13 of the best online courses platforms for creators
Discover the most effective online platforms for creating engaging e-learning products and grow your online business.
There's an idea you have for the perfect online class. The only thing you need is a place to build the course.
On an online course platform it is possible to design your own course, include multimedia such as videos and pictures, and even include interactive elements like quizzes and certificate of completion for your course. Additionally, you can build sales pages, process payment, and monitor your students in one place.
In this guide we'll discuss what you should look for in choosing courses software. We'll go over 13 of the best online courses platforms that are ideal for creators, small business owners, and entrepreneurs.
Pricing is correct as of the date of publication but susceptible to change as time passes.
What to search for in choosing an online training platform
Before we get started this topic, we'll look at a few things to think about when choosing the right online training tool for your organization.
UnlimitedBusinesses evolve over the course of time, and that's a good aspect. Utilizing platforms that allow you to create unlimited courses ensures that you won't have to worry about outgrowing the software you use for e-learning in the future as your product's needs change.
Multiple file types: You shouldn't be limited by the type of media that you are able to incorporate in your course. Search for platforms that make it possible to add video, audio and text modules.
Support for creators:Don't go it alone. Consider online educational platforms first. easy customer support as well as sources such as live chat, discussion forums Knowledge bases, video tutorials to help you along your way.
Price:Most creators have a limited budget, so choosing an affordable platform is key. It is not necessary to shell out for the highest-priced option when you can find budget-friendly alternatives that get the job done.
In light of these points With these considerations in mind, here are 13 useful tools to help you build and market your course.
13 of the best online courses platforms for creators and entrepreneurs
#1
Building a course on is a breeze. You can add texts, videos and audio files, as well as quizzes or coaching sessions as well as file downloads to your lessons and modules.
With , you can also embed elements from 1900+ sources such as YouTube, Vimeo, SoundCloud, Spotify, Google Slides, TikTok, Instagram, GitHub as well as Google Forms.
After adding the material for your course, you can use the page builders for beginners to create a website for your course or sales webpage for the course you're offering. If you require assistance we provide top-of-the-line chat and 24/7 email support throughout every day of.
According to the professional bladesmith Ben Abbot , "I've always dreamed of creating online courses that can assist bladesmiths of all levels improve their craft. has helped make that feasible through their extremely simple and useful platform."
What are 's features?
Unlimited customers
Payment integrations with Stripe and PayPal
Coupons, payment plans, and subscriptions
pros: has a free plan where you can create your own website create a community, and draft the online course you want to offer before making a decision to open your wallet. Its paid plans come with unlimited courses as well as content hosting. The courses can be launched in advance or offered as bundles and you can format your material into a cohort, drip or self-paced course.
scores 90.91 from 100 in the Creator Friendliness Index . Creator-friendly platforms offer resources as well as pricing structure, along with policies to empower the creators- giving you more control over running your business. There are no transaction costs on the paid plans.
cons: is a turnkey solution, so if you prefer to build your site and your course by hand with the assistance from a professional developer, this isn't the right choice for you.
How much does cost?
Free (8% transaction fee)
Mover: $39/month
Shaker: $89/month
Earthquaker: $199/month
#2 Kajabi
Kajabi includes designs for self-study, drip, and membership courses. You are able to create as many modules and lessons as you like with videos and assessments, audio files texts, as well as downloadable material. If you get stuck, you can reach Kajabi help via live chat, or by email.
What are Kajabi's features?
Unlimited hosting for content and websites
Subscriptions, coupons, and upsells as well as payment plans
Recovery of abandoned carts
Analytics and course insights
Campaigns, email broadcasts, pipelines, automations, and sequences
Payment gateways: Stripe and PayPal
Creator friendliness score: 68.83/100
Kajabi advantages: Kajabi has a pipeline program that lets the creation of advanced sales funnels. There are also website templates you can use to jumpstart your creativity. Kajabi doesn't charge any transaction charges on any of their paid plans.
Kajabi cons: Kajabi is one of the most expensive online courses platforms that allow creators to create, and there's no plan that is free. Additionally, there are strict limitations on the number of products you can make and how many active users you are able to enroll in all plans.
Kajabi's products and limits for customers:
Basic: 3 products, 3 funnels, 1,000 active members
Growth: 15 products, 15 funnels, 10,000 active members
Pro: 100 products, 100 funnels, 20,000 active members
How much does Kajabi cost?
