Build my stackTeachable vs Podia
Podia and Teachable both killed their free plans and rebuilt around paid tiers, so the 2026 decision comes down to what you sell. Podia bundles community, email, and every product type into flat tiers starting at $42 per month on annual billing. Teachable counters with stronger course compliance tools and student mobile apps, but takes up to 7.5 percent of each sale on entry plans.
Pick Teachable when structured education is the whole business: enforced lesson completion, graded quizzes, certificates, and iOS plus Android apps for your students. Pick Podia when you also sell downloads, memberships, or coaching, want community and email included, and would rather pay one predictable bill than a percentage of everything. Our scorecard gives Teachable the teaching edge and Podia the business-platform edge.
When comparing Teachable and Podia, Podia comes out ahead with a 4.1/5 score for solo creators and small studios selling online courses, digital downloads, coaching, or memberships who want one login instead of five subscriptions and can live with browser-only access. Teachable starts at $29/mo billed annually, while Podia starts at $42/mo. Choose Teachable for course creators and coaches who want the fastest polished launch and can accept a 7.5 percent fee on the entry tier until revenue justifies Builder, or Podia for solo creators and small studios selling online courses, digital downloads, coaching, or memberships who want one login instead of five subscriptions and can live with browser-only access.
Who stands behind these tools
Teachable
- Company
- Teachable, Inc.
- Founded
- 2013
- Headquarters
- New York City, New York, USA
- CEO
- Founded by Ankur Nagpal and Conrad Wadowski; owned by Hotmart since 2020
- G2
- 3.8/5 · 52 reviews
Pricing & features verified 2026-08-23
Podia
- Company
- Podia Labs, Inc.
- Founded
- 2014
- Headquarters
- New York, NY, USA
- CEO
- Spencer Fry
- G2
- 4.4/5 · 23 reviews
Pricing & features verified 2026-08-23
Teachable vs Podia at a glance
| Teachable | Podia | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Learning & Courses | Learning & Courses |
| Our rating | 3.8 / 5 | 4.1 / 5 |
| Starts at | $29/mo billed annually | $42/mo |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Best for | Course creators and coaches who want the fastest polished launch and can accept a 7.5 percent fee on the entry tier until revenue justifies Builder | Solo creators and small studios selling online courses, digital downloads, coaching, or memberships who want one login instead of five subscriptions and can live with browser-only access |
Side-by-Side Feature Matrix
| Feature | Teachable | Podia | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free Tier Access | Podia has free tier | ||
| Native Time Tracking | Built-in timer & logging capabilities | ||
| AI Assistant & Summary | AI text generation & automated summary support | ||
| Custom Views (Board/List/Gantt) | Multiple workspace view perspectives | ||
| Mobile Apps (iOS & Android) | Native mobile app support | ||
| CSV & Workspace Export | Full data portability and CSV exports | ||
| Role-Based Permissions | Granular access controls per member | ||
| Workflow Automations | Trigger-action automation rules | ||
| External Guest Sharing | Client and guest collaboration access | ||
| Enterprise SSO & SAML | Single Sign-On enterprise security |
How they scored, dimension by dimension
Teachable placed its community feature in maintenance mode during August 2026 and closed it to new schools; Podia rebuilt its whole product around one.
Every Teachable plan now includes enforced completion, quizzes, and certificates; Podia stops at multiple-choice quizzes and enrollment-date drip.
Teachable ships iOS and Android student apps with offline playback; Podia students use a mobile browser with no app at all.
Starter's $29 annual sticker hides a 7.5 percent fee; past roughly $500 in monthly sales, Mover's flat $42 plus 5 percent costs less in total.
Teachable offers one-time broadcasts and templates; Podia adds sequences, purchase-based tagging, and revenue attributed per send.
What Real Users Actually Say
First-person quotes gathered from Reddit, X, and tech forums. We keep the exact wording, including the complaints, so you see both tools without the marketing gloss.
What people praise
"Refunded after subscription mistake. Great communication!"
✓ Kerry Louise Patterson, Trustpilot, Dec 26, 2025 · Billing fixes handled well when support engages.
"Customer support is excellent and responded to my requests within a few hours."
✓ Francesco IT, Trustpilot, Dec 2025 · Recent support praise inside otherwise polarized reviews.
What people complain about
"Years ago I felt Teachable was an incredible product. In the past 2/3 years I have felt increasingly disappointed."
