Today in this post, I am going to review Learnworlds vs Teachable and help you decide which is best for your needs.

So, you've learned how to choose an online course topic that sells. You even know how to structure, outline, and price your online course.

What next?

Choose the best online course platform to turn your skills into a thriving business in days, not months.

LearnWorlds and Teachable are two of the best online course platforms today.

But, we know no two platforms are equal. So, between LearnWorlds and Teachable, which is the better course platform?

Which one will help you start attracting, teaching, and retaining the best-paying students?

Teachable pros and cons

Pros

• Logging into Teachable feels straightforward. On LearnWorlds, you have to first log into their eSchool page. Then log in another time to access the course creation section. But why?
• Teachable also accepts payments in more than 130 currencies through Stripe Connect. That is sure to attract international students, huh?
• There's more. Unlike LearnWorlds, Teachable calculates EU VAT.
• Better yet, Teachable pays the calculated VAT forward on your behalf if that's your base.
• You'll also have access to a bunch of WordPress plugins to help improve your course.
• Teachable offers more opportunities to upsell than LearnWorlds, too.
• Teachable feels easier to use, as well. This matters if you are publishing your course for the first time.
• The Course Compliance feature will let you see your students' course progress. That means two things. First, you can pick active students to collect course feedback from, based on their completion rate.
• Second, you can access vital insight if you offer money-back guarantees. You can tell if a student satisfied your course requirements. Then you can use the understanding to either give or keep the refund.
• There's a third benefit. You can also offer Course Completion Certificates. Those are attractive to corporate students. They can show them out to their superiors as proof of skill acquisition to earn a promotion.
• With Teachable, you won't need to get Vimeo or Wistia for video support. Teachable offers unlimited video hosting bandwidth. So you can offer fluid online video courses, although LearnWorlds feels superior here. More on that below.
• Teachable supports webhooks and various integrations without feeling overwhelming. LearnWorlds may feel a tad bit overwhelming in comparison. You'll see why.
• Teachable extends its free trial period. Yes, by a further seven days if, by the end of the trial, you are still figuring it out. LearnWorlds does offer a much longer free trial. But hey, it is still cool to get that extension.
• Also, Teachable's analytics and reporting tools feel more robust. Expect more detailed reports than LearnWorlds has to offer.
• The checkout process is also more optimized for increasing conversions than in LearnWorlds.

Cons

The online course platform is not perfect, and here is why:

• The paid Basic Plan attracts a 5% fee on transactions. Compare that to the $5 flat fee LearnWorlds charges for its base plan.
• There is no Drag-n-Drop builder here. So you may have to tinker with custom CSS, which can be mind-boggling if you are not the techie type.
• Teachable offers Power Editor and custom CSS instead. But you have to buy the Professional Plan to use those two.
• Drip emails can be tricky to set up on Teachable. That's not all.
• Teachable's email marketing setup feels limited. So you'll have to deal with third-party integrations such as MailChimp or ConvertKit.

LearnWorlds pros and cons

Pros

• The platform packs a bounty of features. There are more customization options here than Teachable.
• Yet, with a little getting used to, it does not feel overwhelming to learn and use.
• And, of course, Teachable charges 5% off your transactions for its free plan. LearnWorlds charges a $5 flat fee per course sale at that level.
• LearnWorlds offers a custom website/blog. You can brand it and even secure it with the SSL certificate they'll gift you. Neat! Contrary, Teachable provides an unbranded site that you may find limited.
• Now, there are no limits to the number of courses, students, videos you can host on Teachable. LearnWorlds goes further. It offers daily backups, unlimited landing pages, and cloud hosting in higher plans.
• But if you are a techie, you can use code to make myriads of course customizations. The goal: create attractive and engaging lessons that keep your students' attention.
• LearnWorlds offers a real White-label tool at no extra cost to you. That is not the case on Teachable.
• Want to teach on the go? LearnWorlds has a powerful mobile app to boost.
• LearnWorlds' rich course player takes online video learning to the next level. It doesn't stop there.
• You can also add interactive video elements to create engaging classes. Heck, you'll wish Teachable thought of this as well.
• You can also create a blog natively. That means you can take advantage of affordable, organic, and consistent content marketing. Instead, Teachable offers a custom URL for making only a website.
• Unlike Teachable, LearnWorlds copyright-protects tutors course concepts and materials from copycats.
• You'll also notice that LearnWorlds has excellent tools for creating online communities. So it can help increase organic referrals to your course and healthy discussions.
• Out of the two, choose LearnWorlds to make editing videos on the go hassle-free.
• The LearnWorlds Pro Trainer plan costs $79, including the unique features noted here. Now, compare that to the $99 Teachable charges. Fair?

