Podia is an online course platform that lets you create and sell courses and memberships.
But it’s not only a course platform.
Podia also comes with the tools you need to start making sales. It gives you features for building a website, marketing your site and courses, student management, and more.
But does it work? How easy is it to use? How much can you earn?
I’ve used Podia (and many other similar platforms) to find out.
Let’s dive right into it.
Disclaimer: This post has affiliate links at no cost to you.
Main Features
Before I showcase the product and share my experiences, here’s a brief recap of the main features of Podia just to give you an idea.
- Course Creation: Tools for creating and selling courses.
- Digital Downloads: Sell eBooks, PDFs, and more.
- Membership Sites: Manage exclusive content access.
- Website Builder: Customizable, no-code builder for non-technical users.
- Email Marketing: Tools for newsletters and automation.
- Sales Pages: Design high-converting course landing pages.
- Webinars: Host live or recorded sessions.
- Affiliate Program: Set up affiliate promotions to earn more.
- Payment Processing: Integrated solutions to handle everything.
- Analytics: Detailed sales and customer tracking.
As you can see already from these, Podia is not just for creating and selling a course. It’s much more than that.
Now, let me share my experience and results.
My Experience
Let me show you how Podia works first.
You can follow this step-by-step guide either by reading the post or by following the actions I take.
One thing I love about Podia is that it’s kind of an “independent” platform. This means anyone can just sign up and start creating. You don’t need to apply to become an instructor, unlike some other platforms.
After signing in, you’ll see your main dashboard that looks something like this:
To start building your first Podia course, choose the “Create a product” section.
Then pick the Online course from the options.
Next, you’ll find the course details page, where you can create lessons and add new sections to your course. How handy is that?
Here you can give it a name. I call mine “Blogging Masterclass.”
Make sure to come up with a good price point too.
When it comes to creating your learning content, Podia offers you a bunch of content options to choose from.
These include:
- Text
- Embedded content
- Quiz
- Coaching
- Files
For example, here’s what a quiz looks like in Podia. You can ask a question and then give a bunch of answers and set the right one.
As another example, here’s what setting up a coaching call with your students looks like:
Here you can link your Calendly (or another calendar tool) to let students book a slot with you automatically. This way you don’t need to do the back-and-forth emails.
The course text editor is also quite good.
It gives you tools for basic formatting. This way your text chapters or lessons won’t just be dull walls of text.
You can further organize your content with basic features like lists, bold, italics, and more.
Once you’ve added the course content, it’s time to edit the landing page. It’s crucial because this is the page every potential student sees. It’s the one that can be in a make-or-break role in your course sales.
To create a landing page, click on the “Edit page” button.
After this, you can choose your layout.
For example, Podia asks you to choose a color scheme that meets your eye.
After these steps, here’s what my landing page’s initial draft looks like:
Nothing too epic, but it has the key elements in place.
Creating a page like this from scratch or without templates would be time-consuming. You can quickly customize it by changing colors, fonts, buttons, links, and media.
Once you’re ready, click “View product” to see your course.
This gives you a student’s view of the course — a very handy feature.
Once you’ve published your course, you can share a link to it:
That’s the course creation process on Podia — simple with all the essentials but limited in customization compared to platforms like LearnWorlds.
However, creating a course is just the start; selling it is key, and this is where Podia excels.
You can set up email campaigns to engage your leads and potential students.
Create a campaign by clicking “Start campaign.”
Next, enter the name and choose the conditions for sending it to your subscribers.
You have several email templates to choose from, but a simple text template is often the best option today. It’s straightforward, relatable, and highly effective — no need for flashy colors or elaborate formatting anymore.
Here I’m adding titles and preview texts to my emails:
Email marketing success could use its tutorial, but let’s keep it brief.
Once your course, landing page, and emails are set up, you can start tracking your analytics to see metrics like email sends, open rates, and more.
You can encourage students to buy sooner by offering limited-time coupons, like 50% off for Jan 2025.
I haven’t created any coupons yet, but you just need to set a coupon name, discount amount, expiration date, and an optional usage limit.
