Teachable Review – Is It Still Good In 2024?

Teachable has established itself as a giant in the e-learning space, and with everyone writing a Teachable review, it is pretty easy to get confused.

This is simply why I’ve written a full-length, undiluted review, so you won’t have to run around for extra information.

Here are a few reasons why you should take the time to read through this Teachable review:

• I use Teachable for my online course, having recently switched from Thinkific. Thus, I have a considerable amount of first-hand experience using the platform and continue to track any changes they make.
• I am also an online entrepreneur like most Teachable users. Thus, I understand all the struggles that come with choosing and using integrated marketing tools and resources.

Teachable has been impressive over the years for its simplicity and effectiveness. But just like every other online course platform, it won’t be the best fit for everyone.

In this Teachable review, I will be dissecting its features, pricing plans, payment processors, customer support, etc., while pointing out its pros and cons.

That way, you will know if it is what you want and what to expect when you sign up on the platform.

I’ll also show you some of the best alternatives to Teachable if you decide to shop around for more options.

Let’s get started!

At-a-Glance Teachable Review

Teachable is a simple yet powerful platform. It provides tools that help you create and sell online courses, host coaching services, sell digital products, and even run memberships.

Its key selling point lies in its ability to provide unlimited video bandwidth and an advanced course building and delivery system that creates impressive learning experiences for students.

Some of the tools that make Teachable exceptional as an online course platform include content locking, graded quizzes, certificates of completion, course compliance features, etc.

When it comes to customer data, Teachable allows you to own and control your students’ information and ensure it remains secured during login and checkout through a 2048-bit SSL certificate.

Its website building tools are pretty impressive, making it easy for anyone to build beautiful, conversion-based sales and checkout pages with no coding knowledge (and without taking a lot of time).

Teachable also integrates natively with several third-party apps such as ConvertKit (my favorite ESP), Google Analytics, Zapier, etc., so you can work more productively on the platform.

As far as pricing goes, Teachable attaches a transaction fee of 5% to its Basic Plan, but if you’re using any of its higher plans, you won’t need to pay any transaction fee. We’ll cover that in a minute.

Let’s explore the Teachable features in detail.

Online Course Creation with Teachable

One of the main things to consider in any online course platform review is its course creation tool. 

How easy is it to create a course on a platform like Teachable? How intuitive is the course builder’s interface? What extra features are included in the Teachable course builder to make your courses more engaging?

The above questions are some of the things this Teachable review will answer.

Setting up a Teachable course is pretty straightforward and efficient, and this is no surprise because Teachable is mainly created for selling online courses.

To create a Teachable course, you begin by clicking on the courses button found on the sidebar. Next, you’d need to fill out the fields to add a title and a subtitle, as well as select the author. You can also set up stuff like the meta description and SEO URL.

Teachable allows you to include a thumbnail for your catalog and course interface. Also, you can easily add a promo video to be displayed on your sales page.

Teachable organizes your courses as sections, and within these sections, you can add your lectures. You’re allowed to change the name of these sections as you go (e.g., Introduction, Module 1, Module 2, etc.)

As for the lectures, Teachable supports a wide variety of formats for your classes. You can include files (PDFs, videos, audio files, etc.), type texts directly into teachable, add quizzes, and code examples.

Teachable has an Add Custom Code option that allows you to do stuff like embedding live stream videos or webinars into your lectures.

While this may seem a little advanced for non-tech-savvy folks, it is actually easy to learn. However, I believe that Teachable can make a more user-friendly tool for doing stuff like embedding live stream videos and webinars.

Teachable allows you to schedule your lectures using the drip feature. That way, your courses will be automatically released to your enrollees over time, depending on when they join your training.

Finally, if you’d like to add upsells within your courses, Teachable allows you to do just that. With this, you can increase the Average Order Value for each of your courses.

You can also add authors to your Teachable account. These authors will have the right to do basically anything you approve on their profiles and earn a set percentage on courses they create.

So, if you want to own an online school with more than one author on board, Teachable makes it pretty easy to manage.

Teachable also allows you to create graded quizzes and award certificates of completion to boost student engagement. Let’s check them out below.

You May Also Like:

• Teachable Course and Website Examples

Quiz Creation with Teachable

Creating quizzes on Teachable is straightforward. The platform allows you to create simple, multiple-choice quizzes to go along with your courses. You can add and remove as many possible answers as you want. 