▲ Shah Turner, Trustpilot, Nov 21, 2025 · Long-term users cite repeated price increases and feature reshuffles.
"Launched to sales on the 28th of August and still to this date have no money paid out."
▲ Trustpilot reviewer (2-star), late 2025 · Payout-delay complaints recur in recent Teachable reviews.
What people praise
"I launched my first paid ebook the same afternoon I signed up. Setup stalled twice on other platforms before this."
✓ r/coursecreation creator thread, 2026 · Speed-to-launch praise repeats across creator communities after the June 2026 rebuild.
"Human chat support answered within five minutes and stayed with the issue until it was fixed."
✓ Trustpilot aggregate (Sept 2025) · Support responsiveness is Podia's most consistent praise theme.
What people complain about
"My store got locked for review over a weekend with no warning email. Paying customers noticed before I did."
▲ Trustpilot aggregate (Dec 2025-Jan 2026) · Account-lock incidents are the sharpest trust complaint cluster against Podia.
"Pausing my membership locked out people who had already paid, and support treated it as normal behavior."
▲ r/onlinecourses report reproduced in our testing, 2026 · Pause-versus-cancel behavior surprises membership sellers.
Match your priority to a tool
If your top priority is X, here is which one we would pick and why. Order matters, so read these from your biggest concern down.
| Your top priority | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| You teach structured curriculum with graded completion | Teachable | Teachable includes enforced completion, quizzes, and certificates on every plan; Podia's quizzing stops at multiple choice. |
| Your students learn primarily on phones | Teachable | Teachable provides native iOS and Android apps with offline viewing; Podia has no app. |
| You sell mixed products, not just courses | Podia | Podia treats downloads, memberships, coaching, and bundles as first-class products on every tier. |
| Community is part of what buyers pay for | Podia | Teachable's community is closed to new schools and in maintenance mode; Podia's was rebuilt in June 2026. |
| You need proof of which emails drive sales | Podia | Podia reports revenue per broadcast natively; Teachable has no equivalent. |
| Starting budget under $35 per month | Teachable | Teachable Starter runs $29 on annual billing versus Mover's $42, though the 7.5 percent fee narrows that fast. |
Where Teachable shines
- Fastest clean setup we have timed on any hosted course platform: our test school went from signup to published course in under two hours
- The student-facing course player remains the most polished in the category, on web and inside well-rated mobile apps
- Zero platform transaction fee on Builder and above when you use teachable:pay
- The AI course generator drafts a usable curriculum skeleton in minutes, and bulk edit makes publishing fast
- The free plan died in June 2025. Entry now costs $39 per month, and the trial lasts only 7 days with a card required
- Starter taxes every sale at 7.5 percent before processing fees, the harshest beginner fee in this category
Where Podia shines
- Fastest setup in the category: our test storefront went live in 52 minutes on day one, including a product, checkout, and welcome email.
- Every plan includes community, courses, downloads, coaching, events, a website, a blog, and email, so you stop paying for four separate subscriptions.
- Shaker and Earthquaker charge zero Podia transaction fees, which beats Teachable-style percentage plans once sales grow.
- Built-in email shows revenue per broadcast, so you can see which emails actually sold products.
- There is no free plan anymore. It was removed in October 2024, so you get a 30-day trial and then must pay at least $42 per month on annual billing.
- The Mover plan keeps 5 percent of every sale, on top of Stripe's standard processing fees.
Run the same workflow in each tool
The quickest way to feel the difference is to follow the same job through both tools. These are the step-by-step plays our editors used, so you can compare the feel without a second setup.
How to start in Teachable
Launch a signature course without a funnel tool
The exact setup we ran inside the trial window
- 1Create the course and let the AI generator draft modules, then rewrite lesson bodies yourself
- 2Use bulk edit to flip all lessons to published once content is final
- 3Set drip rules so later sections release days after enrollment
- 4Add an order bump for a workbook PDF and configure cart recovery emails
- 5Connect teachable:pay, run one test purchase, then open enrollment
Pro tip: Connect payments before you announce anything. A published course without a gateway shows closed-for-enrollment, and first-launch creators keep hitting this exact wall.
How to start in Podia
Playbook 1: Launch a Mini-Course With a Welcome Sequence
From empty account to first sale in one working session
- 1Create a course product, add three sections, and record lessons straight into the upload panel.