Basic: $149/month
Growth: $199/month
Pro: $399/month
#3 Thinkific
Within the course builder, Thinkific creators are able to add documents, quizzes, survey powerpoints with voiceovers. The higher-end plans allow you to add the creation of prerequisite courses and make it mandatory for students to complete modules in the correct sequence.
Thinkific also has a no-cost plan that lets you make three courses as well as set up your website. It doesn't charge charges for transactions All plans permit unlimited students. Should you need help, Thinkific offers phone and email assistance.
What features are available at Thinkific?
Sell courses, bundles, and subscriptions
Unlimited video and content hosting with all plans
Students are able to leave their course critiques
Exam Integrations into higher-level plans
Tools for ensuring compliance with the course
Creator friendliness score: 87.01/100
Thinkific advantages:With Thinkific, you can offer unlimited courses as well as create unlimited content for every paid plan. It is possible to connect the tools available on the Thinkific app store to gain additional features if you require extra options.
Thinkific negatives:Thinkific is a popular online learning option, however it's difficult to offer other digital items like downloads, ebooks, as well as coaching sessions. Also, some popular features, such as memberships, basic communities and product bundles payments plans, and subscriptions can only be found with the Pro plan and above.
How much does Thinkific cost?
Free (No charges for transactions)
Basic: $49/month
Pro: $99/month
Pro+Growth add-on: $149/month
Premier: $499/month
#4 Teachable
Teachable's no-cost plan comes with the course with unlimited students. Paid plans come with unlimitless self-paced courses and cohort courses, as well as training products and video bandwidth. There are course design templates to help you get started with your course, as well as adding quizzes, videos, audio, text, and customized CSS to your course modules.
Support for Teachable is accessible via email for all plans. Chat support via live chat is provided with the professional plan and the above plans.
What are Teachable's features?
Unlimited training and coaching are included on paid plans
Course completion certificates, quizzes as well as lecture notes
Trials and subscriptions for free as well as memberships and payments plans
Create a storefront that is custom-designed and sales pages for your course
Affiliate center with automatic payouts
Email marketing basics
Score for creator friendliness: 77.92/100
Teachable pros:Teachable offers course compliance features like the enforcement of lesson orders to ensure students move through your content in a proper manner. There are also integrated programs for affiliates and a recommendation option.
Teachable's cons: Teachable doesn't come with a built-in community feature. If you're interested in a community for your students, you'll have to connect third-party software for the cost of an extra fee. Teachable is also a provider of high transaction costs on their free and Basic plans.
How much does Teachable cost?
The free plan is ($1 plus 10% transaction cost on products purchased)
Basis: $39/month (5 percent transaction fee)
Pro: $199/month
Business: $299/month
#5 LearnWorlds
Creators can incorporate videos, transcripts of the video with overlay buttons as well as hyperlinks. Students can highlight or take notes inside the course viewer, and instructors can include assessment, random tests as well as certificates of completion for courses. LearnWorlds customer support is available via contact via email, telephone and ticketing systems, and live chat.
What is it? LearnWorlds' features?
Offer memberships, courses products, subscriptions, or courses bundles
Create your own site
Integrated video editing tools and transcriptions
Affiliate marketing
Mobile application (for an additional charge)
Unlimited SCORMs/HTML5
Score for creator friendliness: 76.62/100
LearnWorlds advantages: LearnWorlds users can manage affiliates, manage memberships, and run promotions on their classes. Additionally, you can create a white-label iOS or Android application for the cost of an additional charge.
LearnWorlds Cons: LearnWorlds is heavily focused on course creators, therefore it might not be the right choice for you when you are offering digital downloads, webinars, training, or community.
With the LearnWorlds Starter plan, you can only offer paid courses (no free courses) in addition, LearnWorlds charge a fee of $5 for each course sold. It is possible to create a basic website, but you're restricted to three pages. It's best to sign up for the $99 per month Pro Trainer plan to get additional capabilities.
How much does LearnWorlds cost?
Starter: $29/month (+$5 fee per course sale)
Pro Trainer: $99/month
Learning Center Learning Center: $299/month
Corporate: Custom pricing
#6 LearnDash
Through LearnDash You can design courses that have prerequisites, drip content, subscriptions, and memberships. You can also send automated notification to students, allow course discussion forums, and award certificate to the most successful students.
