12 Best Online Course Platforms to Create and Sell Courses (2026)

Here is the question almost nobody asks before they pick a platform to sell courses on: who actually owns the audience you are about to spend two years building?

Sit with that for a second, because it decides more than the price does.

The online learning market is on track to clear 325 billion dollars in 2026, and every platform below wants a slice of the money you make from it. Some take a flat monthly fee. Some take a cut of every sale. Some take both, plus your students’ email addresses. The difference between the cheapest-looking option and the actual cost to your business can be thousands of dollars a year, and you usually only notice once you are too locked in to move.

So I am going to do this differently. Below are the platforms I would actually recommend in 2026, grouped by what they really are, with the fees written out plainly so you can see the trade before you commit. I run a WordPress LMS company, so yes, I have a favorite. I will tell you exactly where it wins and exactly where a hosted platform beats it, because pretending otherwise would waste your time.

Do this arithmetic first

Say you sell 500 dollars of courses a month in year one. Modest. A marketplace or all-in-one that takes 5 percent plus a 40 dollar monthly plan costs you 780 dollars that year. Fine.

Now year three, you are at 8,000 dollars a month. That same 5 percent is 4,800 dollars a year, on top of the plan, on top of the higher tier they pushed you onto for features you now need. The percentage never sleeps. It scales with your success, which is the opposite of what you want a cost to do.

A self-hosted platform flips that. You pay for hosting and a plugin, and your revenue can 10x without your platform bill moving at all. That single fact is why the “free” marketplace and the “expensive” self-hosted plugin often trade places once you do the full math.

The three kinds of platform, and who each one punishes

Before the list, get this framing straight, because it is the thing most roundups skip and it is the thing that actually determines your outcome.

Marketplaces like Udemy and Skillshare come with a built-in audience. That is real and valuable when you have zero following. The catch is that it is their audience, not yours. They set the price, they run the discounts, they email the students, and they take a heavy cut. You are renting reach.

All-in-one builders like Kajabi, Teachable, and Thinkific hand you a course site, checkout, and email tools in one login. Convenient. You own more of the relationship than on a marketplace, but you are still a tenant on their software, your monthly bill climbs with your list size, and moving off later means rebuilding everything.

Self-hosted WordPress LMS like Learnomy, LearnDash, and LifterLMS runs on your own domain and hosting. Nobody sits between you and your students, no cut of sales, and the data is yours to export any day of the week. The trade is that you manage the stack yourself, which is easier than it sounds in 2026 but still more hands-on than clicking sign-up.

None of these is the “right” answer for everyone. The right answer depends on whether you value speed today or ownership tomorrow. Keep that in mind as you read.

The platforms, compared on what actually matters

Here is the quick version. I have sorted by the thing that ends up mattering most once you are past your first launch: how much of your money and your audience you keep.

Platform	Type	Best for	Starts at	Cut of sales	You own the audience?
Learnomy	Self-hosted (WordPress)	Creators who want everything free and full ownership	Free	0%	Yes
LearnDash	Self-hosted (WordPress)	Established WP sites wanting a mature plugin	$199/yr	0%	Yes
LifterLMS	Self-hosted (WordPress)	Membership-style academies	Free core, paid add-ons	0%	Yes
Teachable	All-in-one	Getting a first course live fast	$0 / $59/mo	Up to 5% on free plan	Partly
Thinkific	All-in-one	Course-first businesses	$0 / $49/mo	0% on paid plans	Partly
Kajabi	All-in-one	Creators wanting one tool for everything	$149/mo	0%	Partly
LearnWorlds	All-in-one	Polished, interactive course sites	$29/mo	$5/sale on entry plan	Partly
Podia	All-in-one	Simple digital storefront	$0 / $39/mo	Up to 8% on free plan	Partly
Mighty Networks	Community-first	Courses built around a community	$41/mo	2-3%	Partly
Systeme.io	All-in-one (budget)	Bootstrappers on a tight budget	Free	0%	Partly
Udemy	Marketplace	Reaching total strangers	Free to publish	Up to 63%	No
Skillshare	Marketplace	Short creative classes	Free to publish	Revenue-share pool	No
Coursera	Marketplace	Accredited, institution-backed courses	Application only	Revenue share	No

Prices move, so treat these as the shape of the deal rather than a quote. Now the part that matters, which is what it actually feels like to build and sell on each one.

