15 Best Online Course Platforms to Create & Sell Your Online Courses in 2024

Are you looking for the best online course platforms to create and sell courses? You’re in the right place.

Did you know that the eLearning market size is set to exceed $375 billion by 2026? 

elearning market

The largest EdTech companies such as Coursera are already valued at well over $1 billion.

The global eLearning market is growing rapidly. Due to COVID 19, almost everyone started finding ways to learn or teach online (including students, instructors, institutions, and more).

So if you’re looking for the best online course platforms to create, market, and sell your courses, this post is just for you.

In this post, we’ll talk about;

  • Best online learning platforms to create courses
  • Their features, pricing, and more
  • FAQs about online course platforms

So are you ready to find the details? Let’s get started.

What Are the Best Online Course Platforms in 2024? Our Top 15 Picks

best online course platforms

1. Thinkific

Thinkific

There’s a reason Thinkific is #1 in the list of best online course platforms. It’s a powerful all-in-one platform that helps you easily create, market, and sell your courses online.

There are over 50,000 course creators using the Thinkific platform to create and sell their courses and made over $650 million using their platform. 

Thinkific offers incredible automation, extremely easy to set up, gives you full control over your online courses and you can create all types of content including videos, quizzes, multimedia, and more.

What are the features?

Here are the incredible features offered by Thinkific.

  • You can offer downloadable files directly through your courses
  • You can create any type of online course including video, audio, PDF, text, surveys, etc
  • It also offers hosting for your video and course content
  • Create an unlimited number of courses
  • You can offer free trials and provide course completion certificates to your students and much more

How much does it cost?

Although you can try Thinkific for free, you’ll only get limited features. If you want to create unlimited courses with better features, you should check out their premium plans.

Their premium plans come in three packages which are listed below along with their pricing and features.

1. Basic: This plan costs you $49 per month and gives you all the tools you need to launch your first course. Here are the features of this plan.

  • Unlimited courses & students
  • Coupons 
  • Email students 
  • Drip (scheduled) content
  • Affiliate reporting
  • Custom domain
  • Email integrations 
  • Zapier triggers 
  • Manual student enrollment & exports

2. Pro: This plan costs you $99 per month and is suitable for those who want a full suite of tools to create an incredible student experience with online courses. Here’s what you’ll get with this plan.

  • All the features from the Basic plan
  • Unlimited courses & students
  • 2 Site admin accounts
  • 5 Course admins/authors
  • Private & hidden courses
  • Advanced course pricing options 
  • Memberships and bundles 
  • Certificates
  • Advanced Customization 
  • Priority Support
  • Assignments
  • Communities 
  • Live Lessons with Zoom 

3. Premier: This plan costs you $499 per month and perfect for those who want to build an education empire without any limits. It offers the following features;

  • All the features from their Pro plan
  • Unlimited courses & students
  • 5 Site admin accounts 
  • 15 Group Analysts 
  • 50 Course admins/authors 
  • Single sign-on (SSO)
  • Onboarding package 
  • Unlimited Growth Package 

How to get started with it?

Visit this page to create your account with Thinkific. You can create a free account to start creating your courses online. You can also upgrade to their premium plans (mentioned above) to access more features. 

2. Teachable

Teachable

Teachable is one of the leading online course creation platforms used by over 100,000 creators who’ve sold over $1 billion in courses. You can use the platform to build video, audio, and text-based courses and no coding required!

Smart affiliate marketers like Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income uses Teachable to create, market and sell his online courses. So if you’re searching for the BEST platforms to create and sell courses, Teachable is a great choice for you. 

What are the features?

Teachable offers you the following list of amazing features;

  • Unlimited videos and hosting with every plan
  • Create unlimited courses with every plan
  • Add unlimited students with all the plans
  • Instant payouts
  • The ability to provide coupon codes to your students
  • You can offer course certificates on completion of your courses

How much does it cost?

Teachable offers the following three pricing plans.

1. Basic: If you want to launch your first online course, this is the perfect plan for you which costs you $29 per month (billed annually) and gives you the following features.

