So you want to sell online courses but are unsure which is the best online teaching platform?
It might be tricky figuring out if Skillshare or Teachable is best suited for you. And it’s a HUGE hassle to transfer online course platforms if you ever decide your chosen platform isn’t just for you.
We’ll be honest though, Teachable is our personal pick for the best online teaching platform. Why?
Just read on and we’ll show you all the points of the Great Skillshare vs. Teachable Debate!
Skillshare: Points of Interest
Online Course Creation
If you want to sell your courses, you’d want to make sure that it’s easy to do, right?
With Skillshare, all you need to do is go on their website and click Become a Teacher for your very first course.
You can upload video lessons and find the best resources for first-time uploaders on their site.
If you want to re-order your videos, you only have to drag and drop them in the order you want them to be in.
In the second tab, you can edit the course description, add the course category and subcategories, and class level.
You can also find a complete guide to help you create a course.
However, Skillshare ONLY allows you to upload video content. You can’t upload quizzes, assignments, powerpoints, or other multimedia content when creating a course.
This is a huge point of contention when talking about Skillshare vs. Teachable.
Marketing
Let’s say you don’t have a huge following or don’t have the energy to market aggressively on top of making video content for your course.
That’s no problem at all if you choose Skillshare.
With Skillshare, they offer an online course marketplace that students can browse through to choose different classes that interest them.
If you catch their eye, you’ll have a new student in your course in no time!
Pricing Plans
You don’t have to pay transaction fees to teach unlimited students on Skillshare!
All you have to do is upload your first course, and wait for students to watch your video for your course.
However, if you’re partnering with someone else or a school to create a course, you might want to check the Teams Plans.
Skillshare offers three paid plans: Starter, Enterprise, and Revive.
The latter two offers custom pricing, meaning you’ll have to contact sales before you can avail of them.
The starter plan of Skillshare is priced at 139 USD per user, billed annually.
Earning Revenue
Skillshare utilizes a subscription model for students who want to use their platform to enroll in a course.
To earn money, your student needs to use a premium plan, or they’ll only be able to view one part of your course for free.
You’ll be paid based on how long your students with premium membership subscriptions watch your videos.
That means if your student watches your video at 2x speed, you’ll only get half of what you’d normally get.
You can also get a flat fee of 10 USD if a student signs up for a class through your referral link.
Payment
You only need a Paypal account to receive money from Skillshare. Skillshare will send your money every 16th of every month.
If you’re a teacher from outside the U.S., you only need to make sure you’re able to receive U.S. Dollars in your funds.
Unfortunately, if you don’t have a Paypal account, you WON’T be able to receive money from Skillshare. Then again, it’s a breeze-free process to set up your PayPal account.
Teachable: Points of Interest
Online Course Creation
Like Skillshare, Teachable has a platform for the course creation process.
If you feel intimidated by the prospect of making your first course on this site, that’s okay! Teachable can show you a checklist of things you need to do to create a new school on their dashboard.
In Teachable, you can upload a course or a coaching program. This might be another big point in the Teachable vs Skillshare debate.
They offer you two templates to build off from:
- The first template is for mini-courses; short and simple courses that allow you to share your knowledge.
- The second template is for creating comprehensive courses that you can sell.
There’s also a blank template if neither of the templates is what you’re looking for.
Perhaps the heaviest argument Teachable makes is it doesn’t just allow videos for your course. They also allow:
- Text posts
- Custom code; and
- Quizzes
Take note they only allow multiple-choice quizzes at the moment.
If you ever want to adjust the order of the content in your course, you can drag and drop the course materials into the order you want them to be in.
Content Dripping
Now that you’re done creating a course, what now?
The simple thing to do is publish your course as soon as you’re finished, but there’s ANOTHER feature you can make use of.
With content dripping, you can send out course lessons in intervals. So if you want to send out a new lesson in your course for your students every week, you only need to use this feature to do so.
Marketing
Unlike Skillshare, Teachable does NOT market your classes through their website.
That means you need to gain students from your existing audience. If you don’t have one, you’ll need to wipe that elbow grease, create courses, and market them!
Pricing Plans
With Teachable, you can upload courses without signing up for their membership model.
HOWEVER, the free plan is only available for 14 days. It’s more like a trial period before you decide if you want to use the other available plans on the site.
If you want to sell your course while using the free plan, they’ll take a commission fee of 1 USD + 10% of what you make.
They offer three pricing plans which we’ll discuss below.
The Basic Plan
This paid plan is best suited for content creators who don’t have extra cash to pay for a pro plan yet.
Teachable’s basic level allows you to gain access to the following features:
- Using a custom domain
- Basic quizzes
- Create coupon codes
- E-mail marketing
- 3rd party integrations; and
- Drip content
With the basic plan, the transaction fees are dropped to 5% unlike the free plan’s 1 USD + 10%.
If you’re only starting out, Teachable’s basic plan isn’t a bad deal at all.
The Pro Plan
If you’re serious about selling courses through an online platform, this is the best plan for you.
With this plan, Teachable waives transaction fees. With that, you no longer have to pay transaction fees unlike with the free and basic plans.
