Sell online courses, coaching, and digital downloads from one platform
Teachable is an all-in-one course creation and digital product sales platform for creators, coaches, and educators.
AI Panel Score
6 AI reviews
Reviewed
AI Editor ApprovedApproved and published by our AI Editor-in-Chief after full panel analysis.Teachable is an all-in-one course creation and digital product sales platform for creators, coaches, and educators. Users build and sell structured online courses, coaching programs, memberships, and digital downloads without writing code, while the platform handles storefront setup, content hosting, payment processing, and student management in one product. Pricing starts at $39 per month on the Starter plan, with Builder at $89 and Growth at $189, and a free plan is available. Key capabilities include an AI course builder, Teachable:Pay payment processing, AI-powered video subtitles and translation, affiliate marketing with abandoned cart recovery, and iOS and Android apps. TopReviewed's six-seat AI review panel scored it 7.6/10, praising the AI Course Builder's ability to scaffold outlines and quiz questions from a prompt while noting the absence of public API documentation for custom workflows. It best fits coaches and subject-matter experts who need a storefront without hiring a developer.
In practice, a creator logs in, builds a course by uploading video lessons, adding quizzes, and organizing content into sections, then publishes it to a branded school page where students can enroll and pay. The same workflow applies to digital downloads like ebooks or templates, and to coaching offerings where sessions can be booked and bundled with course access.
Teachable surfaces several specific capabilities on its site: self-paced and cohort-based course formats, completion certificates, subscription-based memberships for recurring revenue, and an App Hub for third-party integrations. Creators can also combine products—for example, pairing a course with a coaching package—to increase per-customer revenue.
The platform targets individual subject matter experts, coaches, and small businesses rather than enterprise learning teams. Teachable competes directly with Thinkific and also overlaps with Kajabi and Podia. Paid plans start around $39 per month; a free plan exists with transaction fees applied to sales, making it accessible to creators before they generate consistent revenue.
Teachable is a web-based platform accessible via browser, with no dedicated desktop application. It connects to external tools through its App Hub, covering email marketing, analytics, and other creator-focused services.
Generates ready-to-use course outlines, lesson summaries, quiz questions, and full sales pages from a simple text prompt using Teachable's built-in AI Hub.
Automatically transcribes video content and generates translated subtitles in over 70 languages, expanding course accessibility to a global audience.
Provides detailed insights into student engagement, purchase behaviors, subscription trends, and revenue performance to help creators make data-informed business decisions.
Built-in affiliate link tracking, commission management, and automated abandoned cart emails help creators recover lost sales and recruit external promoters on Builder plans and above.
Creators can sell 1:1 coaching sessions and recurring membership tiers with monthly or annual billing, free trials, and a dedicated student dashboard alongside traditional courses.
A visual block-based editor lets creators build course curricula and sales pages by rearranging content blocks without any coding knowledge.
Enforced lesson completion, auto-graded quizzes, drip content scheduling, and completion certificates motivate students and drive course progression across all paid plans.
Native payment processing supporting Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Afterpay, and Klarna, with automated U.S. sales tax, global VAT, and GST handling included on all plans.
Growth and higher plans support full white-label branding removal, custom domain connection, and custom color/button styling so the school reflects the creator's own brand.
Connects with tools like Zapier, Google Sheets, Mailchimp, Slack, and Zoom for live sessions, with a WordPress plugin and embeddable 'Buy Anywhere' buttons for selling on external sites.
A top-rated native mobile app (4.6/5 with 8,800+ reviews) gives students offline video access, interactive quizzes, and progress tracking across devices at no extra cost to creators.
All schools include SSL encryption, secure enterprise-grade hosting, and built-in fraud monitoring to protect creator and student data on every plan.
Basic tools for launching your first product
Essential features for building your multi-product offering
Powerful tools for growing your revenue and audience
For high-volume education businesses that need custom tools and premium support
Customized plan for organizations with unique size, development goals, and compliance needs
Teachable is the safe, proven bet for solo creators who want to ship fast.