  • 5% transaction fee
  • 2 admin-level users
  • Unlimited students
  • Unlimited course products
  • Unlimited coaching products
  • Unlimited video hosting
  • Members-only community
  • Course creator training

2. Pro: If you want to grow your online course business with advanced features designed to increase your course engagement, this plan is for you. It costs you $99 per month (billed annually) and gives access to the following features. 

  • All the features from the Basic plan
  • 0% transaction fee
  • 5 admin-level users
  • Graded quizzes
  • Course completion certificates
  • Priority product support
  • Customer support live chat

3. Business: If you want to scale your online course business to the next level with the most powerful features, this plan is for you. It costs you $249 per month (billed annually) and gives you the following features.

  • All the features from the Pro plan
  • 0% transaction fee
  • 20 admin-level users
  • Advanced theme customization
  • Bulk student enrollments
  • Manual student imports
  • Customer support live chat
  • Group coaching calls

How to get started with it?

Click here to get started with Teachable to start creating awesome courses to make money online. 

3. LearnWorlds

LearnWorlds

If you’re looking for an online course platform that doesn’t require coding skills, LearnWorlds is the best choice for creating, selling and promoting your online courses.

It also offers a quick 5-minute setup along with an intuitive drag and drop builder to easily create landing pages. Also, you can monetize your skills such as coding, web design, writing, and more through LearnWorlds platform.

What are the features?

Here’s the list of features LearnWorlds offers you;

  • Offers a 30-day free trial (No credit card required)
  • You can create unlimited courses even with their basic plan
  • Unlimited video hosting
  • Fully responsive (mobile-friendly) design
  • Fully customizable pages
  • The ability to create and provide your own personalized Digital Certificates to your course students
  • The ability to add a moving watermark on top of your videos and do PDF stamping for copyright protection
  • You can integrate with all the major tools including AWeber, Zapier, Mailchimp, and more

How much does it cost?

LearnWorlds platform offers you the following 3 pricing packages. 

1. Starter: This is the cheapest plan which is perfectly suited for new course creators and it costs you $24 per month (billed annually) and gives you access to the following features. 

  • You’ll be charged $5 fee per each course sale
  • Access to 1 Admin
  • Custom Domain
  • Unlimited Paid Courses 
  • Pages Builder (Up to 3 Pages) 
  • Access to 4 Payment Gateways 
  • Access to Coupons
  • Free SSL Certificate
  • Drip Feed Courses
  • 24/5 email support

2. Pro Trainer: If you’re a professional course creator, this is the best plan for you which costs you $79 per month (billed annually) and here are the features you’ll get with this plan.

  • All the features from their Starter plan
  • No Transaction Fees
  • Access to 5 Admins
  • Unlimited Courses
  • Unlimited Landing Pages
  • Complete Website Builder With Blog
  • Custom Certificates
  • Live Classes & Webinars Via Zoom & Webex 
  • Affiliate Management
  • Access to Zapier, Zoom, Webex & Premium Integrations  
  • Access to Question Banks
  • 24/7 Priority EMail Support

3. Learning Center: If you’re looking to add multiple instructors to your courses, you can choose this plan and it costs you $249 per month (billed annually). It gives you the following list of features. 

  • All the features from their Pro Trainer plan
  • No Transaction Fees
  • You can add up to 20 Admins or instructors
  • You can import students in bulk 
  • Full White-Label Options
  • Interactive Video 
  • Access to Auto-Transcripts & Subtitles For Your Videos
  • Single Sign-On (SSO)
  • Access to 1 Hour Premium Onboarding
  • Access to 24/7 Premium Support

How to get started with it?

Visit this page to start your 30-day free trial with LearnWorlds today. 

4. Skillshare

Skillshare

Skillshare is one of the popular online learning communities used by millions of people worldwide. 

Did you know that the top-earning teachers make $100,000+ each year from the Skillshare platform? If you want to teach online and earn money sharing your skills, Skillshare is an amazing platform.

What are the features?

Here are the amazing features offered by Skillshare for online course creators;

  • You’ll be paid monthly for every member who watches your Skillshare classes, forever.
  • You can find a wide range of topics to create and sell an online course ranging from animation to entrepreneurship to web development, lifestyle, and more
  • You’ll find a ton of free resources to teach amazing Skillshare classes

How much does it cost?

