6 min read
Best Platforms to Sell Online Courses
The e-learning industry keeps growing, and if you have knowledge worth sharing, the real question is which platform gives you the fairest deal. Platform fees, monthly subscriptions, and revenue splits vary enough that your choice of platform genuinely affects how much you take home. Below are 11 of the best platforms to sell online courses, starting with the one that charges 0% in platform fees.
1. Learnomy
Best Free WordPress-Native Option. Learnomy is a WordPress plugin that turns your existing site into a full course platform. You keep 100% of every sale, with no platform fee taken and nothing skimmed off each transaction. Your students progress through your course and receive completion certificates, all on your own domain. There is no recurring SaaS subscription and no percentage that grows alongside your revenue, which becomes a meaningful difference once course sales start climbing.
Before installing, you can walk through a live Learnomy demo to see how the course builder and student dashboard work in practice. The full feature overview lives at learnomy.app.
Features:
- 0% platform fees, all revenue goes directly to you
- Runs on your existing WordPress install with no migration or new accounts
- Completion certificates issued to students
- Drip content scheduling and quiz functionality
- Student dashboard hosted on your own domain
- One-time plugin license with no recurring subscription cost
2. LearnDash
Established WordPress LMS. LearnDash is the most widely deployed LMS plugin in the WordPress ecosystem. It supports structured course creation, drip content, and detailed quiz logic. For larger course catalogs that need multi-instructor roles, deep WooCommerce integration, and a wide library of third-party add-ons, LearnDash has more built around it than any other self-hosted option. It carries a paid annual license, but once installed, you set your own pricing and keep your revenue.
Features:
- Full control over branding and pricing
- Drip content scheduling
- Advanced quizzes and assignments
- Multiple instructor roles
- WooCommerce and membership integration
- Course bundles and dynamic content display
3. Teachable
Good for Solopreneurs and Educators Starting Out. Teachable is a hosted SaaS platform with a clean drag-and-drop builder. You don’t need a server or a WordPress site; you create an account, start uploading content, and begin selling without touching any code. The tradeoff is cost structure: Teachable charges a transaction fee on lower-tier plans, so factor that percentage into your pricing from the start. Higher-tier plans remove the per-transaction cut but carry a larger monthly fee.
Features:
- Unlimited courses and students
- Built-in payment processing (Stripe and PayPal)
- Drip content and course completion certificates
- Affiliate marketing tools
- Integrated email marketing and sales tracking
- Integrations with Zapier, MailChimp, and ConvertKit
4. Thinkific
Solid Hosted Platform with Good Customization. Thinkific gives you real control over how your course site looks and how students move through content. Paid plans drop the transaction fee, which Thinkific promotes as a key differentiator. The free plan has meaningful limits on enrolled students and content access, so most creators who take courses seriously end up on a paid tier within a few months.
Features:
- Fully customizable course websites
- No transaction fees on paid plans
- Drag-and-drop course builder
- Live lessons, quizzes, and assignments
- Membership and subscription models
- Integrations with Zapier, Zoom, and email marketing tools
5. Kajabi
Full Business Platform in One Subscription. Kajabi combines course creation, email marketing, landing pages, funnels, and membership management under one roof. It’s designed for creators who want to run their entire business from a single tool rather than stitching together separate services. The subscription price is higher than most options on this list, but it replaces several other paid tools for people who would otherwise be paying for each piece separately.
Features:
- Website builder with customizable themes
- Marketing automation and sales funnels
- Built-in CRM and email marketing
- Podcast hosting and community building
- Detailed analytics and reporting
- Integrated payment processing
Also Read: Comparing Kajabi, Teachable, and WordPress
6. Udemy
Marketplace with a Built-In Audience. Udemy is an open marketplace rather than a standalone course platform. You list your course, and Udemy’s large existing audience can discover it through search and recommendations. The tradeoff is pricing control: Udemy runs frequent steep discounts and splits revenue in a way that keeps you from setting your own price consistently. If you are starting without an audience and need visibility before you’ve built one, that tradeoff can be worth it early on.
