Podia is an all-in-one platform allowing you to create membership sites and sell online courses or digital products.
However, you may be looking for an alternative to Podia with different features or pricing.
Our team spent a considerable amount of time researching and examining both Podia and the possible alternatives to potentially save you both time and money.
This article includes a list of the best possible options, as selected by our experts.
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Kajabi is an all-in-one content management platform for your online business. You can build online courses, websites, membership sites, and landing pages. It also has powerful marketing and analytics tools within the system for you to use. Course creators can assign work, as well as test and grade students.
Key Features
- Product Generator: Easy to use to quickly create courses, subscriptions, gated-content, and membership sites.
- Pipelines (sales funnels): Robust, fully designed, ready-to-use, customizable, and automated.
- Customizable landing page builder with templates.
- Customizable visual email builder with many templates and marketing tools.
- Wide range of compelling marketing tools.
Costs
Kajabi offers three pricing plans:
- The Basic plan is $149 per month – $119 per month if paid annually.
- The Growth plan is $199 per month – $159 per month if paid annually.
- The Pro plan is $399 per month – $319 per month if paid annually.
Pros
Templates
Kajabi offers many high-quality, customizable templates for your website, landing pages, and emails. Many of the pipeline templates also include a video and an opt-in button.
Email Marketing
Kajabi includes all email marketing and built-in automations.
Integrations
Kajabi comes with many built-in integrations, including Zapier, Hotjar, Segment, and many more.
CRM
Kajabi offers a customer relationship management tool that triggers emails, coupons, and product access automatically.
Community Group
This feature allows members to interact with one another. You can set the topics and add the community to any of your offers.
Cons
Cost
The monthly payments are high for small businesses or new starters, but Kajabi includes all the tools you need for one price.
Steep Learning Curve
There’s a lot to learn about using the platform. However, Kajabi has a great support system with many tutorials and guides to help its users.
Thinkific is an all-in-one system for creating, marketing, and selling online courses, including video courses. Focussing mainly on education, Thinkific is very student-centered and user-friendly. It provides quizzes, tests, downloadable files, and assignments. With the top tier payment plans, users can create bundles of courses to sell as one product.
Key Features
- Customizable courses: You can change fonts, logos, and colors for each course you create.
- Quiz feature: You can create multiple-choice questions, include multiple correct answers to a single question, and add images, videos, and audio files.
- Templates: Thinkific provides a large range of pre-configured templates that you can modify, making it easy to organize courses.
Costs
Thinkific offers three paid plans:
- Basic is $49 per month – $39 per month if paid annually.
- Pro is $99 per month – $79 per month if paid annually.
- Premier is $499 per month – $399 per month if paid annually.
Thinkific also offers a Free Plan, which is ideal for test-driving its system.
Customers on the Pro plan can access the Growth add-on with more features. This add-on is free if you have up to 100 active students, then it costs $0.10 per additional student up to a maximum of $499 per month.
Thinkific Plus LMS is another option for larger business needs.
Pros
Free Plan
The Free plan has all of Thinkific’s core features, including video and content hosting for up to three courses, quizzes, surveys, and unlimited students. It also has plenty of sales and marketing tools.
Great Student Experience
Thinkific’s course player enables you to customize all courses generally or each course individually. Customized completion pages and completion certificates are also available with the Pro and Premier plans. Within one lesson, you can combine video, images, and audio files. You can also add quizzes and online discussions.
Integrations
Thinkific offers many third-party integrations.
Resume Learning
Students can continue learning where they left off on any device.
Cons
Community Forum
You can’t create community forums with the Free or Basic plans.
Certificates
You can’t issue course certificates with the Free or Basic plans.
Thinkific Does Not Provide Refunds
If you’re not satisfied with your purchase, you can’t cancel your paid plan and request a refund.
3. Simplero
Simplero is a complete system to create websites and membership sites, host online courses, and sell digital products. It includes many marketing tools, and you can manage payments with checkout flows and an account center. It supports Stripe and PayPal – with a few limitations. Further, by integrating with Spreedly, Simplero can support many more payment gateways.
Key Features
- Forum: A place for members to chat, and you can set notifications for the content they want to see.
- Zapier Integration: This functionality allows users to connect with many other software tools and automate all the tedious tasks.
- Sales Funnels: You can use Simplero’s automation to gain more leads and make more sales.
Costs
Simplero bills every 30 days, and there are three pricing plans:
- ‘Build’ costs $29 per 30 days – $24 per 30 days if billed annually.