Cons

Creating a course on LearnWorlds is not flawless, either. I'll tell you why.

• Payment options can feel limited. Can't process credit card and PayPal payments together, for example.
• LW does not support EU VAT calculations, a bummer for EU based tutors. But perhaps not a dealbreaker elsewhere.
• Site themes are missing.
• Uploading course materials on Teachable may be quicker. That's because LearnWorlds does not support the bulk uploading feature.

LearnWorlds vs Teachable

Overview

Both Teachable and LearnWorlds want to help you create online courses that sell.

But there may be a bit of a problem when choosing between them. Expect to find an overlap of features and benefits between them.

So, this Teachable vs. LearnWorlds comparison will spotlight what makes each platform unique. The differences. So dive right in.

And, for your effort, you'll know to pick the right one for your specific needs, like a pro.

Interface

Teachable's welcome page shows a list of steps you can follow to set up your online course.

Clicking on say, “Sign up for our live webinar” opens up a new tab in your browser.

You can complete that step, go back to the original welcome page tab, and complete the rest of the steps in order.

Inside LearnWorlds, the welcome screen also nests tools on the left sidebar.

You can access subcategories from there as well.

It looks and feels nifty, clean, and well-laid out.

Clicking on a menu item in either platform shows a drop-down list of subcategories under it. That means you can save time when trying to get to specific tools on either platform.

Let's see that in action.

Click on LearnWorlds's Site Builder item like this:

This is the list of tools that shows up in one click:

Now, click on Site:

These subcategories will come up:

You can choose to skip the welcome screen in LearnWorlds. You'll still see a link at the top of your dashboard, which you can click to go back to the welcome screen.

I doubt you will want to skip it, though.

That screen offers plenty of course creation help to get you started. It includes videos, FAQs, and webinar links.

Heck, I find it more resourceful than the Teachable screen.

Course creation

Now, creating a course in Teachable will take a few clicks and four pages.

Click on the + button next to Products in the sidebar menu. Choose Courses, hit Next, and follow the prompts.

You can upload video lessons right on your course creator.

And, you can add text, quizzes, images, and custom code to the Course Curriculum.

I noticed that LearnWorlds goes all out, in comparison.

Its 6-step course creation process packs a load of tips along the way, which is as helpful as it is thoughtful.

LearnWorlds also lets you add images, text, quizzes, surveys, SCORM/HTML5 files, ebooks, audio, and PDF files to your course.

Now here comes the good part.

You can add all those types of content to your lessons in the form of interactive video elements.

Better yet, you can use Interactive Videos to boost student engagement. Such elements include questions, forms, topics, and buttons.

Nobody wants to follow boring tutors with boring lessons.

And, yes, I did find creating video lessons in LearnWorlds a pleasure, too.

Now, you'll get unlimited video hosting to start. Then you can choose to host your Wistia or Vimeo videos in there, too.

Bulk uploading course files

There are three benefits I noticed inside Teachable over LearnWorlds here. The ability to:

• Upload course content in bulk
• Create course modules, including adding new sections in existing and future lectures.
• Preview the course as you create it.

Bulk uploads are time savers. And I like it that you can do it inside Teachable. It comes in handy if you plan to add large files to your lectures.

You'll have to upload file after file when using LearnWorlds.

Drip feeding sessions

You don't want your students to binge-watch your lessons. They might miss essential lessons.

And that's where drip-feeding comes in.

The feature lets you set rules for making course material accessible to students. That way, you can curb overindulgence.

I like that both LearnWorlds and Teachable offer this benefit. In either case, you can schedule by:

• A specific date, or
• Based on when a student enrolls in your course.

Check it out inside Teachable.

Now see it in action inside LearnWorlds here:

If you grant access by the specific date a student signed up, it can mean you'll help that student to learn at their pace.