1. Learnomy: the free WordPress LMS that keeps everything yours

I will be upfront: we build Learnomy. But I put it first because on the two numbers that decide your long-term take-home, price and cut of sales, it wins outright, and it does something no other free option does, which is refuse to hold your growth hostage.

Learnomy is a WordPress plugin. It installs on the site you already own, and the free tier is genuinely the whole product, not a trial with the good parts greyed out. No cap on students. No cap on courses. Payments run straight through your own Stripe and PayPal, so when someone buys, the money lands in your account with zero platform cut.

What surprises people is how much is in the free tier. Six question types for quizzes, including essay questions with a proper grading inbox. Signed, QR-verifiable certificates. An instructor marketplace with automatic Stripe Connect payouts, so you can run multiple teachers and the software splits the money for you. Content drip, memberships with recurring billing, coupons and gift codes. Students even get a progressive web app they can install, take notes in, and sync offline. Most of that list is what other WordPress plugins charge extra for as add-ons.

The honest trade: you need a WordPress site and hosting, and you are the one who keeps it running. If you have never touched WordPress, a hosted builder will feel faster on day one. But if you already have a site, or you are willing to spend an afternoon, you get a platform that costs nothing, takes nothing, and moves your ceiling out of the way.

Best for: creators and academies who want the full toolkit free and plan to keep every dollar. Starts at: free. Cut of sales: 0%. Paid tiers from 149 dollars a year add learning paths, cohorts, and pro extensions.

2. Udemy: rented reach for total beginners

Udemy earns its spot for one reason, and it is a good one: it already has millions of buyers. If nobody knows your name yet, that built-in traffic can put your first sale in front of you faster than any amount of marketing on your own site.

Read the fee line in the table again, though. When Udemy’s own promotions drive the sale, its share can reach 63 percent. You do not set your price during their sitewide discounts, and you never see the student’s email. You are trading ownership for exposure. That can be a fair trade at the very start, and a terrible one the moment you have an audience of your own.

My honest take: use Udemy as a top-of-funnel billboard, not as the home for your business. Publish a course there to be discovered, then send the people who love it somewhere you actually own.

Best for: first-timers with no audience. Starts at: free to publish. Cut of sales: up to 63%. You own the audience: no.

3. Skillshare: short creative classes on a shared pool

Skillshare works differently from Udemy. Students pay one subscription for everything, and creators get paid out of a shared royalty pool based on minutes watched. If you make punchy, watchable classes in a creative niche, the numbers can add up. If you teach something deep and technical that people study slowly, the minutes-watched model tends to underpay you.

Same core catch as Udemy: it is Skillshare’s audience and Skillshare’s pricing. Great for building a name in design, illustration, or photography. Not where you build a business you control.

Best for: short, bingeable creative classes. Starts at: free to publish. Cut of sales: revenue-share pool. You own the audience: no.

4. Teachable: the fastest way to a first paid course

Teachable is where a lot of creators start, and for good reason. You can have a paid course live in an afternoon with no technical setup at all. The builder is clean, checkout works out of the box, and it handles the tax paperwork for you, which is a genuine relief if you sell internationally.

Watch the free plan. It carries a transaction fee of up to 5 percent, which quietly eats your margin until you move to a paid tier. Once you are on a paid plan the per-sale fee goes away, but your monthly bill is now the cost, and it climbs as you grow. You own more than on a marketplace, but Teachable still holds the platform, so a future move means rebuilding.

Best for: shipping your first course quickly. Starts at: free, or 59 dollars a month. Cut of sales: up to 5% on the free plan, 0% on paid. You own the audience: partly.

5. Thinkific: course-first, with room to grow

Thinkific is Teachable’s closest rival and, for course-focused businesses, often the better pick. Its paid plans charge no transaction fee at all, the course-building experience is strong, and it scales into memberships and bundles without forcing you onto an enterprise contract early.

The free plan is real but limited, and like every hosted builder, the monthly fee is the trade you make for not running your own stack. Solid, unflashy, dependable. If you want a hosted tool built squarely around selling courses rather than a broader “creator suite,” this is the one I point people to.

