Is Podia or Teachable cheaper?

Podia starts at $42 per month billed annually (Mover), or $49 billed monthly (30 days trial). Teachable starts at $39 per month (Starter), or $29 per month billed annually (7 days trial).

Podia vs Teachable

An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.

The short answer

Both sides assessed

Podia compared with Teachable

Teachable at $89 Builder includes branded iOS and Android apps and takes 0 percent, but caps you at ten products, one admin, and 1,000 active students, and its community is the weakest here. Podia at $84 allows unlimited products, has a much better community, and adds a website and blog, but has no branded app. Choose on the app: if you need one, Teachable; if you need a real community and a website, Podia.

Teachable compared with Podia

Podia at $42 includes community, courses, downloads, coaching, a website, and email marketing in one plan, with no student caps of Teachable's kind, but its entry plan takes 5 percent and its email limits are tiny. Teachable has branded mobile apps and a 0 percent fee above Starter, which Podia does not. Podia for the simplest single subscription; Teachable when the app and the fee structure matter.

Choose Podia if

Solo creators, coaches, and very small businesses who want a community, a course, a website, and a checkout on one bill under one brand for well under $100 a month, and who value simplicity and a complete feature set on every plan over depth in any single area.

Choose Teachable if

Individual creators and very small businesses launching a first or second paid course who want a branded school on their own domain with branded mobile apps included, at the lowest credible monthly price, and who need a discussion area for students rather than a community as the product itself.

Side by side

13 attributes

Attribute	Podia	Teachable
Category	Community	Community
Starting price	$42 per month billed annually (Mover), or $49 billed monthly (30 days trial)	$39 per month (Starter), or $29 per month billed annually (7 days trial)
Pricing model	Flat monthly subscription across three tiers, all of which include every feature, differing on transaction fee, team seats, and email subscriber allowance.	Flat monthly subscription across three published tiers plus a custom tier, with caps on products, admins, active students, and imported students, and a transaction fee that applies only on the entry plan.
Free plan	No	No
Free trial	30 days, full feature access, no credit card required	7 days, plus a 30 day guarantee
Best for	Solo creators, coaches, and very small businesses who want a community, a course, a website, and a checkout on one bill under one brand for well under $100 a month, and who value simplicity and a complete feature set on every plan over depth in any single area.	Individual creators and very small businesses launching a first or second paid course who want a branded school on their own domain with branded mobile apps included, at the lowest credible monthly price, and who need a discussion area for students rather than a community as the product itself.
Setup time	An afternoon. Podia is deliberately the simplest platform in this category, and a site, a product, a checkout, and a community with several spaces can all be live the same day.	Hours, not days. Teachable is the fastest platform in this category to get from signup to a live sales page, which is exactly why it remains the standard first course recommendation.
Learning curve	Very low. There are only products, spaces, and plans to understand, with no funnel builder, automation graph, or entitlement matrix to model. This is the main reason people choose it.	Low. Products, sections, lectures, and pricing plans are the only concepts, and the community adds two more (spaces and roles). There is no funnel or automation model to learn because there is no funnel builder.
Platforms	Web, mobile responsive, No native or branded mobile apps	Web, Branded iOS and Android apps included on every plan
Compliance	GDPR, PCI DSS via Stripe and PayPal, Sales tax and VAT handling across 230 countries	GDPR, PCI DSS handled through teachable:pay and its processors
Founded	2014	2013
Headquarters	New York, New York, United States	New York, New York, United States
Ownership	Venture-backed but profitable and independent	Owned by Hotmart, a Brazilian creator commerce company

Strengths and limitations

Podia

Strengths

Every feature on every plan. Community, courses, coaching, events, downloads, website, blog, landing pages, and custom domain are not tiered, which removes the usual pricing page archaeology.
Zero platform transaction fee on Shaker and Earthquaker, so at high revenue Podia is cheaper than Circle, Patreon, Memberful, or Podia's own Mover plan by a wide margin.
Unlimited products on every plan, which suits download and template sellers who would immediately breach Teachable's and Kajabi's entry tier caps.
The 2026 community relaunch produced a genuinely complete product: spaces, group chat, direct messaging in both directions, profiles with privacy controls, badges, search, pinned posts, welcome messages, and member controlled notification frequency.

Limitations

Email subscriber allowances of 100, 500, and 1,000 are very small, so email marketing is included in name more than in substance and most creators will keep or pay for something else.
No branded mobile app at any tier and no path to one, which puts Podia behind Teachable at $39 and Kajabi at $179.
The 5 percent fee on Mover makes the headline price misleading for anyone selling more than about $900 a month.
Community permissions and moderation are simpler than Circle's, with less granular roles and no automated spam classification, which will bind on communities beyond a few thousand members.

