Archive for month: November, 2022

Original Source: https://designrfix.com/graphic-design/cool-textures

When you’re thinking about textures, what is it that you’re looking for? Why do you want to add texture? People …

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Original Source: https://designrfix.com/freebies/free-photoshop-patterns

Welcome to day 6 of freebie week on Designrfix. Today we have assembled a stunning collection of high quality free Photoshop patterns …

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Original Source: https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/best-no-code-website-builder

You have an idea. Customers have money. Somehow, you need to connect these two concepts.

For many people, that means taking to web design. Before you can start out with SEO and social media, you need a landing spot—a beautiful website on which potential customers can land. And while you may have a brilliant idea and a wonderful concept of how to attract customers, you’re still running into one little problem.

You’re not a website developer.

Fortunately, we live in a time when a professional website doesn’t have to be designed by a professional website builder. You can handle everything from content management to search engine optimization within a single platform. Best of all—you don’t have to learn a single line of code to do it. The best website builder available these days will give you all-in-one features so you can handle everything you need. Below, we’ll take you through no code website builders, explain how they work, and look more closely at some examples you can try yourself.

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What is “No Code”?

“No code” is a phrase that applies to a wide range of services and products, but always comes back to one principle: you don’t have to write any of the code yourself. This means that you can use drag-and-drop functionality to build a website, for example, without ever hiring someone to write the HTML or CSS code yourself.

In essence, the best no code website builder is going to offer the templates and integrations to take care of the back-end of coding for you.

The net result is that you get to focus on front-end design and overall functionality. For example, let’s say you’re building an online store on Shopify, a popular ecommerce website builder. You can use their intuitive navigation to figure out how you want the site to look and function. It’s then up to Shopify to publish the site itself. This removes you from the more technical aspects of building a website so you can focus on results and appearance.

This might sound limiting at first. But you’d be surprised at how easy it is to build websites with wide-ranging functionality with the best no code website builder options available today. Plugins, in particular, can add all sorts of great technical features to your website without you ever having to touch an inch of code.

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Why Choose a No Code Website Builder?

If you’re new to the idea of website building, then it might sound like a no code website builder is an extra step. After all, isn’t the cheapest way to build something to focus on the building blocks and do it all yourself?

Well, not exactly. Unless you plan on hiring the world’s best bargain of a website developer, you’re probably not going to get the professional finish and functionality that a modern no code website builder can create for you. In essence, finding an affordable website builder is going to be your best option.

Let’s look at some of the reasons people use website builders these days:

Affordability. Many no code website builders are either free, or charge a small monthly fee. In exchange for that, you can skip the entire learning curve of figuring out how to code yourself—which will only delay you.Convenience. Working from templates is the fastest way that beginners can build a website. Even if you have a free plan, you’ll find that having your own website is as simple as a few drag-and-drop customizations and entering in the information you want within the website.Features. Many of these no code builders add marketing tools and SEO tools that make your site far more functional than you might have planned for yourself. If you’re a small business, you need to be able to focus on your business—and let the website take on as much automation as it can.

With that in mind, let’s explore some of the best names in no code website builders, and why you should consider each.

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Shopify

Shopify is one of the world’s leading platforms for building a website that isn’t only robust and beautiful, but capable of behaving like a full online digital retail store.

Most Important Features

Shopify is all about ecommerce, so the most important features here all line up with that. Sure, there’s the usual offerings—customer support, working on a custom domain, etc.—but what will really make the difference is how well you can use their ecommerce features to build a store that has plenty of functionality for a business of nearly any size. Consider:

Shopify’s extensive list of add-ons and plugins is notoriously large, which gives you all sorts of options, from building email newsletters to offering subscription-based products. The more of these add-ons you embrace, the more you can make your store appealing to would-be customers.Business name generators and logo makers are all part of the equation, which means you don’t even have to hire freelancers or use an expensive design tool. You can do everything within Shopify, which makes the price more than worth it. And speaking of pricing…