You can also choose whether to grade the quiz or not. If you choose to do so, Teachable will automatically create a report with your students’ grades.

Teachable’s quiz tool is simple and lacks advanced features. Thus, if you’re looking for more flexibility with creating quizzes, then you can’t find it on Teachable at the moment.

For example, you cannot provide feedback on your students’ answer choices, and you cannot randomize or even store the questions to be used in other quizzes.

Furthermore, there is no bulk-import feature for adding multiple quiz questions at once. Thus, if you have 100 quiz questions already prepared, you’d have to add them one by one any time you wish to use them in a course.

Awarding Completion Certificates with Teachable

You can award certificates of completion to your students after each course on Teachable. 

While this is a great way to reward your students for grinding through your online course, you can only access this feature on Teachable’s Pro plan or higher.

Teachable provides you with a few templates for creating your certificate of completion.

With its templates, you can add your logo, change colors, and even include a signature as a JPG or PNG file. You can also change the pre-set text in your certificate.

If you know how to code, you can fully customize your template using HTML or Liquid, or both!

Teachable’s system automatically includes the name of your school, student, and course.

In general, it is simple, but it does the job.

Marketing & Selling Courses with Teachable

Teachable focuses on selling online courses. It comes packed with features designed to help you create, market, and sell your courses efficiently.

This section will take a closer look at Teachable’s sales and marketing features and how they work.

Multiple Course Pricing Plans

Right under the Curriculum panel, you will find the pricing panel. Here, you can choose from Teachable’s array of pricing options, including free, subscription, payment options, and one-time purchases. 

Teachable also allows you to set up a payment plan so your enrollees can pay you in installments over a set period. Teachable also has a setting that will enable you to choose whether or not your students can opt out of their payment plan.

Coupons: Teachable allows you to create coupon codes for special discounts to specific enrollees. It comes in two forms: multiple coupons and single coupons.

Multiple coupons will enable you to create one coupon code that can be used by a maximum of 1000 students. A single coupon is made for use by one enrollee. You can set the same coupon code on all pricing plans.

Bundling

Teachable allows you to combine multiple courses, which you can then sell at one price.

These course bundles are often discounted from the combined price of individual courses to motivate prospects to pay.

Sales Page

Teachable offers reasonable customization features for sales pages. Its sales pages can be built with premade page blocks as well as custom code.

Some of the page blocks available on your sales pages include:

• Course Hero Header
• Author Bio
• Coupon Banner
• Bundled Courses
• Course description
• Primary and Secondary Enroll Buttons
• FAQ
• Course Curriculum

You can customize, add, or delete most of the page blocks as you deem fit.

Applicable ones include:

• Rich Text
• HTML
• Featured Courses
• Background Image
• Embedded Form
• Testimonial
• Embedded Video

In general, Teachable offers you the things you need to set up your sales pages effectively.

Checkout Cart Page

Once a prospect clicks on the “enroll” button on your sales page, they’re shown a checkout page with standard fields for entering payment details. Each course has its own professional-looking checkout page with its respective course price, payment plans.

In addition to that, Teachable allows you to include other crucial elements, including:

• Testimonials from up to two satisfied customers to build social proof.
• Value Proposition Points to highlight what you have to offer in your course.
• 30-Day Guarantee Images

These elements, if included, can boost your sales considerably.

Here’s what the checkout page would look like.

Thank You Page

Once your prospects complete a purchase, they’ll be directed to a Thank You Page. Teachable allows you to customize this page in terms of what your enrollees get to see.

You can simply include a “Thank You” note along with a button that takes them into the course area. Alternatively, you can be more engaging by adding a video with personalized appreciation or encouragement.

Upsell Pages

Teachable allows you to offer upsells to your enrollees. This upsell can be included as a page block on the Thank You page or within your courses (as already mentioned in the previous section).

This can significantly boost the profitability of your school.

Note that the ability to offer upsells within courses is unique to Teachable at the moment.

Coaching

Teachable announced this new feature in January 2020. The coaching functionality allows you to offer coaching services to your customers.

This new feature is super helpful because now, you can easily include a supplemental 1:1 coaching service in lectures with difficult concepts or run a live Q&A session to help your students go through any difficulties they might encounter throughout your lessons. 