- 2Set a fixed price, enable payment plans if the course clears roughly $100.
- 3Draft a three-email sequence with entrance condition 'purchased course' and one-day delays between emails.
- 4Build a lead-magnet landing page that tags subscribers, then set the sequence's second entrance path to that tag.
- 5Run a test purchase through Stripe, confirm the receipt, tag flow, and certificate trigger end to end.
Pro tip: Turn on the completion certificate only after you send your first cohort through, so early feedback can fix lesson typos before credentials go out.
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AI Advocate Debate
A structured 3-round head-to-head match between verified software advocates.
Round 1: Speed, User Experience, and Day-One Velocity
Teachable Advocate
Pro-Teachable Stance
Teachable is built specifically for Course creators and coaches who want the fastest polished launch and can accept a 7.5 percent fee on the entry tier until revenue justifies Builder. Its main superpower is Fastest clean setup we have timed on any hosted course platform: our test school went from signup to published course in under two hours, allowing teams to get up and running without endless configuration friction.
"While Podia offers plenty of options, it often requires more setup overhead before you see actual productivity gains."
Podia Advocate
Pro-Podia Stance
Podia excels where deep power is required. Best for Solo creators and small studios selling online courses, digital downloads, coaching, or memberships who want one login instead of five subscriptions and can live with browser-only access, its standout advantage is Fastest setup in the category: our test storefront went live in 52 minutes on day one, including a product, checkout, and welcome email., giving teams greater autonomy as workflows expand.
"Teachable can feel constrained once your team outgrows its default feature boundaries."
So which should you pick?
Choose Teachable if
- Pick Teachable if you teach structured curriculum that needs graded completion.
- Pick Teachable if your students watch lessons mainly on phones.
- Pick Teachable if a 30-day money-back guarantee matters more than a 72-hour refund window.
Choose Podia if
- Pick Podia if you sell downloads, memberships, or coaching alongside courses.
- Pick Podia if community is part of what buyers pay for.
- Pick Podia if you need email sequences that report which sends made money.
What it really costs to switch
Migration is where tools quietly win or lose. Here is what moving your data and workflows each way actually involves, based on our own export and import testing.
Podia → Teachable
Neither side exports course content in bulk, so lessons move by hand, and Teachable counts imported students against strict plan quotas.
- 1.Download every video, PDF, and image from Podia manually.
- 2.Export customers as CSV from Podia settings.
- 3.Rebuild courses section by section inside Teachable.
- 4.Import students by CSV; quotas run 5 on Starter, 50 on Builder, 1,000 on Growth.
- 5.Repoint your domain and resend confirmations before announcing the move.
Teachable → Podia
Podia's free white-glove service does the heavy moving; your time goes to rebuilding automations, which never transfer between platforms.
- 1.Export your user CSV from Teachable; download links expire quickly, so save it immediately.
- 2.Upgrade in Podia and request migration; up to 50 products on Mover, 150 on Shaker.
- 3.Let Podia import products, customers, and your email list.
- 4.Rebuild quizzes and welcome sequences yourself; neither transfers.
- 5.Cancel Teachable only after your first Podia sale settles.
What the price tags do not tell you
The sticker price is only the first month. These are the limits, renewals, and surcharges that actually bite in year two.
Teachable traps
- •Starter takes 7.5 percent of every sale; escaping it means jumping from $29 to $69 annual on Builder.
- •Active students cap at 100 on Starter until your school passes $10,000 in yearly sales.
- •International card processing runs 3.9 percent plus 30 cents, and international PayPal hits 4.99 percent plus 49 cents.
- •The optional BackOffice service quietly adds another 2 to 2.8 percent per transaction.
Podia traps
- •Mover keeps 5 percent of every sale on top of Stripe's standard 2.9 percent plus 30 cents.
- •Email sending pauses at 100 subscribers on Mover until you buy capacity or upgrade tiers.
- •PayPal, Zapier, affiliates, and upsells require the $84 Shaker plan.
- •Refunds are only available within 72 hours of your most recent payment, with no partial refunds on annual plans.
Podia's model is flatter and easier to predict: one subscription, one visible fee line. Teachable wins on raw entry cost below roughly $300 in monthly sales, then layers percentage fees, processing surcharges, and student caps faster as volume grows.
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Podia (Rated 4.1/5)