Pricing

Basic: At $29/month, the basic Shopify plan offers you basic reports, up to 2 staff accounts, and charges a 2.9% + 30c for U.S. credit card transactions online.Shopify: The $79/month option reduces those transaction fees to 2.6%, offers up to 5 staff accounts, and includes more professional reports.Advanced: Go to $299/month and you’ll reduce the transaction fees to 2.4%, not to mention more robust tools for putting your website online.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

Exhaustive list of add-ons which means you can accomplish virtually anything with the budget or willingness to do soHighly popular, with extensive documentation for getting things done

Cons:

More for the e-commerce store than the classic business website, or for B2B businessesThe pricing tiers will accelerate quickly if you want to unlock newer and deeper features

Who It’s Best For

Shopify is best for people with something to sell—and it does that very well. But if you have more of a service than a product, you might want to consider a more static website builder.

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Wix

A leading option for creating an attractive website, especially a static website for a new venture, Wix is an easy-to-use no code platform for getting your website up and running in a hurry.

Most Important Features

Don’t expect Wix to be as robust as Shopify when it comes to the customization features, or being able to sell online. Wix is a free option. You can even use a free domain (or at least a free subdomain) to get your website up and running in a hurry.

The page builder helps you build a responsive website in quick work. Especially great if you want to build a simple website, but there are all sorts of ecommerce-friendly tools as well.Wix’s tools for specific businesses—like restaurants—make it ideal if you fit one of the more common in-person business niches.

Pricing

Free! Sort of. Wix does offer a free version that lets you get poking around, but there are also pricing tiers you can try if you want to get something more robust:

VIP: At $45/month, VIP will give you a custom domain, a free domain for one year, and removes the Wix ads that pop up with the free version—and yes, you read us right. More on that in the pros and cons section.Pro: Down to $27/month, Pro also deactivates the ads, but it doesn’t have the priority support that comes with the VIP tier.Unlimited: At $22/month, you’ll also deactivate the ads, though you’ll lose out on some storage space, which will only be 5 GB.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

Simple, straightforward drag-and-drop features make it easy to publish a website in minutesAffordable, user-friendly plans, including a free plan to get started trying out

Cons:

Ads come with the free version—so how free is it really?You’ll only activate analytics with the more robust pricing tiers

Who It’s Best For

Wix is best for beginners or anyone with a specific business that fits into Wix’s target demographic, such as restaurant owners.

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Squarespace

Want an attractive, professional-looking website that doesn’t remind you of the cheesy WordPress templates so many people seem to use? Enter Squarespace, a viable alternative.

Most Important Features

Squarespace is a little low on the analytics, so the best features are the site builder tools you can access with an affordable monthly plan. As far as your standard web builder goes, we think this creates some of the most attractive B2B and freelancer sites around.

Perhaps the most important feature here is the quality of the templates—“award-winning,” Squarespace says, and we’re inclined to agree. For static web pages or putting up a quick store, it’s hard to beat.

Pricing

Personal: $16/month charged annually. Features a free custom domain and SSL certificate, which helps you handle commerce online with ease.Business: $23/month. Go from 2 contributors to unlimited, which opens your web application management to the entire team.Commerce: $27/month unlocks more ecommerce features like Point of Sale options and analytics.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

Some of the best-looking templates on the listMinimal design required; simply plug-and-goHighly affordable

Cons:

Add-ons aren’t as robust as Shopify, for exampleBlog content management is simple, without many customization options

Who It’s Best For

Squarespace is best for anyone building a new business who doesn’t have any experience using web designers online. Rather than watching countless WordPress tutorials to get your site looking just how you want it, simply pick up one of the paid plans from Squarespace, put up your website, and call it a day. It’s not exactly a free website builder, but the functional website you’ll end up with offers plenty of professionalism no matter what business you’re in.

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BigCommerce

BigCommerce is one of the top competitors for Shopify, aimed almost exclusively at the ecommerce audience. But its approach is different—BigCommerce tries to offer all of its features in an out-of-the-box solution. There are plenty of website templates and the usual features, of course, but you’ll love all of the ecommerce tools that come native with its offerings.