Features:
- Massive global student base
- Built-in promotional tools and discount campaigns
- Course certification issuing
- User-friendly course creation tools
- Revenue-sharing model
- Lifetime course access for students
7. Podia
Courses Alongside Digital Products. Podia is a clean storefront that handles courses, memberships, and digital downloads from the same dashboard. It charges no transaction fees, and the built-in messaging keeps communication with students inside the platform. If your business mixes online courses with other digital products, Podia handles that combination without requiring separate tools for each product type.
Features:
- Unlimited courses and students
- No transaction fees
- Built-in live chat and community features
- Webinar hosting and pre-launch selling
- Digital downloads and memberships
- Affiliate marketing tools
8. Skillshare
Suited to Creative Instructors. Skillshare pays instructors based on watch time from a pool funded by its subscriber base. You don’t set a price for your course; Skillshare’s members access everything through a single subscription, and your earnings depend on how much time they spend with your content. For creative fields like design or photography, the existing audience is a reasonable fit and can generate passive income once a class gains consistent traction. Creators who need direct pricing control or a branded checkout will find this model limiting.
Features:
- Subscription-based revenue model
- Large community of creative learners
- High-quality production support
- Structured class projects for engagement
- Built-in student community
- Limited control over pricing and branding
9. LearnWorlds
Built for Interactive Video Learning. LearnWorlds focuses on video-based courses with interactive layers: quizzes that run over video, certificates, and gamification elements. You can also build a mobile app for your course school, which makes it competitive for content that benefits from a native app experience. The feature set is more specialized than general-purpose platforms, so it works best when your course design actually takes advantage of what the interactive video tools offer.
Features:
- Interactive video-based learning
- Customizable course platform
- Drip-feed content and flexible monetization options
- Mobile app support
- Built-in assessments and certifications
- White-label branding for full customization
10. Ruzuku
Simple Setup for Non-Technical Creators. Ruzuku is built for educators who want to get a course live without navigating a complex interface. The guided setup walks you through uploading content, organizing lessons, and connecting payments. It doesn’t have Kajabi’s marketing automation or LearnDash’s extensibility, but for a quick launch with minimal overhead, it removes most of the friction that slows down a first course.
Features:
- One-click payment integration
- Unlimited video hosting
- Course discussion forums
- No transaction fees
- Easy-to-use course builder
- Automated email notifications for student engagement
11. Mighty Networks
Community-First Learning. Mighty Networks puts peer interaction at the center rather than treating community as an add-on feature. Students can network, post, and engage with each other alongside your course content. This matters most for cohort-based programs or professional membership groups where the relationships between participants carry as much value as the material itself. Course-only setups without a community component don’t particularly need what Mighty Networks is built for.
Features:
- Social networking and community engagement
- Course bundling and memberships
- Live streaming and event hosting
- Mobile app for student interaction
- Custom branding and monetization options
- Subscription-based revenue models
Which Platform Is Right for You?
If you run a WordPress site and want to keep your full revenue without platform fees, start with Learnomy, which installs on your existing site and takes nothing from each sale. For a more mature WordPress LMS with a larger plugin ecosystem, LearnDash is the established choice. If you’d rather skip hosting, Teachable and Thinkific are reliable SaaS options, though both have pricing tiers that affect how much of each sale you keep. Kajabi makes sense when you want email marketing, funnels, and courses consolidated into one subscription. For reaching a built-in audience without your own marketing, Udemy and Skillshare trade pricing control for traffic.
A more detailed breakdown of how these platforms compare on features and pricing is available in our online course platforms guide.
The choice comes down to one question: do you want to own the relationship with your students, or borrow someone else’s audience? Your answer shapes which platform actually fits the way you work.
Interesting Reads:
Teachable vs Kajabi vs LearnDash LMS Comparison
LearnDash vs. Skillshare vs. Teachable: Which LMS to choose?
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