Ever-changing social media and search algorithms make owning your channels more important than ever. Online courses are a great tool for building community and growing your list.
Today, anyone can share knowledge as quickly and easily as you can upload a video to YouTube. But to explore a topic in depth, build a community, earn an income, or grow your business by selling online courses? That takes a more robust setup to help you design course pages, build out a curriculum, and promote your course.
I’ve been updating this article for several years, and this year, after researching and testing more than 60 apps for creating and selling online courses, these are my picks for the best.
The 10 best online course platforms
What makes the best online course platform?
How we evaluate and test apps
Our best apps roundups are written by humans who’ve spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. Unless explicitly stated, we spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it’s intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We’re never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.
For this piece, I only considered platforms for building and selling an online course, which means I didn’t consider learning management systems (LMS). While the terms are often used interchangeably, LMS software is generally used either in a school setting or to help companies train their customers and employees. The platforms to create online courses covered below, on the other hand, are designed for businesses and individual creators to earn money (or build an audience) by selling their courses.
Online course creation platforms can be broadly divided into two categories:
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Course marketplaces
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Course creation software
In a marketplace, your course is a part of a catalog, and you have the option to customize your course landing page but not much else aside from the course content. Most marketplaces let you publish a course for free but take a share of course sales. The major advantage: course marketplaces provide you with an existing student base, so if you don’t have much of an online presence yet, you might want to dabble with these first.
Online course creation software, on the other hand, offers many more customization options. You can create branded landing pages, choose from multiple content formats when building your course, and get the necessary tools to market your course. These usually charge a fixed monthly fee, and some platforms also charge a transaction fee.
Unsurprisingly, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for creating a profitable course. Your ideal course creation platform is unique to your needs and goals. Are online courses your bread and butter? Then you need a platform that helps you reach the maximum number of students. Does teaching and engaging with students excite you? Then a course creator with interactive tools would work well. Are you creating a course to engage your existing audience? Then you’ll want a tool with robust marketing features.
While every platform has its own unique selling point, I’ve judged the online course software below based on certain criteria:
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Content formats supported, including video, audio, PDFs, and images
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Editing features and customization options
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Whether or not they’re realistically affordable for small and medium businesses
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Support for assessments: quizzes, exams, certifications, assignments, etc.
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Marketing and payment features
With those criteria in mind, I narrowed it down to 22 apps worth testing in full, then spent several days exploring them and running through an in-depth testing process. Here’s what it looked like:
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Signing up for an account and completing any onboarding flows offered
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Walking through the core workflow to create a new course, including browsing any course templates, building out the curriculum, and adding course content in varying formats
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Testing out other core features like building quizzes and tests, designing course certificates, scheduling live sessions, and setting up drip schedules
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Customizing the overall design, colors, fonts, logos, landing pages, and more—to the extent possible with each app
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Finally, looking at payment and marketing features like email broadcasts, pricing structures, community building, and SEO
The ten course creation platforms below are the best I found.
The best online course platforms at a glance
|
Best for |
Standout feature |
Pricing |
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Launching your first course |
Guided, prescriptive course creation flow |
Free; 3% to 63% revenue share on course sales |
|
|
Teaching creative skills |
Quick, easy course setup |
Free; royalties for premium class minutes watched |
|
|
Creating an online school with marketing |
Wide-ranging AI features in beta |
Free for 1 published course and 10 students (plus $1 + 10% per transaction); from $39/month |
|
|
Selling digital products and memberships |
Simple course outline builder |
From $33/month plus 5% transaction fee |
|
|
Marketing a course on autopilot |
Loads of built-in marketing features |
From $55/month |
|
|
Building a paid community |
Strong community-building focus |
From $99/month for plans that include online courses |
|
|
Managing your business |
All-in-one CRM, marketing automation, and online courses |
From $59/month |
|
|
Granular customizability |
Extensive visual customization options |
From $29/month plus $5 per sale |
|
|
Action-oriented courses |
Actionable lessons and curriculum design |
From $89/month |
|
|
Customizable add-ons |
Course templates, pre-populated with sample content |
From $36/month |
Online course marketplaces
Best online course marketplace for launching your first course
Udemy (Web, Android, iOS)
Udemy pros:
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Guided, prescriptive course creation flow
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Built-in Udemy audience
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Minimal editing/design needed
Udemy cons:
While the earliest massive open online courses (MOOCs) made learning accessible, Udemy took it a step further: it made teaching online possible. Today, the platform has well over 73 million students enrolled in its courses and an instructor base of over 75,000.
