The question, which course hosting platform should I use, comes up more frequently on our group than any other question.
Recently Petr Linhart asked the question which course hosting platform should he choose between Kajabi, ClickFunnels, Teachable and High Level?
A member, Leslie Flowers Lausten, commented that she too has been worrying about the same question.
So, let’s shed light on the subject: which course hosting platform should you gun for.
I have written severally on the matter of course hosting platform and my friend Peter Shunn has equally written regularly and quite extensively on it.
This write up addresses the issue of course hosting platform one more time based on Petr Linhart‘s recent question, which platform should one go for.
For clarification, Petr actually framed his question this way, “What platform are you using for hosting your course and why? Kajabi? ClickFunnels? Teachable? HighLevel? Or something else? Please help.”
This response is for every OCCCNA, and iBMC, and iSchool members and anyone who is interested in digital marketing.
OCCCNA, iBMC and iSchool stand for Online Course Creators Community For Newbies And Advanced Beginners, Internet Business Mastery Course, and Internet School respectively.
My simple answer to the question, which platform should I use for my courses is, it all depends on what you wish or want to achieve.
What’s your goal?
To make money?
To announce your arrival as a course creator?
To safe cost?
Do you want to just host your course or you want an all-in-one platform that performs like a CRM, LMS, Sales Funnel, email marketing software all rolled into one?
Peter Shunn has contributed quite a lot on this topic in this group. He uses Thinkific and regularly recommends Thinkific. I concur with him. Thinkific is a standalone course hosting platform fit for Newbies.
Teachable is also a standalone course hosting platform.
I’ve personally used Teachable to host my courses and my teacher, Michelle Schroeder-Gardner, uses it too. She has made millions online and still uses Teachable for some of her courses.
So for beginners, and even advanced beginners and experts alike, Thinkific, which is almost like Teachable in terms of functionality, is good. It’s affordable and even used to have a free option.
Kajabi is more sophisticated and is pricey. A guru like Brendon Burchard uses Kajabi. But why do you need a pricey and sophisticated platform as a beginner?
ClickFunnels requires a lot of technical skills and is pricier still. Gurus like Russell Brunson (co-founder of ClickFunnels) and Alex Hormozi use ClickFunnels. Indeed most online elites use it. For the elites it’s the best thing to happen online since sliced bread. I tried it and gave up because of the technicality. Are you willing to get an expert or a freelancer on Fivver or Guru to handle your ClickFunnels?
HighLevel is an all-in-one CRM and SaaS rolled into one. It’s made for agency owners. Of course an independent course creator can also invest in it. But as a beginner do you really need an all-in-one platform that can do everything under the sun?
an you consider other all-in-one or standalone more affordable alternatives like Podia, Kartra MailerLite, Graphy, Ruzuku, Forento, Vonza and the rest? Indeed, new platforms pop up every day like mushrooms in the rainy season.
OCCCNA (Online Course Creators Community For Newbies And Advanced Beginners) as the name implies is for “Newbies” first and foremost.
My candid advice to you as a “Newbie” is this: choose one platform and master it and make lots of money from it until you outgrow it before going for one with more features and benefits.
Don’t waste money on a course platform as you are starting out unless you have lots of money. I suspect if you had you would not be on OCCCNA in the first place. Again, avoid wasting money on “sophisticated” features you don’t need.
When I started, I uploaded my course lessons (videos) to Vimeo, pass-worded them and sent the passwords to my students. No one complained the videos were not on Teachable, Thinkific, Podia, Kajabi, ClickFunnels, HighLevel, etc. I could equally have uploaded the courses to YouTube or Wistia but Vimeo is less noisy.
As I got more students I started creating courses on Graphy, an all-in-one CRM. I’m even a Graphy affiliate if you care to check it out.
However, selling courses on Graphy has been problematic because of issues with Stripe and PayPal. This is peculiar to where I live. There are ways you can overcome this drawback but they are outside the scope of this message.
If you are in the Indian sub-continent, EU, North America, and much of South East Asia, Graphy gives you the best of both worlds – low cost and sophistication. Graphy even has a community feature thrown in.
Graphy won’t charge you monthly fees until you start making money unlike other platforms where you have to pay monthly whether you make money or not.
In the end it’s not really about the platform, it’s about your courses and the audience that you serve. Do you have enough courses and students to justify moving to an all-in-one CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform and LMS (Learning Management System)?
I hope this helps to clarify the issue somewhat.
