Is Podia the Right Platform for Your Course?

If you ask any entrepreneur what their favorite course platform is, you’re bound to get a wide range of answers. Maybe you’ve heard of a few of them, like Kajabi, Teachable, Thinkific, etc. Others, though, might be new to you. One of the “newer” platforms that is becoming more and more popular for course creators is Podia.

This platform is really popular with beginners — and for good reason. There are no real technical skills required and their dashboards are easy enough to navigate. But is Podia the right platform for your upcoming course? What about other offers you want to create?

Let’s dig into what Podia has to offer so you can see if it’s right for you.

What is Podia?

In their own words, Podia is “an online learning platform that hosts and sells online courses, subscriptions, and digital download content.” Basically, it’s a platform that lets you host your best content — and that’s something we can really get behind! 

Podia is a really great content manager, but that doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone’s content (paid or free). In general, Podia is really good for:

• Course creators
• Digital product creators
• Service providers shifting to coaching or courses
• Brands looking to create memberships or community

But does that mean it’s the best platform for all of these folks? Let’s dive in to the pros and cons to find out. 

Pros of Podia for new or existing courses

We’ll give Podia this: It’s super simple to get started. Their backend essentially feels like a landing page builder. You select what kind of product you want to create and then you get to work building it. You can add those products to your website under your own domain, so you can essentially “add on” to your site instead of moving everything over to an all-in-one platform like Kajabi.

What else does Podia have going for it? 

• Creating products is as easy as drag and drop. When we say you don’t need tech experience to use Podia, we mean it. It’s super intuitive and easy to build your course or products.
• You can offer live messaging. It’s super easy to turn on live messaging on your Podia page, so you can offer really great customer service without an additional plugin or cost. 
• You can create affiliate programs. Get people selling for you with Podia. You can set up affiliate management inside Podia and manager your affiliate partners easily.
• It offers email marketing. Instead of paying for a whole other email tool, you can send broadcasts and automations through Podia.
• You can charge for live events on Podia. Podia offers Zoom and YouTube Live integrations so you can charge for your masterclasses or just organize a free event.
• It’s easy to track student progress. On the backend of your courses, you can see what a student has accessed or what their results are on module quizzes, etc.
• Lead generation is simple. Create opt-in and capture forms that help you share resources that get people onto your list and into your funnel.

The other thing you should know about Podia? It’s one of the more affordable course platforms (at least at the time of this writing). We won’t quote prices here because they change all the time, but check out Podia’s pricing and packages here.

Cons of Podia

We won’t lie to you. Podia isn’t our favorite course or community platform. Kajabi takes that cake — and likely will forever. But even if you don’t choose Kajabi*, you should know the downsides of Podia.

First up, many of their best features are only available in their most expensive plan. While their plans are still quite affordable, it does mean that even the basic options are on the more expensive end.

And while they do have a built-in email marketing tool, their email drafting tool lacks personalization fields. This is OK if you’re planning to create automations without personalizations, but if you’re creating a course and you want to elevate your students’ experience, customization may be a non-negotiable. 

If you do decide to integrate your Podia products onto your website, you don’t have power over your course page or hosting pages’ layout or design. You’re working with their fairly basic themes.

As far as the courses themselves, there is no video library feature. You can still create videos for each module of your course, but there’s no ONE place to access all videos. On top of that, the course builder cannot hold multiple content mediums in a single session (meaning you can’t include a video clip and a PDF in the same lesson, or a questionnaire and a video). If you want your course to be accessible to people who need different mediums for their learning content, this may be a dealbreaker.

Another downside to Podia is that it’s not a full-fledged marketing tool. It doesn’t really have a robust sales funnel builder or full-fledged email campaign tool, which makes it hard to scale with.

Last but not least: There’s no app currently. While it can be hard to navigate a course-building tool from an app as the creator, your students may want to access your content from an app. If you want to make your course content more accessible to students with a variety of lifestyles and preferences, you’ll want to consider that! 

Our final thoughts on Podia

If you’re totally new to courses, webinars, or simple digital products (eBooks, templates, etc.), Podia may be a really great option for you to start out with. If you’re tech-shy, Podia also has a lot to offer. It’s quick and easy to set up and manage — and really hard to “break.”

But when we say it’s a beginner platform, we mean it! If you hope to scale your offers and really market your courses or products, we’d recommend going with a different platform that can grow with you. As you’ve probably heard 3x by now, we’re big fans of Kajabi (grab your free trial here*). It’s got a bit more of a learning curve but it can house your website, your courses, a podcast, a video library, your membership or subscription, digital products, and more. 

The best way to decide? Try Podia for yourself with a free 14-day trial, so you can actually put the tool to use and get some first-hand experience. If you’re not positive this is the right platform for you, check out our other breakdowns on Teachable and Thinkific (the other two big contenders in the course platform space!).

If Podia isn’t the right tool for you…

If you decide that you want to sell your course or another offer on ClickFunnels, Kajabi, or Showit, check out our sales page kits. We’re especially partial to the Lylah collection ;)

This sales page kit is beautifully designed with soft, neutral tones and is conversion-optimized. It’s the perfect template to help capture your audience’s attention and encourage potential customers to take action. 

But you’re not just getting a well-designed template. You’re getting a done-for-you (yet extremely customizable) sales page that will turn visitors into course students or product purchasers in just a few clicks. With these templates, you get a Sales Page, Checkout Page, and Thank You Page. 

All of our templates offer customizable fonts, colors, copy, and images & graphics — no code or design degree required. They are also mobile-friendly and easy to customize for any device.

Want to sell your new course on a platform that works for you? Check out the Lylah Collection Sales Page Kit here.