Most Important Features

Where do we start? Think of BigCommerce as a complete tool for ecommerce, offering plenty of ease of use as a drag-and-drop website builder—but it’s also great for entrepreneurs who are building something more akin to an ecommerce startup. That’s a long, fancy way of saying that BigCommerce has a little bit of everything.

Pricing

Standard: $29.95/mo. If these prices sound familiar to you, that’s because BigCommerce is right there with Shopify—which really makes selecting the best no code website builder as simple as choosing your personal preference.Plus: $79.95/mo. Add features like “persistent cart” when you upgrade your BigCommerce pricing tier.Pro: $299.95/mo. Add custom product filtering, which makes your website feel like a large retailer.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

All-in-one solution that will give your ecommerce site instant credibility as you build it upWon’t rely as much as add-ons; there are plenty of “unlimited” features built in to BigCommerce’s offerings

Cons:

You’ll see limits for online sales per year before you enter the “enterprise” stage of pricingWhat if you do want add-ons to customize the experience you get (and how much you pay)?

Who It’s Best For

BigCommerce is also a big-time solution for anyone who wants something more than a static page with Google Analytics on it. While there are plenty of options for a drag-and-drop editor you can use to build a website, signing up for BigCommerce will have you building a legitimate ecommerce presence that makes sales even while you’re asleep.

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Webflow

Build a website with Webflow and you’ll likely be amazed at how much you can get away with without having to hire anyone to do the coding. The design works a bit like Elementor, giving you full control over the ultimate appearance of your site.

Most Important Features

A full designer, CMS, and website editor, it might seem like it’s a low-code solution (involving some code), but Webflow actually offers easy design and features that will stack up against any of the items on this list. In terms of web design, we liked the following features:

Build from a blank canvas and turn out an HTML5-compliant website. This is great for static websites, or if you want to put up a website for an agency business.Intuitive navigation elements on the left may look like a no-code solution, but it’s actually just a handy way of incorporating the design elements and keeping track of all the changes you’ve made.

Pricing

Starter is free, and opens up a webflow.io domain for you use—but you’ll generally want to use this as a poking-around option rather than a solution in and of itself.Basic at $14/month when charged yearly will give you that custom domain you seek. You’ll also be able to accept up to 500 monthly web form submission.CMS is $23/month, and certainly affordable enough, offering you a custom domain and up to 1,000 monthly form submissions.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

Highly affordable, featuring pricing that’s both free or on par with SquarespaceIncludes 1 GB of bandwidth on the free option, letting you poke around

Cons:

Limited capacity for large businesses with a lot of customers on basic plansMore of a “get started” option for agencies

Who It’s Best For

Rather than big-time retailers, we think that Webflow is going to be better for smaller service-based businesses and solopreneurs with a limited budget.

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Carrd

As you can probably tell from the name, Carrd is like an online business card: a simple and free option for planting your flag online and getting publishing as soon as possible. It’s not robust enough to function as a store, but is more of a funnel—capturing potential leads like coaching clients.

Most Important Features

Carrd’s features are all slanted towards simplicity. You can choose from ready-made templates that give you a static, one-page website with ease. You may not be able to operate a complicated SaaS offering from a Carrd website you make, but if you just want to highlight a simple service or your personal profile, it’s the ideal starting point.

Pricing

Carrd is free, but it does offer “pro” solutions that open additional templates and options.If you do go Pro for only $19/year, you’ll be able to use custom domains that feature full SSL support.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

Simple, easy to use, and will have you up and running with a website within minutesElegant themes make it easy to look professional while barely expending any work

Cons:

Not a true, robust tool for extensive online web commerce, especially if you sell productsLargely a funnel for other services, such as scheduling prospects through Calendly

Who It’s Best For

As you can probably tell by the pros and cons list, Carrd isn’t for everybody. If you have a large company with lots of products to sell, you’re not going to want to use Carrd. But if you have a freelance or solo service to highlight, it can be a great way to get your name online in a hurry. In the age of Carrd, there’s no excuse not to have a website. It’s free, it’s easy, and it looks professional. If you want the simplest no code website builder on this list, you’ve found it.

