Choosing to sell online courses is a great way to build a business around your skills and knowledge. No matter what your area of expertise is, with the right topic, you'll find an audience willing to learn from you. In this post, we're covering our three favorite online course platforms.
Creating and selling online courses takes more than just having the knowledge to share - You'll need a platform to host your content and run your sales.
There's SO much that goes into building a successful course: a catchy title, graphics, a website, domain names, video hosting, email provider, payment processors, webinar tools, etc.
We've compiled our top three online course platforms that will help you create your online course without needing to be an expert in every area of marketing!
The best all-in-one course platform ($119/mo)
Kajabi is an all-in-one solution for course creators, and they call themselves the #1 Knowledge Commerce platform for digital entrepreneurs who want to teach others online.
It is our favorite platform because you don't need a bunch of different tools to make your course launch happen.
You can build a high-converting website, manage your course and membership, and run your entire email list.
While it's the most expensive of all the options on this list (starting at $119/mo), they've processed over $500MM in digital product sales and have made it their "thing" to help creators make their first $1000 during their 28 day trial. The value of the platform really shows when you add up the cost of running your website, course software, and an email platform.
Their basic plan gives you one website, three products, three marketing pipelines, 10,000 contacts, 1000 active course members, and they charge no additional transaction fees.
If you have an established audience and want a professional solution, Kajabi is the way to go!
Start with Kajabi's Free 28-Day Challenge
Best overall tool for course creators (Free or $39/mo)
Thinkific is on a mission to power your education empire. They make it really simple for any creator to build up a course and market it with powerful features and support.
What really stands out for us is the number of integrations they have for tools like ConverKit, Zapier, advertising tools, and course certificates.
Thinkific offers quality templates for your course site and landing pages and creates a user-friendly experience for your students AND you.
They also just launched a Live video feature within your course, where you can host a zoom meeting inside your course content as a regular Zoom meeting or as a Webinar. This is such a great fit for course creators who are teaching their courses through group sessions.
For most course builders, Thinkific is going to be the best option to get your content online and to start making money.
Get started with a free trial of Thinkific!
Best self-hosted WordPress course platform ($159/year)
LearnDash is a WordPress plugin that turns your site into a full fledged Learning Management System. This tool is great if you know your way around a WordPress installation and want to sell online courses directly inside your existing site theme.
This tool has extensive grading, homework, and quiz tools. It also has a "focus mode" that gives your students a focused and distraction free learning environment.
If you're looking for the most customizability and control over your course platform, LearnDash is built specifically for you!
Take the time to evaluate what features you really need to sell online courses. The online course platform you choose should support you throughout the entire course creation process and make it simple to just create!
Now, don't forget that it's up to you to create quality content and to put in the leg work to make it all happen. Join our email list at the bottom of the page to get more tips like this in your inbox!
I'd love to hear your comments and questions about these platforms, drop your thoughts in the comment section below!