To create a paid course on Udemy, you first have to apply to become a premium instructor. Once approved, you’ll see a series of easy-to-follow steps to help you create your first course. As you plan course content, keep in mind that all courses need at least 30 minutes of video and five lectures. You’re also welcome to add quizzes, assignments, coding exercises, and discussion prompts.
Why launch your first course on Udemy? Because the platform offers loads of support for creating and marketing a course. For example, if you’re not sure if your video lessons are up to snuff, you can submit a sample for review and get feedback on video and audio, along with suggestions for equipment. And for tutorials on planning a course, filming your first video, and related topics, Udemy offers the Teaching Center with tips and tricks.
If you’re struggling to make your first few sales, Udemy’s tailor-made marketing programs will offer support. Get your course featured in their email blasts, be a part of site-wide discounts, or opt for Udemy’s affiliate marketing program. All of these programs are optional, and depending on the promotional channel you choose, Udemy takes a share of course sales.
Finally, Udemy’s marketplace insights help you select the perfect course topic and see how it stacks up against other courses on the platform—which is important because of the size of the marketplace you’re competing with. Similar to Google Analytics, this feature tells you how popular a topic is on Udemy, its search volume, and related keywords. You can also see the number of existing courses for a topic, top-earning courses in the category, monthly revenue earned, and best promotion channels (Udemy discovery, Udemy search, external sources, paid ads).
To put it simply, with Udemy, you’re in good hands.
Udemy price: Free to publish free courses with under 2 hours of video; Udemy charges 3% revenue share on course sales made by instructor coupons and 63% revenue share on all other course sales. (Note: Revenue share does not include processing fees charged by PayPal or Payoneer, or mobile platform fees for mobile course sales.)
Best online course marketplace for teaching creative skills
Skillshare (Web, Android, iOS)
Skillshare pros:
Skillshare cons:
If you’re an entrepreneur, designer, writer, photographer, or blogger looking to teach your craft online, Skillshare is great for teaching creative skills. You’ll find courses on all kinds of topics, both popular and niche: marketing, photography, cooking, hand painting, doodling, and even wall hanging.
The platform offers a membership plan for students that gives them access to all of its 35,000 premium courses. As for creators, it’s a free online course platform if you just want to sign up and publish a course, but if you want to get paid, it must be a part of Skillshare’s premium catalog.
Free or premium, Skillshare classes have three major moving parts: video lessons, a project, and community discussion. Each class includes 20-60 minutes of video, broken down into 2-5-minute lessons. The practical project then ensures hands-on experience. For instance, a social media class project might require students to promote their Instagram account, or a writing class might require students to draft a pitch. Finally, the community portion of a class allows students to post their work.
Instead of favoring final outcomes, Skillshare encourages students to share their progress, gather feedback, and tweak their work accordingly—which is perfect for the creative topics you’ll be teaching.
Skillshare price: Free for creating a premium class. Skillshare pays instructors $10 for premium membership referrals and royalties for minutes watched in a premium class each month.
Online courses software
Best online courses platform for building an online school with advanced marketing
Teachable (Web, iOS)
Teachable pros:
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Tons of built-in marketing features
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Custom-code course editor
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Wide-ranging (beta) AI features
Teachable cons:
Teachable helps savvy course creators grow and nurture an online audience. To begin with, the platform offers various options to customize the look and feel of your course. Build a website that reflects your brand, create sales pages for launching your course, and if you happen to know some code, use the Power Editor to tinker with it. If not, edit one of the three templates available. Teachable’s course builder accepts files from Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive, among other content formats.
