If you want to build any kind of website, WordPress is the first platform that comes to mind. It was also the preferred option for creating online courses for a long time.
However, many specialized online course builders have emerged in the past decade, offering a simpler and more streamlined way to create and sell courses. And Teachable has been at the forefront of this trend.
So, which is a better option for course creators?
In this Teachable vs WordPress comparison guide, we’ll dive deep into the features and capabilities of both platforms to help you make an informed decision.
Let’s get started!
Despite both platforms being used to create online courses, WordPress and Teachable are fundamentally different.
Teachable is a cloud-based platform built from scratch to help people create and sell online courses. It integrates all the essential features needed to create a course structure, host your content, deliver your content to students, build a website, and collect payments.
Moreover, it’s a plug-and-play solution, meaning you just need to create an account, add your content, and start selling. You don’t have to worry about technicalities like hosting, updates, or security.
WordPress, on the other hand, is a generic content management system (CMS) that’s used to build all types of websites, including eLearning websites.
You’ll need a WordPress LMS plugin to add course creation and management functionality to your site, and LearnDash is what we recommend. It’s also the most popular WordPress LMS plugin.
Because WordPress is a self-hosted solution, you’ll need to purchase a hosting plan, install WordPress on your server, set up your website, and then add the LMS plugin. Additionally, you’ll need to handle all the technical aspects of running a website, including security and updates.
With this overview in mind, let’s explore the important differences between the two platforms in more detail.
In this section, we’ll compare Teachable and WordPress on key aspects, such as features and functionality, ease of use, customization, scalability, and pricing.
Teachable is much easier to use and set up compared to WordPress.
It provides you with the basic infrastructure needed to sell courses online. You just need to create an account to get started; there’s no installation or complex setup involved.
The process of creating a course is also straightforward. You can bulk upload your videos and reorganize them into sections by dragging and dropping them, and Teachable will make it available to students through the user-friendly course player.
Watch how Teachable’s course builder works
All the learning tools, such as quizzes, certificates, and live classes, are also easily accessible and can be set up with just a few clicks.
Moreover, Teachable creates a sales and a checkout page for your course. You just need to modify the content and design and integrate a payment gateway to start receiving payments.
So, you can quickly set up your courses, and the end product looks more professional without any technical knowledge or coding skills.
WordPress, on the other hand, requires more technical skills to set up and manage. To create a course on WordPress, you’ll need to:
Even when it comes to creating a course in LearnDash, it’s more work compared to Teachable. Let me give you examples of some additional steps needed:
Moreover, you’ll need to manage the technical aspects of running a website, such as updating plugins and fixing any issues that may arise. This can be time-consuming and frustrating, especially for non-techy users.
As a result, WordPress has a higher learning curve and requires more effort to set up and manage compared to Teachable.
So, Teachable is a clear winner in this department, making it a more user-friendly platform for course creators of any technical level.
Teachable has all the tools needed for course creation and selling built into the platform. It includes a course builder, content hosting, a website builder, and eCommerce tools.
When it comes to course creation and engagement, Teachable does an excellent job:
Now, LearnDash does a great job at course creation as well. It has a more advanced quizzing tool and supports features like grade books and gamification that Teachable lacks.
However, it misses out on some commonly used features like content hosting, mobile app, live classes, and community builder.
So, Teachable has more to offer for course creation and selling out of the box, making it the preferred choice for many course creators.
One area where WordPress has a clear edge is site building and blogging capabilities. With WordPress, you have limitless options for designing and customizing your site and blog.
While Teachable also includes a page builder, it’s not as flexible and is good for creating course sales pages, not a complete website.
In fact, many course creators use both platforms in tandem. They create their courses on Teachable and their main website/blog on WordPress with a link to their Teachable school.
Teachable is a closed system, so you have to rely on the features and tools provided by the platform.
It does have third-party integrations, so you can integrate with analytics tools and email marketing platforms, and any other tool that has a Zapier integration.
It does have a few custom integrations to extend the functionality of your Teachable website, such as Circle for communities, Wobo for interactive workbooks, and DropInBlog for blogging, but that’s about it.
On the other hand, with WordPress, you have access to thousands of plugins and integrations for almost any feature or functionality you can think of. This makes it a more flexible and extendible platform.
Teachable is a closed system, so you have to rely on the features and tools provided by the platform.
It does have third-party integrations, so you can integrate with analytics tools and email marketing platforms, and any other tool that has a Zapier integration.
It does have a few custom integrations to extend the functionality of your Teachable website, such as Circle for communities, Wobo for interactive workbooks, and DropInBlog for blogging, but that’s about it.
On the other hand, with WordPress, you have access to thousands of plugins and integrations for almost any feature or functionality you can think of. This makes it a more flexible and extendible platform.
Let me explain this difference with some examples:
In fact, extendibility is one of the prime reasons why people choose WordPress and LearnDash.
However, from our experience, Teachable offers enough features and flexibility to meet the requirements of the majority of course creators.
Scalability is an important factor in helping you determine the right solution for your business. You wouldn’t want to use a solution that in any way hinders the growth of your course business.
