A third online course platform for comparison: Podia
As mentioned upfront, the purpose of this article is to provide an honest and straightforward review of our top competitors, as well as our own platform (yes, even the downsides) to help you make an informed and confident decision.
Obviously we have more insight into our own product than we do for Kajabi or Teachable, but we’ll do our best to put our biases aside and just focus on the facts, as well as what our customers are saying on review sites and in independent reviews.
Podia: A quick overview
Like Kajabi and Teachable, Podia is also an online course platform that gives creators everything they need to sell courses, webinars, downloads, coaching, and communities.
Podia was founded in 2014, right around the time Teachable was founded, and the platform has served 150,000+ creators.
Like Kajabi, Podia also emphasizes the “all-in-one” aspect of the platform (and relieving the hassle of the “duct tape solution”) while emphasizing the fact that you can sell any kind of digital product on the platform, including online courses, webinars, memberships, and digital downloads (compare to Teachable which focuses more on online courses/coaching and Kajabi which focuses more on online courses/memberships/coaching).
The Podia site also highlights our marketing tools, including our site builder (which allows you to build beautiful, modern, mobile-friendly websites or landing pages), our email marketing tools, live messaging widget (a feature that’s totally unique to Podia), and our affiliate marketing feature.
Podia is also very focused on customer support, offering chat and email support 7 days a week, as well as weekly demos.
Best of all, you can get started on Podia for free. Podia has a free plan that includes a website, online community, one digital download, and one coaching product. This means you can launch online business, grow your email list, build your brand, and start making sales without a huge upfront investment. You’ll only pay an 8% transaction fee when you make a sale.
When you’re ready for more features and more product types, you can easily upgrade to one of our paid plans for unlimited products. There are no transaction fees on paid plans.
In terms of reviews, Podia’s customers seem drawn to the simple, intuitive design with customers saying things like “PODIA hands down is SIMPLE to use. No muss, no fuss, SIMPLE” and “Their system and interface is quite elegant and simple, with just the right of customization to differentiate your site from other Podia sites, but not enough customization options to paralyze you in development.”
Customers also love the lack of limits on everything from products and customers to pages and emails, saying things like “looove the fact that you get unlimited everything, so no more tiers to squeeze through” and “I like the fact that Podia gives its users unlimited hosting of video content through one of the premium video platforms: Wistia. This means that you can upload all kinds of videos, as well as PDF and other types of learning materials, without having to worry about potentially ‘running out of storage’.”
Reviewers also seem to like the accessible price tag (“value for money” is one of the top highlights from reviewers on Capterra) and the fact that Podia doesn’t charge transaction fees.
Finally, Podia customers seem to love Podia’s stellar customer service, saying things like “the customer service goes above and beyond to help you out” and “they have exceptional chat customer service. If you have any problem, you can just ask them and they answer really fast.”
The free migration service is also a helpful bonus for those switching platforms and is mentioned throughout the reviews (“the team were able to migrate me in less than 24 hours and the support is so personal and caring”).
While very close, it’s also worth noting that Podia is rated 4.8/5 stars on Capterra, while Kajabi is rated 4.3/5 stars and Teachable is rated 4.4/5 stars on Capterra, as well as 4.8/5 stars on G2, compared to Kajabi’s 4.4/5 and Teachable’s 4.0/5.
Who is Podia best for?
At its core, Podia is for creators who are looking for a simple, intuitive, and affordable all-in-one platform that supports all types of digital products. It’s also ideal for creators who want the flexibility to grow their businesses without limitations and to get the support they need to succeed.
To recap, we believe Podia is best for creators who:
- Want a simple, intuitive, and affordable all-in-one course platform
- Want to get started for free with their own website, community, digital download, and coaching product
- Sell (or plan to sell) online courses, webinars, memberships, community, coaching, and/or digital downloads
- Want to offer live chat on their website and sales pages
- Want fast, helpful, and friendly customer support 7 days a week
- Don’t want limits on how many products they can sell
- Don’t want to pay transaction fees on paid plans
Podia’s key features
While there’s a lot of love about Podia, below are the key features that are highlighted prominently on the Podia Features page and throughout the site.