They do not have to play catch up to other students who joined earlier—a good thing.

Here's my concern about that approach, though.

As new students join, you'd have different students at different course completion levels.

So, expect to receive different support requests from various students who are at different course levels.

New students would reach trouble areas at different times. So don't be surprised if the questions you receive keep repeating.

Or, you can set drip lessons to publish on a specific date, regardless of the time of enrollment of the student.

That way, all students can access new material at the same time.

So you can expect students to ask similar questions and suggestions as they move in tandem, right?

Your choice.

Both platforms have email notifications available. So you can notify your students each time a lesson unlocks. And that’s neat.

Managing your online School

Teachable lets you enroll an unlimited number of students.

But it limits the number of admin-level users to two (basic plan), five (pro plan), and 20 (business plan).

If you work with a virtual assistant, you'd have to upgrade to a business plan to set custom roles for them.

If you choose to upgrade, head over to Settings to set up custom roles under Users, as you can see here.

LearnWorlds packs a punch here.

You can tell the platform emphasizes social networking.

Here's why.

LearnWorlds offers full-featured school settings, including a rich community access section.

From there, you can also:

• Manage your community
• Run your copyright protection campaign
• Install your schools GDPR/privacy policy and other agreements
• Use gamification and badges to boost learners' engagement
• Create private study groups as you like

The robust community creation tools extend to LearnWorlds membership sites.

Membership creation

Both platforms will let you create members-only sections. That means you can do four things:

• Create a community, discussion forum, and social network around your course.
• Offer ongoing content that resonates with that community.
• Collect comprehensive feedback from your community to improve your course in the future.
• Upsell your audience on related courses or extra material

Ultimately, creating a membership site can result in recurring income for you.

Let me explain how.

Often, students want to access both current content and future updates.

Students also like to interact with others in a community set up, right?

Well, you can grant course access and discussion forums as part of a subscription. Students would pay subscription fees to access the course per their subscription terms. Win-win.

What about creating a membership site in Teachable?

From the Teachable toolbar, head over to Dashboard >> Course.

Then choose the main (parent) course under which to upload new content.

If you want to add more courses under the parent course, go to Bundle Contents >> Add Course.

Then click Pricing, which is a few menu items above Bundle Contents. Then, follow the prompts to set up a recurring subscription model—that easy.

To create a LearnWorlds membership site, go to Dashboard >> Marketing >> Bundles. As with Teachable, you'll see prompts to help you along.

From there, you can create your first-course bundle:

Notice that you can bundle as many courses as you wish.

And what if you ever need to add more courses to the bundle in the future? Easy. Open Manage Bundle and follow the prompts inside.

Oh, one more thing. You have to set up Stripe Gateway under Subscriptions to accept subscription payments.

Switching gears, Teachable now lets tutors create a blog.

LearnWorlds goes further. It offers native blogging. Students get public-facing profiles as in a social network. And, you can create discussion forums to help your students interact.

Those are powerful content, engagement, and content distribution tools. And you can set them up under School Settings >> Community Access.

Design customization

Customizing your LearnWorlds course is a breeze.

From the home to catalog pages to email headers, footers, and logos, you can edit them all inside Site Builder.

Start by choosing a LearnWorlds subdomain or custom domain. The platform provides several goodies. Expect a free SSL certificate, site and page custom code, and unlimited web hosting. That should help get your blog up and running.

You can then customize your online school color palette, typography, layout, and buttons. You'll find all that under Theme Explorer.

There are no robust page-level theme templates here. Instead, LearnWorlds offers a drag-n-drop page builder. I like that it comes with some layout templates you can apply in one click.

But, depending on your goals, the templates can feel limited.

If you want to beat the limitations, you can white-label the LearnWorlds platform. That includes the mobile app. Meaning you can create optimal integrations to improve your students' experiences.

Like Teachable, LearnWorlds lets tutors tinker with code. Meaning you can use custom code to improve your schools' look and feel.

Does Teachable do a better job when it comes to customizing an online school?

Inside Teachable, you can edit your welcome, checkout, and thank you pages under Site.

Scroll down a little further, and you’ll find the color pallet options to pick your fav colors.