They can also be subscription-based memberships, or single-time purchase. If you need to get contact, you are able to get in touch with LearnDash Customer Support from Monday to Friday.
What are LearnDash's features?
WordPress LMS plugin
Enroll unlimited students and sell unlimited classes
It works with the majority of WordPress themes
Single-time purchases, subscriptions and courses, memberships as well as bulk licenses
Student incentives, quizzes, certifications, and evaluations
Notify students
LearnDash pros:LearnDash offers student engagement tools like quizzes, leaderboards as well as gamification and assignments. LearnDash isn't charged any charges for transactions, and you can integrate the plugin into most WordPress themes, making it highly adaptable.
How much does LearnDash cost?
Basic: $199/year
Plus package: $229/year
Pro package: $369/year
Costs for hosting your WordPress website and domain registration
#7 Uscreen
Uscreen is a video-based membership program with course creation features and community tools. It's best for creators with a vast library of content in video they would like to keep in one spot.
All Uscreen customers get high-quality video player, website and unlimited bandwidth for streaming. To create classes, you can label your video content by subject and then arrange them into catalogs. You can offer one-time purchases, tiered subscriptions, free trials, and rentals across any plan.
Uscreen users have access to assistance via email.
What is Uscreen's feature?
Create a site that is a member-based platform to host your videos
Design your own website and app
Livestream events
Uscreen pros: Uscreen is on the costly side, and there's no free plan. It's only a good fit for courses that use video, therefore should you provide other offerings like downloads, live coaching or online communities, you'll need to go with a different program.
How much will Uscreen cost?
Basic: $79/month + $0.50 per subscriber
The growth rate is $159 per month plus $0.50 per subscriber
Uscreen Plus Pricing is custom (This plan includes the white-label mobile application and the TV streaming application)
#8 Mighty Networks
Apart from the courses, Mighty Networks has advanced community features like live streams, personalized feeds, profile pages for members, direct messaging, virtual events, and calendar capabilities. Mighty Networks customers can access support through a ticketing system or the "Host Support" button.
What is Mighty Network's feature?
Make unlimited courses with the Business plan and all the way up
Communities are able to have an unlimited number of members as well as moderators.
Group and private chat messaging
The community of creator support
Member referral program
Score for creator friendliness: 59.74/100
Mighty Networks pros:With Mighty Networks, you can develop courses that include the inclusion of a community component. Mighty Networks supports video courses, drip courses, and livestreaming. You can also add unlimited instructors or moderators.
Mighty Networks cons: Mighty Networks is, first the most important thing, it's a social platform. It doesn't have a built-in method to offer services, such as the coaching program or downloading digital files. There are storage limitations on both the Community and Business plans and the transaction fee is applicable to all levels.
Also, you can only export a list of your members' email addresses using the Business plan, making it difficult to transfer members from Mighty Networks to a new platform.
How much will Mighty Networks cost?
Community plan: $39/month (3 3%) transaction cost)
Business plan 119 USD per month (2 per cent transaction cost)
Mighty Pro: Custom pricing
#9 Academy of Mine
An all-in-one solution for online learning, Academy of Mine is a platform that lets you create, sell the online training course on an own white-label system. This is a great option if you work in B2B and want to sell bulk licenses to one customer.
According to their website, Academy of Mine is often used for:
Education for the future
Safety training
Employee development
Professional training and certifications
Training for compliance
Onboarding of employees
Support to Academy of Mine users is available through email and the ticketing system.
What are the Academy of Mine features?
Offer self-paced classes with tests, surveys, and assessments
Design sales and marketing pages
Customized branding and site builder
Bulk import and export features
Flexible ecommerce reporting and analytics
Third-party integrations
Academy of Mine pros:Academy of Mine works excellent for the development of group or corporate courses for training. It is possible to create self-paced or live courses and build your site.
Academy of Mine cons: Academy of Mine is a costly option that was designed for big businesses but not individuals who want to create. There are also limits in storage capacity and the number of daily active users.
What is the cost of Academy of Mine cost?
Essentials: $599/month
Professional: $899/month
Enterprise: Custom pricing
#10 Teachery
Teachery is simple but effective software made for course creators, by course creators. It doesn't have a ton of whistles or bells however, it's an easy choice for those who only wish to launch an online business for your course.