“150,000+ creators, Hotmart backing, $39 entry point. Not bleeding-edge, but it doesn't need to be.”
Acquired by Hotmart in 2020. That's not a startup risk — that's a platform with a parent company that has structural reasons to keep the lights on. The free plan with a 7.5% transaction fee is a real on-ramp, and the $89 Builder tier drops that fee to zero. That math works quickly once you're selling consistently.
The AI Course Builder generating outlines and sales pages from a prompt is genuinely useful for solo creators, not just a marketing checkbox. Video translation into 70+ languages at the Growth tier ($189/month) is a real differentiator against Thinkific for creators targeting non-English markets. The tradeoff: no API docs in the evidence, which limits custom integrations for more technical teams.
This isn't the tool if you're running enterprise L&D or need deep compliance controls. It's the tool if a coach or subject-matter expert needs to be selling in 30 days.
Competitive against Thinkific on price and mobile app ratings, but Kajabi still leads on marketing automation depth for serious media businesses.
Category-recognized brand alongside Thinkific and Kajabi — no board member is going to raise an eyebrow at this vendor.
Drag-and-drop builder plus AI-generated course outlines means a creator can realistically publish and collect payment within days.
Strong fit for creator-led revenue models; limited fit for orgs that already run an LMS or need enterprise-grade compliance.
Hotmart acquisition in 2020 and 150,000+ active creators signals durable operating scale, not a venture-dependent runway bet.
A coach or subject-matter expert who needs a storefront, payment processing, and student management without hiring a developer.
Your team needs deep API access or enterprise SSO out of the box without negotiating a custom contract.
Teachable is the right foundation for creator-educators, not enterprise learning teams.
“150,000+ creators have validated Teachable as the dominant solo and SMB course platform. The AI Course Builder and 70-language subtitle translation push it meaningfully beyond Thinkific in accessibility and content scaffolding.”
The learning architecture here is built for self-paced and cohort formats, drip scheduling, completion certificates, and auto-graded quizzes — that's a solid pedagogical spine for a creator-educator. The AI Hub generating course outlines and quiz questions from a text prompt is genuinely useful for subject matter experts who know their content but struggle with instructional sequencing. Enforcement tools like lesson completion gating show someone understood adult learning compliance, not just content hosting.
The ceiling becomes visible at the $189 Growth plan. You get 50 products and white-label branding, but there's no native discussion forum, no cohort collaboration workspace, no competency mapping. If your learning design requires social learning or skills-based progression tracking, Teachable won't carry that weight — Kajabi and purpose-built LMS tools like Thinkific's Teams tier fill that gap.
For a Head of Learning standing up a creator school or coaching operation, the $89 Builder plan eliminating transaction fees is the structural unlock. If we adopt this and grow past 50 products or need SSO, we're looking at custom enterprise pricing with no published anchor — that's a negotiation, not a roadmap.
Stronger AI content tooling and 70-language translation give Teachable a real edge over Thinkific for global creator audiences in 2024.
Self-paced and cohort formats plus coaching bundles map directly to how creator-educators and subject matter experts actually structure their offerings.
Zapier, Mailchimp, Zoom, and Google Analytics cover the core creator stack, though no native CRM or dedicated community tool is present.
If you scale past 50 products or need SSO, you hit unpublished custom pricing — the growth path is opaque beyond the $189 Growth tier.
Drip scheduling, completion enforcement, and AI-generated quizzes show real instructional design awareness, but no competency frameworks or learning path branching limits the ceiling.
Creator-educators and coaches building structured self-paced or cohort courses for a global audience on a predictable budget.
Your learning design requires social learning spaces, competency mapping, or enterprise SSO from day one.
$39/month entry with a 7.5% transaction tax — math changes fast at volume
“Teachable's pricing is fully visible without a sales call. The Starter plan's transaction fee is the number that determines whether this is cheap or expensive.”
Free plan exists, but the 7.5% transaction fee on Starter is the real pricing story. A creator doing $3K/month in sales pays $225/month in fees plus the $39 base — $264 effective, not $39. Builder at $89 kills the fee entirely. At any real revenue volume, Builder pays for itself in month one.
