Best Online Course Platform Comparison Guide

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” – William Butler Yeats

One of the best ways you can reach the world is to teach the world.

You can teach what you know and sell your experience.

Sometimes people want to learn from “the best.”

Other times they want to learn to someone who has empathy and can meet them where they are.

To sell what you know, you need a platform to build and sell your courses.

I want this article to share some of what I learned when it comes to choosing a course platform.

This is effectively the walkthrough I wish someone would have given me when I was trying to understand the options and tradeoffs between the different course platforms.

Popular Course Platforms at a Glance

Here are popular course platforms you’ve probably seen people use and you might have used yourself:

Course Platforms with a Marketplace	Course Platforms without a Marketplace
Coursera LinkedIn Learning Masterclass.com SkillShare.com, Udemy	Circle Gumroad Kajabi Podia Skool.com Teachable Thinkific

We’ll walkthrough the lists, but for now, just be familiar with the two sets of options for building courses.

How To Choose Between Course Platforms with Marketplaces vs. Standalone Course Platforms (without Marketplaces)

You can broadly categorize online course platforms into two types based on whether or not they include a marketplace for courses.

The choice between these two types of platforms depends on your goals, resources, and preferences.

You might choose a marketplace if you want to leverage a platform’s trust and user base, but you’ll have less control over the experience.

If you want more control over the experience and you’re willing to drive your own marketing efforts, you might choose a platform without a marketplace.

Here’s a quick walkthrough of both options:

Characteristics of Course Platforms with Marketplaces

Examples: Udemy, Coursera, Skillshare

Characteristics:

• They host and sell courses on their platform, providing a built-in audience.
• They handle marketing to varying extents and offer promotional tools and visibility within their platform.
• Creators often have less control over pricing and user data.
• They take a percentage of course sales as a fee.
• They’re great for instructors who want exposure and do not wish to handle the marketing aspect heavily.

Characteristics of Standalone Course Platforms (without Marketplaces)

Examples: Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi

Characteristics:

• They provide tools for creators to build and sell courses on their own websites or through the platform’s domain.
• Creators maintain full control over pricing, branding, and student data.
• Marketing and student acquisition are entirely up to the course creator.
• They charge a monthly or yearly subscription fee, and some may take a small transaction fee.
• These platforms are ideal for creators with an existing audience or those who want complete control over their course business.

Course Platforms with Marketplaces

Here is a summary of popular course platforms with marketplaces:

• Coursera: Offers courses in partnership with universities and organizations worldwide, allowing for the creation of more academic and professional development courses.
• LinkedIn Learning: Offers a diverse range of courses focused on professional development across various industries, with content delivered by industry experts.
• Masterclass.com:  Provides high-quality, cinematic courses taught by world-renowned figures in fields such as cooking, writing, acting, and more, emphasizing mastery in specific crafts or skills.
• Udemy: A massive open online course (MOOC) provider that allows anyone to create and sell courses on a wide range of subjects.
• Skillshare: Focuses on creative courses and encourages interactive project-based learning.

Course Platforms with Marketplaces Comparison Table

This comparison table can help you decide which platform aligns best with your content and target audience.

It gives you a quick glance at what each platform specializes in, who their primary audience is, and how they’re structured financially.

Feature	Coursera	LinkedIn Learning	Masterclass.com	Udemy	Skillshare
Focus	Academic & professional development	Professional development	Mastery in specific crafts	Wide range, including hobbyist topics	Creative & interactive learning
Partnerships	Universities & organizations	Industry experts	World-renowned figures	Individual instructors	Individual instructors
Content Type	Courses, Specializations, Degrees	Courses & Learning Paths	Cinematic courses	Courses	Projects & Classes
Ideal For	Learners seeking academic rigor	Professionals enhancing skills	Learners seeking inspiration	Anyone; broad subject coverage	Creatives & interactive learners
Pricing Model	Subscription, individual courses	Subscription	Subscription	Individual course sales, subscription	Subscription

 

Standalone Course Platforms

Here is a summary of standalone course platforms without marketplaces:

• Circle: A community platform that integrates with other tools to bring your discussions, memberships, and content into one place.
• Gumroad: An e-commerce platform designed for creators to sell products directly to consumers, including digital courses.
• Kajabi: An all-in-one business platform for creating, marketing, and selling online courses and memberships.
• Podia: A user-friendly platform that enables creators to sell online courses, memberships, and digital products.
• Skool.com: A modern online learning environment focused on community and course engagement.
• Teachable: A platform that provides tools for creating and selling online courses and coaching services under your own brand.
• Thinkific: Allows you to create, market, and sell online courses with a strong emphasis on customer experience and ease of use.

