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Podia vs. Skillshare

Build your courses and grow your audience on a platform that you own

Podia is an all-in-one platform for building your online business where you have full control over your courses, website, digital products, and email list. Plus, you get to set your own pricing.

Podia vs. Skillshare

Skillshare works well as an online course marketplace, but Podia has all the features you need to build your entire online business. Sell unlimited courses, create ebooks, offer coaching, and send newsletters to your subscribers – all with a single platform.

    • Online courses
    • Website and blog
    • Digital products
    • Email marketing
    • Newsletters
    • Custom sales pages
    • Online courses
    • Website and blog
    • Digital products
    • Email marketing
    • No newsletters
    • Default product pages
Comparing Podia vs. Skillshare
PodiaSkillshare
Price$33/mo – $89/moFree
Free migrations Included Not included
Website Included Not included
Email marketing Included Not included
Online courses Included Included
Digital products Included Not included
Webinars Included Not included
Coaching Included Not included
Landing pages Included Not included
Blogging Included Not included
Affiliate marketing Included Not included

Video Demo

Podia in action

Wondering if Podia is a better platform for you? Go behind the scenes in this video walkthrough to learn the ins and outs of Podia’s software and how it can help your business.

What makes Podia different from Skillshare?

It comes down to what the two platforms let you, the entrepreneur, do.

The pure simplicity of Podia has allowed me to focus on creating my course and provide value for my customers, avoiding spending hours trying to figure out a complicated courseware. If I got stuck at any point of the process, their amazingly responsive and incredibly nice support was always there to help.

Mojca Zove
Entrepreneur & Facebook ads expert

Podia vs. Skillshare: Which one is right for me?

Podia and Skillshare both make it easy to share your work with online courses, but the type of business you can build with each platform is very different.

Skillshare is an online course platform where teachers can upload their video courses into a marketplace. Students sign up for a Skillshare membership to access all courses on the platform, and teachers earn royalties based on how many minutes of watch time their courses receive.

Podia is an all-in-one platform where small business owners and entrepreneurs can sell courses, digital downloads, coaching, and webinars. Podia includes a custom website and blog, and you can run your email marketing and affiliate program all under one roof.

Here’s more information about each option so you can pick the best online course platform for your business.

Course builder features on Podia and Skillshare

Podia and Skillshare are both course-creation platforms, but Skillshare courses follow a set template while Podia courses have more customization options.

Skillshare recommends creating video courses that are 20–60 minutes long and are broken up into shorter video segments. All courses must include an intro and outro video lesson. All courses should contain a project that students can complete and upload after they’ve finished their course content.

Some things to keep in mind:

  • Skillshare has content restrictions that might make it difficult to sell your work if you fall outside of their approved topics. (For instance, you can’t sell courses related to fitness, pet care, beauty regimes, spirituality, and mathematics, to name a few.)

  • You can only teach Skillshare courses in English, French, German, Portuguese, or Spanish.

  • Skillshare asks that you limit self-promotion in your videos, which means you shouldn’t ask people to visit your social media profiles or discuss other products that aren’t on Skillshare.

With Podia, there are fewer limitations on your online courses.

Your courses can have videos, images, text, downloads, embeds, quizzes, or any combination of those elements. You can also add live sessions and 1:1 coaching within your course for a varied learning experience.

You can bundle your courses with other products and add upsells at checkout if you have related products your customers might like. It’s also easy to set up drip courses, waitlists, seat limits, coupons, access durations, and payment plans, and even connect an online community through Podia’s Discord integration.

As your business grows, you can use Podia to add affiliate marketing for your courses. This means that happy customers can promote your products and courses in exchange for a commission.

Another benefit of using Podia is that you can email the students in your courses any time you like. Let’s take a look at Podia’s email features.

Email marketing in the same place as everything else

Email marketing tools are a powerful way to grow your audience and add value for your customers. All Podia accounts come with a beginner-friendly email designer, email templates, automations, segments, campaigns, newsletters, sales funnels, and lead magnet functionality — and all these features are free for your first 100 subscribers.

If your email list grows, you can upgrade your Podia Email plan for more subscribers (or connect with a third-party email marketing platform if you prefer).

This means you can send course learners a welcome email after they sign up, create a free lead magnet that drives course sales, and share blog posts and business updates with your followers any time you like.

You can also keep an eye on your analytics to see how much money you earned from a particular campaign and how many people opened your emails, all in one user-friendly dashboard.