From there, you can add a homepage background image or video. You can then add a custom logo, colors, typography, etc., to make your classes shine bright.

I like that Teachable supports custom text here.

Why is that a big deal?

You can use custom text to create personalized messages within your course.

Let's take an example, ey?

Let's say you want to add some friendly short messages when a tool doesn't work as it should.

You can use custom text such as “Oh, shoot! That didn't go right. Why not hit me up on [email protected] so I can help you out, huh?”

That's more engaging than the generic text a student would get otherwise. It feels personal. Straight from the tutor. Not some annoying error message from an automated program.

There is more if you are confident in your coding skills.

Under Custom Snippets, you can access Power Editor (business plan). From there, you can put your coding skills to work on improving your Teachable online school.

Email marketing

Both platforms offer integrated email marketing. And that works as it sounds. Not as robust as you'd want them to be.

Want to use robust marketing and sales tools, including creating funnels and automations? I suggest you look to Kajabi or Podia.

I found the integrated emails are best for interacting with students. Or, drip-feeding lessons and communicating updates.

Teachable tutors can also use the integrated system to send out subscription reminders.

Inside LearnWorlds, you can use them to send subscription reminders and affiliate notifications.

Teachable tutors take note.

You'll be able to send emails to three categories of Teachable users. All. Specific. Course-specific.

I also like that you can use Teachable's autoresponder tool to set up an email sequence. Teachable provides the tool in all its three pricing plans.

LearnWorlds has one, too. And I liked that you can take up their 7, 15, and 30 days course launch email templates to kickstart yours.

Instead, Teachable will let you create launch preparation posts.

Here's an example.

You can keep lectures unpublished while you build buzz around your course launch. Create blog posts to raise awareness. Make teaser videos to attract attention in advance. Or, release an outline to build interest. You can get creative.

But what if you want more? What if you want to use robust course marketing tools to increase sales?

Marketing tools

To create the perfect email sequence in either platform, integrate with MailChimp or ConvertKit (review).

We will discuss that in the integrations section below.

SEO friendliness

Both platforms will let you optimize your pages to attract search traffic. They both have fundamental SEO and Site Navigation tools to help along.

Neither of the two platforms will do the optimizing work for you, though. You'll have to develop search traffic magnets such as good titles, meta descriptions, and tags.

Social and content marketing

Yes, you can start a website or blog on either platform.

But LearnWorlds' blogging tools feel more robust than Teachable's.

Yet Teachable shines brighter for its Facebook sharing tool. You have to log in to your Facebook account to use the Sharing Debugger.

After you do, you can share your course details with your Facebook communities. You can also change the information the debugger displays to attract more students. Meaning the exposure can help convert more social networkers to paying students.

Combine the Facebook tool with your Teachable website/blog, and you can create a decent community around your course.

Such a following can help you create an email list.

With time, you can engage that list with targeted content updates. Over time, you can send occasional offers to help sign more of them up as your students.

And what can you do as a LearnWorlds tutor?

LearnWorlds has a Leads from Page tool under Marketing. Use it to collect emails and build an email list from your online school pages.

LearnWorlds also optimizes landing pages, newsletters, and sales pages to collect more emails. These pages come with templates you can pick from in a click. The goal: to optimize conversions.

So, what if you want to presell a course?

Both online course platforms will let you presell your course.

Teachable offers a Coming Soon page for this purpose.

Instead, LearnWorlds lets tutors create an Early-bird pricing plan to attract early students.

Affiliate marketing

Onboarding affiliates can help you market your course far and wide.

Both platforms support simple affiliate management.

In LearnWorlds, tinker settings under Marketing >> Affiliate Management >> Set Up to control:

1. Cookie expiration dates
2. Commission percentage
3. Choose whether to display customer information to affiliates or not
4. Determine payout delay

Notice that you can allow affiliates to self-register, too.

Inside Teachable, you can add and manage affiliates under Users.

To do that, start by activating the Teachable affiliates program like so::

Then follow Affiliates >> Add Affiliates >> Manual or Import CSV.

You may notice what I noticed here. I like it that you can:

1. Set a student as an affiliate
2. Or, set course-specific affiliates
3. Restrict commission to specific courses
4. Combine coupon and affiliate codes to boost sales
5. Set the payout schedule
6. Fetch affiliate link by previewing the affiliate set up a page
7. And more, such as determining cookie expiration date and payment gateways.