Year-3 TCO for a solo creator on Builder: $89 × 12 × 3 = $3,204. Add Zapier or Mailchimp integrations — category norm is $50-100/month combined — and year 3 lands around $5,000-5,400. Compare Thinkific's Basic at $36/month with 0% fees. Teachable's AI Course Builder and 70-language subtitle translation are differentiated features Thinkific doesn't match at the same tier.
Growth at $189 unlocks white-label branding and affiliate program. That's a real jump from $89. No published auto-renewal window found in the evidence — procurement should confirm cancellation terms before signing annual. Enterprise SSO sits on a custom-priced tier, as expected.
Native payment processing with automated U.S. tax and EU VAT handling reduces external billing friction significantly.
No published cancellation window or auto-renewal terms in the evidence — a procurement gap that needs direct confirmation.
Three tiers with prices, transaction fees, and product limits all published on the pricing page — no sales call required.
Revenue is trackable through Advanced Reporting; abandoned cart recovery and affiliate tracking on Builder plans give measurable uplift signals.
Starter's 7.5% transaction fee obscures true cost; Builder's $89/month is the honest entry point for any creator with real revenue.
Solo creators and coaches on Builder or Growth who want one invoice covering hosting, payments, and tax compliance.
Your team needs SSO at a predictable price point before hitting enterprise contract conversations.
Teachable gets you selling fast, but the $39 Starter tier will cost you at scale
“Solid all-in-one platform for solo trainers who want to launch without hiring a developer. The 7.5% transaction fee on Starter bites hard once revenue grows.”
Drag-and-drop curriculum builder, AI-generated outlines, and built-in payment processing mean a trainer can go from blank canvas to published course in a day. The AI Course Builder generating quiz questions and sales pages from a text prompt is genuinely useful for subject matter experts who aren't copywriters. 150,000+ creators suggests the onboarding funnel works.
Day three is where the Starter plan's 7.5% transaction fee starts stinging. Sell a $500 coaching package and you're handing Teachable $37.50 per sale. That math pushes serious trainers toward the $89 Builder tier fast. Drip scheduling, completion certificates, and auto-graded quizzes are available across paid plans, so the pedagogy toolbox is solid — but white-label branding and subtitle translation (70+ languages) are locked behind the $189 Growth plan.
Compared to Thinkific, Teachable's coaching and membership bundling is more fluid. The 4.6-rated mobile app with offline access is a real student-retention win. No public API and no changelog visible on the site makes workflow automation feel guesswork-dependent.
Core publishing workflow is smooth, but the Starter transaction fee creates daily revenue math anxiety that pushes creators toward higher tiers.
Buyer FAQ answers are functional but thin — they confirm features exist without explaining workflow-level tradeoffs like when drip scheduling conflicts with cohort pacing.
No public API and no changelog means troubleshooting integrations is harder than it should be for a platform at this price point.
Affiliate tracking, subscription tiers, custom admin permissions on Growth, and AI subtitle translation show genuine depth, though enterprise SSO is custom-priced and opaque.
Zapier, Zoom, Mailchimp, and Google Drive integrations cover most trainer stacks; the 'Buy Anywhere' embeddable button fits creators who already have an audience elsewhere.
Independent coaches and subject matter experts who want a single tool to publish, sell, and manage students without touching code.
You're running high-volume course sales on tight margins where a 7.5% transaction fee or a $189/month plan changes the unit economics.
Teachable does the unsexy stuff well — tax, payments, mobile — so you don't have to.
“150,000 creators use it for a reason. Solid execution across the things that quietly wreck creator businesses if left to chance.”
The free plan with a 7.5% transaction fee is a real on-ramp, not a trap. You can publish, sell, and learn the product before committing $39/month to Starter or $89 to Builder. That's the right call for anyone who's stared at a blank Thinkific signup wondering if any of this will actually work. The AI Course Builder generating outlines and sales pages from a text prompt is a genuinely useful starting point, not a gimmick — content scaffolding is where most creators stall.
