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Podia vs Learnworlds 2023: Side by Side Comparison
Looking for an in-depth, unbiased Podia vs Learnworlds comparison so you can choose which platform is the best fit to help you create and sell online courses?
As your research has probably already shown, Podia and Learnworlds are slightly different in the benefits they offer.
Podia takes a simplistic approach to course creation and selling, placing itself as a one-stop software for meeting users’ needs to monetize their knowledge without investing in additional software. It’s marketed as everything you need to create and sell online courses.
Learnworlds is one of those software products that can be difficult to categorize, because it has a simple and playful feel, yet is at the same time packed with engagement features common in large online course platforms. But if I were to place it, I’d say if Podia is a course builder for beginners, and Thinkific is a course builder for enterprises, Learnworlds is an in-between.
Let’s compare these two course building tools and see which one you should choose when it comes to Learnworlds vs Podia.
Both tools have a free trial period; I’d advise testing out Podia (14-day free trial) first as it is simper to learn and get started with – you just might find that it’s all you need.
Table of Contents
Key Features They Both Have In Common: Comparison
Podia vs Learnworlds Summary
Learnworlds is more suitable for educators or professional trainers who want to create a formal learning environment where students not only learn but are also graded and get professional recognition through certificates.
Podia is a simple to use course, webinar, membership site, digital download and coaching tool meant for anyone who wants to offer it in-app or make it downloadable. It’s aimed much more at those who want to create online courses and sell them for profit.
Where Podia Is Better Than Learnworlds
- Simple user interface
- Create and host courses in a shorter time. Minimal learning curve required
- No transaction fees on any of its plans
- Supports downloads
- Supports coaching
- You can offer presales
Where Learnworlds Is Better Than Podia
- A versatile site builder
- You can build custom mobile apps
- Detailed help section
- Support for more payment gateways
- More interactive dashboard
- You can offer gradable exams
- Interactive video
- SCORM support . SCORM (Shareable Content Object Reference Model) is a standard that regulates how learning material is created, to ensure it will work well in any online learning environment.
- Detailed site builder
Course Builder Comparison
Learnworlds allows you to create different types of online courses, although some types such as free courses are only available on the higher plans.
To build a course on Learnworlds, you first need to create an online school (which is basically your account), and then create your online courses in the school. Like in this example:
The course builder feels very task-oriented; it has no distractions and it goes a step further to include helpful content on the left side of your screen so as to help you complete your steps.
During online course building, you can choose a different course type for each section and also set a dripping sequence at that level as well as email notifications. I like this level of control at a granular level because it just limits the number of things you need to deal with later on. Not to mention, it also ensures that every section is launch ready; you don’t need to complete a whole course before you start offering it to your students.
Podia is a lot like Learnworlds in this sense; you can decide pricing, drip sequence and general course structure during initial set up. Podia is however not as detailed as Learnworlds. Where the latter has detailed menu process, the former is a lot simpler.
After exiting the setup wizard in Learnworlds, you still have to go through some more steps to bring your course together nicely. The most course building work takes place in the contents tab, where you can add sections and activities under each section.
There is no such process in Podia; everything, including adding content and other settings, happens under the menu options shown below:
As noted in our Podia review, this simplicity makes it a great option if you want a straightforward tool for creating your digital products and online courses.
Winner: Both
Learnworlds may have more functionality in its online course builder than Podia, but one is not necessarily worse than the other. Both course builders perform really well for what they are supposed to do.
What’s The Easier Platform To Use?
I wouldn’t say Learnworlds is a difficult online course platform to use. It is actually pretty straightforward and just like Podia, it’s the kind of tool that you can learn as you use.
But, when you compare it to Podia, it does come off as more complicated. Its workflows are a lot lengthier for one, and its menus more detailed, which lead to protracted processes. So it’s not the kind of tool you go into and do everything from start to launch in one sitting.
Winner: Podia
Podia is definitely the simpler platform to use.
Sales and Marketing Feature Comparison
Learnworlds gives you access to sales and marketing features such as bundles, coupons, flexible payments, memberships and hidden courses.
