Udemy and. Thinkific: Which is Best for 2022? |
There are many different course platforms to choose from that, if you're getting ready to create your own web-based course, the process is likely to be a bit intimidating.
What should you look for? What is the most important feature you want? How do you understand the many different business options courses offer you?
Even the many influencers and creator voices will swear by different choices. Every person has their own personal preference.
And this is just it. It's difficult to decide which option you'll need. However, if you're doing study to find the most suitable location to create your course be assured that there is an option that is right for you! By doing a effort and research, you'll be able to find the platform that will fit your personal style and personality.
In this post, we're going to talk about two options that are popular: Udemy vs Thinkific. Both have their own benefits and cons, and a different approach to building the course-based enterprise you want to run. So we'll help you figure out which will work best to suit your needs.
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In this article...
1. Udemy vs. Thinkific Which are the differences?
2. Udemy vs. Thinkific: How to decide?
2.1. Course platforms
2.2. Model for business
2.3. Marketing options
2.4. Access and apps
3. Udemy vs. Thinkific Platforms for courses
4. Udemy vs. Thinkific: Business model
5. Udemy vs. Thinkific: Options for marketing
6. Udemy vs. Thinkific: Apps and access
7. Conclusion - Want an alternative?
Udemy Vs. Thinkific: What are these?
Udemy is an on-line platform for course sales with hundreds of courses available to pick from. It comes with a free course creator as well as the ability to promote your course to the thousands of people who visit Udemy every day. Udemy will take a percentage of all revenue generated by courses sold through the marketplace, leaving the seller with just 37% of it. If you have students that you take directly to the site, you keep 97 %.
It's not a marketplace for courses. Instead, it's a learning platform that you can create and run your own course on. It comes with a drag-and-drop site and course creator, as well as a range of tools for marketing to help ensure that your courses are noticed by the masses.
Udemy in comparison to. Thinkific: How to decide?
If you're trying to compare these two platforms, it's tricky to properly understand the difference between them. This is why we've listed the four major things we'll be comparing:
Course platforms
The first aspect we'll examine these two choices on is the quality of the course-building platform. How much control do they give you over your course? How much customization do they let you have? We'll rate them according to the features listed above.
Business model
One of the major distinctions between these two platforms is the way they each offer a different business model, complete with distinct revenue and payment structures. The key is to determine which of these fits your style best.
Options for marketing
Both Udemy as well as Thinkific come with strategies to advertise your course. Each is based on different rules. This article will examine how each one of these lets you market your course to the people who require it.
Apps & access
Last, but not least, we'll compare each of these two platforms based on how they let you actually present your course to your learners. It will be a matter of comparing the access via the mobile application as a complete necessity for a modern course builder.
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Udemy Vs. Thinkific the course platforms
When it comes to platform for courses, Udemy and Thinkific are very different beasts. Udemy doesn't offer a fancy course maker or a variety of customization options. This is because your course needs to match the numerous other courses available in the Udemy library, so there must be an level of consistency.
Course creator is fairly basic and gives an upload location and map out your course's contents.
But with that mentioned, the course maker is quite simple to use, and there are lots of tips and tricks to help you along the way.
The outcome - which isn't a huge surprise - is a course that appears exactly like the other courses offered on Udemy... but there are handful of options to customize the course with your own landing page as well as course pictures.
Thinkific is a greater depth of course builders, with options to customize almost every aspect. (The disadvantage is that it's not equipped with an audience built in that we'll discuss below ).
Add your lesson and build custom pages for selling and promoting your course. The page builder itself is an easy, drag-and-drop tool, so course creation is pretty intuitive.
Both platforms are not the best in terms of what it offers in comparison to other LMSs However, each one has a good basic course platform. Both are better in other areas than the actual course platform.
Udemy vs. Thinkific: The business model
If you're considering comparing Udemy with. Thinkific, it's important to understand that the two make money in different ways. Knowing the difference is crucial in establishing a model for business that you're comfortable with.