Skillshare doesn’t include an email marketing feature, and you’re discouraged from sending students off the platform, so you’ll need to grow your email list another way.

Your own website, blog, and landing pages

In addition to housing your courses and email, Podia also comes with a customizable website and unlimited landing pages. You can build a blog, set up sales pages, and create standalone pages for your link in bio or email newsletter sign-up in just a few clicks. Want to connect a custom domain? You can do that too.

When you’re ready to set up your site using Podia’s easier-than-drag-and-drop website builder, you can choose from dozens of predesigned section templates. Image grids, FAQs, testimonials, featured products, bio sections, CTAs, and email opt-in forms all look great out of the box, and you can customize them to match your branding and style.

You can also embed interactive elements from +1900 sources around the web (like YouTube videos, podcasts, presentations, spreadsheets, etc.), and customize your fonts, colors, and website spacing.

There are SEO settings so you can help your pages and posts show up in the search results, and Podia websites also come with customer chat messaging so students and prospective buyers can contact you.

Skillshare, on the other hand, is a course marketplace so everyone gets a uniform course page to promote their content. Skillshare doesn’t include your website or blog, and there aren’t many customizations you can make to your course page aside from your text and featured image.

Podia vs. Skillshare plans and pricing

Skillshare is free to use, but your earning potential is out of your control since you can’t set your own prices. All teachers on the platform share 20% of the revenue generated by Skillshare each month, and the amount you earn is based on how many minutes people spent watching your videos compared to other teachers.

So while Skillshare does have a free plan, it also has a more complicated earnings structure.

Podia is an all-in-one solution where you pay a set monthly fee for all the tools you need to run your business. To start, Podia has a 30-day free trial with all features so you can test everything out before you pay anything. After the trial, you can choose from two pricing plans:

  • Mover: $39/month and 5% transaction fee ($33/month when paid annually): Mover includes your website, blog, and sales pages as well as unlimited digital products, online course creation, and third-party code. You also get access to Podia’s friendly customer support.

  • Shaker: $89/month and 0% transaction fee ($75/month when paid annually): Shaker includes all the Mover features plus affiliates.

All Podia plans include all email marketing features (like automations, newsletters, email templates, segmentation, tagging, and campaigns) for up to 100 subscribers. If you like, you can upgrade your Podia Email plan to add more subscribers as your list grows.

If you sign up for a monthly or annual Mover or Shaker plan, Podia includes a free migration service. This means our team will move your products and customers over from another platform (like Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi, etc.) for free so you can get started fast.

Bottom line: Skillshare is a good option if you want a revenue-sharing model and don’t mind being limited to just video courses. But you won’t be able to set prices for those courses, create a custom website, or contact your audience with email marketing.

Podia is a better option if you want more control over the types of courses and products you offer. You can set your own prices, sell digital products, create a beautiful, customized website with landing pages and blog posts, grow your email list, and start an affiliate program — all from a platform that you control.

We want you to have everything you need to grow a course business you love, which is why you can try Podia for free for 30 days. Sign up for your free trial today. We can’t wait to see what you make.

Try Podia free for 30 days

Join the 150,000+ creators who use Podia to create websites, sell digital products, send great emails, and build online businesses.

Frequently asked questions

What features are included with Podia?

Podia is an all-in-one platform where you can run your website, online store, and email marketing, as well as your blog, landing pages, affiliates, and everything else. You can sell online courses, downloads, coaching, webinars, or any other kind of digital product you want, and you can see all your customer and sales information under one roof. 

Can I try Podia for free?

You sure can! Podia has a 30-day free trial so you can make sure Podia is the right fit for you. You can test all the features, so you're free to set up your website, blog, email list, and products without spending a dime. Start your free trial today to see for yourself!

How does Podia Email work?

Podia Email is an optional add-on that you can use with any Podia plan. Your first 100 subscribers are free, and all Podia Email users get unlimited email sends, automations, campaigns, newsletters, email templates, segmentation, and audience tagging.

Podia Email is automatically connected to your website, landing pages, and products, and you don’t need to manage any integrations. Plus, you can see your customer data – like products purchased, lead magnet opt-ins, and email engagement – all in one place. Learn more about Podia Email here.

Can I bring my existing products and subscribers over to Podia?

Yes! We offer free product migrations on all Mover and Shaker plans. We also offer free email migrations on all paid Podia Email plans. Learn more about Podia’s free migrations here.