Which is the best platform for online courses? Teachable or Shiken?

In the search for the best online course platforms, you may have come across Teachable and wondered if this simple-looking website was worth your time. Our comprehensive review of the platform, versus Shiken, might help to make your mind up.

Teachable was founded by Ankur Nagpal in 2013 when he first started to make his own marketing courses but couldn’t find the tools he needed to create the classes he wanted. His solution was Fedora, an easy-to-use course creation platform that was popular almost as soon as it went live. In 2015, the name changed to Teachable, and the team had grown significantly, proving this was a business worth maintaining.

If you want to get your courses made quickly, with minimum fuss and maximum professionalism, then Teachable is a great place to start. When compared with a platform like Shiken, there are actually a lot of similarities – both sites seem to focus on simplicity and maximum support from many different features.

So, which one is best for you? Let’s take a closer look!

What is Teachable good for?

It is easy to see why Teachable has done so well, taking its place amongst the top online course platforms. Even somebody with no technological know-how can create courses allowing them to share their knowledge with the world in a professional and user-friendly way. Even better, they have the potential to make a lot of money doing so.

Every step of the course creation process includes helpful instructions so you will never miss anything or forget to include a step. Want to add a video – it’s easy! Create a quiz? No worries! Or simply include text and images – add variety to your course in just a few clicks.

You can enhance any video lessons with subtitles, downloads and thumbnails, always ensuring maximum accessibility and discoverability. And every page of your course includes one or two design templates with drag and drop blocks, so you don’t need any coding skills at all!

The course builder function includes sales, checkout and thank you pages that you can customize to suit your brand. The templates are basic but effortless, so perfect for beginners. Give your students the choice to checkout with PayPal or Stripe, covering all your bases. And you can add-on testimonials, social proof and a 30-day money-back guarantee if you like, all extra functions that will help boost your sales.

In fact, one of the things Teachable does really well is enhancing your profit margin. Just before your students head to the checkout, they are met with an add-to-order widget. This encourages them to buy more than one course at a time, boosting your average order value. You can also upsell courses or bundle them, which are some great merchandising options that you’ll find inside the template.

The coaching template is great too, giving you more control over who you help and when. Potential coaching customers will have to fill out a short form before purchasing a coaching session, so they can decide if it is the right fit for them. They can then schedule a date in your diary, depending on dates and times that you set, so you are never double booked. This makes for a seamless on-boarding process that wastes nobody’s time.

Finally, there are lots of third-party integrations you can add to your course, including emails, Zapier and Google Analytics, to name just a few. So, if there’s anything you feel is missing from your course offering, you might be able to add it that way.

How much does Teachable cost?

Teachable is at the more affordable end of the scale when it comes to the best online platforms for course creation, with a great free version that lets anyone get started with minimum effort.

After that, packages start from $39 a month, up to $499 a month for the Business option. This means you can grow your business once you get confident with what you are doing and there’s even a handy quiz you can take to determine which package is best for you and your course-creating goals.

The free version of the platform is really only good for one course, so you won’t be able to make your fortune without upgrading, but it does mean you can test Teachable out for yourself fully, before committing to it for your future business plans.

So, what are the negative points of Teachable?

We’ve stated throughout this review that this platform is super simple and easy to navigate, but such simplicity can really hold you back if you have grand plans for your courses. For some, this won’t be a problem, but others may find they outgrow Teachable and go in search of something with more complex features.

There are also only a few templates, making for a very bland course offering. If you are quite creative, you may be able to work without a template, but if you are relying on this to help make the best course you can, you might find your course struggles to stand out amongst the sea of courses that look just like yours.

Another huge drawback used to be the fact that there is no community feature connected to your course, but the people behind Teachable heard their creator's complaints and have now built a community which is still in beta testing. It used to be that you could only integrate this with a third-party app, but this new feature is actually quite promising. It’s still currently in the early stages, so it isn’t too sophisticated yet. If this is a very important part of what you want to offer, this might not be the best platform for online courses for you just yet – either pick another platform for now or wait and see what happens with Teachable.

Which is better Shiken or Teachable?

Of all the course creator platforms out there, Shiken and Teachable are probably the most closely matched in their offerings. However, there are a few features that stand out in Shiken that you might not get in Teachable, and vice-versa.

Active and passive learning styles

Everybody learns in different ways and it’s a good idea to mix up your course content to ensure you cater for the needs of more people. Alongside traditional text and pictures and video content, you can add quizzes, games and leader boards to make for a more competitive and fun environment. Students can see their skills progression as they work through your course and engagement is encouraged to make learners feel like valued customers. This will ensure higher feedback scores and is more likely to result in people recommending your course to others.

Course creating with AI

There are lots of ways to use AI throughout your course creation process with Shiken. A lot of learners benefit from PDF write-ups or brochures at the end of video or quiz courses, as they help them to remember the information they’ve learned. Our AI writing assistant takes the course details and creates the PDF text you need to ensure your course is as valuable as it can possibly be. Shiken Notes helps you build wikis, databases and project management boards that you can share with your students to make for a well-rounded course that gets great reviews. Teachable uses AI too, but it doesn’t shout about it as the systems aren’t quite as sophisticated as Shiken’s.

A store for your courses

The Shiken store is a great place for potential students to find the courses they are looking for, including yours. Here, they can follow your activity, purchases courses and use vouchers you’ve gifted them. But you can also share your courses on dedicated landing pages, getting them out to more people even before they’ve found the Shiken store.

A fair price for course creators

Shiken and Teachable are quite similar in their pricing structure. Both offer a free version that gives you a good idea of what to expect when you upgrade. Then, Shiken packages start at £39 a month for a Starter package, £99 a month for a Pro package and £147 a month for a Teams package. There is also an Enterprise option available on request if you need an even more in-depth offering.

As value for money in online course platforms goes, Shiken slightly has the edge money-wise, as it gives you a few more interesting features than Teachable.

The decision is yours

Which are the best online course platforms in your opinion? Do you like the simplicity and style of Teachable or do you prefer the more technologically advanced Shiken? Both have their place in the course-creation world and there are many factors which are likely to sway your decision when you finally make it.

The great thing about both platforms is that they offer free versions, so you can test out both and see which one will be your forever course-creating assistant. You don’t need a credit card for either, so you can simply sign up and get started. A world of course creation and passive income awaits you!

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