Podia and Udemy are both online course platforms, but Udemy is a course marketplace where creators can publish video courses, and Podia is an all-in-one tool for building an online business (with courses, digital downloads, your website, blogging, email marketing, and more).

How does Udemy work?

With Udemy, teachers upload video courses and students can browse through thousands of options on the platform. As a teacher on the platform, you’re encouraged to promote your courses to your audience with a special link.

For any sales made through your instructor link, you keep 97% of the revenue. But for any sales made without this link (for example, a student browsing through the Udemy platform), you only keep 37% of the revenue.

Because you earn so much money by bringing your own audience to your courses, you’ll likely need to use other tools to grow a following and email list.

How does Podia work?

With Podia, all those tools are built in, and you don’t have to worry about your courses competing with thousands of others. You can set up unlimited courses, sell digital products, offer lead magnets, grow an email list, and reach new audiences with your blog and website.

It’s all under one roof, and you’ll keep way more of your earnings (no 63% transaction fees here!). In fact, you can get rid of transaction fees completely with Podia’s Shaker plan.

Let’s take a look at the details of each platform so you can decide which one is right for you.

Course creation features on Podia and Udemy

Up first: The course builder.

Udemy courses are primarily video-based, and you have the option to add assessments, quizzes, activities, and course completion certificates. Courses must have at least 30 minutes of video content and 5 separate lessons. If you’d like to list a course for free, it must have less than 2 hours of video content.

Podia courses can have videos, text, images, audio files, and downloads, as well as embedded presentations, forms, podcasts, spreadsheets, and other interactive elements from +1,900 sources around the web.

You can add as many modules and lessons as you like with no minimum or maximum length requirements. You can also add coaching sessions within your course content and bundle them with other products for a more tempting offer.

Podia also lets you get creative with the style of courses you offer. You can run a drip course, email course, cohort course with limited seats, or an access limit course that runs for a set amount of time. You can also integrate your course with Discord for community functionality.

Beyond courses, Podia also makes it easy to set up other types of elearning experiences, like free or paid webinars, 1:1 coaching, ebooks, digital downloads, and any other digital product you want.

Whether you’re a beginner setting up a simple download, an experienced entrepreneur building an elaborate course bundle, or somewhere in between, Podia has everything you need to make what you want.

Email marketing in the same place as everything else

One of the biggest differences between Podia and Udemy is the ability to stay in touch with your audience. With Udemy, paid courses come with instructor Q&As and direct messaging, but you can’t grow an email list or regularly message your students.

With Podia, you have several ways to contact subscribers and grow your email list. You can:

• Add email opt-in forms to your website and blog

• Enable customer chat messaging on your website and within your products and courses

• Set up lead magnet and free courses to get more followers

• Create sales funnels that drive new audience members to your paid products

• Send out newsletters and automated campaigns to everyone in your audience, including people who have purchased products from you

• Cross-promote your courses and products to existing customers

Best of all, your email marketing is in the same place as your courses and products, so you don’t have to connect any extra tools or integrations. Podia automatically keeps track of who has what product so you can send targeted messages, and there are beautiful email templates preloaded into your account so your newsletters will look great from day one.

All Podia email features (including automations, campaigns, lead magnets, opt-in forms, customizable templates, newsletters, and unlimited email sends) are free for your first 100 subscribers. As your list grows, you can add on more for some of the lowest prices in the industry.

Your website, blog, and landing pages

Another feature to consider when choosing Podia vs. Udemy is your website. With Udemy, you’ll be adding your courses to a uniform course marketplace. You’ll upload your courses and write a description about them, but you won’t have a full website, custom landing pages, or a blog.

With Podia, you get access to a user-friendly website builder. You can connect a custom domain, set up unlimited pages, and create a blog to share your knowledge. There are dozens of pre-made website sections, like hero sections, CTAs, bio sections, FAQs, testimonials, image grids, and email sign-up forms, that look great out of the box. There are also customization options so you can make your website look and feel exactly the way you want.

Podia vs. Udemy plans and pricing

You can create courses on Udemy for free, but you’ll always pay transaction fees. Udemy regularly has deep sales and promotions which you can opt into, which could mean more sales but less revenue if you choose to participate.

• If you send a student to your course with your instructor link or coupon, you’ll keep 97% of that sale.

• If a student buys the course through Udemy’s marketplace or promotion, you’ll only keep 37% of the sale.

With Podia, you pay a set monthly fee for all the tools you need to run your business. To start, Podia has a 30-day free trial with all features so you can see how it works. After the trial, you can choose from two pricing plans:

• Mover: $39/month and 5% transaction fee ($33/month when paid annually): Mover includes your website, blog, and sales pages as well as unlimited digital products, online course creation, and third-party code. You also get access to Podia’s friendly customer support.

• Shaker: $89/month and 0% transaction fee ($75/month when paid annually): Shaker includes all the Mover features plus your own affiliate program.

As I mentioned above, all Podia plans include all email marketing features (like automations, newsletters, email templates, segmentation, tagging, and campaigns) for up to 100 subscribers. If you like, you can upgrade your Podia Email plan to add more subscribers as your list grows.

And if you sign up for an annual Mover or Shaker plan, Podia includes a free migration service. This means our team will move your products and customers over from another platform (like Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi, etc.) for free so you can get started fast.

So which one is right for you?

Udemy is free to use, but it’s harder to make money on the platform since Udemy takes such a big cut and regularly offers deep discounts.

Podia charges a monthly fee (or annual subscription if you want to save money!), but there are more features for building your business. You also have control over your pricing, product types, and audience connections.

Take Podia course creator John D Saunders, for example. He sold courses for years on Udemy and only earned $1,100 in sales. When he moved that same course to Podia, he earned $10,000 in one day and has made over six figures in sales since.

Why the jump?

• Podia includes marketing tools so you can build your audience and promote your products and courses to them.

• Podia has the option to remove transaction fees as you grow (which isn’t possible with Udemy).

• You have more pricing and checkout options with Podia, so you can set up free plans, offer payment plans, add upsells, limit access duration, and cap the number of seats.

• You can make your courses more valuable to your audience by bundling them with 1:1 coaching and other products, which means more revenue for you.

Want to see for yourself? Click here to try Podia free for 30 days. We can’t wait to see what you make.