Here are the best online teaching platform tools right now.
| Platform | Best For | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thinkific | Teaching at scale | – Focus on teaching – Great for beginners – Complete control – Quick support | – Basic features – Expensive add-ons |
| LearnWorlds | All-in-one teaching package | – Comprehensive features – Customization – Relatively easy to use | – Too many features – Clunky UI – Steep learning curve |
| Udemy | Beginners with no audience | – Easy to use – No marketing needed – Big brand | – Limited control – Heavy commission – Courses always discounted |
| Khan Academy | Free education | – Accessible – Non-profit | – Not for business – Limited content creation options |
| YouTube | Building an audience for courses | – Free – High search visibility – Establishes trust | – Time-consuming – Lack of control – Competitive |
| Medium | Building a personal brand | – Free – Search engine optimal – No need for cameras | – No control – Less relatable content |
Let’s dive into more detailed reviews of each tool.
Disclaimer: This post has affiliate links at no cost to you.
1. Thinkific
Thinkific is my favorite online teaching platform. I host and sell two courses there at the moment.
I love Thinkific so much because it’s a complete package and its main focus is creating a successful course.
My Experience
Thinkific is not only a platform where you upload your teaching material — that’s something you could do on YouTube or Google Drive.
Instead, it takes care of all the other hassle that teaching online involves.
A couple of things that come to mind right off the bat are:
- Processing payments
- Handling refunds and chargebacks
- Hosting webinars and coaching
- Creating a school page and course landing pages
- Tracking student progress
- Building a community
That’s just off the top of my head right now.
But that already is a long list of things you might not think of first when starting an online teaching business. But once the students pile up, those things start to matter more and more.
This is where Thinkific shines. It specializes in creating a successful online teaching/course business.
To start, you can create your course curriculum and initial drafts with AI.
Then, you can create an on-brand school page and landing pages for your courses. (Some other teaching platforms don’t allow for customization but instead want to have an on-brand design with their platform.)
For example, here’s mine:
As you can see, there’s no mention of “Thinkific” anywhere!
You can create video lectures, add downloadables, create quizzes, certificates, assignments, and more.
And if something is missing, you can always open the Thinkific plugin store to patch the problem.
Pros
- Focuses on teaching. This platform takes care of every hassle related to teaching online.
- Easy to use. I didn’t even watch any tutorials to start my courses on Thinkific. It’s so intuitive and basic that you don’t have to!
- Control. You can control everything on your courses from the looks of your pages to discounts and coupons. This allows you to build a brand and not work for someone else.
- Quick support. I love the support team. Although they sometimes answer with a generic template, they always address my questions and point me in the right direction.
Cons
- Sometimes too basic. Even though it has all the features you need, some of the features are very basic and generic. You might only have one or two options where you might expect to have a dozen.
- Expensive add-ons. If you’re missing something, you can find a solution from the Thinkific plugin store. That’s great but those plugins are usually quite expensive.
Pricing
- Free: $0/month forever
- Basic: $36/month
- Start: $73/month
- Grow: $146/month
Why Choose Thinkific?
Thinkific is good for teaching at scale. It’s for serious business.
If you have a big “warmed-up” audience or online community, Thinkific is a perfect place to start turning that into profit.
It allows you to customize your pages and materials to match your brand which allows you to build brand reputation.
On Thinkific, your students take “your course” and not a “Thinkific course.”
Because marketing is your responsibility, you can control the price, sales, and coupons (unlike many other platforms.)
Why You Should Not Choose Thinkific?
If you don’t have an existing audience or if you’re not planning to work for years to build one, Thinkific is not for you.
Without an audience, you should choose a platform like Udemy where they bring you the students (at a price, though.)
Also, if teaching is a side project to earn some extra bucks, Thinkific is not the right place.
2. LearnWorlds
Learnworlds is an all-in-one online teaching package for more advanced use.
It’s not just for hosting courses and teaching. Instead, it comes with more robust marketing tools, community features, and a lot more customization options.
My Experience
I created a course on LearnWorlds and here’s my take/experience.
LearnWorlds is more or less the same as Thinkific when it comes to teaching.
But on top of that, it has:
- More advanced marketing features
- More customization options
- Better community features
To name a few.
