Selling a course is a commerce problem wearing an education costume.
This guide ranks the platforms creators and small businesses use to sell courses, memberships and communities on what decides the annual bill: whether the platform takes a percentage of every sale, who is the merchant of record for VAT, and how the video leaves.
Vendors can pay for visibility on this page. It never changes what an entry
says about a product, including the criticism, and we earn nothing when you click through to a
vendor. How that works.
In short
What online course platform software does
An online course platform hosts the video, sells the access, handles the checkout and tracks who watched what, so a course can be a product rather than a file.
Five things, in this order. Feature counts are not among them: they are the least useful
comparison in software, because every vendor ticks every box.
01
Setup effort in online course platform software
What the first ninety days of a online course platform software rollout cost in hours, not in licence fees. A product that needs a partner engagement before it does anything is a different purchase from one a team configures in an afternoon.
02
What online course platform software really costs
What the bill becomes once the modules a normal buyer of online course platform software needs are added, and whether you can read that number without a sales conversation.
03
Getting your data out of online course platform software
How your own data comes back out, in what format, and whether that export is included in the online course platform software contract or billed as a project.
04
Independence from the vendor
Whether you can buy online course platform software, run it and leave it on your own terms. This test decides most of the order on this page, and it is why the largest vendors in online course platform software often sit below the smaller ones.
05
Who the product is built for
The size and shape of company each online course platform software product was actually built for. Most regret in software comes from buying for a company you are not yet.
The fourth test decides most of the order on this page, and it is the reason the largest
online course platform software vendors sit below the smaller ones. A product with a published price, an export
that works and no mandatory implementation partner is a product you can leave.
A platform suite that arrives with a quote, a partner and a two-year commitment may well be
the better software and is still the harder decision to reverse. We rank online course platform software for the
buyer who has to live with that decision without a procurement department, which is a stated
bias rather than a hidden one.
We do not publish a score out of ten. A number like 8.4 is a judgement dressed as a
measurement, and nobody can check it.
What you can check is on this page: what each online course platform tool costs, where the vendor is
established, whether the price is published, and what we think it is bad at. Our full method
is on the how we work page.
Per month, published; a percentage of sales on lower plans
—
A membership community that wants its own branded phone app
Structured course delivery with assessment, drip control and reporting
Country is where the vendor is headquartered or contracts from, which is a
different question from where your data is hosted. Where the two tell different stories, the
entry says so.
Courses, downloads and memberships on one published monthly price
Ranked #1 of 12 in Best Online Course Platform in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
Podia is the default answer for one person selling a handful of courses and downloads, because everything needed to take money is already switched on and the paid plans keep all of it. Setup is an afternoon.
The ceiling arrives when the catalogue grows: drip sequences, cohort logic, quizzes and reporting are all thinner than they look in the demo, and the built-in email tool is the first thing most sellers replace.
What stands out
No sales cut
Published price
Fast setup
Where it costs you
Email marketing and the site builder are basic
No serious assessment, certification or reporting
Right for
A solo creator who wants one bill and no sales cut
Wrong for
Structured training that needs assessment, certificates and completion reporting
United StatesFree plan takes a cut of sales; paid monthly plans published, no cut
German platform that can sell the course as merchant of record
Ranked #2 of 12 in Best Online Course Platform in 2026.
Published pricingEurope
elopage earns its place on tax, not on teaching. In reseller mode it sells the course in its own name, so cross-border VAT inside the EU is handled at its end rather than yours, which removes a real annual chore for a small seller.
The product around that is competent and unexciting: course design is templated, the automation is limited, and the fee per sale means the arithmetic has to be redone once monthly revenue grows.
What stands out
Merchant of record
EU VAT handled
German hosting
Where it costs you
Per-sale fee on top of the monthly plan
Interface and support are German before English
Right for
An EU seller who wants VAT filing off their own books
Wrong for
An English-first brand that wants polished course design work
GermanyMonthly plan published, plus a percentage of each sale; reseller mode available
WordPress plugin that keeps the course on your own hosting
Ranked #3 of 12 in Best Online Course Platform in 2026.