- ‘Launch’ costs $99 per 30 days – $83 per 30 days if billed annually.
- ‘Rule the World’ costs $149 per 30 days – $124 per 30 days if billed annually.
Pros
Help Desk
Users can set up and run their site’s customer service ticketing system within Simplero.
Zapier Integration
This integration allows users to connect with almost every app on the market.
You Can Build Membership Sites
A membership site includes a blog, a discussion forum, and a members’ directory. You can also build courses, and your customers can access video, audio, and downloads.
Affiliate Program
All plans include the opportunity to create and manage an affiliate program. You can trigger automations when an affiliate applies, is approved, or rejected.
Cons
Extra Costs for Contacts
All pricing plans include 1,000 contacts. As you increase your contacts, you’ll have to pay more each month.
You Cannot Launch Products and Membership Sites With ‘Build’
While on the Build plan, you can prepare and draft your sites. When you are ready to launch, you’ll have to upgrade to the next subscription tier.
4. Ontraport
Ontraport is a CRM system and marketing automation platform to help run your business. It also offers users the ability to create membership sites, host WordPress, and set up an e-commerce store. And you can create and sell training or educational courses when you build a membership site or integrate with a learning management system.
Key Features
- Easy to Manage Payments: One-page order forms make checkout simple for your customers. And payment plans, one-time payments, and subscriptions are easy for you.
- A/B Testing: With any pricing plan, users can test campaigns to see how their customers respond.
- Templates: Ontraport offers templates with conversion-focused features for emails, landing pages, forms, and membership sites.
Costs
Here’s a list of Ontraport’s payment plans:
- Basic is $79 per month – $790 per year.
- Plus is $147 per month – $1,470 per year.
- Pro is $297 per month – $2,970 per year.
- Enterprise is $497 per month – $4,970 per year.
Ontraport also offers custom pricing for accounts with up to five million contacts.
Pros
Create Multiple Membership Sites
You can build multiple membership sites, and, provided that you already have a WordPress site, you can easily connect it to Ontraport. With the drag and drop editor, you can customize the pages, drip-feed content, and show different content to different members.
Support
Along with clearly written how-to guides, including a tutorial video, Ontraport offers its customers live chat and ticket support. If you’re stuck, you can also share your screen so the team can help you out.
Marketing Tools
Ontraport offers all the marketing tools with the Basic plan. However, there are limitations on the If/Then rule-based automation tool on this pricing tier.
Cons
Tracking and Attribution
These advanced features may be complicated for beginners when they first start.
Steep Learning Curve
With all the tools available, there’s a lot to learn.
5. Kartra
Kartra is an all-in-one online marketing software package. It has all the features to sell and market your product, including web hosting, email marketing, list building, and a shopping cart system. You can build membership sites, landing pages, and funnels. Its optimized checkout pages accept credit cards and PayPal.
Key Features
- Videos: Optimized for mobile use, you can configure and customize videos. While your leads are watching a video, you can pop in offers and tag them.
- Help Desk: Kartra’s help desk supports ticketing and real-time web chat between you and your customers.
- Sales Funnels: You get pre-built, designed, and already written templates you can customize and activate.
Cost
Kartra offers four payment plans:
- The Starter plan is $99 per month – $79 per month if billed annually.
- The Silver plan is $199 per month – $149 per month if billed annually.
- The Gold plan is $299 per month – $229 per month if billed annually.
- The Platinum plan is $499 per month – $379 per month if billed annually.
Pros
Marketing Campaigns
Kartra offers many pre-designed marketing campaigns built by top online marketers who have already proven their worth in generating revenue. Of course, you can also create campaigns.
30-day Money-Back Guarantee
You can receive a full refund if you request it within 30 days after your purchase.
Great Opt-in Forms
You can choose from dozens of high-converting form templates that are auto-filled from your leads’ previous visits. And you can tag and trigger specific actions based on the information given.
Advanced Email Feature
Kartra offers many designed email templates that you can customize. You can turn on automations based on the recipient’s actions, i.e., send a follow-up or unsubscribe them.
Cons
Bandwidth
You’re limited in the amount of bandwidth allowed with the Starter plan. (This includes uploading, downloading, hosting, and streaming images, files, and videos.)
Expensive
It’s expensive for small businesses or those just starting up. The pricing suits intermediate to advanced businesses.
ClickFunnels is an all-in-one marketing platform mainly used for building sales funnels. You can also create landing pages, sales, memberships, and automated evergreen webinar funnels. A sales-driven platform, it specifically helps small businesses with their sales and marketing aspects, offering great tutorials on how to get the best out of funnels.