Fortunately, for course creators or teachers, there is no cost to publishing a class on Skillshare. Anyone can teach as long as your Skillshare classes include a combination of video lessons and a class project. 

How to get started with it?

You can visit this link to start your first online class draft. You can continually update your draft and publish it to Skillshare whenever you’re ready. If you need any help while getting started as an instructor for Skillshare, you can email them at [email protected]

5. Kajabi

Kajabi

Kajabi is an all-in-one online course platform that helps you easily create, market and sell multiple things such as online courses, membership sites or coaching programs.

You can also do many more things with Kajabi including the ability to launch your marketing campaigns, build appealing landing pages, design a website, and much more. 

What are the features?

Here are some of the amazing features Kajabi offers;

  • No coding is required and it also comes with a 14-day free trial
  • Create, sell and promote courses, membership sites, and coaching programs
  • Seamless integrations with payment services like Stripe and PayPal
  • Unlimited landing pages
  • Unlimited marketing emails
  • 0% transaction fee (even with their basic plan)

How much does it cost?

Kajabi offers you the following three pricing packages. 

1. The Basic plan costs you $119 per month (billed annually) and gives you access to the following features. 

  • 3 Products
  • 3 Pipelines
  • Unlimited Landing Pages
  • Unlimited Marketing Emails
  • 10,000 Contacts
  • 1,000 Active Members
  • 1 Website
  • 1 Admin User

2. The Growth plan costs you $159 per month (billed annually) and gives you access to the following features. 

  • 15 Products
  • 15 Pipelines
  • Unlimited Landing Pages
  • Unlimited Marketing Emails
  • 25,000 Contacts
  • 10,000 Active Members
  • 1 Website
  • 10 Admin Users

3. The Pro plan costs you $319 per month (billed annually) and gives you access to the following features. 

  • 100 Products
  • 100 Pipelines
  • Unlimited Landing Pages
  • Unlimited Marketing Emails
  • 100,000 Contacts
  • 20,000 Active Members
  • 3 Websites
  • 25 Admin Users

How to get started with it?

You can visit their website to start a 14-day free trial to create your online courses.

6. Mighty Networks

Mighty Networks

Mighty Networks is a 100% ad-free platform to build whatever you want including powerful websites, online courses, memberships, and much more.

It also offers a free plan so anyone can use their network to create their courses online and offers excellent features like push notifications to all members, the ability to send private messages to your students, and more.

What are the features?

Here are the awesome features offered by Mighty Networks;

  • You can have unlimited members on all their plans including the Business Plan, Community Plan, and even their Free Plan
  • All of their plans are 100% ad-free and allow you to charge for memberships and courses (they also offer a Free plan)
  • Get access to your own web landing page 
  • You can easily charge for membership
  • Gives access to direct messaging
  • Gives access to a 14-day free trial (no credit card required)

How much does it cost?

Mighty Networks offers three pricing packages which are listed below along with their features.

1. The Free plan: As the name suggests, this is a FREE plan, forever. If you want to test the waters, you should start with this plan. It offers the following features. 

  • Create topics, articles and get access to direct messaging
  • Make your courses public, private or paid

2. The Community plan: This plan is suited for those who want to get additional features and costs you just $23 per month (billed annually) and offers the following features. 

  • Get access to your own web domain
  • You can add unlimited moderators
  • You can charge for membership

3. The Business plan: This plan offers a better way to deliver your online courses and make money online which costs you $81 per month (billed annually). Here’s what you’ll get with this plan;

  • All the features from their Business plan
  • Online courses
  • 2,000+ Zapier integrations
  • Premium analytics

How to get started with it?

Visit this page to pick your desired plan according to your online course or membership site needs. 

7. LearnDash

LearnDash

Are you using WordPress? Looking for the best LMS (Learning Management System) plugins to create and sell your courses online? Then, LearnDash is exclusively for you.

LearnDash is a LMS plugin that helps you easily create and run online courses like Udemy with WordPress. LearnDash is used by some of the Fortune 500 companies and also won several awards including Capterra’s #1 Most Affordable LMS. 

What are the features?