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Pagecloud

A drag-and-drip no code website builder for stores, websites, and landing pages, you’ll find Pagecloud makes it easy to start with a free page and begin poking around all that the Internet has to offer for your website—even if you’re running a more complex ecommerce operation.

Most Important Features

The landing pages here are the most unique features—it’s not that other website builders don’t offer landing pages, but that it’s a point of emphasis and quality with Pagecloud. Heck, it’s in the name. You can also use these landing pages to serve as hubs for a larger Internet presence, including linking to your social media and solo pages.

Pricing

Small Business: At $19/month, the Small Business feature will give you one site and 100 pages possible, which is plenty robust to start your ecommerce career with a nice little website that’s capable of scaling down the line.Business: $29/month, including one site and 200 pages instead. It should be noted that all of the pricing tiers mentioned here include a custom domain.Pro: At $58/month, this reasonably-priced option allows up to five sites, which is great for anyone who is building multiple stores or wants to scale what’s already working.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

Templates and landing page libraries are extensive, letting you get started with easePlenty of app integrations, including a library of 100+ add-ons that you can use to add to your ecommerce site’s functionality

Cons:

The features are limited in the lower pricing tiers, which may offset some of the favorable pricingThe free option lets you poke around, but you’ll have to upgrade quickly

Who It’s Best For

This is a great option for someone who wants a simple ecommerce page at the price of one of the more straightforward website builders. If you need to poke around and see what’s possible in the world of ecommerce no code site builders, consider Pagecloud a nice starting point.

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Jimdo

One of the key features of Jimdo is that it lets you keep your revenue—which is a major argument in its favor as an ecommerce website builder. But does it have the features and functions capable of competing with Shopify and BigCommerce?

Most Important Features

Featuring everything from a website builder to online store features and even a logo maker, Jimdo is much like Shopify in that it seeks to be a front-to-end solution for getting your first store online. In building a website, there’s also a large library of copyright-free photos exclusive to Jimdo that will give you an edge in creating a visually exciting storefront.

Pricing

Play: At $0/month (or free, in other words), the “Play” feature from Jimdo includes the website builder, which you will have to use on a Jimdo subdomain.Start: The ad-free version begins at $9/month, which is aimed at giving you the ability to launch a personal website.Grow: At $14/month, this is the “business” version of Jimdo, giving you access to more robust options like analytics and SEO.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

One of the more affordable options on this list, even the higher pricing tiers come under many of the other no code website builders you see hereDomain included with the $9/month “start” pricing tier

Cons:

In using the free version, you’ll have to employ ads and use the Jimdo subdomain, which essentially only makes it good for testing out, if you want to build a legitimate web presenceThe database of add-ons is nothing like Shopify’s, which may limit your ability to customize according to your needs

Who It’s Best For

Jimdo is a nice introduction to a front-to-end ecommerce website builder. You can use it to poke around with the features and set up a nice, efficient, quick web store.

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Webnode

Featuring a user-friendly website builder and a robust free option, Webnode is a great (and quick) way to publish something online.

Most Important Features

It’s all about the website builder here, with one-click options for adding all sorts of different content to the page you’re building. You can also register domains through the site when you opt for the premium plans, so if you plan on building something much bigger than a Wix-style free site, keep that in mind.

Pricing

Webnode is free, but there is a premium feature if you want to upgrade what you’re doing and make it a little bit more like the other services you see on this list.

Limited: Costs $3.90 per month, but does not add in the free domain.Mini: $7.50 per month, you’ll now get a 1-year domain and 1GB of storage.Standard: Triple the storage at just $12.90, plus the 1-year domain included.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

The least-expensive option on this list, if you don’t count CarrdEase of use—very simple to use the intuitive design features

Cons:

Not robust if you want add-on ecommerce featuresEven the lowest pricing tier uses a subdomain

Who It’s Best For

You’ll find that this works best as an introductory course to the world of drag-and-drop style builders.

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Webydo

A complete in-browser, Webydo is one of those services that makes you think: “Okay, there’s no more excuses. I can build a website today.”

