7 Best Platforms to Create Online courses.

Estimations reveal that the e-learning platforms should have a value of 325 billion by 2025. You can tap into this market if you rely on the best platforms to create online courses. Higher education is the leading education sector when it comes to the use of e-learning. Other sectors are rapidly switching to virtual classes. It is an effective strategy especially during a pandemic like the Coronavirus pandemic. You will simply create a course and charge your students for access.

What is an Online Course?

An online course/class is a tool that promotes virtual and remote learning. It contains a flow of ideas and the end goal is to teach a skill or share knowledge. 

What Is An Online Course Platform?

An online course platform is a virtual learning management system. It provides access to digital classes for various groups of students. Online courses and offline classes have a few similarities. 

In both, the instructor makes learning engaging through the use various learning tools which include: 

• PDFs
• Videos
• Images
• Text
• Audio

Furthermore, students will follow the learning guide as they take notes. They will take the exercises and exams to advance and excel in your course.

How To Choose The Best Platform For Online Courses

There are some key attributes you need to consider as you select a learning platform to create and sell your online course. Examples include:

• Availability of a sales funnel.
• Integrated Learning management system
• Membership capabilities like a member’s only area
• Ecommerce
• Payment integrations, for example, credit and debit cards 
• Virtual classrooms
• Live training

Best Platforms To Create Online Classes?

1. Thinkific

Thinkific is one of the top platforms around to create and sell online courses. This platform has a mission to power your education empire. It is one of the top platforms around because it has all the tools you need to create and sell your course in-house. 

Features 

Thinkific provides the following basic features and more to course creators:

• Email marketing tools 
• 24/7 customer support
• Build your own website
• Built-in SSL Certificates
• Secure cloud hosting
• Discussion forums.
• Multiple instructor profiles
• Student notifications. 
• Access your funds instantly
• Drag and drop course builder
• Upsell offers

Price 

The cost of creating a course on Thinkific depends on the package you subscribe to. There are three main packages and a free trial. The more pricey packages offer more powerful packages. You can choose between a monthly or a yearly subscription for each of Thinkific’s plans. The yearly package will save you 20% of the cost of the monthly package. These packages include:

• The Basic Plan: This plan includes all the basic features listed above. The monthly subscription costs $49.00. Its annual plan will cost you $39 per month. 

• The Pro Plan. This is the most popular plan. You get all the basic features plus advanced pricing features, course membership as bundles communities and advanced customization. It costs $99 per month for the monthly subscription. The annual subscription will cost you $79 per month.

• Premier Plan. It provides access to all pro features plus 5 admin accounts for your site, unlimited courses and students, unlimited growth packages and more. This plan is suitable for companies or individuals who intend to educate a large number of students. 

You will get a free trial for one month for each of Thinkific’s plans. 

2. Teachable

Teachable is a platform where you can establish a course website, control your students’ data, control your brand, send and receive messages, and price your courses. Anyone can subscribe to Teachable from individuals to large companies. 

Features 

Teachable’s features present in every payment plan includes:

• Unlimited hosting
• Student management
• Basic quizzes and tests
• They don’t charge any fees for free courses
• Value-added tax (VAT)
• Payment processing
• Unlimited courses
• Unlimited videos
• Lecture comments

Price

Teaching has four pricing packages. You can choose either a monthly or annual subscription for every plan. Teachable will charge a monthly fee for the annual plan but bill it once 12 months are up. The packages include:

• Free Version. The free version only charges transaction fees. Teachable will charge a 10% commission for every course you sell plus a $1 transaction fee. The free version includes all of Teachable’s base plans.

• Basic Plan. The basic plan costs $39.00/Month for the monthly subscription and the annual plan costs $29/Month. It includes all the features in the free version plus course creator lessons, instant payouts, 2 admin accounts and more.

• Professional Plan. This plan costs $99/Month for the monthly subscription and $79/Month for the annual subscription. It includes all the features in the basic plan plus theme customization, advanced reports, course compliance, course completion certificates, and unlimited certificates. 

• Business Plan. The cost for the monthly subscription for this plan is $499/Month and $399/Month for the annual subscription. You will access all the Professional plan features plus manual student imports, custom user roles, 100 users with admin access, Bulk enrollment and more. 

3. Kajabi

Kajabi hu joins our top three because it is yet another platform that has all the necessary tools to create online courses and sell online classes in-house. There are tens of thousands of users on Kajabi and your course can start selling a few hours after launch. 

Features

Every subscription play on Kajabi has the following features:

• Integrate courses, digital products, and subscriptions
• Create a fully integrated website with your products, courses, and marketing
• Integrate payment platforms like PayPal and Stripe.
• One-click upsells.
• Analytics data.
• Customize email marketing with automatic, countdown timers, video integrations and more.
• Quickly integrates new pages to your website.
• Automate, optimize and scale your business with marketing campaigns.
• Follow up on leads
• Build a customer community to establish customer loyalty. 
• Mobile access to your courses and website. 

Price

Each of the plans below starts with a 30-day free trial. 