Online courses
Podia offers a simple and intuitive course builder that makes course creation easy. With Podia, you can build beautiful and modern standalone courses, drip courses, bundled courses, and more. You can even pre-sell courses, allowing you to validate ideas and earn sales before putting in any work.
Digital downloads
Podia supports every type of digital download you can imagine, for eBooks and PDFs to templates, music, audio, video, and more. Sell downloads on their own, use them as lead magnets to capture emails, or bundle them together with others products.
Webinars with live or pre-recorded videos
Host live or pre-recorded webinars with unlimited participants by connecting your YouTube Live or Zoom accounts, and your audience will be able to register - and pay - for access through your Podia site.
Membership sites
With Podia, you can create as many membership plans - for as many members - as you want, with each featuring different perks, content, and prices.
Our membership sites include public and members-only posts, free trials for potential members, product bundling with your memberships, recurring subscriptions for members, and integrations with Facebook, Slack, or Palapa (only available on “Shaker” and “Earthquaker” plans).
You can set up your membership using Podia’s community feature.
Affiliate programs for your customers
Turn your fans into sales reps by launching your own affiliate program. Within your affiliate program, you can set custom commission terms, invite affiliates, and reward them for helping you grow your business (only available on “Shaker” and “Earthquaker” plans).
Beautiful, easy-to-build custom website/pages (no coding required)
Using Podia’s site editor, you can quickly build a beautiful, custom website for your business (as well as custom landing/sales pages) without needed design or development knowledge.
Built-in email marketing tools
Send one-off emails or automated, multi-touch sequences with Podia’ built-in email marketing tools. The built-in marketing tools also include email capture, segmentation capabilities, email analytics, and more. Podia is also the only online course platform that gives you complete revenue metrics for every email you send.
On-page chat messaging to interact with visitors and customers (Podia only!)
The same way Podia offers chat support to potential and current Podia customers, you can also offer live chat messaging to your potential and current customers by enabling the “live chat” widget on your website and sales pages. This functionality is unique to Podia and is not available through Teachable or Kajabi.
Embedded checkout
Sell in more places (and increase your chances of conversion) with Podia’s embedded checkout feature, which features a fast and simple checkout process that’s been tested and optimized for conversion (only available on “Shaker” and “Earthquaker” plans).
Automatic VAT calculation for EU customers
If you’re in the EU, Podia will calculate the amount of VAT due from each customer, add the VAT to the customer’s bill, collect that money to your Stripe or PayPal account, and store all the tax data you need to make an accurate VAT return.
Payment plan options
If your customers prefer to pay in installments, use Podia’s payment plan options to give your students more financial freedom and flexibility.
Coupons
Create custom coupons for sales or for unique situations (i.e. for individual customers, a one-time purchase, or a limited-time deal) to entice customers and make more sales.
Pre-sell courses
Have an idea for a course, but not ready to launch yet? Use Podia to pre-sell your course, which means you can promote it, capture email addresses, and even collect payments before putting in any work.
Bundles
Have similar products you want to sell together? Use Podia’s Bundle feature to sell complementary products together at a discounted rate as a way to increase sales.
Upsells
Increase the size of every order by offering relevant upsells (like additional products) to customers who purchase your digital downloads.
Quizzes
Test your students’ knowledge or ensure concepts are being properly absorbed by incorporating quizzes throughout your online courses.
Drip content
Want your content to arrive at specific intervals? Use Podia’s Drip Content feature to automatically deliver specific content at specific times throughout the customer journey.
Student comments
See student questions, get their feedback, or just start a conversation by allowing customers to comment directly within your course content.
Course completion certificates
When students complete a course, automatically recognize and reward their effort with a simple yet elegant course completion certificate (only available on “Shaker” and “Earthquaker” plans).
Podia pricing: A quick breakdown
With a feature-packed free plan and paid plans starting at $39/month, Podia is considered much more accessible to creators at every level, which is why “good value for the money” tends to be a highlight across public reviews.
When you compare Podia’s pricing to Teachable and Kajabi, Podia’s plans are typically less expensive than compeitors. Podia’s Mover plan and Teachable’s Basic plan are the same price, but Teachable charges a 5% transaction fee while Podia has no transaction fees on paid plans.
Below is a high-level breakdown of what’s included in each of Podia’s plans: