Teachable Review 2023: Detailed Features, Pricing, PROs & CONs

This teachable review will help you to understand everything you need to know to decide if this software is a good online course creation platform for you.

Teachable has helped creators and entrepreneurs like yourself earn over $1 billion on their platform. In 2020 alone, creators on the platform raked in over $456.7 million in sales revenue. 

According to this article released by Teachable, 2021 saw a 14% increase in total revenue from course sales. Creators generating six figures in revenue increased by 38%, and creators earning seven figures enjoyed a whooping 48% jump.

People are making seven figures in a year from selling courses on Teachable. For what’s worth, you’re the success story waiting to happen.

Teachable won’t rob you of your hard-earned money as other course creation platforms often do.

They understand all the sleepless nights, sweat, tears, and blood it takes to create a successful course. Making you keep all the money you’re making is Teachable’s number one marketing point.

The company understands and respects your hustle. This thorough teachable review will show you everything you need to know about this platform.

What Is Teachable?

Teachable is a popular platform for creating and selling courses online. You can also sell coaching sessions, freelance work, and digital products.

You don’t need technical know-how to be able to create a course on Teachable.

The course builder employs the what-you-see-is-what-you-get designing principle. All you’re required to do is drag a few files around, copy and paste text, or drop links for video conferencing meetings.

The teachable cloud-based software does all the heavy lifting for you. Your students are given secure accounts for accessing the course material and progress reports that require authentication to log in.

On the hand, you have a stand-lone website with full branding rights and a secure payment gateway to process your sales transactions.

There are no hosting fees like on WordPress, no need to worry about plugins and all the nitty-gritty stuff that require you to hire a website developer and pay hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.

Unlike popular course marketplaces like Udemy, which have standardized pricing, Teachable gives you total control over how much you want to charge for your course.

Teachable Review: What Are The Key Features  Of Teachable?

One thing I love about Teachable is how feature-rich the platform is. The platform has a lot of features purposed to make your course-selling easier.

Every Jim and Jack can navigate the platform and accomplish their goals without seeking outside support. Teachable has everything you need to grow your business.

Let me walk you through some of the features.

1. An Intuitive Course Builder

You don’t need to be tech-savvy to build a course. Anyone can do it.

To create a site page, drag and drop your logo, images, and text into a template provided by Teachable. Eventually, you’ll come up with a visually stunning page that perfectly fits your brand.

Creating a course might take a lot of effort, but the underlying process is still the same.

No coding skills are required. Just drag and drop your pre-recorded lecturing videos. Add your text, files, and links. Publish it, and your course is live.

2. Monitoring and Analytics

Teachable allows you to hook up your school with the popular Google Analytics tool.

Teachable uses Google Analytics to track and report the web traffic directed to your school. The collected information helps in decision-making and formulating future marketing strategies.

Google Analytics has pretty advanced functionality. Do your proper research around this tool to get better results. Check out Teachable’s Knowledge Base to learn how to connect your school with this Google Analytics tool.

3. Third-Party Integrations

You can connect your Teachable school with external tools to help you grow your business.

Google Analytics is one of them. It helps you track and see your school’s web traffic. Then there’s Sumo for marketing and capturing new leads.

And Segment can be used to collect, unify, analyze, and use students’ data. These first three tools are free.

On the basic plan and up, you get access to five tools.

Zappier allows you to automate your school by connecting to over 3000 additional applications. ConvertKIt is for general marketing, and Mailchimp is for email marketing.

Finally, there’s Circle. so for managing online communities. And Facebook Pixel helps in determining the efficacy of an advertising campaign.

4. A Free Template

There are course design templates available for anyone interested in creating a course on Teachable.

They have what they call the Teachable Classic.

This template is for all creators who want to create lectures. The curriculum section is the main feature on the page with a left-side menu that include an author bio, bundled courses, and a certificate tab.

The other template is called the Simple Template.