Teachable’s generative AI generated a course outline, lesson content, and section summaries that were good enough to serve as a solid starting point.
There’s flexibility when pricing your course, too. You can offer courses on their own or in bundles, and choose between a one-time fee, a payment plan, or a subscription. When you’re ready to launch, create coupon codes to see a quick boost in course sales. To build a sales team for your course, use the platform’s built-in affiliate marketing option: simply add affiliates, and they’ll get a percentage of course sales. No third-party integration required.
Teachable’s native email marketing tool lets you filter and message students when they enroll in a course, redeem a coupon, or complete a course. The platform also helps you collect student feedback and uncover insights about your course using Google Forms and surveys. If you’d like to keep in touch with students after they’ve completed your course, add them to your email list with Teachable’s integrations. As they say, the money is in the list.
You can do more with Teachable when you connect it to your favorite apps through Zapier’s automated workflows. Automatically add your students to your marketing campaign, track them in a Google Sheet, and more. Discover more ways to automate Teachable with Zapier, or try one of these pre-made workflows to get you started.
Teachable price: The Free plan includes 1 published course or product and 10 students, with transaction fees of $1 + 10% per transaction; paid plans start at $39/month for the Basic plan, which includes 5 products and unlimited students, plus a custom domain, email marketing, coupon codes, drip course content, and a 5% transaction fee.
If you’re looking for a Teachable alternative, Miestro is another good option with an intuitive course builder and scalable pricing plans.
Best online course creation software for selling digital products and memberships
Podia (Web)
Podia pros:
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Simple, clean course outline builder
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Support for multiple kinds of digital products
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Affordable
Podia cons:
Podia lets you build an online store for your digital content. Create online courses, digital downloads, coaching sessions, and even membership sites, all as part of one digital storefront.
All Podia storefronts have a similar template, which is helpful if you find too many options overwhelming. Each store’s landing page includes an overview, a “What’s included” section, a content section, FAQs, and creator bios. And all courses, memberships, and digital downloads have a separate landing page.
Once you create an online course, you can publish it immediately or pre-launch it to collect emails. If you have additional resources to supplement your course—webinars, cheat sheets, eBooks, videos, audio, text, checklists—sell them as a digital download. You can also bundle and sell the two together.
Online content creators often try to nurture an online community on platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn. This can work, but you’re often at the mercy of algorithmic changes and the rules of the platform you choose. Podia allows you to create your own private membership site, with different membership plans, perks, and content for members. Share updates with your community, notify them about new products, and watch your business grow.
Connect Podia to the other apps you use most through Zapier’s automated workflows. Automatically add your students to your marketing campaign, enroll new purchasers in your course, and more. Here are some ideas, but you can connect Podia to thousands of other apps with Zapier.
Podia price: Free to build your draft course; from $33/month for the Mover plan to sell your course, with unlimited courses and members and a 5% transaction fee.
Best online course creation software for marketing a course on autopilot
Kajabi (Web, iOS, Android)
Kajabi pros:
Kajabi cons:
Kajabi gives marketing superpowers to busy course creators. Its marketing blueprints, called funnels, help you create an entire marketing funnel—from landing page and opt-ins to emails and course checkout—with just a few clicks.
Here’s an example: The freebie funnel consists of three touchpoints. The first is a landing page where you collect emails in exchange for a free downloadable, such as an eBook or cheat sheet. When a visitor enters their email, they’re subscribed to your freebie email sequence, where you can thank them for signing up and upsell your course. If they choose to purchase, they’re taken to a thank-you page. And that’s it.
You can also choose what to do with the emails you collect. Add them to an email sequence, remind them about your special offer, or send them a thank-you note after they purchase. Kajabi has templates for all kinds of pages. Select a funnel, add your content, and your marketing machine is all set.