I call it the complete package. An all-in-one teaching platform for serious businesses.
But this doesn’t automatically mean it’s the best platform for everyone.
Because of all the features, it takes longer to learn how to use it. Also, a lot of the features are something you’ll never use.
On top of that, the pro plan pricing is quite a bit higher than Thinkific.
Here’s how I see it:
- If you have a team and a serious course business and you want to get everything done in one place, then LearnWorlds is your best choice.
- But if you’re just getting started as a beginner or solo teacher, I’d rather use Thinkific.
That’s why I’ve stuck with Thinkific. I’m relatively new to the online teaching game and I’m running the show alone.
Pros
- Everything is in one place. This tool does it all from creating courses to building a website to marketing your teaching materials.
- Customization. Where platforms like Thinkific might feel basic or generic, a platform like LearnWorlds shines. This one allows you to customize everything to as much as you like.
- Easy to use. Considering this platform has like a thousand solutions, it’s still relatively easy to use. Although it takes longer than platforms like Thinkific, it’s not a long stretch to get your course up and running.
Cons
- Too many features. This is a problem if you run the show alone and just want a basic solution. LearnWorlds has everything and you might end up not using 95% of the features you pay for.
- UI. LearnWorlds has a bit of a clunky user interface. For example, I didn’t find the video upload option anywhere. Also, I didn’t know that my supposed-to-be-a-draft course was already published…
- Learning curve. It’s a big platform with a lot of features. It can be hard to navigate through and learn how to use everything at first.
Pricing
- Starter: $24/month forever
- Pro Trainer: $79/month
- Learning Center: $249/month
- High Volume & Corporate: Contact sales
Why Choose LearnWorlds?
If you have a big community and a team of people working for your teaching business, then LearnWorlds is the right choice.
It has everything in one place.
You can have your students there, you can chat with them, you can create threads to answer questions, and you can do coaching.
Also, your team can work there seamlessly as all the marketing, sales, and payment-related stuff happens there too.
Why You Should Not Choose LearnWorlds?
LearnWorlds is quite a massive platform for a solo teacher or course creator.
It can be an overkill for many use cases. You might leave most features (that you pay for) unused.
Especially if you’re just getting started, it’s much easier to use a platform like Thinkific or Udemy (also in this guide) to jump in.
3. Udemy
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Udemy is an online teaching marketplace. It’s an entirely different platform from Thinkific or LearnWorlds.
- On Udemy, they take care of bringing you the students.
- On Thinkific or LearnWorlds, it’s 100% your responsibility.
This makes it a great place to teach online as a beginner with no audience.
My Experience
Udemy is great! No marketing, sales funnels, and hassle like that.
That must be the best place to teach online, right?
The answer is yes and no:
- Yes, that’s true if you aren’t looking to scale up your business. If you’re fine with creating a course and earning a hundred or two per month at best, then Udemy is the way to go.
- No, if you’re looking to scale up a real online teaching business. That’s when you should do Thinkific or LearnWorlds.
Anyways, Udemy is a beginner-friendly non-technical platform.
Just sign up and start creating courses for free.
You’ll get the basic teaching material options like videos, quizzes, and so on.
You’ll also get a dedicated landing page for your course.
And you can message your students if they’re in trouble.
But remember that Udemy takes a huge cut and runs your course discounts without warning all the time.
This limits your earnings heavily!
Also, because you’re not building your name or brand. Instead, it’s a Udemy course you’re making every time.
Pros
- Very easy to use. Udemy is probably the easiest teaching platform. Just sign up and create your course content. It allows you to do all the basics to make a solid and compelling course.
- Big brand. Even if nobody knows who you are, they’ll for sure know Udemy. That means you might get students very quickly without having to do anything else except for creating a course. On a platform like Thinkific, you need to build your audience. This can take years.
- No marketing is needed. Udemy promotes your courses. This means you don’t need to have any marketing skills. They run ads, sales, emails, and other such difficult strategies so that you don’t have to.
Cons
- Restrictions everywhere. You can’t customize your course page. You can’t run discounts or coupons. You can’t build a Udemy community. You don’t possess your student data. Udemy uses this to grow its platform at the expense of your business.
- You need to get accepted. You can’t just sign up to Udemy create a course and start earning. Your course must be of high enough quality to be accepted. This is obviously something you don’t need to worry about on independent platforms like Thinkific.
