An online course platform is a website, app, or extension that hosts your online course. It has a ton of built-in features designed to create a professional experience for your students.
The online course industry is booming. In fact, it is expected to climb to over $300 billion by the year 2025. With no signs of its popularity letting up anytime soon, it’s clear that right now is a great time to educate your audience through an online teaching method.
Our list of the best online course platforms takes a closer look at the top options on the market to see which one can help you sell more courses.
6 Best Online Course Platforms for 2021
We found the best online course platforms to take your business to the next level, including:
- Teachable
- Thinkific
- Learnworlds
- Podia
- Learndash
- Kajabi
Our list is based on the features, pricing, and overall ease of use when maneuvering through each platform.
1. Teachable
Teachable is a great choice to accommodate your online course, membership site, or coaching business. They have hosted over 100,000 course creators who have sold over $1 billion in courses and coaching.
Their all-in-one platform has everything you need to host and manage a flourishing course business. They have helped bring to market many successful course creators and courses. Teachable’s top creator of 2020 sold over $10 million in courses!
Key Features of Teachable
Teachable offers many useful features to help course creators succeed, including:
- Unlimited students, regardless of the plan you’re on
- Course hosting
- Quizzes
- Features to facilitate your coaching business
- Instant payouts
- Drip course content
- Coupon codes
- Third-party integrations
- Control of the course structure and content
Teachable Pricing
Teachable offers three pricing tiers. The prices listed are the monthly prices, but you can opt for an annual subscription. If you choose the annual billing option, you’ll get a discount.
Basic ($29/month)
- 5% transaction fees
- Two admin-level users
- Course creator training
- Access to create courses
- Coaching products
- Member-only communities (membership sites)
- Community integration
Pro ($99/month)
- Everything in basic
- No transaction fees
- Five admin-level users
- Graded quizzes
- Advanced reports
- Priority product support
- No Teachable branding
- Course completion certificates
- Course compliance
- Integrated affiliate marketing
Business ($249/month)
- Everything in Pro
- 20 admin-level users
- Manual student imports
- Custom user roles
- Advanced theme customization
- Group coaching calls
All the plans include unlimited video, unlimited courses, unlimited hosting, integrated payment processing, student management, lecture comments, basic quizzes, no fees on free courses, and VAT for EU.
Teachable is a beginner-friendly course platform with affordable pricing and an easy setup process. They are one of our favorites in this roundup.
Here is our full Teachable review.
2. Thinkific
Thinkific combines all the aspects you’re looking for into one platform at an affordable price. Whether you’re teaching an online course or hosting a membership site, Thinkific can accommodate your needs.
They have over 50,000 course creators with over 100 million courses taken in 165 countries around the world.
You can build, design, market, and sell your course, all under one roof.
Key Features of Thinkific
These are a few of Thinkific’s best features:
- Drag-and-drop editor
- Multimedia course content like quizzes, video, etc.
- Multiple instructors
- Private and hidden courses
- Membership sites
- Full HTML and CSS access
Building Your Course
You can build your course with Thinkific using tools like their drag-and-drop editor, which makes course creation a breeze. You’ll also have access to use multimedia throughout your course. This includes videos, quizzes, surveys, Typeform, Google Docs, and more.
Free video hosting comes with every plan, and Thinkific can accommodate multiple instructors. It also offers features like private and hidden courses, membership sites where you can teach students on a subscription basis, and many other cool features.
Designing Your Course
When you design your course with Thinkific, you’ll have access to tools that will create a professional look and experience for students as well as prospects.
You can use your own domain name if you’d like and connect it to your Thinkific course. Plus, if you want to take it further and you have design experience or hire an expert, full HTML and CSS access are available.
Marketing and Selling Your Course
For marketing and sales, you can get your hands on tools like promotional offers and coupons, free trials, upsells, payment plans, and more.
When your course sells, you’ll get instant payment thanks to the ability to accept all credit cards with 100% secure payments. You can also charge in over 100 different currencies.
It’s even possible to incentivize students to share your course with an affiliate program, direct tracking, and custom commission rates. They can become your best advocates, sharing your course with friends, family, and peers.
