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Teachable

Build and sell online courses, coaching, and digital downloads. This platform provides no-code tools, payment processing, and marketing features for creators.

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What is Teachable

Teachable is an online platform that allows creators, entrepreneurs, and businesses to build and sell their own online courses, coaching services, and digital products. The core purpose of Teachable is to provide all the necessary tools to turn knowledge into a profitable business without needing technical skills. Users can create a branded website, upload course materials, manage student enrollment, and process payments all within one system. The company was founded by Ankur Nagpal in 2013 and is headquartered in New York City. It has grown to become a popular choice for over 150,000 creators who want a simple yet powerful way to offer educational content to a global audience.

Teachable Features

Teachable offers a range of features designed to help creators build and manage their online business.

  • Course Builder: An intuitive drag-and-drop tool to create courses with video, audio, text, PDFs, and quizzes. You can structure your curriculum into sections and lectures easily.
  • Digital Downloads: Sell standalone digital products like ebooks, templates, audio files, or guides. This provides another way to generate income from your expertise.
  • Coaching Products: Offer one-on-one coaching sessions. You can set up milestones and communicate directly with your clients through the platform.
  • Memberships and Subscriptions: Create recurring revenue by offering subscription-based access to your content, community, or courses.
  • Integrated Website and Hosting: Every creator gets a customizable website to host their products. Teachable handles all the technical aspects of hosting and security.
  • E-commerce and Payment Processing: Securely accept payments from students worldwide using credit cards, debit cards, and PayPal. The platform handles payouts directly to your bank account.
  • Marketing and Sales Tools: Create coupons, promotions, and set up your own affiliate program to encourage others to sell your products. You can also create custom sales pages.
  • AI-Powered Tools: Use built-in artificial intelligence to help generate course outlines, lesson descriptions, and sales copy, which saves time in the creation process.
  • Community Feature: Build a private community space for your students to interact with each other and with you, fostering engagement and a better learning experience.

Teachable Pricing Plans

Teachable offers several pricing tiers to fit different stages of a creator's business. The plans are structured to provide more features and lower transaction fees as you upgrade.

  • Free Plan: This entry-level plan is for those just starting. It includes basic features to create and sell one product of each type but comes with higher transaction fees.
  • Basic Plan: Aimed at new creators ready to grow their business. It offers lower transaction fees, the ability to create more products, use custom domains, and access email marketing tools.
  • Pro Plan: The most popular plan for established creators. It features zero transaction fees, advanced reporting, an affiliate marketing program for your products, and the ability to have more admin users.
  • Business Plan: Designed for large-scale operations and teams. This plan includes all Pro features plus advanced theme customization, custom user roles, and bulk student enrollments.

Teachable Free Plan

Teachable offers a Free Plan that is a good starting point for new creators. The plan allows you to test the platform and start earning without any upfront cost.

What's included in the Free Plan:

  • 1 published product of each type (1 course, 1 coaching product, 1 digital download)
  • Unlimited students
  • Integrated payment processing
  • Basic quizzes and student management tools

Limitations: The main limitations are a transaction fee on each sale (typically around 10% + credit card processing fees) and limited access to advanced features like custom domains, affiliate programs, and third-party integrations.

How to use Teachable

Getting started with Teachable is a straightforward process. Here is a typical workflow for creating and selling a course.

  1. Sign Up: Create an account on the Teachable website. You can start with the Free Plan.
  2. Create Your School: Give your school a name. This will be your main hub where all your products are listed.
  3. Create a New Product: From your dashboard, select 'Create a Product' and choose 'Course'.
  4. Build Your Curriculum: Use the course builder to add sections and lectures. You can upload videos, add text, create quizzes, and attach downloadable files like worksheets or PDFs.
  5. Set Your Pricing: Go to the 'Pricing' tab for your course. You can set a one-time fee, a payment plan, or a subscription.
  6. Customize Your Sales Page: Design the page that potential students will see. Add a course description, a compelling title, an introduction video, and testimonials.
  7. Publish and Launch: Once you are happy with your course and sales page, click the 'Publish' button. Your course is now live and ready to be sold.
  8. Promote Your Course: Share the link to your sales page on social media, with your email list, and through other marketing channels.