Templates can be handy, but if you want to create your own automations, Kajabi offers a number of if-then scenarios to choose from. When a student completes an assessment, fills a form, cancels a subscription, or has been inactive for a while, you can send them an email, register them for an event, or unsubscribe them from an email list. Given that email is at the core of all its features, Kajabi also has a native email provider that helps you track how many of your emails are opened.
You can do more with Kajabi when you connect it to your favorite apps through Zapier’s Kajabi integrations. Automatically get email notifications for new purchases, give new purchasers access to your product, and more. Start with one of the pre-made workflows below, or learn more about how to automate Kajabi.
Kajabi price: From $55/month for the Kickstarter plan for 1 product, 1 funnel, and 50 active customers; upgrade for $119/month to the Basic plan for one site, 3 products, 3 funnels, 1,000 active customers, and unlimited marketing emails and landing pages.
Best online course creation software for building a paid community
Mighty Networks (Web, Android, iOS)
Mighty Networks pros:
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Strong community-building focus
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AI-generated course outlines
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Modern, user-friendly interface
Mighty Networks cons:
Mighty Networks helps you build a vibrant, active paid community around your online course. The app focuses broadly on community-building, which includes paid groups, events, and—you guessed it—online courses.
Users can sell individual courses, community membership, or bundle a combination of the two. Memberships can be priced as a one-time payment or subscription, and pricing is 100% custom. Each course can be priced separately or offered for free to paying members.
Every course comes with a built-in Activity Feed that works to foster engagement and conversation as members complete your course. Members can share all kinds of content, too—from quick text posts to images and links. As the instructor, you can set topics to drive the conversation and build live events (both online and IRL) into your courses. Add icebreaker questions to get the ball rolling, and create polls to engage your audience and gather feedback.
Uniquely, the app offers a small but mighty feature (pun intended) that enables instructors to change the verbiage used in their community. For example, your table of contents can alternatively be called syllabus, course material, or any custom label you choose. Instructors can be professor, TA, teacher, or another custom name.
Mighty Networks also now offers one of the most useful generative AI features (called “Mighty Co-Host”), which can generate an extensive course outline based on your provided topic. It worked really well for me in my testing.
You can do more when you connect Mighty Networks to your favorite apps using the Zapier integration. Bring conversations across channels, automate new member invitations, sync events to your calendar, and more. Learn more about automating Mighty Networks, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.
Mighty Networks price: Plans that include online courses start at $99/month for unlimited courses and Zapier integration.
Best online course creator for managing your business
Simplero (Web, iOS, Android)
Simplero pros:
Simplero cons:
If you’re looking for a capable, customizable online course builder, you can’t go wrong with Simplero. Creating and outlining your course curriculum is super quick: click the Create new course button, and a few screens later, you’re ready to build out your curriculum and add your learning content.
But Simplero isn’t just a course creation app—it’s more like a CRM, marketing automation, and online course tool in one package. That’s reflected in the robust automation and list management features included in the app. You can build, publish, and market courses, track sales and financials, and maintain your customer list all in one app.
Head over to Marketing > Done-For-You Campaigns, for example, to install the Course Launch Challenge, a 21-day automated sequence. All you need to do is customize the emails and choose when the automation flow should run. It’s a perfect all-in-one solution for when your online course is your business.
And with Simplero’s Zapier integrations, you can do even more with the platform, like adding new students to your email list automatically or creating new Simplero subscribers from form submissions.
Simplero pricing: The Starter plan starts at $59/month and includes 5 products, 5 courses, and unlimited landing pages; upgrade to the Scale plan at $149/month for 1,000 contacts, unlimited courses and products, affiliate marketing features, automations, and more.
Best online course creation software for granular customizability
LearnWorlds (Web, Android, iOS)
LearnWorlds pros:
LearnWorlds cons:
At a time when many online course platforms are moving away from visual customizability, LearnWorlds stands out. You can still choose from a number of pre-built templates, but you can also get super granular, customizing the layout, colors, typography, and buttons and inputs for your course page—it’s as close to a custom course website as you’re going to get.