The template has a clean and simplistic design so that students easily navigate the course overview page. It is suitable for shorter curriculums.

Finally, there’s the Colossal Template.

Everything is on the same page. That is the curriculum section, the author bio, and the certificate.

There’s also a button for students to allow them to start right from where they left off.

Why should you care about a course design template?

A template allows you to create standard pages without touching or worrying about stuff like HTML and CSS and what have you. Teachable has already done the coding for you. Customize a template and turn it into the product you want.

5. A Custom Domain

Your school is given a Teachable subdomain by default. It looks like similar to myschool.teachable.com.

A Teachable subdomain is free.  The bad news is using a subdomain for your school is not recommended. It is unprofessional and bad for business.

Paid plans include an option for a custom domain. A root domain looks similar to something like myschool.com.

Setting up a custom domain on Teachable is not as complicated as it sounds. Check out their step-by-step guide.

6. A School Affiliate Program

Turn your students into a loyal army of affiliates. Let them promote your products to their friends and family through social media and word of mouth.

Affiliates receive a commission from each sale. A person keeps earning a commission from each consecutive payment when they sell a subscription or a membership.

Setting up affiliates for your school is easy.

Go to your school and create a new user affiliate account or promote an existing student into an affiliate marketer. Just share the affiliate links with your affiliates for them to start working.

You’re the one who sets the commission an affiliate will get on each sale.

Affiliate marketing is a proven marketing tactic for growing online businesses.

7. Certifications

You can issue certificates of completion to students who have finished a course. Rewarding them is a good way of acknowledging their achievements.

Teachable allows you to offer certificates to students who finish your course. Students who have completed the course can download the certificate.

Creating a certificate on Teachable is pretty straightforward. Choose a template and create a certificate. As simple as that.

People who know how to code can create a certificate using the HTML programming language. Alternatively, they can hire a programmer to do the work for them.

As a creator, you can revoke a certificate from a student at any moment and for whatever reasons. Teachable gives you the power to do that. You’re the supreme boss of your school. You can also choose to hand out certificates to successful students manually.

8. 24/7 Customer Support

When you experience some issues, log in to your school, and navigate to the help button in the left tab.

There you can access the Knowledge Base and search for the solution to your problem. The Knowledge Base is a collection of help articles.

If that turns out to be unsuccessful, you can create a Support Ticket and contact customer services through the help form.

If you’re on a professional plan and up, you can opt for the live chat option. Go ahead and click on Chat Now and get real-time assistance.

9. Robust Security

Teachable protects your files from piracy.

You can choose to turn off the file download feature. The students can only access those files through the course. No one can share or sell your videos.

Once you turn the downloading feature off, Teachable promises to do everything in its power to keep pirates away from your work.

Teachable uses high tech to block web crawlers for search engines, right-click downloads, and extensions used for downloading videos. Not even Tubedigger or Video Download Helper can work.

It’s still important to acknowledge that everything on the internet is downloadable. Be it through special tools or simply just recording the screen.

All data transmitted through the Teachable platform is heavily encrypted. The company takes the safety and security of its users seriously.

Teachable Review: PROs and CONs

PROs of Teachable

• Teachable is easy to use and create courses.
• It is the creators who set the prices.
• Very little or no transactional fees at all.
• It supports branding.
• Offers a creator training program.
• You have the opportunity to interact with your students and get feedback.
• Multiple streams of income.
• Creators have total control of their business. You can implement different types of business models.

CONs of Teachable

• Teachable doesn’t market your courses as other course marketplaces do.
• Transaction fees on lower plans.
• Some find designing pages demanding.

Teachable Review: What is included in the free plan?

Is the Teachable free plan worth it? Can you create a course and launch it for free?

The answer is yes! You can create unlimited courses on Teachable without paying a dollar. But the free plan is so limited that I only recommend it if you’re trying to test an idea out.

I strongly recommend the paid version of Teachable to get a lot from it and have a successful business.