Here’s the incredible list of features you get with LearnDash online course platform;

  • Gives you access to automated email notifications and detailed reporting
  • Offers drip feed content (so you can automatically deliver content according to a predefined schedule)
  • The ability to reward your students by awarding certificates, points, and badges as they progress
  • You can include almost every media file in your courses including videos, audio, images, Adobe Captivate files, and Google Docs
  • You can use any pricing model such as one time sales, subscriptions, memberships, bundles, and more
  • Offers a 30 day money-back guarantee

How much does it cost?

LearnDash offers the following three pricing plans.

1. Basic: This is the starter plan from LearnDash which costs you $159 per year and you’ll get access to the following features.

  • Use it On 1 Site 
  • Create Unlimited Courses
  • Add Unlimited Users
  • Course Content Protection
  • Drip-Feed Lessons
  • Certificates & Badges
  • Course Forums
  • 1-Year Support & Updates

2. Plus: If you want to install this amazing WordPress plugin on multiple sites, this is the perfect plan for you which costs you $189 per year and you’ll get access to the following features.

  • Use it On Up to 10 Sites
  • Create Unlimited Courses
  • Add Unlimited Users
  • Course Content Protection
  • Drip-Feed Lessons
  • Certificates & Badges
  • Course Forums
  • 1-Year Support & Updates

3. Pro: This plan is their most advanced plan and costs you $329 per year and you’ll get access to the following features.

  • Use it On Up to 25 Sites
  • Create Unlimited Courses
  • Add Unlimited Users
  • Course Content Protection
  • Drip-Feed Lessons
  • Certificates & Badges
  • Course Forums
  • 1-Year Support & Updates

How to get started with it?

Visit their pricing page to select your preferred pricing package to get started with this amazing plugin to create online courses. 

8. Podia

Podia

Podia is one of the best online course platforms that offers everything you need to sell online courses, digital downloads, and memberships.

What are the features?

Podia offers you the following features;

  • Offers free migration as they will move your content from wherever it’s hosted or saved
  • Unlimited hosting
  • The ability to build your website along with a custom URL
  • Easily add text, images, videos, and testimonials
  • Collect email addresses before your online course launches
  • Sell any digital content including eBooks, PDFs, cheat sheets, checklists, video files, audio files, text, and more
  • You can connect easily with Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, etc

How much does it cost?

Podia offers two pricing packages which are listed below.

1. Mover plan costs you $39 per month (save $78 when paid annually) and is perfectly suitable for those who’re launching their first digital products or online courses. You’ll get features like;

  • Your own website
  • Online courses
  • Digital downloads
  • Webinars
  • Email marketing
  • Messaging
  • Zero transaction fees
  • Free migrations and unlimited everything 

2. Shaker plan costs you $79 per month (save $158 when paid annually) and it is suitable for those who want to grow their business. It offers the following features;

  • Everything from their Mover plan
  • Zoom integration
  • Blog
  • Offsite Buy Buttons
  • Affiliate marketing
  • Third-party code

How to get started with it?

Visit this page to start your 14-day free trial with Podia.

9. WizIQ

WizIQ

WizIQ is a cloud-based education platform that provides you virtual classroom and LMS software to deliver online courses and is trusted by over 5,000 organizations globally. 

What are the features?

You’ll get access to the following features with WizIQ;

  • Sell live classes & webinars
  • Sell self-paced courses
  • Create and run unlimited self-paced courses
  • Access to certificate of completion
  • User management and roles
  • Email notifications
  • Reports
  • 24×7 Live support
  • Onboarding and success manager 

How much does it cost?

WizIQ offers user-based pricing and they currently have the following two pricing plans. 

1. Elite plan costs you $80 per month (billed annually) and you’ll get the following list of features.

  • Create and run online courses
  • Tests with multiple choice questions
  • Learner Mobile app
  • Vanity URL
  • Discussion forum
  • Certificate of completion
  • 2 hours of personalized instructor training
  • 25 GB storage

2. Infinite plan costs you $107 per month (billed annually) and gives you access to the following features. 

  • Custom domain
  • Dedicated onboarding along with customer success manager
  • White-labeled web app
  • Single sign-on
  • 50 GB storage

How to get started with it?