Best for: businesses whose main product is courses. Starts at: free, or 49 dollars a month. Cut of sales: 0% on paid plans. You own the audience: partly.

6. Kajabi: one login for the entire business

Kajabi is the all-in-one that actually means all-in-one. Courses, website, email marketing, sales funnels, payments, community, all under one roof. For creators who hate stitching tools together, that single login is worth a lot, and Kajabi takes no cut of your sales.

You pay for it up front, though. Plans start at 149 dollars a month, which makes Kajabi the priciest option here by a wide margin before you have sold a thing. If you use every piece of it, the price is defensible. If you mostly want to sell courses, you are paying for a marketing suite you may barely touch.

Best for: creators who want marketing, email, and courses in one place. Starts at: 149 dollars a month. Cut of sales: 0%. You own the audience: partly.

7. LearnWorlds: the most polished student experience

If the look and feel of your courses matters to you, LearnWorlds is hard to beat. Interactive video, in-video quizzes, a proper course player, and slick, brandable school sites. Students notice the difference.

The entry plan carries a 5 dollar fee per sale, which you clear by moving up a tier. For a premium, high-touch course brand, the polish can justify the cost. For a lean operation, it is more platform than you need.

Best for: premium, highly interactive course sites. Starts at: 29 dollars a month. Cut of sales: 5 dollars per sale on the entry plan. You own the audience: partly.

8. Podia: the simplest storefront

Podia is the friendly, no-friction option. Courses, digital downloads, and webinars in a storefront that anyone can set up without a manual. Nice if you sell a small mix of digital products and want one tidy checkout.

The free plan takes up to 8 percent per sale, which is steep, so most sellers move to the paid plan quickly. Podia trades depth for simplicity, so if you need advanced quizzing or fine-grained course logic, you will feel the ceiling. For a light catalog, that simplicity is the whole appeal.

Best for: a simple digital storefront. Starts at: free, or 39 dollars a month. Cut of sales: up to 8% on the free plan. You own the audience: partly.

9. LearnDash: the veteran WordPress plugin

LearnDash has been the default WordPress LMS for years, and it earned that reputation. It is mature, deeply flexible, and backed by a large ecosystem of add-ons and themes. Like any self-hosted option, it takes no cut of sales and the data stays on your site.

The difference from Learnomy comes down to two things: price and what is included. LearnDash starts at 199 dollars a year, and a lot of the capability you would want, advanced quizzing, certificates done well, an instructor marketplace, arrives through paid add-ons that stack up. If you already run LearnDash and it works, there is no urgent reason to switch. If you are choosing fresh, compare the two feature lists side by side before you pay.

Best for: established WordPress sites that want a proven plugin. Starts at: 199 dollars a year. Cut of sales: 0%. You own the audience: yes.

10. LifterLMS: built for membership academies

LifterLMS is the other serious WordPress contender, and it leans toward membership-style academies where students pay to access an ongoing library rather than a single course. The core is free, with paid add-ons for the pieces you need. Same ownership benefits as the rest of the WordPress camp: no sales cut, full data control.

The add-on model is the thing to watch. Costs can add up as you assemble the exact stack you want, so price the full bundle, not just the free core, before you commit.

Best for: recurring-access membership academies. Starts at: free core, paid add-ons. Cut of sales: 0%. You own the audience: yes.

11. Mighty Networks: when the community is the product

Some courses are really an excuse to gather people. If the discussion, the accountability, and the network are the actual value you sell, Mighty Networks is built for exactly that. Courses sit inside a strong community and events layer, and it takes a small 2 to 3 percent cut on lower tiers.

It is less of a pure course tool and more of a community platform that also does courses. If your students come back for each other as much as for the lessons, that is a feature, not a compromise.

Best for: courses built around an active community. Starts at: 41 dollars a month. Cut of sales: 2-3%. You own the audience: partly.

12. Systeme.io: the bootstrapper’s free all-in-one

Systeme.io packs courses, funnels, email, and a storefront into a free plan that is unusually generous, with no cut of your sales. For someone launching on almost no budget, it is a genuinely useful starting point that does more than its price suggests.