You can customize your bundle products and their pricing. Bundles offer a great way to attract more customers by offering more for one price. Bundles also offer an avenue to stand out with unique value propositions.
A key difference with bundles on both online course platforms is that Learnworlds lets you set post- purchase navigation actions for your bundles such as a thank you page, an upsell or another url.
Learnworlds and podia also support sales through coupons. You can offer percentage or fixed price coupons, and set and expiration date on both tools. But unlike Podia, Learnworlds allows you to create up to 1000 bulk coupons. You can download the coupons to excel for easier management. The same goes for Podia.
Learnworlds also shows more flexibility in the payment gateways. Where podia supports Stripe and PayPal, Learnworlds supports Stripe, PayPal, Shopify, 2checkout and PagSeguro, a Brazilian payment processor. Further, Learnworlds allows you to integrate other payment processors through Zapier and if this is not possible, you can manually enroll your students.
As far as payments go, both platforms support different payment models, although the naming differs on both platforms. On Learnworlds, you have subscriptions, installments, bundles, and individual prices. On Podia, you have subscriptions, payment plans, one-of payments.
Payment methods such as the subscription model is a great way to build long term engagement around your course while still generating income from it all along.
Winner: Learnworlds
Both tools are loaded with marketing tools. The only difference is, Learnworlds is a lot more creative in how it lets you use those tools. For example, you can create coupons to promote your subscription plans. Podia does not have this feature.
Community Feature Comparison
Learnworlds has a community, but only in the general sense that a school is a community. So, you treat all learners as community members (school community), then in the settings section, you regulate what they can and cannot do. For example, allow them to form groups (or course communities). You can set parameters for what goes on in groups, such as the types of discussions they have, what they post and where they post it.
Learnworlds’ community feature is lovely; however, I think the community feature on Podia is more robust. On Podia, you can build a community, make it exclusive, monetize it with membership subscriptions, and increase sales with customized bundles.
You can also use email marketing tools in your Podia community, as well as access members’ names, their email addresses and the products they have bought or are interested. This makes Podia’s community a great place to generate repeat sales from your existing customers.
Winner: Podia
Podia’s community feature provides a great platform for engaging customers, but it is also geared towards generating leads and more revenue.
Engagement Tools Comparison
Content dripping, quizzes, surveys, live lessons, and certificates, are some of the tools used by these two online course building tools to engage students.
Podia doesn’t offer live lessons, and although it offers the other features, Learnworlds does it better – at least in most parts. For instance, to add a quiz, certificate or survey on Learnworlds, click on “add an activity” in any content section. Learnworlds has all relevant activities in one neat box. You can add multiple choice or true/false questions in quizzes and exams.
You can see over on Podia that it also follows the same format, but I think Learnworlds still has the upper edge here at least aesthetically and from a workflow standpoint.
When it comes to certificates though, I find that both platforms have very basic looking certificate formats. Learnworlds has two template formats, but it’s still not enough to impress.
Here is a certificate template from Learnworlds:
Here is one from Podia:
Like I said, I think both sides could do better.
Winner: Learnworlds
Some improvement is needed here especially in the certificates area. Both tools could do with more template formats. However, Learnworlds wins here because of the smoother workflow of its engagement tools.
Email Marketing and Automation Review
Podia has an email marketing feature to help you communicate with customers or also sell your products.
You can send broadcasts or campaigns on Podia. Broadcasts are one-time emails while campaigns are automated series of emails sent to your customers when they take a specific action such as signing up.
Podia tracks the performance of all the emails you send and displays this information in the overview section of the emails page. This information shows you the efficiency of your marketing efforts.
Email marketing is not built into Learnworlds. You have to integrate with a third-party email marketing system, a factor that will push up the cost of this software a bit more.
There is however a notification system, although you cannot do much marketing with it.
Winner: Podia
Podia wins for having an inbuilt automated email marketing system and detailed metrics.
Affiliate Marketing Comparison: What Platform Has A Better System?
Podia and Learnworlds both allow you to set up affiliate programs for marketing your online course. The Podia affiliate platform is easy to set up, it can work with any podia product, and it also gives you the option to set commission amounts per product or to use a site-wide fee. Communicating with affiliates is easily done through Podia’s inbuilt email marketing.