Here’s what you get without paying a cent.

• Unlimited students.
• Unlimited products
• 10% transaction fees
• 1-admin user
• Email support
• Course design templates
• Basic quizzes
• CSS snippets
• Email lead capture
• Order bumps
• Flexible pricing.
• Multiple pricing plans.
• Multiple currencies.
• PayPal payment support.
• Integrations, Google Analytics, Sumo, and Segment.

But you won’t have:

• Live chat support
• Creator training
• Graded quizzes
• Drip
• Bulk uploading lectures
• Course compliance
• Certificates
• Course reporting
• Custom domains
• Custom emails
• Unbranded website
• Head code snippets
• Affiliates
• Coupons
• Upsells in lectures
• Circle, Facebook Pixel, Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Webhooks, and Zappier.

Teachable Review: Benefits Paid Plans

There are three paid plans.

1. The basic plan

Price: $39 per month. $29 per month if billed annually, which totals $348.

The Teachable basic comes with everything included in the free plan. You also get the following features and benefits.

• 5% transaction fees
• Instant payouts
• Members-only community
• 2-admin users
• Product support
• Course creator training
• Custom domain support
• Coupon codes
• Drip course content
• Integrated email marketing
• Third-party integrations
• Private student community.

2. The Professional plan

Price: $119 per month. $99 per month if billed annually, which totals $1,188.

The Pro plan comes with everything included in the lower pricing plans.  But you also get the following features.

• No transaction fees.
• Instant payouts.
• 5-admins.
• Priority product support.
• Graded quizzes.
• Advanced reports.
• Unbranded website.
• Course completion certificates.
• Course compliance.
• Affiliate marketing.
• Group coaching calls.

3. The Business plan

Price: $299 per month. $249 per month if billed annually, which totals $2,988.

The business plan is the final and ultimate plan. You get everything on the lower plans plus these exclusive benefits.

• No transaction fees.
• Instant payouts.
• 20-admin users.
• Priority product support.
• Manual student imports.
• Bulk students enrollments.
• Custom user roles.
• Advanced theme-customization.
• Group coaching calls.

Teachable Review: Who Is It For?

Teachable is for people who have a talent, skill, or knowledge that they want to share with the world.

Everybody has a gift. What is yours? Is it playing a musical instrument, baking, drawing, coding, writing, or what?

You can formulate a comprehensive curriculum for any subject matter and create a stellar course and share it with the world.

In the Teachable school, you can also sell the following.

• Digital products— ebooks, audiobooks, workbooks, guides, webinars.
• Freelancing services.
• Memberships for ongoing training.
• Coaching

Teachable is for everyone with something to share with the world. Teachable is for you.

Teachable Review: Alternatives

As in any market, Teachable has stiff competition. Competition makes sure companies do not become complacent.

Free markets are advantageous to the consumers. Companies stop each other from making arbitrary prices and low-quality products. Importantly they give you a choice. You can choose whichever course-hosting platform you want.

Here are the three of Teachable’s alternatives.

1.    Thinkific

Thinkific is more like a mirror image of Teachable. They have almost identical features with minor differences.

For example, they both have an intuitive builder and support third-party integrations and website branding.

There are still some differences. Thinkific will slightly cost you more than Teachable. $49 to $499 per month, to be specific. On the other hand, Teachable will cost you $39 to $299 per month.

Thinkific wins a few points for having extra features like surveys. Teachable has more advanced features and superior monitoring and reporting abilities.

On deciding which platform to go for, I recommend you try Teachable. It won’t break your bank and is more advanced. You can test them both simultaneously and see which platform suits your needs better. They both do have free plans.

2.    Kajabi

Kajabi is also more similar to Teachable in terms of functionality.

The difference is the pricing and features. Kajabi has no free plan! The basic plan costs $149 a month. That is expensive compared to the $39 Teachable charges for their basic plan.