• Basic plan. You will pay $149/Month for the basic plan and $119/Month for the annual discount. It has features like 1 website, 1 admin user, unlimited landing pages, 3 products, unlimited marketing emails, 3 pipelines, 1,000 members and 10,000 contacts. 

• Growth plan. This Plan will cost you $199/Month for monthly subscriptions and $159/Month for the annual discount. You get one website, 10 admin accounts, 15 products, 15 pipelines, 10,000 active members and 25,000 contacts. Emails and landing pages are unlimited. 

• Pro plan. The subscription fee is $399/month for a monthly package and $319/month with the annual discount. You will access 100 products, 3 websites, 100 pipelines, 25 admin accounts, 20,000 active members, and 100,000 contacts.

4. LearnWorlds

LearnWorlds lets you create courses from various templates available. It is a reliable platform to help you monetize your skills and knowledge through your website. 

Features 

The features available in every place include: 

• Lead generation
• Video library
• Usually, coupons and subscription bundles
• Learn profiles
• In-built social network
• Conversation tracking
• Learner analytics
• Assignments, Quizzes, and exams
• Ready templates
• Compatible with mobile devices
• Interactive eBook
• Automated newspaper

Price

Learnworlds offers a free trial for the first 30 days of every subscription. Your bill will be sent annually. The pricing packages include:

• Starter. It costs $24.00 for annual packages and $29.00 for monthly. You get features like 24/5 email support, 1 admin account, $5 is charged for every sale, unlimited courses, 4 payment gateways, 3 pages and more. 

• Pro-trainer. It costs $99/month or annual packages of $79/month. You access features like 5 admin accounts, affiliated management, installments, website builder, blog, and more. 

• Learning center. The monthly charge is $299/month and the annual charge is $249/month. You get 20 admin accounts, interactive video, advance affiliated management, LW academy is 100% off, bulk students upload and more. 

5. Podia 

Podia is a platform that lets you perform more than 5 functions within your website. You can sell online courses, memberships, and downloads without having tech expertise. 

Features 

• 22 currencies and 11 languages to choose from
• Live customer support
• Unlimited hosting
• Important and export content
• Customize your brand
• Add, testimonials, images, and videos
• Live previews
• Drip content
• Quizzes
• Pretty-sells
• Usually
• Email marketing
• Build funnels

Price

There are two subscription packages on Podia. It starts with a 24-day free trial. They include: 

• Mover. This package costs $39/month. You will save $78 if you make an annual subscription. It offers features like email marketing, messaging, no transaction fees, a storefront, daily support and more. 

• Shaker. Podia will charge you $79/month for this package. Save $158 if you subscribe annually. You will access features like blogs, memberships, third party code, affiliated marketing, ember check out and more. 

6. LearnDash

LearnDash is a Learning Management system plugin hosted by WordPress. It is used by individuals, organizations like university and even fortune 500 companies to create and sell courses online. 

Features 

The key features on LearnDash include:

• Select a pricing model, set a price and publish to sell your course.
• Learners get rewards like points, badges, and certificates. 
• Engage with your students based on their actions on your website. 
• Drip content.
• Subscription
• Shopping carts

Price

There are three main subscriptions on LearnDash. You have a money-back guarantee of up to 30 days after you join. Each package also has a demo plus package. The packages include:

• Basic. This package costs $159. You get features like 1 site, unlimited users, unlimited courses, advanced quizzing, certificates and badges, support and updates for one year, drip-feed content, free integrations and more.

• Plus. The plus package costs $189. You access every feature in the basic plan plus pretty panel and 10 site licenses. 

• Pro. This plan costs $329. It includes all the features on the previous packages plus ProPanel and a maximum of 25 site licenses. 

7. WizIQ

WizIQ is a platform that contains LMS features and a virtual classroom. It is easy to use and has gained multiple recognitions for example, it got the 2016 top-rated LMS from TrustRadius. 

Features 

WizIQ’s main features include: 

• Course builder
• Virtual classroom
• Tests and assignment
• Reports and analytics
• LMS eCommerce
• Mobile learning.

Price

There are 2 price packages on WizIQ. They are:

• Elite. This plan costs $80/month. WizIQ bills the payments annually. You will access features like multiple-choice tests, assignments, certificates of completion, a mobile app for learners, personalized instructor training and more. There is also 25GB space available.

• Infinite. This plan will cost you $107/month. It includes all the features available in Elite plus a custom domain, 50GB storage, web app with a white-label, onboarding and customer manager, single sign-on, stripe Gateway and more. 

Conclusion

The eLearning market is rapidly growing. These resources above can help you develop, grow and scale your online course business. You will have a greater chance at success with the above platforms as they offer multiple integrations and tools to help you create online courses, market and successfully sell your courses. Take a simple idea and take it seriously. You can sell actionable knowledge and skills for example, how to train and raise your puppy. A marketable online course is one that will help your students to solve a particular problem in their lives. 

You should select either of the above platforms based on what they offer in terms of features and their price packages.