Key Features
- Customization: With ClickFunnels’ built-in advanced tools, every page and element is customizable.
- Sales Funnels: ClickFunnels provides proven high-converting templates.
- Automatic Tracking and Reporting: Your dashboard shows a visual chart of all your funnels’ progress. You can see which funnels work best, see where your leads come from, and view your sales figures.
Costs
ClickFunnels has two monthly pricing plans. Once you have subscribed for a plan and your account is active, you can then upgrade to an annual subscription through your Account Billing tab, saving two months or up to $594.
- The ClickFunnels Basic plan is $97 per month.
- The ClickFunnels Platinum plan is $297 per month.
Pros
Wide Variety of Sales Funnels
You can create different types of funnels with pre-designed tested templates to which you can add videos.
A/B Split Tests
You can test two variants of your pages to test conversions by making slight changes to one page.
Membership Areas
You can create a membership page to host your course or subscription content, including a drip-feed feature. You won’t need a third-party learning management system integration.
Email Marketing
You can integrate with Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) services to send emails. The Basic plan allows for one, and the Platinum provides for three.
Cons
No Built-in Payment Gateway
You’ll need to use supported payment gateways through third-party apps or use a direct API connection to process orders.
Pricing
There’s a massive difference in the cost of the different pricing plans. If you want to upgrade to the Platinum plan, it’s a big jump.
7. Udemy
Udemy is a worldwide online marketplace where you can showcase and sell your courses. It can handle all of your course marketing if you don’t want to. Signing up for Udemy is free. However, it takes a percentage of your earnings and pays you every month.
Key Features
- Course Management Dashboard: You can view your courses, landing pages, target students, manage communications, and more.
- Mobile App: Instructors can receive updates on their course, answer student queries, respond to course reviews, and access revenue reports and enrollment figures.
- Q&A: With this feature, students can see answers already posted to questions and ask new questions.
Costs
- Udemy is free to set up.
However, when a student buys a course directly through Udemy, there are some costs. Udemy will subtract transaction taxes, mobile platform fees applied to checkout sales, a 3-4% country-dependent admin and handling fee for non-mobile checkout sales, and any amounts paid to third parties regarding Promotional Programs. From this net total, creators receive 50%.
If you promote your course through a course referral link or coupon code, your revenue share is 97%.
Pros
Free Courses for Instructors
Udemy offers free courses teaching you how to build your course.
Marketing
Udemy handles all the marketing of your course. It creates worldwide seasonal campaigns, it advertises on sites like Facebook and YouTube, and current students receive course recommendations. It also advises course creators on how to market their courses directly.
Easy to Use
Users simply upload their content to a template. Content can include videos, text, audio, PowerPoint presentations, and PDFs.
Instructor Community
Udemy offers the chance to join a global instructor community with thousands of other instructors for help and ideas.
Cons
No Custom Domain
Udemy.com is where students find your courses along with many other similar courses.
No Control on Pricing
You have to set the cost of your courses according to the Udemy pricing matrix.
You Don’t Own Your Data
Udemy owns your students’ data, using it to market other courses.
8. MemberPress
MemberPress is a plug-in used with WordPress making it easy to build a membership site. Besides online courses, membership sites suit all types of services like fitness, cooking, hobbies, and podcasts. MemberPress offers plenty of features to simplify the creation and management of unlimited membership sites.
Key Features
- Locking: Many locking options are available, including all content either categorized or tagged, a single post, a single page, or all pages.
- Content Access Dripping: MemberPress has a list of options to trigger content dripping.
- Reports: MemberPress provides easy-to-read charts. You can filter transactions monthly, yearly, or through all time.
Costs
MemberPress is currently offering savings of up to $200 on its pricing plans, which are payable annually. All three plans provide a yearly license.
- The Basic plan is $149 per year.
- The Plus plan is $249 per year.
- The Pro plan is $349 per year.
Pros
Email Reminders
You can easily automate email reminders with MemberPress to avoid losing members. You can automate many actions, such as a failed attempt to sign up or renew.
Easy to Build and Sell Courses
With MemberPress Courses, users can create online courses. The MemberPress Classroom Mode feature enables you to customize pages with the WordPress customizer easily.
Lots of Add-on Integrations
Add-on integrations, including Mailchimp, and MemberPress Importer – which imports your data from other systems, are available with all paid plans.
Community Forum
You can use a WordPress-based forum like bbPress plug-in as it integrates easily with MemberPress.