Teachable

Strengths

Branded iOS and Android apps included on every plan including the $39 entry tier, which no other course or community platform matches at that price.
Zero platform transaction fee on Builder and above with teachable:pay, so the effective cost falls to card processing plus a flat subscription as revenue grows.
Custom domain on every paid plan with a genuinely branded member experience.
The simplest course builder in the category, which is why it remains the usual recommendation for a first course.

Limitations

The community is the weakest of any product in this category that charges for one: no leaderboards, no gamification, no serious events layer, no chat, and limited discovery within the discussion itself.
Starter at $39 has no community at all and takes 7.5 percent of every sale, which makes it misleading as a headline price.
One admin user on both Starter and Builder. The second team member costs $100 a month more.
Imported student caps of 5, 50, and 1,000 make bringing an existing audience onto a cheap plan effectively impossible.

Pricing compared

Podia

Flat monthly subscription across three tiers, all of which include every feature, differing on transaction fee, team seats, and email subscriber allowance.

Mover$42
Shaker$84
Earthquaker$150

Shaker at $84 a month with a 0 percent platform fee is the most complete package under $100 in this category. You get a website with a blog, unlimited courses and downloads, coaching, events, a genuine community with spaces, chat, DMs, profiles, badges, and search, a checkout with tax handling in 230 countries, and a custom domain, on one bill. Circle at $89 gives you a better community and takes 2 percent of your sales; Kajabi at $179 gives you far more marketing machinery. The honest limits are three: the email subscriber allowances are so small that email is effectively a trial feature rather than an included one, there is no branded mobile app at any price, and the community, while complete, is simpler than Circle's on permissions and moderation. For a solo operator who wants one subscription and no fee on sales, this is the best value on the page. For a team of five running a large paid community, it will feel thin.

Teachable

Flat monthly subscription across three published tiers plus a custom tier, with caps on products, admins, active students, and imported students, and a transaction fee that applies only on the entry plan.

Starter$39
Builder$89
Growth$189
CustomCustom

Builder at $89 a month with a 0 percent platform fee, a custom domain, branded iOS and Android apps, and a community is one of the best value packages in this category, and at high revenue Teachable is cheaper than almost everything else here because it takes no cut at all above Starter. The value collapses in two places. Starter at $39 is a trap for anyone with real sales, since 7.5 percent on $5,000 costs more than four Builder subscriptions and it has no community anyway. And the single admin seat on both Starter and Builder means a two person team pays $189, at which point Kajabi's much larger bundle is only slightly more. The community you get for the money is functional rather than good: no gamification, no real events layer, no chat. Judged as a course platform with a student forum, this is excellent value. Judged as a community platform, you are paying for something else and getting the forum as a bonus.

Editorial verdict on each

Podia

Best Value

Podia is the best value all in one in this category for a solo operator, and the 2026 community relaunch finally makes it a real community platform rather than a course tool with a comments section. Shaker at $84 a month billed annually gives you a website, a blog, unlimited courses and downloads, coaching, events, spaces with group chat and direct messages, member profiles and badges, search, a checkout with tax handling in 230 countries, and a custom domain, with zero platform fee on your sales. At $50,000 a month in member revenue that fee structure makes it cheaper than Circle by around $1,000 a month. The three things to check before buying are all real: the email subscriber allowance is so small that email is effectively a demo feature, there is no branded mobile app at any price and never will be, and the community is simpler than Circle's on permissions and moderation in ways a large community will feel. Buy Podia if you are one or two people who want one subscription, one domain, and no cut taken. Buy Circle if the community itself is the business, and Kajabi if email marketing at scale is how you sell.

Read the full Podia profile

Teachable

Teachable is the cheapest credible way to run a branded course business, and its community is a fair bonus rather than a reason to buy. Builder at $89 a month, or $69 annually, gets you a custom domain, branded iOS and Android apps, ten products, coaching, an affiliate program, a discussion forum, and a 0 percent platform fee, which at $50,000 a month in revenue makes it one of the cheapest platforms in this category on total cost. The Starter plan should be treated as a demo rather than a plan, because 7.5 percent on real sales costs more than upgrading and it has no community anyway. The genuine reservations are the single admin seat below $189, the very tight imported student caps that punish anyone bringing an existing audience, the absence of any email marketing, and a community product that has barely moved in three years and is comfortably beaten by Circle, Skool, and Heartbeat. Buy Teachable for the course, the checkout, and the branded app. Do not buy it because you want people to talk.

Read the full Teachable profile

Podia profile last reviewed 2026-08-22; Teachable last reviewed 2026-08-22. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.