Standalone Course Platforms Comparison Table

This comparison table helps you quickly evaluate each course platform at a glance:

Platform	Key Feature	Best For
Circle	Community platform with integration tools for discussions and memberships	Creators looking for community engagement and integration with other services
Gumroad	E-commerce platform for selling products directly, including courses	Individuals who want a straightforward platform to sell various digital products
Kajabi	All-in-one platform for course creation, marketing, and sales	Creators who need comprehensive tools for online business management
Podia	User-friendly platform for selling courses, memberships, and digital products	Creators who want a simple, no-code solution for selling digital products
Skool.com	Modern learning environment with a focus on engagement	Educators and trainers who prioritize community interaction and engagement
Teachable	Tools for creating and selling courses under your own brand	Creators who want to build a strong personal or professional brand through courses
Thinkific	Platform emphasizing customer experience in course creation and sales	Creators focused on delivering high-quality learning experiences to their users

Gumroad for Creating and Selling Digital Products & Services

Gumroad isn’t a course platform with a marketplace like Udemy, but rather a sales platform that can be used to sell courses among other digital and physical goods.

Creators use it for its ease of setup and direct-to-consumer model.

Here’s how Gumroad fits into the landscape:

While Gumroad does not have a course marketplace in the same sense as Udemy or Coursera, it provides a platform for creators to sell to an audience.

Gumroad handles the sales transactions and provides a simple storefront for creators, but it does not actively market courses like a traditional marketplace does.

Creators using Gumroad are responsible for their own marketing and driving traffic to their product pages.

Gumroad is popular among independent creators because it offers them control over pricing, direct access to customer data, and the ability to build a brand without the confines of a structured marketplace.

It charges a transaction fee for each sale made.

Teachables vs. Kajabi, Circles, or Skool

Choosing Teachable over Kajabi, Circle, or Skool depends on your specific needs as a course creator:

• Teachable is known for its user-friendly interface and straightforward course creation process, making it a good choice for those new to online course creation. It offers a range of customization options without requiring technical skills.
• Kajabi is a more robust platform offering not just course creation tools but also advanced marketing and automation features. It’s suitable for those who want an all-in-one solution to manage their entire online business.
• Circle is primarily a community platform, which is ideal if your focus is on building and engaging with a community around your content rather than on the content itself.
• Skool is a newer platform that also emphasizes community and engagement but within the context of a learning environment. It’s a good choice if you’re looking to build interactive courses with a strong community aspect.

If you’re looking for a dedicated platform primarily for creating and selling courses with ease, Teachable is a solid choice.

If you need more comprehensive business tools, Kajabi might be preferable.

For community-centric platforms, Circle or Skool could be better suited.

Examples of Who Uses Which Platform

Here are some examples that I’ve seen when it comes to who uses which platform:

• Circles: Pat Flynn
• Kajabi:  Brendon Burchard, Gillian Perkins, Graham Cochrane, Justin Welsh, Ray Green
• Masterclass.com:  James Clear
• SkillShare.com: Ali Abdaal
• Skool.com: Matt Gray
• Teachables:  Gillian Perkins, James Clear, Seth Godin, Sharran Srivatsaa
• Udemy: Seth Godin

What I’ve Learned from Evaluating Course Platforms

Here are some of my learnings and how I think about the course platforms:

• One of my mentors prioritizes platforms by whether they have an SEO and market, so that he can take a data-driven approach.
• I like to work backwards from the end user experience.   For example, Udemy and SkillShare.com provide simple, intuitive interfaces and it’s easy for a user to sign up and take courses.
• I also like to reflect on courses I’ve taken and which platforms they used.  From this standpoint, I’ve had a pretty friction free experience with Udemy, Teachables, and Gumroad.
• My mentors who have built lots of courses get frustrated by platform changes that impact user experience or pricing, since they don’t control them.
• Udemy can be surprising when it comes to monetization.  One of my mentors has a few hundred thousand students.  His experience is that between promotions and discounts by Udemy, he doesn’t make much from the platform.  But it can be good for awareness, or for a course that you want broadly available, regardless of revenue.
• When it comes to standalone platforms, Gumroad is pretty simple and functional, but some course creators complain about how it’s tough to brand.
• I think from a strategy standpoint, it makes sense to show up where your audience is.  So, for example, if there’s an audience for my topics on Udemy and SkillShare and Masterclass, I think I should show up their in some fashion.
• For courses that I want “everyone” to be able to enjoy, I might use Udemy.
• For courses where the branding and experience is important, I’ll consider Teachables.
• For experiments or one offs or “quick and dirty”, I will most likely use Gumroad.
• I’m not looking for community course platforms at this stage.  My network tells me they want faster, shorter, deeper courses, not stretched out over time.  They basically want me to create 90-minute transformation experiences that are self-paced.

It can be confusing and expensive to try multiple platforms either in terms of time and money.

I find it helps to always be a user first, and try courses from the platform, so you fully understand the user experience.

At the end of the day, the very first check you need to do when you create a course is to ask yourself:

“Would you buy your course?”

It sounds simple and obvious, but if you are really honest with yourself here, it can be a very revealing test.

The other issue is to make sure you are selling something people already want to buy.  Demand generation is tough.

And you have to keep in mind that if you choose a standalone course platform without a marketplace, you have to really plan for how you will market and build awareness for your course.

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