Self-hostablePublished pricingNorth America
LearnDash is the independence option: the course, the students and the video references live in your database, nobody meters enrolments, and the annual licence does not scale with sales. That is also the work.
WordPress hosting, plugin conflicts and backups become part of running a course business, and the checkout is a separate decision with its own licence. Right for anyone with a developer nearby, wrong for anyone without one.
What stands out
Self-hosted
No sales cut
Annual licence
Where it costs you
You own the hosting, updates and security
Selling needs WooCommerce or a paid payment add-on
Right for
An organisation that wants the course data on its own server
Wrong for
A creator who does not want to run WordPress
United StatesAnnual licence per site, published; cloud-hosted option billed monthly
Established course host that handles tax on digital sales
Ranked #4 of 12 in Best Online Course Platform in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
Teachable is a settled product doing an unglamorous job well: checkout, coupons, affiliates, payouts and tax on digital goods all work without a project.
The pricing structure is the thing to read carefully, because the percentage taken on lower plans turns into the largest line on the invoice at any real volume, and the fix is an upgrade rather than a negotiation. Course design stays templated no matter what you pay.
What stands out
Tax handling
Affiliate tools
Sales cut on entry plans
Where it costs you
Entry plans take a percentage of every sale
Community and design control are limited
Right for
A seller who wants tax and affiliates handled without building them
Wrong for
A high-volume seller sitting on a percentage plan
United StatesLower plans take a percentage of each sale; higher published plans do not
Community first, with courses attached to the membership
Ranked #5 of 12 in Best Online Course Platform in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
Circle is bought for the forum, the live rooms and the events, and the course module exists so members have something to work through between conversations. For that shape it is the strongest option here.
Judged as a course platform it is weak: no real assessment, thin progress reporting, limited drip control. The risk is not technical but commercial, because a quiet community renews far worse than a finished course does.
What stands out
Community first
Branded apps
Cut on lower tiers
Where it costs you
Course features stay shallow next to a real LMS
Transaction fee on lower plans at membership volume
Right for
A paid community where the course is the joining excuse
Wrong for
A catalogue of structured courses with assessment and certificates
United StatesPer month per plan, published; a percentage of paid memberships on lower tiers
Funnels, email and courses in one expensive published plan
Ranked #6 of 12 in Best Online Course Platform in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
Kajabi is priced as a business system rather than a course host, and for someone already turning over real money the flat fee with no cut of sales beats a percentage plan easily.
Before that revenue exists it is an expensive way to find out a course does not sell. The deeper cost is concentration: pages, emails, funnels, checkout and community all live there, so migrating later is a rebuild rather than an export.
What stands out
All in one
No sales cut
Priciest tiers
Where it costs you
The most expensive entry plan in the category
Everything is replaced at once when you leave
Right for
An established seller consolidating funnels, email and courses in one place
Wrong for
A first course with no audience and no revenue yet
United StatesPer month, published tiers by products and contacts; no cut of sales
Cheap British checkout for courses, files and memberships
Ranked #7 of 12 in Best Online Course Platform in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
Payhip is a checkout with a course viewer bolted on, and priced accordingly: free while you are testing, flat and cheap once sales start.
The EU VAT handling is the part that punches above the price, since it removes the rate table from a small seller's life. Everything else is deliberately small. Expect to outgrow it within a year or two, and treat that as the plan rather than a surprise.
What stands out
EU VAT handled
Free to start
UK based
Where it costs you
The course player and reporting are minimal
No community and no automation to speak of
Right for
A first paid course that needs a checkout this week
Wrong for
A growing catalogue that needs drip and community
United KingdomFree with a percentage of each sale; flat monthly plans remove the cut
French funnel builder with courses and email included free
Ranked #8 of 12 in Best Online Course Platform in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
Systeme.io bundles funnels, email, affiliates and courses at a price that undercuts everything else here, and the free tier is complete enough to run a real launch.
Nothing about it is polished: the builder is clumsy, the templates look old, and the course experience is the weakest part of the bundle. It is the cheapest way to answer the only question that matters at the start, which is whether anybody pays.
