Monetizing your knowledge is one of the easiest ways to gain income.
And it can be super easy to do.
To prove you so, today we’re comparing LifterLMS and Teachable, two-course builders, that will help you start selling courses in no time.
LifterLMS vs Teachable
LifterLMS
Launched in 2014 by Chris Badgett and Thomas Levy, LifterLMS is a WordPress learning management system trusted by Boston University and GoDaddy.
It has all the bells and whistles you can think of.
Excellent course management tools (including inventory management, asset tracking and assessment tools), thorough reporting features, outstanding integrations and the ability to manage course files on your local WordPress site using FTP.
Teachable
Teachable is an online course platform that exists since 2015. Its predecessor, Fedora, a place to sell online courses, was born in 2013 when a recent graduate of UC Berkeley decided to build his own course platform.
Teachable is currently home to more than 100,000 creators that use it either to sell courses, coaching sessions or digital downloads. It’s a popular solution amongst solopreneurs, bloggers and creators that want to monetize their expertise.
Key features
Builder
Both platforms have drag-and-drop course builders that are super user-friendly and come with multiple customizable templates.
Teachable has page revisions, so every time you save, a revision is created and you can take a step back if you don’t like where you’re heading.
It also has Unsplash integrated into its page builder so you can access its whole library and use it on your online course.
If you don’t have the time to build your sales page, you can get in touch with Teachable and let them build one for you. The process typically takes a week.
LifterLMS, on the other hand, doesn’t require you to hire any designer since advanced editing is much easier. Its instructional design guides you in how to organize and structure the most engaging courses online.
It has high levels of customization, letting you choose from over 600 Google Fonts for your site. And it works with any well-coded WordPress theme so you have unlimited design choices.
Gamification
LifterLMS has multimedia quizzes with a timer, achievement badges and printable certificates. You can even send personalized text messages to your students.
LifterLMS’ quizzes have three basic questions on their free plan: multiple choice, picture choice and true or false
If you wish for more advanced quizzes, they have an add-on that lets you pick between 11 question types including multiple choice, essay, upload and more.
Teachable only offers quizzes and certificates of completion.
Private sessions
Both Teachable and LifterLMS include coaching sessions on all their plans.
Teachable comes with in-built video conferencing functionality, which means you don’t need to rely on Zoom or any other external tool to teach your students.
Digital downloads
Teachable lets you sell digital downloads.
You can create, upload and sell podcasts, newsletters, customizable templates and even music.
This is a major difference from LifterLMS, which specializes purely in courses and doesn’t have a digital download selling feature.
Community
To benefit the learning process and move away from the algorithm, some learning management systems (LMS) offer community features.
LifterLMS offers Social Learning for an extra price. This service allows you to design a mobile optimize online community where your users can generate content, customize their profiles and link to their other social media accounts.
With this add-on, your students will learn together and have social media-style conversations.
Teachable, however, doesn’t offer any community features, at least for now.
Automation
Teachable lets you automate tasks without the need for a webhook thanks to their public API.
LifterLMS recommends using AutomatorWP for automation. The plugin is free and it allows you to set different triggers and actions. For example, rewarding students for certain achievements or activities, such as posting in a discussion.
The plugin also integrates with other third-party services, such as Google Sheets, Slack and Zendesk.
Software license
LifterLMS offers the public a forever free, open-source WordPress LMS plugin. Teachable, on the other hand, is a closed system so you don’t have the flexibility to add all the extensions you want.
Selling
LifterLMS lets you offer free courses to generate leads as well as sell your courses and accept payments via PayPal and Stripe.
You can also integrate with WooCommerce to handle payments, use its flexible coupons and other extensions.
Teachable has two native payment getaways. One is teachable:pay, which automatically handles US sales taxes, EU VAT tax and other digital content taxes outside of US and EU. The other is called Monthly Payment Gateway.
Schools that are unable to set up teachable:pay are eligible for the Monthly Payment Gateway.
Meanwhile, LifterLMS has no native payment gateways and supports only four third-party payment gateways.
Analytics
On Teachable, on the Pro plan and up, schools can access course reporting tools. They provide detailed information about students’ lecture completion rates, quiz scores, video stats and student leaderboards.
You can also filter course reports by user tags. This allows you to segment your reports by specific cohorts or groups of students.
LifterLMS has customizable sales, enrollment and student reports to view and download the data in all plans. You can also easily review sales analytics and create custom reports for business intelligence and accounting purposes.
Integrations
Teachable integrates with Mailchimp, Zapier, ConvertKit, Google Analytics, Segment and more. They also have a public API.
LifterLMS integrates with Mailchimp, Ninja Forms, Sky Pilot and third-party add-ons like Monster Insights.
Languages
Like most LMS, both LifterLMS and Teachable are available only in English and let you translate the text field to the language you need.
Support and resources
LifterLMS has a super active YouTube channel, a podcast, community events and an Academy full of super useful courses like The Official Quickstart Course for LifterLMS.
You can contact them by submitting a ticket.
Teachable has workbooks, checklists, a blog and a podcast. They also have a Community but it’s not on Facebook. You’ll have to pay a membership to be a part of it.
For support, you can contact them via email and upper plans have live chat support and live group coaching.
Other features
AI technology is very trendy, you are seeing it everywhere, including on Teachable. They have an AI course curriculum generator so you can start building your course in no time.
You just simply enter a brief description of your course and the generator will create an outline for you in just a few moments.
The cool thing about this AI generator is you can use it for free right from their free plan.
Teachable also offers a mobile app for students that’s available on the App Store.
On the other hand, LifterLMS has a Groups feature that lets you offer your courses and memberships to groups with additional group management features. It even lets you assign a group leader role.
Pricing
LifterLMS has a 30-day money-back guarantee. They also let you test all features for $1 for 30 days.
- Earth Bundle: $199 per year. It includes one active site and e-commerce add-ons.
- Universe Bundle: $360 per year. Includes 5 active sites as well as marketing and CRM add-ons.
- Infinity Bundle: $1200 per year. Includes unlimited active sites, private coaching and social learning features.
They even have a free plugin that lets you create unlimited courses with unlimited student capacity.
Teachable, on the other hand, has a free plan that lets you have unlimited students but it has a transactional fee on sales of $1 and 10%.
Then it has three premium plans:
- Basic: $59 per month. The transactional fee is 5% and it comes with unlimited coaching and unlimited digital downloads.
- Pro: $159 per month. No transactional fees, a public API and affiliate marketing features.
- Business: $665 per month. Includes 20 admin users, advanced theme customization and migration services.
LifterLMS Pros and Cons
Pros
- Community features.
- Advance gamification.
- User-friendly interface.
Cons
- Doesn’t have a free plan.
Teachable Pros and Cons
Pros
- Video conference built-in.
- AI courses curriculum generator.
- Lets you sell digital downloads.
Cons
- No community features.
Verdict
As you could see, in terms of course builder, the choice is tough. LifterLMS and Teachable are very alike in multiple ways.
However, Teachable stands as the most powerful option. It has much many built-in features, an AI course curriculum generator and it gives you the chance to sell digital downloads as well as courses.
The only strong reason to go with LifterLMS instead, is if you really need its community feature to interact with your students and improve engagement.
Otherwise, I find Teachable to be a much stronger software.
What do you think?
Tell us in the comments!
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