However, Kajabi offers a 14-day free trial. The way I see it, two weeks is more than enough to make a decision.

Kajabi gathers everything you need in one place. There are no hidden prices.

For example, Kajabi does not rely on third-party tools for essential services like analytics and marketing. Everything you need is in one place. It saves your time and resources in the long run.

You can also sell digital products directly via Kajabi without going and paying extra cash to e-commerce sites like Shopify.

Check out the Kajabi’s free trial if you want to carry out a sizeable operation. If not, Teachable is your budget-friendly option with all the features you need.

3.    Udemy

Udemy is a free platform. Anyone can create and launch a course on this platform. It is a course marketplace, unlike Teachable, a course self-hosting platform.

The problem is that Udemy has one of the highest transaction fees. Udemy takes 50% of your organic revenue. By organic, they mean all sales done through their app.

You have no control over the pricing of your courses. All Udemy courses range from $19.99 to $199.99. You cannot charge higher than that. Forget about making $1000 courses.

Then there are the frequent discounts happening all the time. You have no control.  Prices are whatever the corporate overlords at Udemy say are the prices. If you’re not comfortable selling a 300-hour course for $9.99, stick with Teachable.

On the issue of marketing, Udemy will promote your courses for you. It’s as simple as creating a killer course, publishing it, and waiting for revenue to start flowing in with no extra effort or expenditure on your part.

Teachable Review: Is It Worth It?

Teachable is one of the cheapest options that won’t rip off your profits.

I highly recommend Teachable to anyone looking to get into the course-making business. You don’t need to be tech-savvy to get your business up and running.

Forget about paying big bucks to software nerds. The easiness to use of Teachable is remarkable.

You don’t need fifty separate apps to control your finances, content, and marketing. Teachable is the perfect all-in-one solution you need.

You get a website builder, a course builder, paid-for plugins, web hosting services, and technical support.

Teachable barely touches your revenue. Don’t worry about giving half of your hard-earned cash to the website hosting your course. And if you’re on a higher plan, nothing is cut from your sales. You take 100% of your revenue!

There are no forced discounts. You can create discounts to attract new customers but on your terms.

Teachable lets you decide the value and pricing of your course. Work smart, not hard. A high-priced quality course is all you need to make to earn a good income on Teachable.

Teachable Review: FAQ

Is Teachable Free?

Yes! Teachable has a free plan that allows you to create unlimited products.

The downside is it comes with minimal features and hefty transaction fees. A good fit if you’re trying to experiment with some ideas.

How does Teachable Make Money?

Teachable earns money with the transaction fees. All transactions on the basic plan and below attract a 5%-10% fee.

Money is also directly earned from the course creators using the platform. Creators are charged $39 to $299 per month.

Teachable does not earn transaction fees on the professional plan and up.

How Much Money Can I Make On Teachable In A Year?

On average, you could earn anything from $0 to $50,000 per month selling courses on Teachable.

A course maker earns between $1,000 to $5,000 per month. Others make $10,000 to $50,000 or more per month.

Hitting a 6-figure income is within your grasp. I say that because you set your prices, and there are no transaction fees on some pricing plans.

Don’t expect these numbers when you’re just getting your feet wet.

The key here is to create a product that adds value to your customers. People are willing to pay for that value.

How Do Teachable Payments Work?

A payment gateway allows your students to pay for your products and for you to withdraw your funds.

The company uses Stripe and PayPal to process transactions.

Currently, Teachable only supports instant payouts in 33 countries. Don’t fret or feel discouraged. Teachable has an alternative monthly payment solution for you.

Who’s The Owner Of Teachable?

Ankur Nagpal is Teachables’ sole founder and CEO based in New York. Initially, the company was called Fedora. Mr. Ankur founded Teachable in 2013.

Ankur is also a well-known angel investor. He has 36 companies in his investment portfolio. He’s also a co-founder of Vibe VC.