Teachable also lets you set up its instant payment or a Monthly Payout Gateway schedule.

If you want a custom payment gateway, you'll need to create one yourself.

Sales and upselling

This is one area where Teachable shines. The one-click checkouts and upsells are smooth and well thought out.

Compare that to LearnWorlds, where checkouts are a two-click process. Course buyers have to create an account first before they can checkout.

That's not quite the dealbreaker, but not every student will be so patient.

Teachable also lets EU based instructors calculate EU VAT (or sales tax) right on the platform.

Here's the best part.

Teachable will also pay the sales tax forward on your behalf. Sweat!

If you use LearnWorlds, you'd have to use a third-party integration such as Quaderno.

Now, on to upselling opportunities.

Teachable will let you thank a course buyer and upsell him a relevant offer in several ways. The best one is to embed a thank you video.

You can combine the video with discount coupons.

That way, you can persuade the new student to buy related courses or materials.

I bet you want to sell more of those course bundles this way, don't you?

A thing I like about LearnWorlds' checkout process is it offers plenty of currencies and payment processing gateways.

But, you can't offer simultaneous payment gateways. So, it won't let you process both credit cards and PayPal payments. You have to choose one.

Picture this:

Stripe and online credit card payments are limited in many countries.

The limitation means you could lock some customers out, such as international students.

So you have to stick to a popular payment processing option, such as PayPal.

But you may run into another challenge as a LearnWorlds tutor.

You see, if you want to sell a course or bundles of courses on an installments basis or subscription fee, you can't. That's because LearnWorlds will only let you accept payments using Stripe.

Teachable does blow LearnWorlds out of the water here. Consider Teachable the best course platform for increasing conversion optimization, sales, and upsells.

Integrations

No big disappointments here.

Teachable and LearnWorlds integrate with quite a bunch of tools.

We are talking about the likes of MailChimp, Zoom, ConvertKit, Sumo, ZenDesk, Google Analytics, and HubSpot.

But I did notice something here.

LearnWorlds integrates with ActiveCampaign, GetResponse, and MailerLite, without needing to pair with Zapier. So you may have a better experience using those from within LearnWolrds than in Teachable.

You'd have to use Zapier to connect the three to your Teachable account.

Or, you'd have to use webhooks to make a seamless connection. Both are techie routes you probably do not want to play with.

But if you've got the coding skills to go under the hood, both platforms support webhooks and Zapier.

So you can use either method to integrate a bunch more tools of the job.

Keep this in mind, though.

Teachable does not have its webhook URL for receiving data.

That may be a concern if you plan to use Teachable with other country-specific payment gateways. Otherwise, you are good to go as is.

Now, onto the reporting capabilities of each online course platform.

That may be a concern if you plan to use Teachable with other country-specific payment gateways. Otherwise, you are good to go as is.

Now, onto the reporting capabilities of each online course platform.

Analytics and reporting

This is yet another area where Teachable shines brightly.

Teachable's higher plans offer tons of data. You can dig in and filter it on many levels than LearnWorlds provides.

See what we mean:

When you are a Teachable tutor, you'll see interesting and actionable insights such as:

• Where your students drop off your videos, so you can make them more captivating at that point.
• Course completion rates, including who, when, and how fast students completed each section
• Displaying quiz and leaderboards based on student engagements

Teachable goes deep. Read our full Teachable review to see how deep it goes.

Not that LearnWorlds analytics and reporting tools are shoddy.

But you may have to integrate with Google Analytics to get as much data as you would find in a Teachable report.

What LearnWorlds does is to emphasize individual users' metrics.

It'll show user progress, student segments, instructors' revenues, product revenues, and exam performances—all that at a personal level.

But don't you expect to see anything to do with churn rates in, say, a month-over-month, visual chart.

But then again, if you want this level of reporting, you may have to pick a more robust platform than Teachable even. Yes, I'm thinking of Kajabi (review).

Pricing

I recommend you head over to each platform's pricing page. Scroll to the Compare Plans section. Click on each. There's a ton of insight on there that you'll want to see for yourself.

Then you can make a side-by-side comparison.