You can even bundle your coaching service with your courses, offer it as a bonus, or use it as an upsell.

Like courses, Teachable’s coaching feature also comes with its sales, checkout, and thank you pages.

Authors & Affiliates

Authors and affiliates are the extra features that come with Teachable. You can set these up to boost your sales.

Authors are simply other creators whom you add and give rights to create and manage your Teachable account courses. They also get a share of the revenue earned from the courses they create.

On the other hand, affiliates are simply many people (ideally students) who promote your courses using their own resources to help you make more sales.

Affiliates earn commissions for every sale they bring for you. Teachable provides tools to help you manage, track, and communicate with your affiliates.

 Payment Processor Options

This is one of the most critical aspects of this Teachable review because there is no point in creating courses on a platform that makes receiving payment stressful for you.

So, how does Teachable handle payments for its course creators? Enter “Teachable Payments.”

Teachable Payments is a payment processor offered by Teachable for all its pricing plans. While this gateway is available on all pricing plans, only residents of the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada are eligible for this service.

Teachable Payments work with Stripe Express accounts, and you will be walked through the process of setting up a new account or adding an existing one. With Teachable Payments, eligible course creators will be able to withdraw daily, weekly, or monthly.

For users from other countries, Teachable allows you to receive payments through another means: the Monthly Payment Gateway. 

It uses Teachable’s Stripe account to process all credit and debit card transactions. Also, you will only have access to your payments every 30 days through PayPal.

If you’d like to set PayPal up as a payment option on either Teachable Payments or Monthly Payment Gateway, Teachable allows you to do that using its Back Office module.

Your payment will still be released every 30 days.

The Back Office feature also allows you to set up automatic payments for your authors and affiliates as well as automatic Tax handling for your affiliates and authors.

You should note that the Back Office feature comes with extra transaction fees of 2% for all processed payments.

Teachable also charges transaction fees of 5% for users on its Basic Plan.

If you’re on its Pro Plan, you can make use of its most popular payment processing option: The Custom Payment Gateway (CPG).

With the CPG, content creators can set up their own payment gateways with their Stripe or PayPal business accounts.

With this option, payouts are completed faster. Also, Teachable charges no transaction fees for users on its Pro Plan.

Note that the CPG is not available for users of the Basic Plan.

Teachable Integrations

Just like other top online course platforms, Teachable offers integrations with third-party applications.

Just in case you’re not so familiar with the term ‘integration,’ let me explain it briefly.

An integration can simply be defined as a means of connecting two or more apps to another app (which we will call the main app). That way, you can carry out the connected apps’ necessary functions without leaving the main app.

This is what Teachable does. It allows you to use software for functions such as email marketing, analytics, etc., without exiting the platform. This helps save time and amplify the productivity of your online course and coaching business.

Teachable comes pre-integrated with quite a few third-party applications compared with other online course platforms.

To make up for this, Teachable allows you to use Zapier. Zapier is an app that will enable you to connect as many secondary apps as you want to your main app (in this case, Teachable).

Here’s a list of native email marketing tool integrations you’ll find when using Teachable:

• ConvertKit – For email marketing
• Segment – For collecting customer data
• MailChimp – For marketing automation and email marketing
• Zapier – For connecting other apps to Teachable
• SumoMe – For email marketing
• Google Analytics – For analyzing activities within your school

If you’d like to connect other apps, such as the e-mail marketing platform AWeber, Google Sheets, Google Sheets, etc., you can use Zapier.

Note that these integrations might cost you extra fees, depending on the app company’s terms.

For example, Zapier only allows 100 free connections (‘zaps’) per month. To do more, you’d need to pay $20 per month. Sumo also allows only 200 subscribers for free. Once you hit that limit, you’d have to pay $29 per month.

Teachable also comes with a functionality known as Webhooks.

This functionality allows you to perform some functions available on Zapier, such as event triggers for student signups, contact updates, new sales, etc. However, this might be too advanced for new online course creators.

Managing and Student Communication

When an enrollee signs up for your school, Teachable captures basic information such as their names and emails. It doesn’t allow you to get more detailed information about your students. This option is readily available with a few competitors, such as Thinkific.

Another thing I have noticed is the inability to organize your students into groups when you use Teachable. This is particularly useful if you offer your courses to businesses.

