The popularity of online courses is on the rise, as conventional face-to-face classroom-based learning loses ground to e-learning alternatives. Here students can learn and carry out assignments and assessments remotely and in their own time. With the demand for e-learning escalating, creating and self-publishing online courses can be a lucrative business, providing you sell the course in the right place. Small Business Trends explores the 20 best online course platforms.
The Best Online Course Platforms
Skillshare
Skillshare is an e-course selling platform that offers instructors help to customize their online classes. Skillshare provides the tools to help instructors create short videos about the courses. Users can enjoy and benefit from networking with a community of over two million students and teachers. Team membership on Skillshare starts from $10 per month.
Udemy
Udemy provides teachers with the tools required to teach their knowledge to a global audience. The platform is free to use but course providers have to give 50 percent of its earnings for every student Udemy finds. Udemy assists instructors in creating an innovative online course, reach millions of students around the world, build their brand and earn serious money teaching something they are passionate about.
Click4Course
Click4Course enables instructors to create their own courses using their own content on any device. Users can create unlimited courses and organize courses into categories for learners. The platform also allows teachers to manager learners by manually adding and registering learners or allowing them to register themselves. Instructors can also set passing score percentages for each test. Pricing starts from $79 per month for unlimited learners.
WizIQ
WizIQ proudly asserts to comprise of everything instructors will need to teach and train online. The site offers an easy-to-use integrated learning delivery platform for both instructors and institutions. In 2016, WizIQ was awarded as a Top-Rated Learning Management System. Pricing ranges from $190 a year to $890 annually.
Pathwright
Pathwright allows instructors to outline their entire course within minutes. Courses can be jazzed up with quizzes, videos, projects, discussions and more, designed to make learning interactive and fun. Pathwright users can choose a plan that works best for their individual course requirements, starting from $19 a month for the starter package.
Teachable
Teachable encourages individuals with knowledge to share and sell their skills and knowledge on the simple-to-use Teachable platform. Teachable currently has more than 20,000 active courses, 7,500 instructors online and 4 million students learning from the platform. Teachable offers monthly and annual payment plans, starting from $33.25 per month for the basic package.
EdLoud
EdLoud prides itself on being an online course selling platform that enables instructors to turn their knowledge and passion into revenue. The site claims to be the easiest way for those with passion and knowledge to make money with online courses, webinars, live training sessions and more. EdLoud starts at $99 per month and users can try the service free for seven days.
Academy of Mine
Academy of Mine is an all-in-one platform to create, sell and market online courses. This easy-to-use portal enables tutors to build their own learning website using drag and drop templates, set-up courses, students and instructors with a fully-integrated learning management system and sell courses with various pricing options. Academy of Mine offers a three-tiered pricing structure starting from $199 a month for a Starter Course to $499 a month for a Monster Course.
CourseCraft
CourseCraft enables those with a passion to share and teach their knowledge to build a professional online course without any coding or design skills required. When signing up, instructors will benefit from an intuitive dashboard, fast and reliable hosting and website integration. Teachers on the free plan merely have to pay a 9% transaction fee. Those on the Society plan pay $47 per month but a 0 percent transaction fee.
Educadium
Educadium is an easy-to-use platform that empowers teachers to reach learners around the world by creating cost-effective online classes for knowledge sharing, assessment and certification. Instructors can profit from digital content and expertise when using Educadium’s learning management system services. This e-learning platform offers three different payment structures, $99 per month for the standard package and $299 for the premium package.
Thinkific
This e-learning platform hosts over 35,000 course creators and is a popular site for educators and trainers to build their brand and sell their e-courses. Users can create compelling content and start selling their courses immediately on Thinkific. The platform offers four different payment structures, starting from $0 with a 10 percent transaction fee to $219 per month with no transaction fee.
Digital Chalk
Digital Chalk provides instructors with a single solution for creating, marketing and selling courses online. Digital Chalk’s managed e-commerce removes much of the hassle and time involved with processing online sales, allowing teachers to sell their courses at their own price. Digital Chalk costs $25 per month.
Course Merchant
Course Merchant offer eBusiness solutions for education and training purposes. Educators can manage their courses online, through a sophisticated content management system. Course creators can sell their courses via a shopping cart system. Sellers have the choice of selling course bundles and can offer discounts for courses by selling on Course Merchant.
LearnDash
LearnDash proudly claims to be the “most trusted WordPress LMS” and is the number one choice for Fortune 500 companies, training organizations, major universities and entrepreneurs around the world for the creation and selling of their online courses. Users can create and sell courses with ease and efficiency, manager learners and download reports.
OpenSesame
OpenSesame assists instructors in setting up an online course and how to generate revenue from it. Users simply have to create an OpenSesame seller profile to upload their courses to. When uploaded, instructors can set their own prices for courses. OpenSesame users do not have to pay any upfront fees but have to give the portal 50 percent of the course revenue.