LearnWorlds also offers one of the most useful generative AI features I tested. The tool will build out your course outline for you, but instead of basing the outline on a three-word title, LearnWorlds offers a number of options to help guide and customize the generated content. You can check which types of media it should include, key topics to cover, tone of voice, instructional approach—it’ll even create course activities based on your chosen resource. Once generated, you can edit, add to, and further refine your course content via one of the most intuitive course builders on this list.
Another neat feature is Question Banks, where you can save pre-created questions to pull from whenever you build quizzes, assessments, and exams.
You can do even more to streamline your workflow when you connect LearnWorlds with Zapier, automatically tracking paid students, syncing with your email marketing tool, creating certificates, and more.
LearnWorlds pricing: From $24/month (plus $5 per course sale) for the Starter plan, including unlimited paid courses, drip content, and AI features.
Best online course creation software for action-oriented courses
Pathwright (Web)
Pathwright pros:
Pathwright cons:
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Outdated aesthetics
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Prices scale quickly
Pathwright is my top pick for creating action-forward courses. The course creation flow and lesson builder screen are super intuitive, making it both quick and simple to add all kinds of lesson content—from text to embedded media to interactive activities and more.
The platform’s interface is a little dated, but it does include all the standard customizations you expect: adding your logo and updating primary color and font. Plus, you can add custom CSS code. Community features make it easy to connect students and facilitate discussions.
For assessments, Pathwright supports multiple choice, multiple response, open response, and matching questions, plus task-based and interactive activities (all of which can be added right from the lesson builder screen).
Here’s one important caveat: Pathwright’s pricing structure makes this one a less scalable option than many. There’s no free plan, paid plans start out on the higher end, and you’ll still need to upgrade for some features that are standard with many other online course tools (like selling subscriptions or offering certificates).
That said, you can get more out of whichever plan you choose when you connect Pathwright with Zapier. Here are some example workflows to get you started.
Pathwright pricing: The Starter plan starts at $89/month (billed annually) for unlimited paths and basic features.
Best online course creation software for customizable add-ons
Thinkific (Web)
Thinkific pros:
Thinkific cons:
Thinkific was one of the first online course platforms to offer an AI curriculum builder, but this year, several other apps on this list offer AI features that outshine it. Still, in addition to the AI builder, Thinkific’s website builder is one of the easiest to use. Choose the pages you want to include, add your copy, pick a theme, and you’re done.
From there, you can add, remove, or rearrange chapters and lessons, then add your content—video, text, slides, PDF, audio, multimedia, even downloadable files.
Want to include testimonials on your website? Here’s a neat trick to collect them on Thinkific: turn on student reviews for your course and add the ones you like directly to your landing page. Plus, Thinkific offers a number of add-ons and integrations that are super easy to get set up—they add features like AI chatbot quizzes, collaborative whiteboards, interactivity, gamification, and even test prep simulations.
And by connecting Thinkific with Zapier, you can do things like automatically add your students to your marketing campaign or get an SMS message when a course is purchased. Learn more about automating Thinkific, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.
Thinkific price: From $36/month for the Basic plan, which offers most features, including unlimited courses and students, zero transaction fees, a custom domain, and drip content.
Which online course platform is best for you?
Whether you’re passionate about teaching, want to grow your audience, or are just looking to earn an income from your courses, there’s an online course creation platform to help you achieve your goals.
When picking a tool to launch your course, consider your budget, time constraints, current online following, and earning potential. If you’re simply testing the waters, start with a course marketplace. Once you’ve validated your course topic and content, only then proceed to launch your own course website. Don’t worry about migrating content from one platform to another. Most platforms support this, whether for free or for an added fee.
In the end, software for online courses should allow you to focus your efforts on the course content, not the process of getting it out to your audience.
Related reading:
This article was originally published in September 2018 by Farheen Gani. The most recent update was in September 2024.