While it’d be incorrect to say WordPress isn’t scalable, there are two major challenges:
For example, as your site traffic increases, it is quite probable that your site speed and performance will be affected. You will need to add additional servers/RAM and take care of a lot of other technical aspects in order to suit your new scale.
However, with Teachable, website management and maintenance are minimal, so you can focus on what you should—creating and selling courses.
Moreover, it doesn’t really matter whether you have 100 or 10,000 students on your site or whether you have 10 or even 1,000 courses. You may need to upgrade your plan, but you don’t need to upgrade the server or switch hosts.
As a result, Teachable examples include businesses of all sizes—creators with a few thousand students as well as enterprises with hundreds of thousands of students (e.g., StackSkills) use Teachable to sell courses.
Teachable offers excellent customer support with its dedicated team of experts.
In case you encounter any issue on the platform, you simply reach out to the support team via email or live chat, and they are quick to respond and help you resolve your issue.
Besides that, Teachable has a comprehensive knowledge base covering all aspects of using the platform, including step-by-step tutorials.
WordPress, on the other hand, doesn’t offer dedicated customer support for its users.
You’ll depend on the support provided by the individual plugin developers, meaning you have to deal with multiple support teams for different issues.
Plus, plugin conflicts are very common, and troubleshooting them can be time-consuming and frustrating.
So, unless you’re a WordPress expert yourself, you’ll likely need to hire external support to manage your WordPress site.
No Teachable vs WordPress comparison can be complete unless we take a look at the cost associated with using these solutions.
To sell courses on WordPress, you’ll incur different costs:
So, you should expect to pay $1,000+ per year to run a course website.
There will be extra costs for LMS add-ons and third-party plugins. For instance, adding a community to your website requires the BuddyBoss plugin, costing $299/year.
And remember that this is the cost that you’ll incur if you’re just getting started. Web hosting and video storage costs can be much higher for bigger learning platforms.
Also, you need to make most of this investment upfront rather than paying on a monthly basis.
Teachable, on the other hand, has a simple pricing structure. You pay a monthly fee according to the plan you select:
All paid plans include the essential features like course builder, unlimited video hosting, website builder, and payment processing.
Though the Basic and Pro plans differ in features as well, you can start with Basic and upgrade to Pro as your business grows. Read our Teachable pricing guide to learn more about the plans and features.
While Teachable isn’t the most affordable option, it offers more flexible pricing that requires less upfront investment compared to WordPress.
Moreover, if Teachable doesn’t meet your requirements because of pricing or features, you can explore other course hosting platforms. We’ve listed the best alternatives to Teachable that may suit your budget and needs.
You now have a fair idea of the differences between Teachable and WordPress for creating and selling online courses.
But when should you use Teachable over WordPress and vice versa?
We recommend Teachable in the following scenarios:
If you want to explore Teachable further, you can read our Teachable review or create a free account to test out the platform.
Teachable and WordPress are both great platforms. However, Teachable is a more streamlined option for creating and selling online courses.
It requires minimal setup and maintenance, making it ideal for anyone who wants to focus on course creation and selling rather than technical aspects.
At the same time, it offers an awesome feature set that will meet the needs of most course creators.
You can try Teachable and quickly see if it suits you. You can try it for free.
We recommend going with WordPress only if you have specific requirements that can be met by Teachable or another hosted course platform. In this case, our recommendation would be to use the LearnDash plugin.
We hope we could help you answer the WordPress vs Teachable question. If you have any further questions, please leave us a comment below.
There are several LMS plugins available for WordPress, each with its own set of features and benefits. However, we found LearnDash to be the most comprehensive LMS plugin for creating online courses on WordPress.
Yes, Teachable can be integrated with WordPress. You can use the Teachable WordPress plugin to display your course information on your WordPress site. Moreover, you should add links to your Teachable site in important locations on your WordPress website, such as the main menu or homepage.
Teachable will be a better option for most course creators as it integrates all the core features for creating and selling courses in a single platform. As a result, it offers a more streamlined and user-friendly experience, whereas creating courses on WordPress requires more technical knowledge and effort.
Hey there! I'm Baidhurya, the brains behind SellCoursesOnline. I used to run a digital agency, where I helped course businesses launch their eLearning platforms. I also led the tech and marketing teams at StationX, helping it grow to 500K+ students. In addition, I created the popular supply chain network design course. With 8+ years of experience, I'm here to share my expertise and insights on course creation and platforms with you.
SellCoursesOnline is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn affiliate commissions. However, this doesn’t influence our reviews or product listings. All opinions are based on our tests and personal experience with a product/service.
Copyright © 2024 by SellCoursesOnline
Hey there! I’m Baidhurya, the brains behind SellCoursesOnline. I used to run a digital agency, where I helped course businesses launch their eLearning platforms. I also led the tech and marketing teams at StationX, helping it grow to 500K+ students. In addition, I created the popular supply chain network design course. With 8+ years of experience, I’m here to share my expertise and insights on course creation and platforms with you.
We respect your privacy and will never spam you.