Teachery features a course builder with two template templates. Within your lessons and modules include video, audio, and slide presentations. You can create unlimited payments, sales and emails capture pages for promoting your courses. You can reach the Teachery Support team by email.
What are the features of Teachery?
Unlimited classes, lessons and students
Offer memberships, bundles and bundles
Integrations that work with Mailchimp, ConvertKit, and Zapier
Affiliate program
Recurring, non-recurring, and free payment
Teachery's prosTeachery is a white-label course platform which you can modify to suit your branding and style. There are two simple payments plans that cover every feature of the platform.
Teachery cons:Teachery is not optimized for selling digital downloads or products. There's no community feature that they offer, nor do they provide audio or video hosting which means you'll need to insert videos from third-party providers like YouTube and Vimeo.
How much will Teachery cost?
Monthly plan Monthly plan: $49/month
Annual plan $470/year
#11 Ruzuku
Ruzuku is a learning management system which allows you to create an online course that is engaging and interactive, with student forums and questions and answers areas. Through Ruzuku you are able to offer live, always-on, or self-directed online courses that include a user-friendly student monitor.
What are the Ruzuku's capabilities?
Participants may have profiles on social networks with bios, photos, and bios in the course community
Replicate a prior course and take it again
Announcements via email to students of courses
One-time or subscription payments
Course completion data
Forum FAQ and student discussions
Ruzuku pros: Ruzuku gets good reviews from customers for their support They also have extensive training courses, tutorials, assistance documents, as well as the Facebook group. It is possible to use Ruzuku to create unlimited courses as well as all plans come with video and audio hosting.
Ruzuku negatives: Ruzuku is not ideal if you offer digital downloads, community services, or even coaching and consulting. Although sending out email notifications is possible, there are any advanced marketing tools for emails. It also does not have a fully-featured website builder.
How much does Ruzuku cost?
Bootstrapper: $99/month
Up and Comer 149/month
University: $199/month
#12 Udemy
Features:
Course builder that is user-friendly and easy to use.
Learners can leave course reviews
Marketing tools built-in
Instructors can be included in the site-wide offers to increase enrollment
Creator-friendliness Score: 52.78/100
Udemy advantages: Udemy promotes your courses on its platform, making your marketing much more efficient. Udemy is also a well-established platform with brand recognition and a large existing audience, making it easier to get students to find your business organically.
Udemy cons:On Udemy, you are less in control of your branding, content and earnings. You don't own your audience and can't transfer your students' lists off Udemy in the near future. You can't also offer live courses, or membership classes.
How much does Udemy cost?
You can join for free Udemy as a creator, however, you'll be a included in Udemy's revenue sharing plan.
Revenue sharing plan:
The instructor is paid 97% when the student utilizes their instructor's referral code
The instructor is paid 37% if there is no referral code used
#13 Skillshare
Students pay a monthly charge to have unlimited access to all courses available on the platform. teachers earn money based on how long students view their video. Teachers earn their money through referring students to Skillshare. Creators are able to access help via email.
What are the features of Skillshare?
Earn money through royalties or through the Skillshare affiliate program
Creators may be found through students who are already on the platform
Upload one class every 7 days
Make video lessons
Creator-friendliness Score: 44.78/100
Skillshare benefits:Because Skillshare is an online learning library it requires less effort to market for you to do. Skillshare already has a built-in public, which could result in more people taking a look at your classes. The service is also free to developers to start.
Skillshare Cons: When students watch your lessons through Skillshare, you don't own the audience you are aiming at. You can't build an email list for students you teach, and neither can you contact them again at a later time.
Each lesson must adhere to the guidelines of Skillshare, meaning there is less control in your course. There's no community option that you are able to offer digital downloads as well as live-cohort courses and memberships. You can also sell any other format other than video lectures.
What is the cost of HTML0? Skillshare Cost?
Free for creators
Selecting the most suitable online course platform for your creative business
Online courses are the ideal way to increase the scope of your company as well as spread information. If you are looking for the most effective online education platform, you should be sure to ask yourself these questions:
Are the platforms all-in-one, so I can handle my company in one place?
Does the platform limit the amount of products I can create?
Are there easy ways to reach assistance if I require help?
Can my course include audio, video, text or other forms of content?
Are the costs reasonable for the stage I am in for my company?
Your skills and experiences are highly valuable. By creating the online class, you'll be well on your way to sharing your love of teaching with other students. Happy teaching!