You feel the limits as you scale. The polish and depth are not at the level of the premium tools, and you are still a tenant on someone else’s software. But as a way to test whether people will pay before you invest in anything, it is hard to argue with free.

Best for: launching on a shoestring. Starts at: free. Cut of sales: 0%. You own the audience: partly.

What you actually need to sell a course, and who gives it to you free

Strip away the branding and every course platform is really a bundle of the same handful of jobs. A place to hold lessons and video. A way to charge money. Quizzes or assessments so learning sticks. Certificates so students have something to show. Drip or scheduling so you can pace a cohort. And some way to keep people coming back.

The whole game is which of those you get included and which you pay extra for. On a marketplace you get most of it, but you rent the audience. On an all-in-one you get most of it, but the monthly bill grows with you. On the WordPress side, the answer depends on the plugin, which is the entire reason a free tier that already includes essay grading, an instructor marketplace, and certificates is worth paying attention to. Getting those without a single add-on purchase is not normal, and it is the specific gap Learnomy was built to close.

Already on another platform? Moving is easier than you think

The reason people stay on a platform that overcharges them is fear of the move. Rebuilding a whole course library by hand is nobody’s idea of a good weekend.

Worth knowing, then, that Learnomy ships with a one-click importer that pulls your courses across from LearnDash, Tutor LMS, and LifterLMS. You bring the content over, keep your students, and stop paying the cut, without rebuilding from scratch. If a percentage of every sale has been quietly bothering you, that friction was probably the only thing keeping you put.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a course marketplace and a course platform?

A marketplace like Udemy hands you an existing audience but keeps control of pricing, promotion, and the customer relationship, and takes a large cut. A course platform or self-hosted LMS gives you a place to build and sell on your own terms, where you own the students and keep the revenue. Marketplaces are for being discovered. Platforms are for building a business.

Which online course platform is best for beginners?

If you have zero audience and want a sale this week, Udemy gets you in front of buyers fastest. If you want to start building something you own, Learnomy on a WordPress site or a hosted builder like Teachable both get you live quickly, and Learnomy does it without a monthly fee or a cut of sales.

Are there genuinely free platforms to sell online courses?

Yes, but read the fine print. Most “free” hosted plans take a transaction fee of 5 to 8 percent, which is a cost by another name. Learnomy’s free tier and Systeme.io’s free plan both take zero cut, though with Learnomy you also own the platform outright since it runs on your own site.

Do I need my own website to sell courses?

Not to start. Marketplaces and hosted builders host everything for you. But selling on your own WordPress site is what lets you keep the audience and the full revenue, and it removes the monthly platform bill that grows as you do. For anything you intend to run for years, owning the site pays for itself.

How much do online course platforms cost?

It ranges from free to 149 dollars a month and up, plus per-sale cuts that run from zero to 63 percent on marketplaces. The sticker price is the smaller number. The cut of sales is the one that scales with your success, so weigh that harder.

What is the best platform if I want to keep all my revenue?

A self-hosted WordPress LMS, because it takes no cut and your payments go straight to your own Stripe or PayPal. Among those, Learnomy is the one whose free tier includes the features other plugins sell as add-ons, so you keep the revenue without stacking up costs to get a complete toolset.

Can I move my courses from one platform to another later?

You can, though hosted platforms make it deliberately tedious. If future flexibility matters, favor a platform that lets you export cleanly. Learnomy goes further with a one-click importer from LearnDash, Tutor LMS, and LifterLMS, so switching to it is a short job rather than a rebuild.

So which one should you actually pick

If you have no audience and need proof that people will pay, start on Udemy, take the exposure, and do not mistake it for a home.

If you want a hosted tool live today and do not mind the bill growing with you, Thinkific and Teachable are the safe, capable picks.

And if you would rather not hand a slice of every sale to a company that did not teach the course, put your courses on a site you own. That is the whole argument for a WordPress LMS, and it is why we built Learnomy to be free where it counts, complete out of the box, and yours to keep.

The platform you choose today is quietly choosing who your students belong to. Choose the one that answers “you.”

Download Learnomy free and keep every dollar and every student, or see how a zero-fee WordPress academy is put together.