Student Support
Engagement tools promote student interaction and keep them involved in the course, continuing to learn the material. Students will be able to check-in, making communication easy and streamlined.
Your students will enjoy the progress indicators, access to unlimited replays, and language controls. Completion certificates and custom completion pages are also available to reward students for their work.
Thinkific Pricing
All the plans include the following core features:
- Instant access to funds
- Drag-and-drop builder
- Ecommerce
- Multiple instructor profiles
- SSL certificates
- Student notifications
- Upsell offers
- Discussion forums
- Secure cloud hosting
- Choose site language
- Email and phone support
Thinkific offers four different plan options.
Free
- Limited access to all of Thinkific’s features and tools
- A behind-the-scenes look at the course platform so you can test drive it
- Limited courses
- Quizzes
- Surveys
- Content hosting
Basic ($79/month)
- Everything in the Free plan
- The ability to host up to five courses
- Thinkific App Store access
- Custom domain
- Coupons
- Drip content
- Completion certificates
- Assignments
- Live lessons
- Communities
Pro ($149/month)
- The ability to host up to 25 courses
- Up to two site admin accounts
- Up to five course admins
- The ability to remove Thinkific branding
- Custom code editor
- Group/cohort selling
- Private and hidden courses
- Bulk import
Premier ($399/month)
- The ability to host up to 100 courses
- Up to five site admin accounts
- Up to 15 group analysts
- Up to 50 group admins
- API access
- Onboarding package
- Monthly and annual billing plans with discounts for the annual option
If all four of these plans aren’t quite what you need, there’s also the Thinkific Plus plan which is a good fit for large companies operating at a higher volume.
Here is our full Thinkific review.
3. Learnworlds
Learnworlds helps you build and sell courses through your own Learnworlds website, which is one of the many reasons it makes our list of the best online course platforms.
You’ll get access to tons of templates that you can customize to fit your brand’s style, creating a professional online school perfect for attracting your target audience.
It’s super easy to navigate the editor, and you can add, remove, and edit what you want. This allows you to get your course up and running in minutes.
What makes Learnworlds different is that they are all about creating an interactive experience for your students. You’ll have access to tons of engagement and interaction tools like quizzes, games, interactive videos, assignments, tests, and more.
Learnworlds also lets you create ebooks right from their platform. As students are going through your ebook, they’ll be able to highlight text and take their own personal notes.
Every course will have its very own social network. Students are brought together so they can network and connect, learning as a community. It’s like blending an online course with Facebook groups.
Key Features of Learnworlds
Here are some of the top features of Learnworlds:
- Unlimited courses
- Multiple instructors
- Built-in SEO
- Custom domains
- Payment gateways
- Conversion pixel support
- Third-party integrations
Create, Market, and Sell Your Courses
The platform integrates with the tools you are already using to streamline the course creation process.
Learnworlds will also equip you with tools to increase your leads and grow your revenue. They offer a total e-commerce solution with features like coupons, promotions, memberships, subscriptions, bundles, and an affiliate program.
Access Insights to Improve Your Course
You can access in-depth intelligence to learn how your students are interacting with your courses, enabling you to determine which courses need improvement and see how quickly students are progressing.
Pricing for Learnworlds
You have monthly and annual plans available with Learnworlds, with a discount for annual billing. A free 30-day trial is available with all plans except the high volume plan.
Every plan includes basic features like unlimited courses, a video library, a branding and theme editor, coupons, and upsells.
Starter ($29/month)
- $5 fee per course sale
- One admin
- Custom domain
- Unlimited paid courses (free courses unavailable on this plan)
- Three-page site builder
- Pop-up builder (with Two pop-ups)
- Coupons
- Basic integrations (for tools like Google Analytics, Mailchimp, FOMO, and others)
- Free SSL certificate
- Drip feed courses
- 24/5 Email support
This plan is best for new course creators.
Pro ($99/month)
- Everything in Starter
- No transaction fees
- Five admins
- Unlimited courses (free and paid)
- Unlimited landing pages
- Complete website builder
- Unlimited Pop-ups
- Subscriptions and memberships
- Fully customizable course player
- Live classes and webinars
- File assignments
- Affiliate management
- Installments
- Zapier and premium integrations ( to tools like HubSpot, ReferralCandy, and others)
- Question banks
- Free LW Academy
- Drip feed courses
- 24/7 Priority Email support
The Pro plan is good for professional course creators and trainers.