Pricing
- Free for instructors!
However, they take a 50/50 cut from sold courses.
On top of that, your courses are almost always at a big 80–90% discount which limits the earning potential even more.
Why Choose Udemy?
If you’re a beginner who just loves to teach and get paid for that, create a course on Udemy. No need to worry about marketing!
Udemy is also very easy to use. I didn’t watch any tutorials to create a basic course there. You’ll get the gist of it in just minutes.
Why You Should Not Choose Udemy?
If you’re looking to create a scalable teaching business, then Udemy is not the place to go.
This is because, unlike Thinkific or LearnWorlds, Udemy limits your earning and brand reputation.
- On Udemy, you’re essentially a freelancer who builds Udemy’s brand reputation. People remember your courses as “One Udemy course.”
- Udemy runs 85% of sales on its courses all the time. Also, they take a hefty cut. That means you’ll mostly earn mere dollars per student.
- You don’t own your student data. You can’t directly offer them services and market your content. That all belongs to Udemy.
- It’s not optimized for the community. Although there is a messaging system where students can ask you stuff, it’s not built with community in mind.
I just felt like I had to mention these because, at a distant glance, platforms like Udemy might seem like the best option. But for serious creators, it’s almost guaranteed to yield worse income than by creating on independent platforms like Thinkific.
4. Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a 100% free and non-profit teaching platform.
This platform allows you to create courses from existing materials. You can support your students as a teacher and track their progress smoothly.
My Experience
Khan Academy is quite different in the course creation process from the previous platforms.
Instead of creating your teaching materials from scratch, you need to use existing materials put together by experts.
This means you can move a lot faster with your courses. Instead of spending weeks creating one, you can construct one overnight.
But remember that Khan Academy courses are free and non-profit.
So this one is not for you if you want to create a scalable online teaching business. Khan Academy is best for schools for teaching sciences.
You can join as a teacher, rely on the existing material, and help your students whenever they get stuck.
Pros
- Easy to use. Just create a course by combining existing materials.
- Accessible. You can invite people from across the globe with a simple link. You can also track your student’s progress and teach them along the way.
- Non-profit and free. This platform is dedicated to learning and teaching. It’s backed up by the fact that it’s a non-profit organization that’s running the show with no silly marketing tricks or hacks. I love Khan Academy. I learned maths from there.
Cons
- Not for business. Khan Academy is for free education and it doesn’t scale up to a teaching business.
- Limitations. You can’t create your course materials at Khan Academy. Instead, you need to rely on the existing course materials.
Pricing
- Free!
Why Choose Khan Academy?
If you think education should be free, prefer a platform like Khan Academy. It allows you to build courses in no time thanks to the big library of pre-built course materials.
Also, Khan Academy is mainly for K-12 education as supplementary learning and test prepping.
To teach basic maths, physics, chemistry, and topics like that for free, Khan Academy might be the best option.
Why You Should Not Choose Khan Academy?
To build a proper online teaching business, using a free non-profit platform with pre-made content isn’t the way to go.
Also, if your topic is outside of the K-12 range, then Khan Academy is not for you.
5. YouTube (Always!)
I hate those articles that share obvious information to make it longer and waste time. I know seeing YouTube on a list like this might seem exactly like that.
But trust me, this is worth reading.
YouTube is the best place to build awareness of your online teaching business. I can’t even see how one could start a course business without spending 98% of the time on YouTube.
My Experience
I’m selling two blogging courses and my main traffic source is YouTube.
Here’s how the YouTube strategy works:
- Choose a topic.
- Become an expert at it.
- Teach your topic on YouTube to get followers.
- Create a free training session.
- Ask your audience to join in exchange for their email.
- Promote your course for the people who took the training.
This is the only strategy to sell courses online.
If you don’t have a YouTube channel (or a blog that I talk about in the next part) there’s no course business.
You need to become one of the top voices in your space on YouTube and be your audience’s best resource and “friend” on your topic.
That’s what it takes!
Also, you need a lot of people to consume your content before you make a single sale. Here’s the math (that most won’t show you.)
- Your audience watches your YouTube videos.
- 1% of the content views become newsletter subscribers (assuming you have a good freebie to offer.)
