The best platforms to create online courses

by | Jun 30, 2021

Do you want to offer an online course or class? In this post we’ll tell you which are the best platforms that you can use for this project.

Every day it is easier to earn money online and today we’ll explore the possibility of monetizing your knowledge. Nowadays, there are more people willing to pay to learn any kind of skill through the Internet, so this is an excellent time to start teaching that skill or knowledge that distinguishes you and in which you are an expert. If you are interested in creating an online course, review the pros and cons of the best platforms available.

There are two types of platforms to create an online course: external and internal. With external we are referring to platforms outside your website, which are dedicated to promote courses. While, the internal platforms are the tools that allow or help you to create a course directly on your website without the need of an external agent.

Below we will tell you which are the most popular in each type and what are their advantages and disadvantages so that you can evaluate for yourself which one is the most convenient for you.

Platforms for external online courses

These platforms are Internet sites dedicated to the promotion of online courses, in fact they go beyond being a simple showcase for the courses, as many of them have been created as Learning Management Systems (LMS), i.e. they are platforms with multiple tools for both the teacher and the student that help to improve the learning experience.

The advantages offered by these platforms compared to making your course on your own website are several, for example, many of them are responsible for the dissemination of your course and payment management. Keep reading if you want to know the benefits and disadvantages of some of the most famous external platforms.

1. Udemy

Udemy is the perfect platform for those who are starting to launch online courses. Basically, it is a marketplace where you can find courses on a wide variety of topics. Its biggest advantage is that the platform takes care of everything, the marketing of your course, payment management and, of course, hosting, basically you just have to upload the content to the platform, which is why it is so recommended for beginners. It even guides you in the creation of it, as it points out the elements you should add such as table of contents or recorded classes.

Despite how wonderful it sounds, this platform has the great disadvantage that they constantly put courses on sale, so your course can be offered for $10 dollars, without asking for your authorization, also they keep 50% commission for selling the course, but if students arrive because you looked for them the platform keeps 3%, so if you have a course that you worked a long time this may not be a good option because it can end up selling for a few dollars.

2. Domestika

Domestika is another marketplace for courses of various subjects, although it started as a platform for creatives, the courses offered today are of various subjects. One of its great advantages is that it has a huge community that supports it and regularly consumes its courses, so you can have several students quickly.

You cannot access it as easy as it seems because after registering for free you have to upload your course proposal, for executives to evaluate it, once accepted you can start creating the course. Its big disadvantage is that you can keep 30 to 50% of the profits as payment for the production cost.

3. Hotmart

Hotmart is the most recently created platform. It is a Brazilian company that quickly became popular, as they take care of all the technical aspects. You can upload your course without any prior investment.

The platform starts charging a commission until you start selling your course. The disadvantage is that they keep a good percentage of your courses and you don’t have the information of the people who bought them.

4. Kajabi

Kajabi is definitely the most complete option for course creation. However, you have to have knowledge of marketing and advertising to promote your course, as it allows you to generate and design landing pages, create sales funnels, and manage your email marketing campaign. The disadvantage is the price, as it ranges from $106 to $150 to sign up for a course.

5. Tutellus

The Tutellus platform is a marketplace that works in a very similar way to Domestika. Creating your course on this platform is very simple, as Tutellus takes you by the hand to do it. In addition to the ease, it has the advantage of having a very large community of customers, which can translate into your potential students.

With this platform, as with the others, the disadvantage is the percentage they keep of the sales of your course, which is usually 30%. However, it has an affiliate program that allows you to generate some extra money by recommending courses from the platform.

6. Teachable

Teachable is a platform very similar to the previous ones, but with the advantage that it allows you to manage your own domain, which means you have more independence to manage your courses, setting the price or customizing the content, you can also choose the payment method.

The site is entirely in English, but if you don’t speak English it doesn’t matter so much as it is very intuitive and you will be able to manage it well. The commission that the site takes varies according to the plan you sign up for.

Platforms for internal online courses

Creating your own platform to upload your online courses can have many advantages, mainly two: the administration of the course and the elimination of commissions. However, you should know that creating a course from your own platform implies much more work, since besides creating the content, you will have to manage the payment methods, create the marketing campaigns to attract your students and manage your domain and all the technical aspects of your website.

As complicated as it sounds it is worth a try, especially if it is a very large project. If you decide to go this way, here are some tools you can use.

WordPress

If you already have a website created with WordPress you can take advantage of it to upload your online course, because there are several plugins with which you can transform your site into an ideal place for your course. However, keep in mind that this will not be free because most of these plugins are expensive.

  • LearnDash is one of the most complete plugins for building online courses, it is also very easy to use because it has a building block interface. It helps you design a course that is unlocked as the students make progress. The price is about $159 per year.
  • WPCourseware is another favorite plugin for transforming WordPress into a course platform, as it allows you to create modules, units and quizzes. It is priced at $124 per year.

If there is something you want to share with the world, you can do it by monetizing that knowledge through online courses. No matter which platform you choose, the important thing is that you create a course with quality content to attract the attention of users and keep them looking for your content.

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