Learning Center ($299/month)
- Everything in the Pro plan
- No transaction fees
- 20 admins
- Bulk user actions
- Full white-label options
- Auto transcripts and subtitles
- Zoom and Webex multiple accounts
- Webhooks integrations
- Unlimited SCORM/multimedia files
- User segments and progress reports
- Scheduled automated reports
- API integrations
- SSO (single sign-on)
- Free LW Academy
- One hour premium onboarding
- Custom ioS and Android app
- Advanced affiliate management
- Course insights report
- 24/7 Priority Email support
The Learning Center plan is Learnworlds’ most popular plan.
High volume and corporate
- Everything in Learning Center
- No Transaction Fees
- Additional Admins
- Custom Bulk Enrollments
- Branded Corporate Academy
- 99.95% Server Uptime
- Premium Cloud Servers
- Dedicated Account Manager
- Optional Sla
- Flexible Invoicing
- Custom Reports & Services
- Premium Support Options
- Tailored Pricing Options
The High Volume plan doesn’t have the price publicly shown on the site, but you can contact Learnworlds to get pricing and book a demo.
4. Podia
Podia can help you sell your courses, webinars, digital downloads, and memberships. Whether you’re selling ebooks or online courses, they can help your business.
You’ll get access to powerful marketing tools, 24/7 support, and tons of helpful resources like videos, guides, and free tools.
They’ve helped over 50,000 creators with their digital information business.
Key Features of Podia
Here’s a look at some of Podia’s top features.
- Drip courses
- Pre-sell courses
- Quizzes
- Coupons
- Upsells
- Bundles
- Broadcast emails
- Automated campaigns
- Custom website
- Affiliate program with custom commissions
Pricing for Podia
Podia has three paid plans and a free 14-day trial that can be used on any plan. There is monthly and annual billing, with discounts for the annual billing option plus free migration from another platform.
The following core features are included in all the plans:
- Unlimited everything
- Zero transaction fees
- Free migration
- Seven days per week support
- Additional teammates at $20/month upgrade (except Earthquaker plan, which includes five extra teammates)
Here are the four plans offered by Podia.
Mover Plan ($39/month)
- Sell courses, digital downloads, and webinars
- Custom website
- Unlimited email subscribers and up to 5,000 monthly email recipients
Shaker Plan ($89 per month)
- Sell courses, digital downloads, memberships, and webinars
- All the marketing features of the Mover plan plus affiliate marketing and embeds
- Unlimited email subscribers and up to 15,000 monthly email recipients
Earthquaker Plan ($199 per month)
- Everything on Shaker Plan
- Up to 50,000 monthly email recipients with your unlimited email subscribers plan
- A dedicated account manager
- Personalized onboarding call
- A monthly group creator call
- A white-labeled website
5. Learndash
Learndash is a big name in the course industry, used by big players like the University of Florida, Yoast, Keap, and others. They are the winner of Capterra’s Top 20 Training Software, and they help you start using Learndash for your education business in just four simple steps.
Unlike the other platforms on the list that are browser-based, Learndash is a WordPress plugin that can work with any theme and page builders. Learndash offers a boot camp to help you get started.
Key Features of Learndash
Learndash gives you everything you need to create a successful online course business. Here are some of their best key features:
- Drag-and-drop course builder
- Learndash focus mode (your very own branded learning portal)
- Drip feed content
- Engagement triggers
- Advanced quizzing
- Assignments
- Course points
- Leaderboard
Pricing for Learndash
There are three billing plans available, each with a 30-day money-back guarantee. They offer annual pricing.
Basic ($159/year)
- One site license
- Unlimited course and unlimited users
- Drip feed lessons
- Course forums
- Email notifications
- Free integrations
- One-year support and updates
Plus Package ($189/year)
- Up to 10 site licenses
- Access to ProPanel
- Course forums
- Certificates and badges
- Email notifications
- Free integrations
- One-year support and updates
Pro Package ($329/year)
- Up to 25 site licenses
- Access to ProPanel
- Everything else in the Plus package
ProPanel is an add-on and gives you a Learndash enhancement on your dashboard, improving your admin experience. It consolidates reporting, gives you access to quick assignment and essay management, email features, and learner data.
