Welcome to our in-depth Teachable review for 2023. As one of the most popular online course platforms worldwide, Teachable powers over 130,000 instructors who have collectively earned over $650 million in course sales to date.
With so many users relying on Teachable, we wanted to put the platform to the test ourselves to see if it lives up to the hype. After extensively using Teachable for the past few months, we are ready to share everything you need to know in this comprehensive review.
We will cover what Teachable is, walk through the key features, break down pricing in detail, reveal some of the biggest pros and cons we experienced firsthand, and also suggest some alternatives worth considering. Let‘s dive in!
What is Teachable?
Teachable is an all-in-one online course platform designed to make it fast and easy for experts to create, market, and sell online courses, memberships, and coaching services directly from their own website.
The SaaS platform provides everything you need to build an online school including:
- Course builder
- Marketing tools
- Secure payment processing
- Student management
- Website hosting
Teachable handles all the technical heavy lifting so you can focus on creating stellar content rather than getting bogged down in development. Even if you have no prior experience building online courses, Teachable makes it accessible for anyone to turn their knowledge into an income source.
Some examples of the types of businesses successfully using Teachable today include:
- Online course creators
- Membership site owners
- Coaches and consultants
- Educators and schools
- Enterprise training teams
Now that you understand the Teachable basics, let’s explore the platform functionality.
Key Teachable Features
Teachable packs a robust set of features into its platform that sets it apart from competitors. From course creation to marketing tools to student management and more, some of the most notable Teachable capabilities include:
Intuitive Course Builder
The bread and butter of Teachable is the user-friendly course builder that allows you to create professional online courses in minutes. With a simple drag-and-drop interface, you can:
- Add multimedia lessons incorporating video, images, PDFs, audio, live streams, and more
- Build quizzes to assess student comprehension
- Drip feed content over time
- Create certificates to reward course completion
- Track student progress and engagement
Teachable also provides design templates, so you don’t have to start from a blank slate. Overall, the course builder empowers beginners and experts alike to create polished courses faster.
Coaching Tools
Aside from teaching at scale with online courses, Teachable provides the capability to offer personalized 1-on-1 and group coaching.
You can facilitate live coaching calls, schedule sessions via an integrated calendar, create structured assignments, and even collect payments for your coaching services directly through Teachable.
Whether you offer life coaching, business coaching, health and wellness coaching, or beyond, Teachable has you covered.
Marketing Capabilities
While you focus on creating amazing content, Teachable gives you built-in marketing tools to turn students into buyers including:
- Coupons – Create limited-time discounts and referral rewards to incentivize sign-ups
- Affiliate marketing -Reward partners who drive sales to your school and pay affiliate commissions
- Drip campaigns – Automate emails to re-engage inactive students
- Upsells – Suggest supplementary course material and bundles during checkout
Teachable essentially enables you to build an optimized sales funnel alongside your online school for lead generation, conversions, and retention.
Secure Payment Processing
Whether you sell courses one-time, offer monthly subscriptions, coaching sessions, or online events, Teachable makes it easy to get paid.
The platform securely integrates with top payment gateways like:
- Stripe
- PayPal
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
Teachable also handles taxes, compliance, and global payment collection across over 35 currencies automatically. You simply set your prices and get paid.
From payment configuration to tracking sales revenue and ROI reporting, the platform has you covered on the financial side too.
Website & Branding
Teachable instantly creates a customized online school website for your courses using your own domain name. Choose from professionally designed themes and templates to showcase your brand.
While Teachable handles hosting and security, you maintain complete control and flexibility to:
- Customize pages and navigation
- Modify design elements like colors, fonts, and logos
- Add custom HTML/CSS
- Connect third-party tools
Essentially, Teachable enables you to instantly deploy a polished online academy fully customizable to your brand.
…Plus lots more (student management, certificates, bundle pricing, etc.)! Now let‘s look at Teachable pricing.