Click here to sign up for free where you can also get a 14-day free trial.

10. LinkedIn Learning (Formerly Lynda.com)

LinkedIn Learning

If you’re not aware of it yet, Lynda.com is now LinkedIn Learning and all the courses from Lynda.com have moved to LinkedIn Learning. 

LinkedIn Learning platform comes as a premium service for LinkedIn users and gives you access to over 16,000 online courses in 7 languages. 

What are the features?

  • The ability to offer course completion certificates to your students
  • It offers a 30-day free trial 
  • Gives your students access to offline learning so they can learn anytime they want
  • The ability to benefit from the LinkedIn Learning’s massive visibility online 

How much does it cost?

As an instructor, you won’t be charged anything but you’ll need to fill an application form to be able to become their instructor. 

How to get started with it?

If you want to become an instructor on LinkedIn Learning, you should fill this form to apply. After you submit the form, their customer team will reach out to you if there’s a good fit for your skills.

11. Coursera

Coursera

Coursera is one of the biggest online learning communities used by over 77 million people around the world.

The best part about using Coursera is that they collaborated with 200+ leading universities and companies including Duke, Google, Stanford, and more.

Quick note: Only partner admins, instructors, and data coordinators can create new courses on the Coursera platform and the course creation feature is available on a limited basis for customers on the Enterprise plan. You can find more details about it from here.

What are the features?

Here are some of the great features offered by Coursera:

  • The ability to provide verified certificate upon successful completion of a course
  • Your students can access courses offline, on mobile, and in multiple languages
  • You can easily create video lessons with interactive assessments, quizzes, and more
  • Single sign-on integration

How much does it cost?

The team plan costs you $320 per user per year.

How to get started with it?

You can get a free demo by filling your details from this page.

12. Udemy

Udemy

Udemy is one of the best online education platforms for anyone who wants to create and sell their courses online. It also has over 35 million students from over 180 countries worldwide. 

What are the features?

Udemy offers the following features for online course creators;

  • No fee to create and host a course on Udemy (you can also create as many free courses as you want)
  • The ability to create courses in multiple languages 
  • You can offer certificates to students
  • Udemy provides you a HUGE visibility online through their platform

How much does it cost?

You don’t need to pay any fee to become an instructor on Udemy as it’s free to join. 

However, Udemy follows “instructor revenue sharing” program and here’s how it works;

  • If a student purchases your course through your coupon code, you’ll generate 97% revenue share
  • 50% revenue share on organic Udemy sales where no Instructor Coupon is used
  • You’ll get 25% instructor revenue If someone buys the course via an Udemy ad that leads directly to the landing page of the course

How to get started with it?

Visit this page to teach on Udemy to start making money every time a student purchases your course.

13. Uscreen

Uscreen

Uscreen is one of the leading VOD streaming platforms (Video On Demand) that helps you create a website, market your video service, launch your own OTT apps (over-the-top) & much more.

What are the features?

  • Access to build your own website, marketing tools & automations
  • Free migration
  • Live streaming 
  • Offer subscriptions or one-time purchases
  • Live chat & countdowns
  • Upload videos, audio, PDF’s & more
  • 99.99% uptime guarantee
  • Accept credit cards & Paypal
  • Onboarding & training
  • Accept international payments and more

How much does it cost?

Uscreen offers you the following two REGULAR pricing plans (apart from the Enterprise plan which is customized for you, and you need to contact their support team to know the appropriate pricing).

1. Basic plan is perfect for starters which costs you $49 per month and gives you access to the following things.

  • $0.50/subscriber (per subscriber per month)
  • Sell on your own terms
  • Website, marketing tools & automations
  • Bandwidth & storage is included

2. Amplify plan is perfect to scale your business and costs you $399 per month. It gives you the following features.

  • You’ll get everything from their Basic plan
  • $0.50/subscriber (per subscriber per month)
  • Live streaming 
  • Live chat & countdowns
  • Robust integrations
  • They’ll migrate you for free

How to get started with it?

Click here to visit their pricing plans page to select your preferred package and start your free trial with Uscreen.