Udemy is cost-free to host and build your course on. However, you are charged when people choose to take your course. That means, for every purchase you make Udemy will be taking a percentage of the revenue you earn to fund your right to use the site. When customers buy the course through an affiliate link you provide and you are able to retain the majority of your earnings. For those that discover your course via Udemy's platform, you will be able to keep just 37 %.
Certain creators prefer this method as it may result in capturing revenue that you wouldn't normally earn from the course marketplace. Others feel it costs the creators too much since self-hosted services allow you to retain the majority, if not all of your revenue.
Thinkific operates under an underlying subscription model. instead of paying for a percentage of each sale made for the service, you pay a flat rate to build and run your course on the platform. They do have a free planthat lets you create and host a basic course without benefitting from many features that the platform offers. If you don't, you'll have to pay a fixed amount to access the platform, based the features you select.
While both of these platforms take a very different approach to monetization and monetization, which one is best for your needs will be determined by what you're planning to do with your company. If you're planning to make money from the built-in audience of Udemy it might be worth considering the possibility of losing an amount of revenue every month . But remember, the more successful your business is, the more expensive it will become!
If you decide to create and host on Thinkific, you will pay the same amount regardless of the amount of students you've. If you're just building a course, this might be a requirement to keep making sales to pay for the expenses of hosting there. If you were working on the model of a membership model or community that allows for the possibility of recurring income and so the monthly costs become more viable - more on this below.
Udemy Vs. Thinkific: Options for marketing
We've hinted at already, Udemy and Thinkific give you very different options for marketing your classes.
Udemy has a few built-in marketing features, BUT in the past, as we've mentioned it offers access to thousands of students each day seeking out courses to purchase. It could be a good option for certain individuals, but it might not be worth sacrificing the greater marketing capabilities offered by other platforms.
Since Thinkific is hosted by Thinkific itself, it gives users the possibility of customizing the landing pages you create. They have different templates that you can pick from for your landing pages to create.
Thinkific comes with a variety of marketing tools, including coupon codes, selling "call-to-action" buttons that you can place on another site, and affiliate programs which allows you to enlist others to help sell your course (usually at a proportion of your earnings).
Udemy and. Thinkific: Apps & access
Then, and definitely not the least, let's talk about apps and access. It's true that access to your class via a native mobile app doesn't seem like a benefit nowadays - it's a must. With fewer and fewer students even have laptops or desktop computers, having a great app that your students will be able to learn from is a great way to ensure that the course-based company you run succeeds.
Udemy offers an application which works on both Android as well as Apple and allows you to take your courses with you. The app comes with some interesting features, like the capability to cast onto a television (although some users have reported that the app is fairly clunky & that the casting doesn't work well ).
However, Thinkific doesn't have an application at all. That means, in terms of access, Thinkific is missing one of the most important features your students will need, which is a shame.
The one thing that Thinkific does have in terms of access is that it can be connected to a WordPress website. However, since WordPress plugins don't always represent the ideal way to create an online course or membership website or a membership site, this isn't a huge deal. any more.
Conclusion - Want another option?
The platform that is used for marketplaces like Udemy is great, but it costs lots. The self-hosted platform for Thinkific gives you lots of options for customization and marketing capabilities, but it's not an app.
The other alternative. is an all-in-one course-building platform that allows you to create and market elegant courses, and help them be supported by an intuitive community-based platform. In addition to benefits from course revenues, but you can also charge for community membership and earn recurring monthly income. With the help of community Design(tm) You can develop a fan base within your class that enhances its value and allows it to grow by word of mouth.
It is an incredible app that functions with every device, and it's included in every plan and comes with a variety of additional features, including live stream, polls, Subgroups and events that are integrated, and much more.
Do not believe us when we say this. You can try it absolutely free for 14 days, there is no need for credit cards, and see the results you get from it.
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