LearnWorlds
With the LearnWorlds platform those wanting to share and sell their knowledge can create, market and sell online courses with ease from one convenient location. This user-friendly e-learning channel provides a professional, engaging, social and interactive school, which enables teachers to sell learning experiences. Sellers are not required to have any design or development skills, as they can create sales pages for their courses using dozens of striking templates. LearnWorlds offers different payment structures starting from $24 per month for the Starter Trainer program, plus $5 per sale.
Ruzuku
Ruzuku prides itself on having everything an instructor will need to connect with their audience, create inspiring content and “change the world”. This user-friendly online course selling portal is simple to use and instructors are not required to have much technology know-how. The site boasts a number of favorable features, including daily backups and PayPal payments. The portal offers a 14-day unlimited-use free trial.
ProProfs
More than 1,214,000 businesses, educators and students are putting their faith in the smart online course tools provided by ProProfs. This online course portal permits course creators to add quizzes, media and certificates to their existing documents to make learning more fun and interactive.
Coggno
Cognno users can create courses on this easy-to-use platform or upload their own content. Instructors selling courses on Coggno benefit from full reporting tools, showing who has bought what course and when and enabling them to tracker learners and their contact information. Payment can be received via PayPal. Coggno’s pricing starts from $24.95 per month, plus 10% of transactions.
Rainmaker
Rainmaker offers a complete solution for the digital marketing and sales of online courses. By creating articles, video and audio, e-course creators can grow their brand and ultimately sell more courses. The Rainmaker platform costs $1,740 a year for the whole management system package.
Are you an educator, trainer or instructor with experience of using an online platform for selling your digital courses? We would love to hear our readers’ experiences with platforms for selling online courses.
Image: Traind
Thanks a lot for putting together this wonderful resource list. Online learning keeps growing and these platforms look like they are great.
The Franchise King®
Simon Awuyo Ecegeri
I appreciate your compilation of the resources and they appear feasible but I am wondering about the implementation implications in context of Africa where internet and technology devices are for privileged few.
Otherwise I am excited and willing to explore.
Arleen
Wow, this is really a great list! Just one small change, the company’s actual name is Ruzuku, not Razuku. Could someone fix it on the list?
Anita @Edureka
The points Convenience and Availability are the two prime factors I have personally opted for Online learning. I have been learning from Edureka. Anyone here with any recommendations?
you are listed top online course selling site. someone recommend JanBask Training for online learning.
Wow! I had no idea there were so many great teaching platforms available! Thanks for this list. I knew about 3 of these and researched them. I ended up going with Thinkific for now. They have a no cost plan that made it easy for me to determine if this is a direction I want to go.
I’ll investigate the others once I figure out the direction I want to take.
thanks again.
Lisa
Cori
I find myself curious whether the author is a native English speaker, despite being based in the UK, as in proper English you would “manage” learners, not “manager” them. This mistake is repeated. Of course, I acknowledge that this may simply be a difference in British English versus American, but I read a lot from both regions, and it’s not a phrasing I’ve run across before in either.
There are also a couple of other language anomalies, and examples of simply clumsy phrasing, that make me wonder whether the author may have used one of the abysmal “article writing” software apps, and simply didn’t proofread carefully. Proofreading counts.
The list itself isn’t bad, though it reads like a series of blurbs put out by the companies’ marketing departments, with no actual researched content. It also makes no attempt to rate or compare them . . . the list simply seems to be given in the order in which the author found them online.
Quite an impressive list! I will definitely check out skillshare and thinkific! Thanks and stay awesome!
Jay
Sounds great, but how can I get someone to create online courses for me? I just don’t have the patience. Are there any companies that provide this service as well?
Lucio
Quite sketchy article, there are no actual pros and cons weighted, but what I liked that you left all giants like Lynda, Coursera, etc. aside and gave us alternative options. I think BitDegree is another sparkling light in the space of the internet. They offer free & interactive online education based on blockchain system potential sponsorship.
Allun
Wow, I’m surprised to see someone speaking about Bitdegree under such articles! I actually submitted one of my courses there as I want to test the platform and later on write a review about it and my experience was very smooth! Still need to gather all the details so cannot link to my full review yet, but my general feedback is very positive.
Paul
Has anyone done some exploring and found one they are really happy with?
I’ve been trying to get on to Teachable and Thinkific but cant seem to get past one of the first pages. I’ve given up on this now, I’m currently trying to find my feet with Learnworlds. Maybe it takes a bit of getting used to but it doesn’t seem that user friendly to me?
Crystal
Hi Paul! well, I tried Kajabi before but immediately switched to Vonza cos it’s much cheaper and very easy to use! It’s way more complete than any all-in-one platform I tried. You should check it out! My life’s been easier since then!
Quite an impressive list! I will definitely check out skillshare and thinkific! Thanks and stay awesome!
Great info, Gabrielle. Would love it, if you review our free online platform, Live Learning, designed for teachers. A small fee for selling courses with Gmeet & 3rd party integrations to becoming teaching easy for all.
Hey, That was very detailed article, a lot of great options were listed, I think you may have missed some good platforms like learnyst which is also a great platforms for teachers in India to teach competitive exams for students, I request for you to add learnyst also to the list, so that it might be a good insight for teachers who are reading your blog from India.