Teachable Pricing
Teachable offers several pricing plans suitable for solopreneurs to large companies:
Free Plan
As the name suggests, the Free Plan has no monthly cost and serves as a basic entry point to try Teachable. However, it does come with limitations:
- 10% transaction fee on payments
- Only 1 admin user
- 1 published course
- No email marketing
- No custom domain
The Free Plan works well for getting started, but most users will quickly require more advanced features.
Basic Plan – $39/month
For more power users, the Basic Plan adds capabilities like:
- 5% transaction fee
- 5 published courses
- Email marketing
- Custom domains
- 2 admin seats
While useful for small businesses, the 5% transaction fee still eats into your revenue as you scale.
Pro Plan – $99/month
The Pro Plan eliminates transaction fees entirely making it more suitable for full-time course creators. You also get upgraded limits like:
- 0% transaction fees
- 50 published courses
- 5 admin seats
- Affiliate marketing
- Advanced marketing tools
For serious educators and coaches, the Pro Plan removes revenue friction allowing you to earn more as you grow.
Pro+ Plan – $249/month
Expanding on Pro, the Pro+ Teachable plan caters to larger online schools and businesses:
- 200 published courses
- 20 admin seats
- Group coaching
- Priority live chat support
Pro+ also introduces higher education-specific functionality like SCORM compliance for enterprises.
Business Plan – Custom
For major institutions and global employee training programs, Teachable also offers custom enterprise pricing including features like:
- Unlimited courses, users, etc.
- SSO integration
- Premium support
- Custom contracts
- Volume sales discounts
Get in touch with Teachable‘s sales team directly for large-scale pricing.
And keep in mind – paying annually reduces the monthly cost on ALL plans by ~25%.
Teachable Pros & Cons
Based on our hands-on experience, here is an overview of Teachable‘s biggest advantages and limitations we discovered:
Teachable Pros 👍
- Easy course creator – Quickly build professional courses without tech skills
- All-in-one platform -Provides course building, website hosting, marketing tools, payments, analytics, student management, etc. in one integrated solution
- Robust features – Packed with capabilities like coaching, bundles, certifications, etc. to meet various business needs
- Great support – Accessible and responsive customer support via email, chat, phone, and community forums
Teachable Cons 👎
- Transaction fees – The 5% transaction fee on lower-tier pricing plans remains frustrating
- Assessments limitations – Creating graded quizzes and assignments could be easier
- Few gamification elements – Some may want more badges, leaderboards, etc. to boost engagement
- No native mobile app – Requires third-party tools for a branded iOS/Android app
While Teachable has ample strengths, also be aware of its limitations relative to your specific needs and audience.
Teachable Alternatives
Teachable is a robust platform, but other options exist that may better suit some use cases:
Thinkific
Thinkific rivals Teachable offering a streamlined course builder, all-in-one platform, and no transaction fees. It also provides more advanced community capabilities.
Best For: Course creators focused on community engagement
LearnWorlds
For next-level video experiences, LearnWorlds enables you to integrate interactive videos with CTAs, lead gen forms, live streams and more.
Best For: Video-first online academies
Podia
Podia caters to digital creators selling not just online courses but also digital downloads, subscriptions, memberships, and services.
Best For: Selling mixed digital product portfolios beyond just courses
Evaluate these platforms (and more!) relative to your specific goals when choosing the best online course platform.
The Verdict on Teachable
In the online course space, Teachable stands out as an intuitive yet powerful platform enabling creators to grow thriving coaching and education businesses.
The combination of a user-friendly course builder, integrated website hosting, secure payment processing, and built-in marketing make Teachable an end-to-end solution.
While a few areas like assessments could improve, Teachable otherwise ticks all the boxes providing exceptional capabilities for online course creators across verticals like business, lifestyle, health, finance, marketing, and more.
Ultimately, Teachable doesn‘t lock you into restrictive templates enabling you to infuse your own personal flair and brand presence into the platform.
Ready to give Teachable a spin for your own online courses or coaching? Start with a free 14-day trial to experience the platform firsthand today with no commitments.