Pros and Cons of Teachable

Pros:

  • User-Friendly: The platform is very easy to navigate, making it ideal for beginners without technical experience.
  • All-in-One Solution: It handles video hosting, payment processing, and course delivery in one place.
  • Good E-commerce Tools: Features like coupons, payment plans, and affiliate marketing (on higher plans) help you sell more effectively.
  • Reliable and Secure: Teachable manages all the technical maintenance, security, and updates for you.
  • Direct Payouts: The platform manages student payments and sends you regular payouts.

Cons:

  • Transaction Fees: The Free and Basic plans have transaction fees on top of standard payment processing fees.
  • Limited Customization: While you can customize your school, it is not as flexible as a self-hosted solution like WordPress with a learning management system (LMS) plugin.
  • Basic Community Features: The built-in community feature is functional but lacks the advanced capabilities of dedicated community platforms.
  • Cost Can Add Up: The higher-tier plans are a significant investment, especially for those just starting out.

Teachable integrations

Teachable integrates with several third-party tools to extend its functionality. These integrations help with marketing, analytics, and automation.

  • Zapier: Connect Teachable to thousands of other apps to automate workflows. For example, you can automatically add new students to a Google Sheet or a CRM.
  • Mailchimp and ConvertKit: Integrate with popular email marketing services to automatically add new students to your mailing lists and send targeted email campaigns.
  • Google Analytics: Add your Google Analytics tracking ID to monitor traffic to your school, understand student behavior, and track sales page conversions.
  • Segment: A powerful integration that allows you to send student data to a wide range of analytics and marketing tools.
  • Facebook Pixel: Track conversions from Facebook ads to better understand your ad performance and optimize your campaigns.

Teachable Alternatives

  • Thinkific: A direct competitor to Teachable with a very similar feature set. A key difference is that Thinkific offers a core set of features on its free plan with no transaction fees, but its paid plans have different feature structures.
  • Kajabi: An all-in-one platform that includes not just course creation but also advanced email marketing, sales funnels, and website building. It is more expensive but offers more marketing tools in one package.
  • Podia: A simpler and often more affordable platform focused on selling online courses, digital downloads, and memberships. It is known for its clean interface and straightforward pricing.
  • LearnDash: A WordPress plugin that turns a self-hosted WordPress site into a powerful learning management system. It offers maximum flexibility and customization but requires more technical management.

Teachable API

Yes, Teachable provides a public API for developers. The API allows you to programmatically interact with your school's data, such as users, courses, and sales. This is useful for building custom integrations, creating advanced reports, or automating administrative tasks.

API access is typically available on the Pro plan and higher. To get your API key, you need to enable the API in your school's settings. You can find detailed documentation on the Teachable developer portal.

Here is a basic example of using the API with cURL to retrieve a list of users:

curl -X GET \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -H "apiKey: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  "https://yourschool.teachable.com/api/v1/users"

Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your actual key and yourschool.teachable.com with your school's URL.

Teachable Affiliate program

Teachable has an affiliate program that allows you to earn money by referring new creators to the platform. When someone signs up for a paid Teachable plan using your unique affiliate link, you earn a commission.

  • Commission Rate: The program typically offers a recurring commission, often around 30%, for as long as the referred user remains a paying customer. This means you can build a steady stream of passive income.
  • How to Join: You can apply to become a Teachable affiliate through their partner program website. The application process is simple, and once approved, you get access to a dashboard with your affiliate links, marketing materials, and performance reports.
  • Getting Paid: Payouts are usually made on a monthly basis through a third-party platform like PartnerStack, once your earnings reach a certain threshold.

It is important to note this is different from the feature that lets you run your own affiliate program for your courses, which is available on Teachable's Pro plan.

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