Most Important Features

The most important features of Webydo come in its in-browser web design capabilities. It’s one of the most robust ways to do it all from a single window—which makes it easy to create a website while you’re sitting at a coffee shop. It also has pixel-responsive websites so you don’t have to worry about what your user is browsing on.

Pricing

Pro: At $75/month, the lowest pricing tier at Webydo gives you free hosting for 10 sites, as well as email support.Team: The $150/month option offers three designer accounts and fre hosting for up to 30 sites.Agency: $400/month will get you up to 100 sites, in addition to other features like a customer template generator.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

First month free, which lets you preview everything on offer—especially useful for these pricing tiersHighly responsive websites which look good on the modern, mobile-ready web

Cons:

A little pricier than other options on this list, especially relative to what you’ll getThe ability to add more sites for your pricing tier isn’t especially incentivizing

Who It’s Best For

This is great for anyone who wants a creative yet straightforward no code website builder that will get their store off the ground.

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Making the Most of Your No Code Website Builder

A no code website builder might seem like a simple tool, but when you explore the above, you’ll find they’re capable of almost anything. You can run your own store, build an extensive digital retail presence, and launch a business. The only question that remains: which one will you choose?

The post Best No Code Website Builder for 2023 appeared first on Ecommerce Platforms.

Original Source: https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/thinkific-alternatives

We’ve all had the 2022 mantra ‘Make money while you sleep!’ drummed into us on socials. But, upon first consideration, this might seem unattainable- if not impossible. 

However, that might not be true if you have a skill you can teach. With the help of the right online course builder, you can monetize your knowledge to a limitless amount of people.

Thinkific is one such option that enables you to do exactly that. You can use this platform to launch an online course and sell it via your own website. Thinkific also seamlessly integrates with tons of marketing and business management tools. 

However, Thinkific isn’t all that’s out there…

What are the Best Thinkific Alternatives?

There are several Thinkific alternatives: Teachable, Uscreen, Udemy, Teachery, Podia, LearnWords, and LearnDash, each of which has its own unique set of features, pros, and cons. So, with that said, below, we’ll weigh up the competition – let’s dive straight in! 

Teachable

Teachable comes with a drag-and-drop builder that empowers you to customize your own online learning portal with your brand’s colors and logo. For the uninitiated, ‘an online learning portal’ is just a website that hosts your courses, allows you to process customer payments, and can include additional content like a homepage and an ‘about’ section.

Teachable also comes with excellent features for engaging with your students. For instance, you can set quizzes, award certificates, and publish feedback to gain insights from your learners.

When it comes to marketing your course, you can generate coupons, set discounted rates, offer memberships, and create course bundles. You can also provide customers with various payment methods, including Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal, and accept payments in over 130 currencies.

You’ll also find sales, engagement, and course order analytics from your Teachable dashboard. But if that’s not enough, you can integrate with Google Analytics to retrieve more detailed insights about your learning portal. For instance, average session durations, sessions by channel, page views, bounce rates, and more.

Pricing

Teachable offers a free plan that enables you to enroll unlimited students. However, you can’t connect a custom domain with the freemium version. 

After that, there’s the ‘Basic’ plan, which starts at $39 per month (based on monthly billing). This enables you to connect a custom domain, integrate with Facebook and Google Analytics, create drip course content, and access integrated email marketing. 

Then for $99 per month, the ‘Pro’ plan unlocks live chat so students can quickly get in touch with you. In addition, you can create your own affiliate programs, set graded quizzes, award course completion certificates, and access the public API. The latter allows you to connect any tool or data to your Teachable account through custom development.

Lastly, the ‘Business’ plan for $249 per month comes with custom user roles, advanced developer customization, and bulk student import.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

The drag-and-drop course builder is incredibly intuitive
Teachable connects with Google Analytics and other popular platforms to ensure it seamlessly works with your existing tech stack. In fact, Teachable offers over 200 integrations.
You can create unlimited courses on every plan
Teachable comes with built-in email marketing
You can reward course completion certificates to your students
Teachable’s monetization options are pretty flexible. For instance, you can run your own affiliate program, and offer monthly payment options, free trials, pay by installments, and one-off fees for your online courses.