Setting up an affiliate program on Learnworlds is a detailed process. The payoff however is a powerful platform that not only allows you to manage affiliate activities, but is also a powerful lead generation machine. You can view, straight on your affiliate dashboard, the number of leads generated by your affiliates’ activities, and also the customers they have brought in.
Winner: Learnworlds
Learnworlds has a more powerful affiliate management system with lead generation built into it.
Customer Support Comparison
Podia have an all-round customer service system that includes daily live chat during business hours (9am to 6pm on weekdays and 9am to 5pm on weekends), email support, and a help center. They also engage their customers on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.
However, their videos on YouTube aren’t detailed. They have this “first sale to full scale” series of 10 video that are supposed to help you get started, grow and scale, but the problem is, they haven’t sequenced those videos properly on their site to provide a cohesive learning experience. In addition, podia’s help articles are mostly about general sales and marketing topics and not about Podia.
Podia make up for this shortcoming with their weekly demos and Q&As.
Learnworlds also has chat support, email, toll-free phone support, social media (Facebook, twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn), and a help center with detailed and helpful article, webinar and eBook guides.
Winner: Learnworlds
Learnworlds wins because of phone support and a more detailed help center.
What Tools Are Available On Podia and Not On Learnworlds?
- Automatic replay of recorded webinars
- Embedded checkout
- Email marketing
What Tools Are Available On Learnworlds and Not On Podia
- Learning gamification
- Interactive videos
- SCORM file support
- Student grading
- App builder
Podia vs Learnworlds Pricing
Learnworlds has four price plans: The Starter plan, at $24/month, premium at $69.3/month, learning center at $209.3/month and Learning Center & 2 Mobile apps at $378.3/month.
The Starter plan is great if you are new to creating courses. You can use custom domain on it, launch unlimited courses, build pop-ups, build a community and drip feed your courses. But some of the features are limited: for instance, you cannot launch free courses, meaning you cannot use lead magnets at this level.
If you want more features, you should try the Pro trainer package. It comes with more features such as unlimited landing pages, subscription and membership, customizable course player, customizable checkout, live classes on Zoom and Webex, affiliate marketing and advanced integrations.
Learnworlds’ two top tiers come with even more powerful features such as advanced reports, bulk actions, white label options, transcripts and subtitles, affiliate management, among others. The highest tier also offers iOS and Android apps natively, 100% white label, and also lets you build apps for iOS and Android and host them in an app store account.
Podia pricing includes 3 plans: Mover at $39 per month, Shaker at $79 per month and Earthquaker at $179 per month.
While the two top plans support coaching, course certificates, affiliate marketing and triggers, the mover plan doesn’t. All the plans also support email marketing, although email recipients vary per plan: 5000 on mover, 15,000 recipients on shaker and 50,000 on Earthquaker.
The same thing goes for community; you can access it on every plan, but the number of community members is capped at 1000 on the mover plan, 15,000 on the Shaker plan and 100,000 on the Earthquaker plan.
In terms of support, Earthquaker subscribers get access to the best support including an onboarding call and a dedicated support agent.
Although podia doesn’t charge any transaction fees, you have to spend $20 per month for every user you add on your Mover or Shaker plan.
Winner: Podia
Podia’s price plans give you access to the tools most premium features even on the lowest plan. None of the plans limit course building, making it easy to scale on the tool regardless of the price point you come in at.
Conclusion
Which Tool Is Right For Your Business?
Choose Podia if…
- You want a simple to use, no-hustle tool
- You want to offer downloadables
- You don’t have a whole lot of cash to spend on a tool
- You want to offer standalone courses
- You want an inbuilt email management system
- You want to monetize your community
Choose Learnworlds if…
- You want to offer courses in a school format
- You want a powerful affiliate management system
- You want a powerful website builder
- You want more course creation functionality
- You want to use live video
- You want white label branding
- You want multiple payment gateways
- You could benefit from a customizable course player
- You don’t mind a steeper learning curve
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