Finally, you can build a community around your learning content, which is quite common nowadays. You can set up topic pages and membership sites on Podia easily.
Once your customer base grows, you can try affiliate marketing.
This allows your students to review your products and earn a commission automatically whenever they generate a sale through their affiliate link.
This is great and, once again, not something every platform offers. Depending on your niche, an affiliate program can give your sales a serious boost.
With all this being said, I’d say Podia is a great platform with many great features for creating and selling a course to a warmed-up community of students.
Why Podia, Though?
But at this point, you might wonder what sets Podia apart.
The difference is quite straightforward:
For instance, unlike Udemy, which is a marketplace, Podia gives you full control over your branding and customer relationships.
On the other hand, compared to platforms like Thinkific, Podia is more of an all-in-one solution with built-in email marketing, whereas Thinkific requires a third-party email service.
But there’s plenty of overlap too! Podia indeed shares a lot of similar features with platforms like Udemy, LearnWorlds, and Teachable.
Pros
- All-in-One Platform: Podia offers everything you need for course creation, digital downloads, memberships, and email marketing.
- User-Friendly: The platform is easy to use. Just sign up, start creating courses and landing pages, and start selling. While building and warming up an audience takes time, Podia minimizes the technical hurdles.
- No Transaction Fees: Unlike some competitors, Podia doesn’t charge transaction fees on any plan.
- Customer Support: Podia has a responsive and highly-rated customer support team ready to help with any platform-related questions.
Cons
- Limited Customization: There are fewer design customization options compared to some other platforms, and the content options are quite basic.
- Too Basic Reporting: The analytics and reporting features are not as advanced as some might prefer, but this isn’t a big issue for beginners.
- Limited Community Features: The community tools are less robust than those on other platforms; using Slack or another third-party service might be a better option.
- Fewer Integrations: Podia offers fewer third-party integrations compared to some competitors.
Podia Alternatives
Before wrapping up, let me show you a bunch of good Podia alternatives for different use cases.
These might be better options based on your specific needs.
1. LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds is the most complete course platform out there.
If you’re looking for more customization and features, LearnWorlds is a better option than Podia.
For example, it lets you customize your websites and landing pages to a much greater detail than Podia.
Also, it has more features overall.
But a lot of features are not automatically a good thing.
If you use LearnWorlds as a beginner who just needs to host a course, you’d end up paying for features you don’t need.
But if you have a team or if you think you need more customization and community features, LearnWorlds might be exactly what you need.
2. Udemy
Udemy is great if you want to teach but don’t want to do marketing.
Udemy does marketing behind the scenes. They run sales and ads, and they have a reputable brand.
The drawback is that they take a big cut from your courses and limit your pricing. Most of the time, the courses are at an 85% discount. After Udemy takes its cut from that, you might be left with just a couple of bucks from a $100 course.
But this is good because it’s much easier to start. If you use platforms like Podia or LearnWorlds, you need to build a reputation and audience. This takes years of hard work. In this sense, a course marketplace like Udemy can be a lot easier and a lot more stress-free option.
3. Khan Academy
If you think education should be free, use Khan Academy. Especially if your audience is K—12.
Khan Academy lets you build free and non-profit courses from their expert-created materials. This is not only affordable but also quick. Instead of having to record your classes and materials, just combine existing results.
Also, you can act as a teacher on the platform. Once you’ve created a course, you can invite your students to take the classes. You can also create quizzes and assignments and track their progress with the built-in Khan Academy features.
If you want to teach K—12 subjects like maths, physics, or coding as a school teacher, Khan Academy can be a great place to start.
Pricing
- Free Plan: $0/month
- Starter Plan: $4/month
- Mover Plan: $33/month
- Shaker Plan: $59/month (first year pricing, then $75/month)
To Take Home
I really like Podia.
While it might not be my top choice right now, it’s excellent for course creation.
It’s more than just a tool for building courses and setting prices; it also offers marketing and community features.
Podia lets you maintain full control over your branding and customer relationships, unlike platforms like Skillshare or Udemy.