Cons 👎

The Basic plan comes with a 5% transaction fee
Teachable support is only available via email
Although there’s a drag-and-drop editor, customization is somewhat limited. Most sections have pre-determined editing options that you’ll have to modify via a sidebar.

Who is it Best For?

Overall, we think Teachable is a good choice for those looking for Thinkific alternatives that provide everything you need to create engaging online courses. Building a community surrounding your course is easy with in-built quizzing, certificate, and course commenting features. It’s also an excellent option if you want access to various monetization options, including running your affiliate program. 

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Uscreen

Uscreen’s star-studded front page has its celeb clientele on a literal loop, including Yoga sensation Yoga with Adrienne, using their platform to fuel her courses. You had me at Vinyasa! Uscreen’s website is easy to navigate, and its color scheme, if a little simple, is terrifically accessible – which in this industry is a breath of fresh air!

Uscreen focuses on providing video creators with the features they need to monetize and distribute their video content. For instance, fast video playback and options to launch content across multiple channels, including TV, mobile app, live streaming options, etc. You can also create a sleek-looking video streaming website that looks similar to Netflix, with a strong focus on keeping viewers engaged with your content. Best of all, Uscreen allows you to white-label all your streaming apps and content, empowering you to create a wholly branded experience for your audience!

Where monetizing your content is concerned, you can charge customers pay-per-view, rentals, and subscription fees and bundle video content to sell as a package. Customers can pay via PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.net, and Uscreen’s payment gateway, enabling you to accept payments in over 130 currencies. 

You can arrange content via Uscreen’s built-in content manager. For example, you can create chapters, playlists, and catalogs- ordering content precisely how you want. You can also upload videos in bulk and add extra workbooks and PDFs. 

Uscreen also comes with built-in marketing tools. For instance, you can generate coupons, launch email campaigns, and offer customers free giveaways. You’ll also find analytics on your sales, engagement, retention, etc. Finally, you can create simple automations to help you market your content. For instance, you can renew free trials, hand out coupon codes, or send automatic marketing emails and newsletters.

Pricing

Each plan includes marketing tools, automations, and business and customer analytics.

Pricing starts at $79 per month for their Basic package, which limits your video storage to 50 hours and one admin user. It also comes with email support, and you can create a customizable website where you’ll host your video content. 

After that, there’s the Growth plan. This costs $159 per month and unlocks 150 hours of video storage, additional admin users, chat support, eCommerce, and affiliate integrations.

For the Plus plan, you get all the aforementioned and can build mobile and TV streaming apps. Plus, you’ll unlock white-labeled branding. However, you’ll have to contact the team for a custom quote.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

You can create streaming apps for mobile and TV, including iOS and Android, Roku, AppleTV, Android TV, and Amazon Fire TV.
Uscreen comes with built-in marketing tools and analytics
Uscreen’s monetization options are extensive. For instance, you can offer subscriptions, one-time sales, let viewers rent videos, lifetime subscriptions, and sell bundles.
You can accept a variety of payment methods.

Cons 👎

The video hours you can store are limited on each pricing tier
There isn’t a free plan available
Uscreen doesn’t come with in-built features for quizzes, certificates, or user feedback (other than allowing viewers to comment on your videos)

Who is it Best For?

Uscreen is ones of the better Thinkific alternatives for those looking to create video-based courses. Additionally, there is the option for a Netflix-esque look on your course page.

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Thinkific Alternatives: Udemy

Unlike the previous Thinkific alternatives, Udemy functions as an online course marketplace. Students can browse thousands of courses, including yours and those of other creators. 

As a Udemy course creator, your course is hosted on its marketplace, which means you benefit from exposure to an existing audience. However, you can also market your course off-site via social media and on your own website using Udemy’s coupon codes and course referral links.

Udemy also takes care of the customer payment process for your online courses. They accept payments via Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and other country-specific payment gateways, making it easy for prospective customers to purchase using a payment method that best suits them. In addition, students can go through Udemy to receive support if they have any issues, so you don’t have to worry about resolving technical issues.

Udemy’s website isn’t as user-friendly for course creators. Instead, it’s geared toward students looking to consume and purchase educational content. Udemy’s homepage is effectively a course searcher, which is excellent for market research but less helpful if you want to find out how to create an online course with them. It takes a period of exploration to access their pricing page to get to the crux of the matter.

However, one of the perks of Udemy, being a platform primarily for learners, is that you can access an audience of 54 million students!

But, back to Udemy’s course creation features… when you look closely, you’ll find that Udemy comes with tons of features to help you engage with your students. For instance, quizzes, certificates, direct messaging (to the instructor), and the option for adding supplementary material. In addition, learners can post questions to a dedicated Q&A section on each course and add reviews about your course for other potential customers to see. We also like that students can access your Udemy course conveniently from their mobile or desktop devices.

In theory, Udemy’s marketplace should expose you to more traffic. However, competing on a marketplace is no easy task as the landscape is so saturated. So there’s a good chance you’ll still have to do some marketing. Fortunately, Udemy enables you to send promotional emails and design a landing page for your course.

Pricing

To find Udemy’s instructor pricing, you have to dig a little deeper into their help documentation and terms and conditions. Luckily, we’ve done this for you! There’s no fee for teaching on Udemy. Instead, Udemy works on a revenue share model. This means that whenever you make money on a course, you share the profits with Udemy. 

In fact, you’ll only see 37% of the net amount on each sale, from which a 3% service fee, transaction taxes, and other fees are already subtracted from. 

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

As Udemy’s a marketplace for online courses, there are already 54 million learners using the platform, some of whom you might be able to attract.
You can upload a custom logo to your course landing page, and your course will have its own custom URL
You can opt into paid promotions to get your course featured on Udemy or otherwise use your own coupons or referral links to market your content off of the platform.
Students can turn to Udemy with their technical issues, lifting some of the responsibility from you.
Udemy offers your prospective customers an extensive range of payment options.
Course creators benefit from built-in tools for creating quizzes, certificates, and more.

Cons 👎

You only get a little more than a third of your course’s net revenue when you make a sale, severely limiting your earning potential
As everything’s hosted on Udemy, it’s harder to establish and build your own brand. For instance, Udemy places its branding on all courses – there’s not much customization beyond adding your own logo and URL.
The marketplace is quite competitive, so without your own marketing, you might not win a lot of attention from students.

Who is it Best For?

Udemy offers a simple and intuitive solution for online course creation and marketing, making it a suitable choice for entrepreneurs new to this industry. In addition, because Udemy includes hosting, a course maker, and a preexisting audience, it’s easy to start running a course immediately. 

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Thinkific Alternatives: Teachery

The first impression we got of Teachery is that it’s a fun alternative to some of its competitors, which, by comparison, gives off a more serious, polished vibe. 

Teachery offers two course templates: The minimal template is more sleek, simple, and modern. In contrast, the sidebar template is boxier and more reminiscent of traditional course layouts. However, both come with the same features, so the differences are purely cosmetic.

You can link a custom domain to your course website and customize its design by tinkering its colors, buttons, background images, font styles, and more. You can even choose different types of progress bars. Teachery also comes with a built-in course editor to help you construct concise and easy-to-follow classes with automatic language translation. It also allows you to embed video, audio, forms, and slideshow content.

On top of that, Teachery seamlessly integrates with Discus to enable user comments. Beyond that, Teachery’s integration options are limited, including only MailChimp, CovertKit, and Zapier.

Teachery also emperors you to track basic analytics on your revenue, course engagement, and sales via your dashboard. However, you can also integrate with Google Analytics to benefit from more comprehensive reporting functionality. Teachery also boasts some useful marketing features, including promo codes and upsells, landing pages, and you can create your own affiliate program.

A massive benefit of Teachery is that you can create as many courses as you want. In addition, you can accept customer payments via Stripe and market your content as a subscription product or membership, and offer discounts. 

