If you’re about to create your first online course, the platform question hits you fast: Teachable, Thinkific, or Podia? Everyone has an opinion, most of them are affiliate links in disguise, and the comparison tables all look the same. So here’s the honest version — what each platform actually does well, where it quietly costs you money, and which one fits your situation. No fluff, just the trade-offs that matter when you’re the one doing the work.
The short version
All three let you host videos, take payments, and run a course business without writing code. The real differences come down to how they charge you, what’s built in, and who they’re designed for.
| Teachable | Thinkific | Podia | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | First-time creators who want the safest, most proven option | Educators who care about the learning experience | Creators who also want email marketing, downloads, and memberships in one place |
| Entry plan | Starter, around $39/month (plus a 7.5% transaction fee) | Basic, around $40–50/month (0% platform fee) | Mover, around $40/month (plus a 5% transaction fee) |
| Zero-fee plans | Start around $89/month | All paid plans | Start around $80+/month |
| Standout strength | Checkout and sales tools refined over a decade | Course builder and community features | All-in-one: courses + email + downloads + memberships |
| Standout weakness | Product limits per plan; fees on the cheapest plan | Fewer built-in marketing tools | Less customizable; fewer advanced course features |
Prices change — treat the numbers above as “at the time of writing” and check the current pricing page before you commit. 
What they actually cost you
This is where most comparisons get lazy. The monthly fee is only half the story; the other half is what the platform takes from every sale.
- Teachable: the entry-level Starter plan charges a 7.5% transaction fee on top of Stripe/PayPal processing. That’s a lot once you’re selling. The mid-tier Builder plan (starting around $89/month) drops it to 0%. Do the math: if you’re selling $1,000/month in courses, the 7.5% fee costs you $75 — upgrading starts making sense around that point.
- Thinkific: no platform transaction fees on paid plans. You pay the monthly fee plus standard payment processing. Simple and predictable.
- Podia: the entry Mover plan takes 5% per sale; the higher plans (Shaker and up) take 0%. Podia also discontinued its old free plan a while back, so budget for a subscription from day one.
On top of all of these, Stripe or PayPal takes their usual processing cut (roughly 3% + a fixed fee per transaction). Nobody escapes that.
Round 1: Teachable — the veteran
Teachable is the platform most people have heard of, and there’s a reason: it’s been around the longest and its checkout flow is genuinely polished. One-click upsells, order bumps, coupons, and cart recovery are all there on the lower plans, which is rare.
Where it gets annoying: the product limits. Plans cap how many courses, coaching products, and downloads you can publish. If you dream of a 60-course catalog, you’ll outgrow the mid tiers. Teachable also limits free students (people who enroll without paying), which can bite if you run big free webinars.
Pick Teachable if: you want the safest pair of hands, strong sales tooling from day one, and you’re starting with a small catalog. Students choosing courses face a similar platform puzzle — our comparison of Domestika vs Skillshare vs Coursera shows how the learner’s side of this decision looks.
Round 2: Thinkific — the teacher’s tool
Thinkific feels like it was built by people who care about teaching. The course builder is flexible, communities are built in rather than bolted on, and there’s no platform fee eating your revenue on any paid plan. If your course is long and complex — multiple modules, cohorts, live sessions — Thinkific handles the structure better than the other two.
The trade-off: marketing. Email automation and funnel tooling are thinner, so you’ll likely pair Thinkific with an external email tool sooner. For a first course with a simple funnel, that’s fine. For a full business, budget for it.
Pick Thinkific if: the learning experience is your differentiator — cohorts, communities, and serious curricula. And if you’re still deciding what to teach, this guide to choosing your first course topic will save you from picking something nobody wants.
Round 3: Podia — the all-in-one
Podia’s pitch is simplicity: courses, digital downloads, memberships, webinars, and email marketing under one roof, one bill, one login. For a solo creator who doesn’t want to duct-tape five tools together, that’s genuinely appealing. The interface is the friendliest of the three, and the email tool is good enough that many creators cancel their separate newsletter service.
The catch: it’s the least customizable. The course player and checkout pages look like Podia, and advanced quizzing or certificates lag behind Teachable and Thinkific. If you want everything “good enough” in one place, that’s a feature. If you want to fine-tune the student experience, it’s a ceiling.
Pick Podia if: you’re a solo creator selling a mix of courses, downloads, and maybe a membership — and you’d rather pay one subscription than manage a stack of tools.