But not so fast. Before you go, here are some pointers, starting with how the plans look.

LearnWorlds will start you off on a 30-day free trial so that you can test the platform.

During that time, you'll have access to almost everything it has to offer so that you can give it a good test drive.

On the flip side, Teachable offers a 7-day free trial.

But I'll let you in on a little secret.

After the seven days flew by, Teachable shot me an email. They were asking if I'd like to extend the trial run by another seven days.

Of course, I said yes. TWICE.

It could have extended longer. Probably.

Now, if you prefer to test out a platform without first providing your payment details, you are in luck here.

Neither Teachable nor LearnWorlds will demand your credit card details in the beginning.

Again, features such as setting custom roles are a preserve of paying course creators.

So what if you decide to spend some money? Which plan would you pick, LearnWorlds vs. Teachable?

Let's break it down.

Teachable will let you enjoy everything they have for $249 a month as a Business plan subscriber.

The Pro plan, a $99 a month tier, will see you lose the ability to:

• Make group calls
• Set custom roles
• Make advanced theme customizations
• Do bulk student enrollments, and
• Make manual student imports.

The lowest of the three, the basic plan, is a $29 a month plan that charges a transaction fee — 5% to be exact.

Teachable has a limited free plan that it barely discusses. It is quite limited, but it may be a good start for starters.

Talking of fees, here's how each respective Teachable pricing plan works out:

The LearnWorlds basic plan may be for you if you are on a tight budget.

It costs $29, and an extra $5 flat fee on all course sales. Compare that to the base plan in Teachable. Teachable charges a $29, plus an additional 5% cut on all sales. That's got to hurt.

Here is how the respective LearnWorlds pricing plans stack up (Starter, Pro Trainer, Learning Center, and Corporate),

There's more on offer under the Pro Trainer and Learning Center tiers:

There's more on offer under the Pro Trainer and Learning Center plans:

You decide where you think you'll get more value for your hard-earned bucks.

Customer support

Each platform is quick to send you its live webinar invitation, immediately you sign up. You'll be introduced to the platform's community.

Then you'll receive emails containing a bunch of helpful resources to get you started.

Both platforms won't stop there.

You'll also get loads of videos, articles, and more resources organized into a knowledge base.

LearnWorlds has the LearnWorlds Academy, while Teachable runs TeachableU for self-paced learning.

Now, when it comes to getting support, both offer good 24/7 support via email.

But, the level of customer support you'll get ties in to your subscription plan in both course platforms.

The higher your plan, the more likely you are to get priority customer support.

Here's an example so you can see the prioritization aspects at play here.

A Learning Center plan affords you a 2-hour premium onboarding call with one of their experts.

You'll get an onboarding call if you subscribe to the Pro Trainer. But don't expect one if you have a basic plan.

If you get stuck or are unsure what to do next, a LearnWorlds representative can help set you up for a fee.

LearnWorlds vs. Teachable: Conclusion

So, which is the better online course platform between LearnWorlds and Teachable?

As we've seen, it is not a simple choice.

You'll want to first think about each platform’s benefits. Then compare it to your needs and course selling goals.

Teachable is the best course creation platform if you want:

• An easy-to-use course platform for starters. It still takes a couple of clicks to get to the feature/tools you want, but that's not a bummer
• To take advantage of upselling opportunities to sell more.
• Detailed analytics and reports that go deep into your numbers than LearnWorlds would
• Fair pricing. The free version will feel limited, though. But you need to subscribe to the Business plan to have access to Power Editor and Custom CSS.

But, Teachable may let you down if you want to create in-depth email marketing funnels.

If not that, then the 5% basic plan fees you have to pay out every time a person buys your course.

Compare that to the flat $5 LearnWorlds charges for its basic plan.

LearnWorlds is the best course platform if you want:

• To create a robust video course that will use video extensively
• Customize your online school extensively
• To build and engage a decent-size community of students, using blogging and discussion forums.
• To get more integrations with your LearnWorlds subscription without needing to use Zapier

Now, LearnWorlds can feel like a bit of work to learn and start using.

But if you are confident in your techie skills, you’ll have fun getting familiar with the platform.

Yet its reporting and conversion optimization at checkout are a work in progress, compared to Teachable.

So, which one is it going to be for you: