plan.
Podia has the following integrations:
- Zoom
- ConvertKit
- Mailchimp
- Drip
- AWeber
- ActiveCampaign
- GetResponse
- MailerLite
- Zapier
- Google Analytics
- Google Ads
- Facebook Pixel
- Pinterest Pixel
Similar to Teachable, the paid plans include access to integrations and analytics tools. The Mover plan includes Zapier triggers, but you need a Shaker plan to access Zapier actions.
Training and Support
Winner for Training and Support: Teachable
Both platforms have knowledge bases with articles on every aspect of the platform to help guide and teach you how to best use the platform.
They also both offer the following training and support:
- Email and live chat support
- A community of other Podia and Teachable users to chat with and learn from
- A blog with helpful articles on launching and growing a business
The access you have to the training and support features varies by plan. Teachable offers the following:
| Free Plan | Basic Plan | Pro Plan | Business Plan | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Email Support | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Live Chat | ❌ No | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Creator Community Access | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Teachable:U | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Launch Accelerator Access | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Live Group Coaching | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Priority Support | ❌ No | ❌ No | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
In contrast, Podia has the following:
| Free Plan | Mover Plan | Shaker Plan | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Email Support | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Live Chat | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Creator Community Access | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
There are some differences between the platforms.
Teachable offers live group coaching sessions and the launch accelerator challenge. The challenge aims to help you build an online course in 30 days with guidance from Teachable experts.
Podia has a marketplace of Podia Pros that you can hire to help with your Podia account.
Teachable and Podia: Pricing and Plan Comparison
Both platforms offer free and paid plans with different features and usage limits.
Consider which features are most important for your business and select the platform that suits you.
For example, on Teachable, you can only create graded quizzes and completion certificates with Pro plans (which cost $159 per month or $119 per month when paid annually).
In contrast, on Podia, these features are included with the Shaker plan (which costs $89 per month or $75 per month when paid annually).
Teachable Pricing
| Free Plan | Basic Plan | Pro Plan | Business Plan | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Price | $0 | $59/month | $159/month | $665/month |
| Annual Price | $0 | $39/month | $119/month | $499/month |
| Annual Discount | N/A | 33% | 33% | 33% |
Podia Pricing
| Free Plan | Mover Plan | Shaker Plan | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Price | $0 | $39/month | $89/month |
| Annual Price | $0 | $33/month | $75/month |
| Annual Discount | N/A | 17% | 17% |
Teachable Plans
The plan you have will determine the number of products you can create on Teachable. The business plan is the only plan that allows you to create unlimited products. The features you can access are also restricted by plan type.
| Free Plan | Basic Plan | Pro Plan | Business Plan | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Courses | 1 | 5 | 50 | Unlimited |
| Digital Products | 1 | 5 | 50 | Unlimited |
| Coaching Products | 1 | 5 | 50 | Unlimited |
| Students | 10 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Admin Users | 1 | 1 | 5 | 20 |
| Drip Courses | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Graded Quizzes and Certificates of Completion | ❌ No | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Coupons and Order Bumps | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Upsells | ❌ No | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Unbranded Website | ❌ No | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
Podia Plans
Podia doesn’t limit the number of products or members you can have on the paid plans.
Instead, it limits the product type.
| Free Plan | Mover Plan | Shaker Plan | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online Courses | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Digital Downloads | ✅ Yes, 1 only | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Coaching Products | ✅ Yes, 1 only | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Webinars | ❌ No | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
| Course Certificates | ❌ No | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
| Communities | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Members | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Coupons and Upsells | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Broadcast Emails | 250 | 5,000 | 5,000 |
| Email Campaigns | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Emails per Campaign | 3 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Admin Users | 1 ($20 per additional team seat) | 1 ($20 per additional team seat) | 1 ($20 per additional team seat) |
So, Is Teachable or Podia Better for Me?
Teachable is our preferred platform for creating courses and sharing knowledge. It’s super easy to use, and the free plan allows you to create and sell your first course, making it a great option for beginners.
But Podia is a great alternative if your focus is creating a community. The paid plans also allow you to create courses and other digital products.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Teachable or Podia Cheaper?
Both platforms offer free plans.
Teachable plans range in price from $59 to $665 when paid monthly or $39 to $499 when paid annually.
Podia plans range in price from $39 to $89 when paid monthly or $33 to $75 when paid annually.
Should I Teach on Podia or Teachable?
For online courses and coaching, we recommend Teachable. Podia does allow you to create a community so you can engage with students and offers some additional features, including email campaigns and live chat.