It looks like this:
Here’s our full Learndash review.
6. Kajabi
Kajabi is a robust course platform, perfect for experienced or seasoned course creators. This is just one of the many reasons it shows up on our list of the best online course platforms.
You’ll find everything you need for your course business all in one place.
Kajabi streamlines your entire business, integrating everything into a professional all-in-one platform. You can use your own domain or let Kajabi provide one for free with a .mykajabi.com domain extension.
What’s Included With Kajabi?
Every Kajabi plan comes with integrated subscriptions, courses, and digital products. You can turn your ideas into a fully developed product, including custom pricing, delivery, and packaging.
All your tools work together so that you can spend more of your time on your business rather than learning and managing each one of your tools.
Kajabi integrates with Stripe and PayPal so you can get paid securely, faster.
Better yet, they deliver the analytics you’re looking for so you can make informed decisions based on real-time data.
Here are some of the tools Kajabi can replace for you:
- Course hosting
- Landing page builders
- Payment carts
- Email service providers
- Facebook groups
They are a solution for it all, including email marketing, sales pages, website, marketing, and more.
Key Features of Kajabi
Kajabi offers multiple features for course creators, including:
- Products: Online courses, gated content, subscriptions, and membership sites.
- Websites: Fully integrated, powerful website builder.
- Payments: Payment gateways to help you get paid on your terms.
- Email: Access to email marketing software to send out marketing emails with ease.
- Pages: Build professional, custom sales pages with their flexible landing page builder.
- Pipeline: Automate your business with fully-developed sales funnels.
- Analytics: Access to the data, analytics, and metrics to grow your company.
- People: CRM platform to improve your relationships with customers and affiliates.
- Mobile: A ready-made app you can access anywhere, anytime.
Pricing for Kajabi
Kajabi offers three paid plans plus a 14-day free trial that you can use with any of the plans. The monthly billing is listed, but annual billing is available and will score you 20% off.
Each plan comes with zero transaction fees, but you will pay either Stripe or Paypal fees. You’ll also get access to Kajabi University, webinars & events, ready-to-use templates, assessments, one customer success activation call, chat support, and automations.
Here are the details about each plan option offered by Kajabi:
Basic ($149/month)
- Three products
- Three pipelines
- Unlimited landing pages and unlimited marketing emails
- 10,000 contacts
- 1,000 active members
- One website
- One admin user
Growth ($199/month)
- 15 products
- 15 pipelines
- Unlimited landing pages and unlimited marketing emails
- 25,000 contacts
- 10,000 active members
- One website
- 10 admin users
- 24/7 chat support
- Advanced automations
- No Kajabi branding
- Affiliate program
Pro ($399/month)
- 100 products
- 100 pipelines
- Unlimited landing pages and unlimited marketing emails
- 100,000 contacts
- 20,000 active members
- Three website
- 25 admin users
- 24/7 chat support
- Advanced automations
- No Kajabi branding
- Affiliate program
- Code editor
Here’s our full Kajabi review.
What Are the Best Online Course Platforms?
These are all great solutions and the best online course platforms on the market. However, it’s important to look at your needs, what’s important to you in a course platform, and your budget to determine which option is the right one for your company.
For example, Kajabi is the best all-in-one solution for seasoned companies in the education space. You get a lot with your plan, and it’s really meant to serve as a one-stop-shop for all your needs.
Purchasing Kajabi means you can cut out other software tools you might be using for email marketing, landing pages, and more. This can consolidate everything with Kajabi and save you money.
But, if you’re a beginner, it’ll be a lot to take on and probably not the best fit for new course creators.
On the other hand, Teachable is awesome for newbies. They offer a beginner-friendly course solution that fits with courses, membership sites, and coaching businesses.
Additionally, they have a lot of resources at your disposal to educate you on how to create, market, and sell courses and content online like a pro.
The Final Word on the Best Online Course Platforms
Whatever you decide, you can’t go wrong with any platform on our list. By investing in one of the best online platforms that fit your needs, you are setting yourself up for success with your online instruction.