The mobile story is better than most competitors manage. A 4.6-star app with 8,800+ reviews, offline video, quizzes, progress tracking — that's a real student experience, not read-only HTML. Automated tax and VAT handling across the US, EU, and UK is the kind of thing that sounds boring until you get a compliance letter.
The tradeoff: white-label branding doesn't unlock until the $189 Growth plan. If your brand matters before you're doing serious volume, that's a real friction point. And no changelog or public API docs makes the platform feel slightly closed for power users who want to build deeper.
Drag-and-drop builder and block-based page editor suggest a team that's thought about daily use, though no changelog makes it hard to know how fast rough edges get sanded.
Self-paced and cohort formats, drip scheduling, and affiliate tools are discoverable enough for solo creators, but advanced features like custom admin permissions only appear at the $189 Growth tier.
Native iOS and Android apps rated 4.6/5 across 8,800+ reviews with offline video and quiz support — that's a genuine product, not a companion app.
AI Course Builder generating full outlines from a prompt means a new creator can see something real in under ten minutes without staring at a blank curriculum.
Enterprise-grade hosting, SSL, and fraud monitoring on every plan signals infrastructure investment; Hotmart group ownership since 2020 adds institutional stability.
Solo creators and coaches who want a clean, complete platform that handles payments and compliance without spreadsheets.
You need white-label branding on a budget or want open API access to build custom integrations.
150,000 creators can't all be wrong — but the $39 plan bites back
“Teachable is a mature, feature-complete creator platform. The 7.5% transaction fee on Starter is the number that ends most evaluations early.”
Three tells upfront. One: 'The future of your education business happens here' — the kind of H1 that promises more than any platform delivers. Two: no changelog visible, so shipping cadence is opaque. Three: Hotmart acquired them in 2020 — parent company matters for roadmap priorities.
What's actually solid: 150,000+ creators is a real number with gravity. The AI Course Builder generating outlines and sales pages from a prompt is genuinely useful, not just a badge. Mobile app at 4.6 stars across 8,800+ reviews holds up. Tax and VAT automation baked into every plan is a real differentiator vs. Thinkific at this price tier.
The exit story worries me. No API listed. Content is hosted on Teachable's infrastructure. Migrating video, student data, and progress history off the platform is painful — category norm here is vendor-sticky by design. If direction shifts post-Hotmart, portability is your problem.
AI Course Builder and 70-language subtitle translation are real edges, but Kajabi and Thinkific have closed most of the feature gap.
No public API listed; video and student data hosted on Teachable infrastructure makes clean migration unlikely.
Hotmart backing provides runway, the mobile app shows ongoing investment, but no changelog makes shipping cadence unverifiable.
The H1 is pure aspiration; the pricing page is more honest, but the free plan buries the 7.5% transaction fee.
150,000+ creators and a 2020 acquisition by Hotmart signal durability — matches patterns of surviving platforms, not failing ones.
Solo creators and coaches who want a feature-complete platform without writing code and can justify $89/month to escape the transaction fee.
You need data portability, a public API, or you're evaluating this as a long-term enterprise LMS with compliance requirements.
Common questions answered by our AI research team
Yes, Teachable offers a free trial that lets you discover your favorite features and your ideal plan before paying anything.
Video subtitles can be auto-generated and translated into over 70 languages, expanding your content's reach to a global audience.
Yes, Teachable automatically collects and remits U.S. sales tax and EU/UK VAT taxes for your transactions.
Teachable integrates with Stripe, PayPal, Zapier, Google Analytics, Mailchimp, Google Tag Manager, Zoom, AWeber, Pinterest, Unsplash, HotJar, Google Drive, TikTok, Segment, Meta, and Dropbox, among others.
Yes, Teachable has highly-rated iOS and Android mobile apps, and the student experience is described as intuitive and mobile-friendly.
Company
Teachable, Inc.Founded
2013Pricing
From $39/moFree Plan
Available
Teachable is a New York-based platform that allows creators and businesses to build and sell online courses, coaching programs, memberships, and digital downloads.