- 1% of the newsletter subscribers become paying students.
So you need about 10,000 content views to make one sale.
If you send people directly to your course page, nobody will ever buy. So you need a multi-step funnel like this. For example, I send people to my free training first.
This is all why you have to teach on YouTube. It’s the only place where all your potential students live.
Thanks to the recommendation system, search optimality, and large audience, this is the best place to get started!
Pros
- Free. You can just sign up and start creating videos for free. YouTube takes care of bringing in the views.
- Trust. By creating lots of valuable content, you’ll establish yourself as a credible authority in your space. Remember, you need to be your people’s #1 voice for them to buy from you. This takes time and hundreds of videos.
- Search visibility. YouTube videos tend to perform well on search engines. Just put out quality content and your videos might bring in passive traffic from Google.
Cons
- Takes time. There are thousands of creators with hundreds of videos in your space. The YouTube algorithm favors these over you until you match them in expertise, teaching style, video quality, reputation, and so on. This takes years.
- No control. YouTube is a business like any other. They can get rid of your videos at any time. Google can also stop promoting your videos in the search results suddenly. If you build a business on top of a platform you don’t own, there’s a risk you lose it all overnight.
Pricing
- Free
Why Choose YouTube?
To scale your online teaching business up, you need a YouTube channel.
Free long-form video content is the best way to build a loyal audience.
This way you build a personal brand that people trust. Then years later those loyal followers might become paying students.
Once you have an audience, it’s time to start hosting a course. You can do this on Thinkific or LearnWorlds (with a solid marketing strategy.)
Why You Should Not Choose YouTube?
If you already have a huge student base, building a YouTube channel might not be worth the grind.
This is for example if you use platforms like Udemy to host your courses. They take care of bringing you the students so you can just focus on creating the courses.
But this is the non-scalable option.
Udemy takes a huge cut and limits the pricing of your courses. This means your earning potential is very small—in the best case some hundreds of dollars per month.
6. Medium (or any other blog)
Another awesome free marketing channel for your online teaching business is by starting a blog.
One of the easiest options is to start a Medium blog. It’s free and setting up takes just 3 minutes.
An even better option is to start a WordPress blog but it takes more time to create as well as to make it rank on Google.
Medium is a search engine-optimal blogging platform that can bring you passive traffic and income.
For example, here’s one of my posts that ranks on Google for a very good keyword:
My Experience
I am selling a blogging course and one of my main traffic sources is my Medium blog.
A bunch of my first-paying students told me that they had been following me on Medium for a couple of years.
The Medium strategy is the same as on YouTube:
- People read my Medium posts.
- Some sign up for my free training.
- (Some subscribe to my YouTube.)
- A small portion signs up for my paid course.
However, having a blog is not as effective as YouTube. This is because people can’t relate to text as much as with a real person. But it’s good if you don’t like being in front of a camera.
Pros
- Free. Just sign up for free and start teaching by sharing blog posts.
- Big audience. Medium has a built-in audience of millions of people. The recommendation system feeds your content to these people if your content is good enough.
- Search engine optimality. Similar to YouTube, Medium is great for making your blog posts rank on Google. This can bring you passive traffic and students.
- No cameras. If you prefer not to speak in front of a camera, Medium is your place. It’s essentially like “The YouTube for Blogs.”
Cons
- No control. Similar to YouTube, you don’t own Medium. Medium could get rid of your posts and pages if they wanted to. Also, Google could stop ranking your content at any time.
- Unrelatable content. Written content doesn’t perform as well as videos. People remember that “I read this Medium story” instead of you. It takes years before people remember you and trust your teaching.
Pricing
- Free
Why Choose Medium?
If you don’t have a big audience, you need to build a strong personal brand before anyone buys a course from you.
A blogging platform like Medium (or WordPress) helps you build an audience and the “top of the sales funnel.”
If you don’t like to be in front of a camera and you don’t have students yet, try Medium.
The only way to build a scalable online teaching business is by building a huge following on platforms like Medium or YouTube first.
Why You Should Not Choose Medium?
Medium is not for you if you already have a student base.
For example, if teaching online is just a side hustle without big financial goals, grinding on Medium is not worth it. Instead, host a course on Udemy and let them bring you some students automatically.’