What stands out
Generous free tier
No sales cut
French vendor
Where it costs you
Interface and course player feel dated
Support is documentation and email only
Right for
Testing whether a course sells before paying for a platform
Wrong for
A brand where the buying experience must look current
FranceFree tier with limits; paid monthly plans published, no cut of sales
One flat monthly fee for a community with a classroom
Ranked #9 of 12 in Best Online Course Platform in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
Skool sells one flat price and one opinion about how a paid community should work, and that opinion is why groups stay active: a single feed, a leaderboard, and a classroom that never asks to be configured.
The limits are equally blunt. No funnels, no email sequences, no serious analytics, no invoicing help, and no way to make it look like your brand. Buy it for the group, not for the courses.
What stands out
Flat fee
Community first
Deliberately minimal
Where it costs you
Almost no design control or marketing tooling
Cross-border tax and invoicing are entirely yours
Right for
A paid group whose value is the other members in it
Wrong for
A course business that needs funnels and segmentation
United StatesFlat monthly fee per community, published; payment processing separate
Video membership with branded television and mobile apps
Ranked #10 of 12 in Best Online Course Platform in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
Uscreen is an over-the-top video business in a box, and the branded television and phone apps are what the money buys. For a fitness channel or a hobby library that is exactly right.
For a course it is a mismatch: learners are viewers, progress is watch time, and assessment barely exists. The per-subscriber charge also means the bill rises with success, which needs to be in the model before launch.
What stands out
Branded apps
Video first
Per-subscriber fees
Where it costs you
Weak assessment and completion tracking
Charges grow with every paying subscriber
Right for
A video library sold as a monthly subscription with apps
Wrong for
Structured courses where finishing matters more than watching
United StatesPer month, published plan plus charges per paying subscriber
Course platform with mobile apps, built for Indian payments
Ranked #11 of 12 in Best Online Course Platform in 2026.
Published pricingAsia-Pacific
Graphy is well built for its home market, with mobile apps, live cohorts, local payment methods and prices that European vendors cannot match.
Bought from Europe, those advantages invert: the tax handling assumes Indian rules, support hours sit in another timezone, and cross-border VAT is left entirely to you. Ownership by Unacademy adds the usual question about which features survive the parent company's next strategy.
What stands out
Mobile apps
India first
Owned by Unacademy
Where it costs you
Tax and payment defaults assume the Indian market
Roadmap is set by its parent company
Right for
A creator selling mainly to learners inside India on mobile
Wrong for
An EU seller who needs local VAT handling
IndiaPer month, published tiers; annual billing discounted
Community and courses with branded apps for member groups
Ranked #12 of 12 in Best Online Course Platform in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
Mighty Networks does communities with branded apps and member matchmaking, and courses as a supporting act. The apps are the differentiator worth paying for, since a member who installs an app churns less than one who bookmarks a page.
The course side is not competitive with LearnDash or Teachable, the fee on lower plans matters once memberships sell, and the frequent repackaging makes long-range budgeting awkward.
What stands out
Branded apps
Cut on lower plans
Community first
Where it costs you
Percentage of sales on the lower plans
Plan names and features change often
Right for
A membership community that wants its own branded phone app
Wrong for
Structured course delivery with assessment, drip control and reporting
United StatesPer month, published; a percentage of sales on lower plans
An online course platform hosts the video, sells the access, handles the checkout and tracks who watched what, so a course can be a product rather than a file. The differences that matter are rarely in the feature list, so this is
the order we would work through them.
01
Decide whether you need a published price
12 of the 12 tools here publish what they cost; the other 0 quote per organisation, which means a sales conversation before you can compare anything. If you are buying without a procurement function, start with the ones that publish: Podia, elopage, LearnDash, Teachable, Circle, Kajabi, Payhip, Systeme.io, Skool, Uscreen, Graphy, Mighty Networks.
02
Work out what the first ninety days cost in time
Licence cost is the number in the contract; setup effort is the number that surprises people. Ask every shortlisted vendor who does the configuration, how long it took the last customer of your size, and what happens if that person leaves halfway.
03
Check the exit before the entry
Ask for an export of your own data in a format you can open, and ask whether it is included or billed as a project. A vendor that hesitates here is telling you what renewal negotiations will feel like in three years.