Cons
Affiliates
The Affiliate Royale program is included free only with the highest-paid plan. However, this plug-in works with every edition of MemberPress and easily integrates if you purchase it.
Add-on Integrations
Zapier, ActiveCampaign, and other add-on integrations aren’t available with the Basic plan.
9. LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds is a platform for you to create and sell your online courses. It offers many features that boost student engagement and make a great learning experience. Also, it provides powerful built-in marketing and analytics tools.
Key Features
- Interactive Video Player: You can overlay images, links, and other objects throughout your video.
- Test Engine: You can create a variety of quizzes, tests, assignments, and certificates. You can also import questions via your question bank and offer students a downloadable file upon completing an exam.
- Social Network: LearnWorlds has a built-in social network for students.
Costs
LearnWorlds has three monthly payment plans:
- The Starter plan is $29 per month – $24 per month if billed annually.
- The Pro Trainer plan is $99 per month – $79 per month if billed annually.
- The Learning Centre plan is $299 per month – $249 per month if billed annually.
It also offers a high volume and corporate plan for which you need to contact them directly.
Pros
Advanced Site Builder
Designing and branding your course is simple with LearnWorld’s site builder. You can choose from hundreds of hero templates with high-converting sections and offer page templates, all fully customizable. You can add animations, social account buttons, timers, icons, galleries, and more.
Integrations
LearnWorlds offers many different tools for marketing, analytics, and customer service. As examples, you can connect Mailchimp, Freshdesk, and Zendesk.
Private Courses
You can launch unlisted courses with access only to members you have manually enrolled.
Tracking and Analytics
Built-in tracking and analytics tools provide insights to understanding your students so you can improve your courses.
Cons
Payment Methods
LearnWorlds supports five different payment gateways. However, if you sell your courses on a subscription basis, you can only use Stripe.
Transaction Fees
If you choose the Starter plan, LearnWorlds will charge you $5 for each course you sell.
10. Teachable
Teachable is a learning management solution for teachers to create and sell courses. You can also set up and sell recurring memberships. Teachable is superb for coaches, too. With this platform, you use specific coaching pages and manage one-on-one coaching by scheduling video calls and sharing assignments.
Key Features
- Interactive Videos: Integration with Vizia allows users to add quizzes, polls, calls-to-action, and responses to videos captivating your students.
- Drip Content: This important feature, releasing content on specific dates, is available with all Teachable plans.
- Email Notifications: Email announcements are set up directly within Teachable.
Costs
Teachable offers three payment plans to its users:
- Basic is $39 per month – $29 per month if billed annually.
- Pro is $119 per month – $99 per month if billed annually.
- Business is $299 per month – $249 per month if billed annually.
Pros
Flexible Page Editor
Teachable offers an easy-to-use editor to create site pages, landing pages, and thank-you pages. It’s flexible enough to enable more advanced designs and includes customizable templates.
No Limits
All Teachable plans allow for unlimited students, courses, video bandwidth, and hosting.
Teachable Payments
Schools operating in the US, Canada, UK, and Germany can receive payments quickly and set payout schedules.
Integrations
Teachable integrates with third-party apps, including Zapier, which allows you to integrate with thousands of apps. Zapier is available with the Basic plan but only for triggers and not actions. It also allows for integrations with form builders like Google Forms.
Cons
Transaction Fees
Teachable charges a 5% transaction fee if you choose the Basic payment plan.
Summary
With our selected alternatives to Podia, you should now identify the best solution for your courses.
Most offer the chance to create courses directly, and with some, you’ll have to set up courses through membership sites.
Kajabi stands out on our list as being the most expensive platform, but potentially also the most fully-featured. The prices may exclude smaller businesses, but it supports many of the features you need.
Thinkific and Teachable are strong contenders, too, offering everything you need at more affordable costs.
Commission-based Udemy is free and easy to use but lacks many features. And you’ll have no control over your listing or branding. But it may be a good platform with which to start.
Either way, you have plenty of Podia alternatives to choose from. Take your time to evaluate your options, and remember that you are always the best person to decide what is right for your business.
Frequently Asked Questions:
- How to Access Podia Customer Support?
- How Many Podia Integrations Can You Connect?
- Is There a Podia Demo?
- Where Can I Find a Detailed Podia Review?
- Are There Any Podia Black Friday Deals?
- Is There a Podia Lifetime Deal?
- How Much Does Podia Cost?
- What Features Does Podia Have?
- Where Can I Find Podia Website Examples?