The features that actually matter (and the ones that don’t)
New creators obsess over feature checklists. Here’s the honest hierarchy:
- Checkout that converts — this is where money happens. Upsells, coupons, and payment plans matter more than any course-player widget.
- Video hosting that just works — all three handle this. Don’t pay extra for it elsewhere.
- Certificates — nice for professional topics, irrelevant for hobby courses. Available on all three (sometimes only on higher plans).
- Community — great for retention, but a free Discord or forum works fine at the start.
- Email marketing — Podia includes it; the others expect you to bring your own.
What doesn’t matter yet: custom mobile apps, advanced analytics, affiliate management, white-label everything. You’ll care about those at $10k/month, not at launch. Speaking of launch economics, our guide on turning learning into actual income breaks down how course revenue fits into a real career plan.
The verdict: a decision guide
- 🎯 Just starting out, one course, small budget? Teachable Starter or Podia Mover. Accept the transaction fee for now — it’s cheaper than a higher monthly plan until you’re selling consistently.
- 🎓 Building a serious curriculum or cohort program? Thinkific. The course builder and 0% fees reward you as you scale.
- 🧰 Selling courses + templates + a membership? Podia. One tool, one bill, less admin.
- 💰 Already selling $1k+/month? Move to a 0%-fee plan on any of them. The math always favors killing the transaction fee once you have volume.
What I’d do if I were starting today
Pick the cheapest plan on whichever platform feels least annoying to use, and give yourself a hard deadline: 30 days to publish. The platform is not the product — your course is. Most creators who “research platforms” for three months are procrastinating on recording lesson one. And before you price anything, remember that students weigh free vs paid options carefully — your platform choice should support the pricing strategy, not dictate it.
One more thing: whatever you build, document it. A course is also a portfolio piece. Our guide to building a portfolio while you learn applies double when the thing you’re building is the course itself — future clients and employers notice.
Choose fast, launch faster. You can migrate platforms later; you can’t migrate a course that was never published. 🚀
The hidden costs nobody puts in the comparison table
Monthly fees and transaction fees are the visible costs. Here are the ones that ambush creators in month three:
- Payment processing: Stripe/PayPal take their cut on every platform, on top of any platform fee. Budget roughly 3% + a fixed fee per transaction into every calculation.
- Email marketing: Podia includes it. On Teachable and Thinkific, you’ll eventually pay $20–$50/month for a separate tool once your list grows past the free tier. Factor that into the “all-in” monthly cost.
- Your time: Podia’s simplicity saves hours of admin monthly. Thinkific’s flexibility costs hours of setup. Neither shows up on a pricing page, but at a founder’s hourly rate, the “cheaper” platform can be the expensive one.
- Migration pain: switching platforms later means moving videos, students, and payment data. It’s doable — people do it every day — but it’s a week of your life. This is the real cost of choosing wrong, and it’s why “just pick one” beats “research for a month.”
Quick answers to the questions everyone asks
Can I sell on more than one platform? Yes, and many creators do — a course can live on Teachable and Podia simultaneously. But each platform is another admin surface. Start with one; duplicate only when the first is working.
Do I need my own website too? Not at first. All three give you a hosted course site with a custom domain option. A separate WordPress site becomes worth it when content marketing is your main acquisition channel — not before.
What about Gumroad? Worth a mention: Gumroad charges no monthly fee and takes a flat percentage of each sale instead. For a single small course or a creator testing the waters, that $0 fixed cost is attractive — you only pay when you sell. The trade-off is a thinner course experience (no drip content, weaker student management). Think of it as the “sell a PDF and some videos” option versus the “run a course business” option.
Which one is best for selling coaching alongside courses? Teachable and Thinkific both handle coaching products natively; Podia covers it through its membership and webinar features. If 1-on-1 is core to your offer, compare the coaching-specific features rather than the course builders.
Stop comparing, start creating
Here’s the part nobody selling a comparison guide wants to say: the platform decision barely matters for your first course. What matters is that the course exists, that real students take it, and that you learn what to improve. Every platform above has hosted thousands of successful courses. The differences only bite at scale — and you’ll only reach scale by launching.
So: pick the one whose pricing page annoyed you least, sign up for the cheapest plan, and set a publish date. Then spend your research energy where it counts — making sure the topic is worth teaching in the first place. The platform is rented land; the course is the asset. 🏗️
