Teachable vs Thinkific vs Podia? Which has the best Free Plan for Course Creators in 2025

 As a new online course creator, educator, teacher, or business owner, choosing the best online course platforms for your course can be extremely difficult owing to the huge and minute add-ons each of the online learning platforms possesses, making it quite challenging for you to recognize your best fit. This article will help you with that.

Teachable vs Thinkific vs Podia and the best Free plan for Course Creators in 2025

Teachable, Thinkific, and Podia all are very well-known platforms. But are they even worth all the hype? If yes, then which one is better? This article will provide you with all the information you will need. 

What is Teachable?

Teachable is a software program for building online coaching and course materials that enables company owners, freelancers, and organizations of all sizes to develop unique, interesting coaching and course materials that include videos, lectures, and quizzes.

Teachable provides educators with an easy-to-use platform for creating and marketing online courses. We've discovered through use that Teachable is a straightforward and slightly sophisticated tool for creating and selling courses. So, you might want to use Teachable if you're the type who HATES using a lot of tools, integrations, and complex extensions.

Link: https://teachable.com/

What is Thinkific?

Thinkific is a technology startup that has developed a platform that enables individuals and organizations to develop online courses using their current expertise and then offer or sell such courses to their target audience from their website and under their own brand.

Thinkific is a software platform that enables business owners to design, promote, sell, and deliver their own online courses. Its goal is to fundamentally alter how individuals study and make money online by providing them with the resources they need to transform their area of expertise into a viable business that benefits both them and their target markets.

Link: https://www.thinkific.com/

What is Podia?

Podia is an all-in-one platform where you may sell online coaching, digital downloads, webinars, bundles, and other products. It has effective marketing tools like affiliate programs, communities, newsletters, promotions, and upsells.

Podia provides online course instructors with a simple, feminine, and clean interface. If you're looking for a dynamic platform for selling an online course, webinars, course creation, membership, and digital downloads, Podia is your best bet.

Link: https://www.podia.com/

Teachable vs Thinkific vs Podia

As a new creator or business owner, choosing the best online course platforms for your course can be extremely difficult owing to the huge and minute add-ons each of the online learning platforms possesses, making it quite challenging for you to recognize your best fit.

So here are a few helpful ideas to consider as you weigh the benefits and drawbacks of Teachable, Thinkific, and Podia, three of the most well-known online course production platforms, before deciding which one to use to develop and market your course.

1. Easy to use and simple to manage

Here, Teachable and Podia are the winners in terms of simplicity.
You will need to spend some time learning how Thinkific works because it has many sophisticated course-building tools that allow you to tailor your course to your preferences.

2. The platform for Live Classes Online

All three of the online learning platforms support live sessions, with choices for self-hosting, using a third-party platform like Zapier, or using the built-in live class hosting feature using Zoom.

3. Support Services and History

There is customer assistance available for creators of all online course-building tools. However, Podia and Teachable provide 24/7 customer service via phone or chat.

You can contact Podia by email or live chat assistance that is available constantly.
With Teachable, you can only have real-time chats with people if you have the Pro or Business plan.
With Thinkific, you can access 24/7 monitored email assistance as well as Facebook community support.

4. The best uses for creators

While Podia works best for solitary producers who are focused on selling online courses, memberships, webinars, and digital downloads, Thinkific and Teachable both provide features and building facilities ideal for solo creators, educational institutions, and instructors.

5. Advanced Resources

The most cutting-edge platform for creating and customizing your online course is Thinkific, followed by Teachable and Podia.

For instance, all websites that host online courses permit unlimited courses, users, and third-party integrations; nevertheless, when it comes to independent, all-encompassing infrastructure for course development, Thinkific should come first, followed by Teachable, and then Podia.

Which has the best Free Plan for Course Creators?

The free plan of Teachable

Teachable offers a free subscription, however, you may only use it for 14 days to try out the platform. You can set up your course and construct it, but to start selling your courses, you'll need to upgrade to a paid plan.

The features provided by Teachable's Free Plan are:

• Endless hosting
• Courses are unlimited.
• Numerous students
• Unlimited video
• Forum discussions
• Basic tests
• Integrated sales pages and payment processing

Teachable is free to use when you first sign up, but if you want to start selling your courses, you will need to upgrade to a paid plan.
The time-limited 14-day free trial period and requirement to switch to a paid plan before you can sell your courses are the free plan's greatest drawbacks. large transaction costs.

Free Plan of Thinkific

Thinkific offers a free trial of 30 days in which you have access to all of the platform's "essential features":

• host a variety of content genres, including videos
• Make simple surveys and quizzes
• Tool for an in-class debate
• Deliver content using the course player's native interface
• Create a website for your company.
• Accept payments with PayPal and Stripe
• Email customer service

However, the Thinkific Free plan only offers the bare minimum in terms of course development features. To host your content, organize it into a course, professionally deliver it, and increase student engagement.

Other crucial features like content dripping, certifications, content locking, etc. are not included. The Free plan only offers money processing as true sales and marketing tool.

Free Plan of Podia

The platform offers a 14-day free trial that includes the following:

• With a simple and adaptable website builder, you can create a free, fully adjustable website for anything.
• A free community you can make accessible to your audience or fee to join
• The capacity to market a digital download or coaching/consulting service while beginning to amass an email list.

You can quickly and easily create a free account with Podia if you don't already have one. All the basic and necessary features are provided in this trial for the course creator to get started.

Conclusion

All three platform have their own plus points that can help you choose which is the best for you. If you want a longer time to test out the platform then you should go for Thinkific as it provides a 30-day free trial while Podia and Teachable provide only 14 days trial. If you looking for a simpler platform Teachable may be the one for you. The free plans only last for a particular period and you have to subscribe to paid plans at some point in all three if you are looking for professionally creating courses.