For example, it would make sense to distinguish between students from Business A and students from Business B. Again, Thinkific allows you to do this.

One impressive feature Teachable does have is the MyTeachable account functionality. MyTeachable allows you to quickly enroll students who already have accounts at other course creators’ schools.

This solves the common inconveniences associated with students having to create new accounts each time they sign up for a new Teachable course.

For course creators, this means smoother enrollment processes and better conversion rates.

When it comes to communicating with your students, the Teachable platform provides a few options.

The first one is the use of lecture comments. Teachable allows you to enable comments on your lectures so you can ramp up student engagement and help them learn faster.

Lecture comments are optional and can be activated by simply tapping on the comments button within your course builder.

You can also choose to moderate comments across your website through your general settings (Settings > General).

That way, you (or an assigned author) can review comments before approving them to avoid spam. You can also choose to set comments as threads. That way, all responses to existing comments would be nested under them.

You can also set up notifications (via Settings > Notifications) for comments. That way, you will be notified via email when a new comment or reply comes in as well as when a comment requires moderation.

Under notifications, you can also set notifications when new signups come in or when students cancel their subscriptions.

All of Teachable’s paid plans allow you to send emails to your students. You can send emails to all your site users or just students of a specific course.

Teachable allows you to customize your email templates, but you’d need to know how to code in HTML.

Teachable, somehow, didn’t include a means for students to provide reviews for your courses. Thus, it is hard to build social proof around your courses.

To get feedback from your students, you’d have to find other means. For example, you can add an end-of-course evaluation or send them emails requesting their honest opinion.

Course Tracking & Reporting

Teachable comes with impressive tracking and reporting tools for course creators. These reporting tools provide in-depth information about student enrollments, course completion rates, quiz performances, and leaderboards.

These tools are pretty easy to use, but they’re only available on the Pro Plan and above.

Teachable’s reporting tools also include functionalities such as video stats, video engagements, and Video Heatmap, which shows you how your students have been interacting with your videos.

The Video Heatmap functionality is provided by Wistia and allows you to know what parts of your videos each student is watching, rewatching, and skipping.

For instance, for watched parts of a video, the heatmap shows a green hue. For skipped parts, it shows white. It shows yellow for rewatched parts, and for parts that have been rewatched multiple times, it shows orange.

Video heatmap is particularly useful if your online course is heavily reliant on video content.

This feature is only available for videos uploaded directly with Teachable’s video uploader. If you embed a video on the course platform using an embed code, there won’t be any heatmap for it.

Customer Support for Course Creators

Anyone who has used Teachable even for a week would confirm that the developers did a great job by offering online support as you navigate the platform.

For any functionality that appears to confuse you, you only need to tap on the question mark icon next to the feature, and you’ll get a pop-up with explanations.

While this support makes the platform easy to use, it is a tad inconsistent and doesn’t exactly appear throughout the platform.

Also, there is a rich, up-to-date knowledge base where you can find information on literally every feature on Teachable (at least, from my own experience).

Furthermore, for all its paid plans, you’re eligible for Teachable U, a training school created by the Teachable team to help you fully understand and use the platform like a pro.

With that said, let’s move on to the next forms of support provided by Teachable: email and chat support.

Teachable’s customer support team is pretty solid and was a Stevie Award in 2018.

They provide email support for all plans and chat support for Pro Plans and above. Its email support and live chat features can be quickly accessed by clicking on the Help button.

Email support is available every day from 8 AM to 8 PM US Eastern Time.

On the other hand, Teachable’s live chat is open from Monday to Friday, from 10 AM to 5 PM, US Eastern Time. 

Note that Teachable does not offer phone support.

Teachable Pricing

Teachable pricing plans come in three levels: Basic Plan, Pro Plan, and Business Plan. It used to have a free plan, but that has now been replaced with a 14-day trial.

Teachable’s Basic Plan costs $39/month or $29/month when billed annually. Its Pro Plan costs $119/month or $99/month when billed annually. Finally, its Business Plan costs $299/month or $249/month when billed annually.

Teachable offers unlimited courses, students, and videos on all its plans. However, the Basic Plan attracts a transaction fee of 5%. There are no transaction fees for the Pro Plan and Business Plan.