14. Gumroad

Gumroad

Did you know that since 2011, over 81,000 creators have earned over $400 million through Gumroad? Gumroad is one of the most popular online platforms that help you sell courses, digital products, and more.  In fact, we also used Gumroad to sell our eBooks.

What are the features?

  • The ability to upload files up to 12GB each in any format and bundle them however you want
  • You can create unlimited offer codes
  • It’s free to get started
  • You can add unlimited products
  • Provides you real-time analytics
  • The ability to sell guides, courses, books, movies, music, and more

How much does it cost?

Gumroad offers two types of pricing packages which are listed below.

1. The “Getting started plan” charges you NOTHING and offers the following things.  

  • No monthly fee
  • Unlimited products
  • Real-time analytics
  • Customer management
  • Limited posts and workflows
  • SD streaming
  • 5% + charge fee (3.5% + 30¢)

2. The “Creator plan” costs you $10 per month if you’ve less than 1000 customers and gives you the following features.

  • Gumroad branding removal
  • Add your own CSS
  • The ability to use your own domain
  • Unlimited posts and workflows
  • Unlimited HD streaming
  • 3.5% + 30¢ per charge 

How to get started with it?

Visit this page to sign up for Gumroad to start selling your courses online.

15. BitDegree

BitDegree

BitDegree is one of the best eLearning platforms that offers a huge user base of over 600,000 learners from 146 countries.  

What are the features?

  • Completely free to use to create courses (you need to pay licensing fee whenever a user buys courses from you)
  • No limitations on the number of courses, users, or other metrics
  • Access to courses, assessments and student management tools

How much does it cost?

It’s completely free to join and start creating courses through the BitDegree platform.

However, BitDegree offers multiple licensing fee models to collect money from their course creators and instructors. Here are their licensing fee models;

  • If someone buys the course using your promo code, you’ll get 99% of the amount they paid
  • If someone buys the course using the BitDegree platform, you’ll get 50% of the amount they paid
  • If someone buys the course using an affiliate link, you’ll get at least 25% of the price they paid
  • If someone buys the course via a BitDegree ad that leads directly to the landing page of the course, you’ll earn 25% of the amount they paid

How to get started with it?

Visit this page to start creating online courses for free using the BitDegree platform. 

FAQs | Best Online Course Platforms for Creators in 2024

Here are some of the frequently asked questions about online courses and eLearning platforms.

Where can I host online courses?

Here are the top 5 best platforms to create, sell and market your online courses.
– Teachable
– Udemy
– Thinkific
– Podia
– Learnworlds

How much does it cost to make an online course?

It depends on what platform you choose. You can also use free platforms like Udemy to create online courses for free. Or you can use powerful platforms like Teachable and the pricing starts at $29/mo.

What is an online learning platform?

An online learning platform is a platform that provides an easy learning environment where students can take online courses. You can use online course platforms such as Thinkific, Teachable, Udemy, etc to easily create and sell your own courses to make money online.

What are the best online course platforms for creators? 

Here are the best online course platforms for creators.
– Skillshare
– LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda)
– Udemy
– Coursera
– Thinkific

Are there any FREE platforms to sell online courses?

Yes, you can use the following platforms to sell your courses online for free (they only charge some percentage of commission when you make a sale).
– Udemy
– Skillshare
– Mighty Networks
– BitDegree

Must Read Resources:

Final Thoughts on Top Online Learning Platforms

Although there are a wide range of elearning platforms available, it’s better to find an all in one online course platforms such as Teachable, Thinkific, etc that help you create, market, and sell your courses from one place. 

The key to create profitable online courses is to identify your target audience needs. Find out their BIGGEST problem and find a solution to create a course around it. 

So what are your thoughts on the top online course platforms for 2024? Are you going to create online courses? Have any questions? Let us know in the comments. 

About Author
Anil Agarwal is the Founder of Bloggerspassion. He is a full-time blogger and SEO expert who has been helping people build profitable blogs for over a decade Now. He has been featured in Over 100 Publications including Forbes, The HuffPost, HubSpot, Shopify, Semrush, Kinsta, Bluehost, Hostinger and G2.com etc. Know more about Anil Agarwal from here.

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