Everything you wanted to know on how to run your own Course or Membership!

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Choosing the right platform for you!

With an ever-growing community of new online instructors it has never been so busy for online course platforms, but with so many to choose from what is the right fit for you?

This site aims to provide you with honest reviews on the features of the major players in the online course platform world!

Making the wrong decision can be costly and time-consuming, a platform that does not offer you future-proofing and that does not grow with you can lead to frustration.

Platforms reviewed by us

All these platforms offer different features but one thing remains true they contain all the tools you need to run an online business and they all host your training material.

Why is this important for a new course creator, well to put it simply there is no need to create your own site and set up all the technical side of things such as admin access for students and various upload media types for your classes.

These are all in one platform’s and each has its own merits as you will see, Kajabi, Zenler ( also known as New Zenler) Teachable and Thinkific are currently the sites we have reviewed.

Why should I NOT setup my own wordpress site, for my online courses?

To put it bluntly, it is far too complex and will require constant updating and management!

This is certainly not the way forwards you want to just get on with creating your courses and leave the technical stuff alone, and that is where the all-in one-course platform play there a role, you will never be able to create a site as powerful as all in one platform, the cost and development time would be immense!

Total score of the platform is marked at the base of the page and is a total of all marks highest rating is 120/120 lowest is 12/120.
This is labelled in white at the base of the review.

What we are basing our review on?

Our reviews are based on the main points course creators are looking for when using a platform. The reviews might not be in this order but the scores are worked out from it

Signup and Cost
We will start with a brand new signup this is the first place to start, we have to ask ourselves do they have a trial period or free option to test out the platform.
And massively important what are the plans and costs!

Site Creation/Customisation
We will look at how easy it is to first design your site, can I customise and white label it easily, we will look at things like uploading your logo setting up a custom domain or subdomain, can the site migrate my current site, can I have drop down menus and change my colours and branding?

Course Creation and Media
The courses or products are your golden nuggets these are the things that make you the money so we need maximum flexibility and options for expansion, plus payment types, we will look in detail at all aspects of this in regards to your Product and or courses/memberships.

Payment gateways and Types
You need to take payments correct! it is so important that these platforms offer you flexibility in taking those payments and the options for these.
Is it simple to set up can I take recurring, payment plans, free and one off payments, let’s see.

Marketing Tools Built in
I do not want to buy a whole host of other subscriptions like mighty networks, click funnels, mail chimp ect
So we will be looking at all the marketing tools that come pre-bundled with the platfrom.

Engagement and Nurturing
How do I keep my current students happy can I send them newsletters or e-shots an I do live events with them.

Integrations
Some times your used to other apps and wish to keep using them maybe you have mail chimp or convert kit, these would normally be referred to as integrations lets see how many we have in each platform.

Platform Development
How active it the platform at developing new features and do they cost more? Let us get right under the hood and find out.

Additional Features Worth Mentioning
Just in case anything is missed this section addresses additional features that the Planform may offer.

Support
Having a great platform is good right! but it is the support of that platform that makes it truly great, during these tests I will be seeing how quick support gets back to me and if there is a community of users to ask questions to, we will also look at any online training and or live workshops I can intend to join.
Do not over look support it can make or break you going forwards with any course platform!

Ease of Use
Is the platform intuitive to use, do I need to keep asking for help with everything I do?
How easy a platform is to use could play a major factor in you choosing it.

Feature List Summary
With all this information sometimes its good to just have a look at a feature list with each review we include this.

Student Experience
Seeing how the students see’s the courses and site is an important part of the review, is it fast or slow is it clear or not?