Here’s a more detailed and helpful piece on Teachable pricing options.

Teachable Pros and Cons

Pros

• It comes with a simple, user-friendly interface (no tech headaches!).
• Offers unlimited students, courses, and video bandwidth on all its plans.
• Powerful course builder for creating and launching online courses.
• It has impressive tracking and reporting features (its Video Heatmap is super cool).
• It offers a drag-and-drop site builder that helps you build beautiful, functional websites with ease.
• It comes with one-page checkout features that support faster conversions.
• Provides excellent support, along with a knowledge base and free training program for people who want to create and sell courses.
•  Allows you to offer coaching services as well.
• It gives you full control of your student data.
• It comes with upsell features that allow you to offer upsells to your students within your courses or on your Thank You page.

Cons

• Has limited native integrations.
• Long payouts for non-US, Canadian, and UK Basic Plan users, along with extra transaction fees if you include PayPal as a payment option for your students.
• Charges transaction fees on its Basic Plan.
• No free plan (they discontinued their free plan).
• No priority customer support for Basic Plan users.
• It doesn’t allow you to organize your students into groups.
• It doesn’t offer continuing education capabilities. 
• It doesn’t allow importing courses using Articulate Storyline and Adobe Captivate. Consequently, it doesn’t support SCORM, xAPI, and other e-learning specifications and standards.
• Very hard to create and sell courses in multiple languages.

Teachable Review Conclusion – Is It Worth It?

Having seen the functionalities, Teachable has to offer, along with its pros and cons; you’re probably wondering if it’s worth your money. Here are my final two cents.

The Teachable platform is a big shot in creating and selling online courses, and thousands of course creators are using Teachable to generate impressive revenue. 

If you’re a newbie and want to get started with your first online course, Teachable makes creating and selling it as easy as possible. It provides a reliable learning management system and user experience your future students will enjoy.

These are the essential things any online course platform should offer

You won’t need to spend hours learning how to code a website from scratch or paying someone else to do it because its drag-and-drop site builder helps you set up a clean website pretty quickly. This is useful because you can create a high-quality and engaging online course for your students.

With that said, is Teachable really worth it?

Let’s put it this way; you should get started with Teachable if any of these applies to you:

• You have a course but haven’t used an online course platform before and are yet to sell your first online course
• You are on a relatively tight budget but plan to scale soon
• You want a straightforward system that has all the main features you need for creating high-converting web pages and course content without code

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Teachable Legit?

Yes. Teachable is legit, their HQ is based in New York, USA, and the Teachable platform has big power users such as Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income.

It has over 100,000 teachers, over 250,000 courses, and over 23 million students to solidify its social proof as an online course platform.

Is Teachable Better Than Thinkific?

In general, the Thinkific course platform packs a better punch with course website features. It can manage bulk sales and content a bit more effectively and offers better quizzing capabilities. On top of that, Thinkific has a free plan and charges no transaction fee on its paid plans.

However, the Teachable platform outperforms it with better marketing and selling features, customer care, student engagement, and interactivity. Both online course platforms are good, but they all boil down to what you want out of your learning management system.

Click here for a full-length comparison between Teachable and Thinkific.

Does Teachable have a free plan?

No. Teachable.com does not have a free plan. It started with a free plan that had a transaction fee attached to it. However, it has completely replaced the free plan with a 14-day trial.

Teachable automatically places you on the Pro Plan during the free trial and doesn’t require your credit card details.

Note that many Teachable reviews still say that Teachable offers a free plan. This is no longer accurate. Teachable’s free plan was scrapped on August 15, 2020.

Can you make money with Teachable?

Yes, you can make money (some call it passive income) with Teachable, whether you’re a small business or a larger organization. The Teachable software has recorded over 500 million dollars in course sales since its launch in 2014, and it’s still growing.

Alternatives to Teachable

Teachable is a fantastic platform to host your course. However, if you’re curious about Teachable alternatives, that’s perfectly fine.

Some of the best alternatives to Teachable that online course creators consider include Thinkific, Podia, Kajabi, and LearnWorlds.

Here are some related comparison articles:

• Teachable vs Podia
• Teachable vs Kajabi
• Teachable vs Udemy

If you’re looking for a Learning Management System (LMS) that you can use on your WordPress website, then I’d recommend LearnDash and LifterLMS.