04
Match the tool to the size you are, not the size you plan to be
Most regret in this category comes from buying for a headcount that never arrived. The entry-level products here are not worse; they are aimed at a different company.
05
Decide how much the jurisdiction matters
These 12 vendors are established in 5 countries across 3 regions (North America 8, Europe 3, Asia-Pacific 1). Where a vendor is established decides which government can compel access to what it holds, which is a different question from where the servers are. For most buyers that is a factor, not a veto.
Where an online course platform stops and an LMS begins
These two categories sell video and call it training, and the difference is who pays. A course platform exists to take money from strangers: checkout, coupons, affiliates, funnels, tax. Podia, Kajabi, Teachable and Payhip are all built around that transaction. A staff-training LMS exists to prove that employees completed something: org structure, assigned paths, compliance reporting, audit trail.
Nothing on this page does the second job properly, and the products that do are in our learning management guide instead. The rule is simple. If the learner has an invoice, you are shopping here. If the learner has an employee number, you are shopping there. Buying the wrong one leaves you either without a checkout or without a compliance report, and both are expensive discoveries.
Ask whether the learner pays you or is paid by you.
If completion has to be provable to an auditor, this is the wrong category.
Selling to companies as well as consumers usually means two systems, not one.
The revenue cut, not the plan fee, decides the bill
Read the transaction fee before the monthly price. Teachable, Payhip, Circle and Mighty Networks all take a percentage of sales on their lower plans; Podia, Kajabi, LearnDash and Systeme.io take nothing at any tier. At low volume the percentage plan wins and the flat plan looks absurd.
Somewhere around a few thousand a month in sales the lines cross, and after that the cheap plan is quietly the most expensive product on the page. Do the arithmetic at your realistic annual revenue rather than at this month's, because the fee scales with success and the plan fee does not. Payment processing sits on top of both, and the platform cut is charged in addition to what the processor takes, not instead of it.
Multiply the percentage by your target annual revenue before comparing plans.
Check whether the fee applies to refunds and chargebacks too.
Confirm whether processing charges are on top of the platform's cut.
Who is the merchant of record, and who files the VAT
Sell a course to a consumer in another EU country and VAT is due at their rate, not yours, which is what the OSS scheme exists to collect. The question that decides how much work this is: does the platform sell in its own name, or does it sell in yours? elopage in reseller mode, and Payhip's handling of EU VAT, put that filing on the vendor's side.
Kajabi, Podia and LearnDash connect your own Stripe account, which means the sale is yours, the rates are yours and the OSS return is yours to file every quarter. Neither model is wrong, but only one of them is a decision you can make after launch without unpicking a year of invoices.
Ask in writing whether the platform is the seller of record or a payment agent.
If it is not, register for OSS before the first cross-border consumer sale.
Check that invoices carry the buyer's country VAT rate, not your own.
Getting out: the video, the list and the students
Three things have to leave separately and only one of them usually exports cleanly. Student records and email addresses come out as CSV nearly everywhere. Video is worse: Kajabi and Uscreen host it themselves, so leaving means re-uploading a library and losing every embed.
Community history is worst of all, because the archive of a Circle, Skool or Mighty Networks group is the thing members paid for and is rarely exportable in a form anyone can read. LearnDash avoids all three problems by keeping everything on hosting you already control, which is most of why it ranks where it does. Keep your masters somewhere the platform cannot reach, and the migration becomes an inconvenience instead of a loss.
Keep original video files outside the platform from the first upload.
Export the student and email list during the trial, not at the end.
Ask what happens to community posts and comments when the account closes.
What goes wrong most often when buying online course platform software
Comparing monthly plan prices while ignoring the percentage of sales. At any real volume the cut is the larger number.
Selling to EU consumers on a Stripe-connected platform without registering for OSS, then discovering the VAT was due at the buyer's rate all along.
Uploading the only copy of the video to Kajabi or Uscreen and deleting the masters.
Buying a community product such as Circle or Skool to deliver structured training, then finding there is no assessment, no drip control and no completion report.
07
Frequently asked questions
10 answers
What is the best online course platform in 2026?
Podia leads our ranking of 12. Podia puts courses, digital downloads, a community and an email list behind one published monthly price, and the paid plans take no percentage of sales, which is the number that matters once revenue is real.