You also gain access to the following features:
- The integrated affiliate program
- Graded quizzes
- Course completion certificates
- Course compliance/requirements
- Upsells
- Advanced reports
- An unbranded website
If you have the money to pay for this plan, go for it! This plan offers a lot you might need when teaching your course.
The Business Plan
If you’re a one-man creator, there’s no need for you to look into this plan. But if you have a large team of people running your school, then this plan is perfect for you.
By paying this monthly fee, you get access to custom user roles, bulk import your students, and use the power editor.
Regardless of which of the pricing plans you choose, you’ll be able to take advantage of the fact that Teachable doesn’t restrict the amount of content you upload, the courses you create, or the number of students you take on.
Earning Revenue
Teachable allows you to price individual courses the way you want with four different plans for students.
There’s the free plan, the one-time purchase, subscription, and payment plan.
You can add as many different plans as you want for your course so your students can choose.
Payment
This platform offers more variety on how to receive your payments.
If you live in a country that’s part of the Teachable Payments eligibility list, you can receive your payments daily, weekly, or monthly directly to your bank account or on Paypal.
If you don’t qualify for that, you can opt for the Monthly Payment Gateway.
The only difference between the two is you can’t receive money on a daily or weekly basis.
Similarities & Differences
Now that we’ve discussed the two platforms, let’s look at how similar and different they are.
Similarities
- Skillshare and Teachable both allow for unlimited students.
- Both feature course creation tools with drag-and-drop functions.
- Both higher-tier payment plans waive transaction fees.
- You can create coupon codes and use affiliate links on both platforms.
Differences
- Skillshare only allows you to upload videos; Teachable can upload different types of media.
- You can make and grade quizzes on Teachable; Skillshare doesn’t have that option.
- Skillshare does the marketing for you while Teachable doesn’t.
- Teachable gives you access to your student’s emails while Skillshare doesn’t.
- Teachable’s free plan functions as a free trial; Skillshare can be used completely free to teach.
- Teachable gives you a custom domain to work with but Skillshare doesn’t.
FAQ
Do I Have to Pay Taxes With Skillshare or Teachable?
If you join the course marketplace on Skillshare, you’ll be given the appropriate tax forms to fill out from either the site or their payment partners.
You’ll need to submit those forms or Skillshare won’t give you the money you earned from your course.
The same protocol applies to Teachable as well.
Do I Need Teaching Experience to Use Skillshare or Teachable?
The good thing about Skillshare and Teachable is you DON’T NEED to be a teacher to teach a course on their platform.
All you need is a laptop, wifi, and the knowledge to teach the course.
How Long Do My Classes Need to Be?
Skillshare courses can be as short as ten minutes so you don’t need to worry about making extremely long classes.
Teachable doesn’t ask for a minimum number of items in your curriculum when teaching a class either.
Are There Topics I Can’t Teach?
Due to the guidelines, you can’t create Skillshare courses based on the following subjects as stated on their help page:
- Passive income business strategies, or amassing fast followers
- Mathematics, and physical and life sciences
- Dating, romance, or relationships
- Religion, spirituality, and politics
- How to resell existing products or services (such as drop-shipping or multi-level marketing)
- How to teach on other educational platforms
- Pet care (e.g., grooming, training)
- Medical content or that are related to the medical field
- Fitness and/or exercise
- Beauty regimens or cosmetology
If you create a class that touches on any of those subjects, Skillshare may terminate your account.
On the other hand, Teachable doesn’t outright forbid any subjects to teach in a course on their site—as long as it doesn’t violate their code of conduct.
Should I Choose Monthly Payments or Annual Payments?
If you’re still getting a feel of things on Teachable, you might want to opt for the monthly payments first.
After teaching a course or two, if you decide that you would like to stay on their site to teach for a long time, then it would be wise to decide to get billed annually.
Are There Other Platforms to Choose From?
If you want to create courses with another platform, you definitely can!
Udemy is another famous name that allows you to create different courses without paying for a plan. They charge a transaction fee whenever you make a course sale.
Thinkific is another platform for teaching a course you make. However, they don’t market your classes for you.
To Summarize
Both sites put up a pretty good fight when listing down their features and services. But we’ll give you a brief summary of who can best benefit from each site.
Skillshare
Skillshare is best to create and sell courses under subjects like photography, digital art, animation, creative writing, and other kinds of creative skills.
Skillshare is also great for teachers who don’t have an audience yet.
Teachable
Teachable is a wonderful platform to create programming, business, coding, and marketing courses. The sky is the limit here due to the lack of class restrictions.
However, you’ll need to market to your students using your own efforts without the help of Teachable.
The Final Verdict
Standing victorious from the Skillshare vs. Teachable debate is one platform that clearly outweighs the features of the other platform.
Between the two online platforms, Teachable is the clear winner for us!
It allows you to create courses with ease, allows more flexibility with what type of class you want to create, has more pricing options, and generally has more features to take advantage of.
And there you have it, folks! The Great Teachable vs. Skillshare Debate is closed.
You can now go choose between these class platforms with all the information you’ve gained from reading this article.
After all, knowledge is power!