The trade is depth: the course player is plain, the email tool is basic, quizzes and certificates are limited, and the site builder will not survive a designer's opinion.
How did you rank these online course platform tools?
On what separates products after the demo: how much setup the first ninety days take, what the price becomes once the modules a normal buyer needs are added, how your data comes back out, whether you can buy and leave it without a partner engagement, and who the product is genuinely for.
That fourth test is why the large platform suites usually sit lower here than their market share would suggest. Not on feature counts, and not on a score we invented.
Which online course platform tools publish their pricing?
12 of the 12, with the pricing model each one publishes:
Podia: Free plan takes a cut of sales; paid monthly plans published, no cut.
elopage: Monthly plan published, plus a percentage of each sale; reseller mode available.
LearnDash: Annual licence per site, published; cloud-hosted option billed monthly.
Teachable: Lower plans take a percentage of each sale; higher published plans do not.
Circle: Per month per plan, published; a percentage of paid memberships on lower tiers.
Kajabi: Per month, published tiers by products and contacts; no cut of sales.
Payhip: Free with a percentage of each sale; flat monthly plans remove the cut.
Systeme.io: Free tier with limits; paid monthly plans published, no cut of sales.
Skool: Flat monthly fee per community, published; payment processing separate.
Uscreen: Per month, published plan plus charges per paying subscriber.
Graphy: Per month, published tiers; annual billing discounted.
Mighty Networks: Per month, published; a percentage of sales on lower plans.
The other 0 quote per organisation.
Is there a free online course platform tool?
Podia, Payhip, Systeme.io offer a free tier or a free self-hosted edition. Read what the free tier excludes before you plan around it.
Which online course platform tools can you host yourself?
LearnDash. The other 11 are sold as a hosted service only, which means the question of where your data sits is answered by the vendor, not by you.
Where are these online course platform vendors established?
In 5 countries across 3 regions: North America 8, Europe 3, Asia-Pacific 1.
Podia is established in the United States.
elopage is established in Germany.
LearnDash is established in the United States.
Teachable is established in the United States.
Circle is established in the United States.
Kajabi is established in the United States.
Payhip is established in the United Kingdom.
Systeme.io is established in France.
Skool is established in the United States.
Uscreen is established in the United States.
Graphy is established in India.
Mighty Networks is established in the United States.
Establishment decides whose courts and whose disclosure laws apply, which is a separate question from where the data is hosted.
What should you use instead of Podia?
elopage and LearnDash are the next two on this page.
elopage is for an EU seller who wants VAT filing off their own books; LearnDash is for an organisation that wants the course data on its own server. All 12 are ranked here with what each one is bad at.
Who should not buy Podia?
Structured training that needs assessment, certificates and completion reporting. Email marketing and the site builder are basic.
Do you get paid for these rankings?
Vendors can pay for visibility, which affects where and how prominently a product appears. It does not change a word of what the entry says about that product, including the criticism, and it cannot buy inclusion for something that does not belong in the category.
We take no commission when you click through to a vendor and we do not know whether you bought anything. The full arrangement is on our disclosure page.
How often is this online course platform guide updated?
Whenever the facts move: a price change, an acquisition, a product that stops being maintained. The published and updated dates at the top of the page are real, and a review means someone went back to the vendor documentation rather than bumping a date.
These 12 products are the ones we judged worth ranking in online course platform. If yours belongs here and is missing, tell us what it does and who it is for, and we will look at it. Inclusion is an editorial call and it is not for sale — but nobody gets considered for a list they were never put in front of.
People land on this page with a shortlist to make, not a browsing habit to feed. That is a narrower audience than a banner reaches and a far more decided one.
Written by us, about you
We describe the product in our own words, say who it suits and say who it does not. A vendor never writes the entry and never sees it before it goes up.
A correction costs nothing
If a fact about your product is wrong here, tell us and we fix it, whether or not there is any money between us. That offer is older than any commercial arrangement on this site.
Placement is separate, and disclosed
Where a product sits in the ranking can be paid for, and the notice above the list says so on every page. What the entry says about the product is not for sale at any price.
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