Pricing

A pop-up on Teachery’s website advertises a 14-day free trial. This is always a great sign that the service feels they have value. The monthly package is $49 per month, and the yearly option is $470 per annum.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

You can create unlimited courses
You can register unlimited students
You can switch between the two theme options at any point
Teachery’s pricing structure is clear and transparent
Teachery’s users praise its excellent customer service.

Cons 👎

There are only two templates to choose from, and very few native integrations are available.
To bundle courses, you need to rely on the Zapier integration.
There’s also no real membership feature; Teachery just encourages you to add new lessons to a course as a new monthly content update.

Who is it Best For?

Teachery is one of a few Thinkific alternatives on this list that would suit those wanting an all-in-one solution to create a functional and marketable course. This is especially true if user-friendly simplicity and flexibility are a priority for you.

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Thinkific Alternatives: Podia

Podia empowers you to sell all kinds of digital products- not just courses. Ebooks, workshops, and webinars can also find a beginning and a home on this platform. 

However, when it comes to online course creation, Podia offers an excellent range of student engagement features. For instance, quizzes, learner login pages, users can comment on courses, user moderation, and on-site live chat so that learners can reach out to you, and vice versa.  

You can create a fully-hosted, mobile-friendly website from which to sell your digital products. You can add an unlimited number of pages to your website and embed videos without broadband restrictions. Alternatively, you can sell Podia courses on an existing site by embedding them.

Podia also has built-in promotional features for email marketing, coupon creation, and upselling. In addition, Podia offers over 1,900 third-party integrations to choose from, including Typeform, Sound Cloud, and GitHub – to name a few!

You can also sell your digital products as bundles, set single payments, or enables students to pay in installments. Podia also permits you to accept customer payments using Stripe and PayPal. But, best of all, you can ‘pre-sell’ your course – i.e., you can accept payments before your course even begins so that you already have a class of students ready to learn on launch day. 

Lastly, switching to Podia is easy, thanks to its free migration offer (so long as you’re signed up for an annual plan). All you have to do is fill out a form detailing what course content you want Podia to migrate for you, and they’ll keep you updated throughout the process.

Pricing

Podia offers a free plan. However, they charge an 8% transaction fee, which isn’t for everyone, but this is great for anyone looking to familiarize themselves with Podia’s platform before committing their hard-earned cash!

After that, prices range from $39-$199 per month with varied perks, with the most expensive option offering superior customer support. 

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Their ‘free’ package is excellent – it offers those with an idea to try their money-making adventure with limited monetary risk.
You get access to a wide range of features designed to enhance the learner experience.
You benefit from a massive integration library
Free migration tools on Podia’s annual plans
Podia comes with built-in marketing tools

Cons 👎

You’re charged an 8% transaction fee on the free plan
To receive that bit more customer support, including priority support, onboarding calls, and monthly creator calls, you’re paying quite a bit: The cost jumps from $75 per month to $166 per month.

Who is it Best For?

Podia is one of the better Thinkific alternatives for those that want to try their hand at online course creation for free without the usual time limit of 14 or 30 days. Also, thanks to its vast choice of integrations, in-built tools, and free migration, it’s great for seasoned course creators looking for a more comprehensive e-learning platform. 

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Thinkific Alternatives: LearnWorlds

A glance at LearnWorlds’s homepage tells us they’re proud of their customer reviews. You’ll also notice that they offer a free trial up front, with ‘no credit card required’! 

You can build your own branded online learning portal without coding skills. More specifically, LearnWorlds says it helps course creators provide ‘Professional Education,’ ‘Medical Courses,’ ‘Health and Fitness’, and ‘Corporate Training.’ As this suggests, LearnWorlds and its extensive toolkit are best suited for larger institutions that want to create full-fledged online schools in their name.

Learnworlds’s in-built features are comprehensive. For instance, you can create interactive transcripts. By this, we mean you can highlight words in your content that users can click on to reveal additional information, images, and notes. 

Learnworlds also enables you to create advanced assessments with multi-choice quizzes, tests, and assignments. You can even create a question bank. Here, quizzes draw from your question bank anew every time a student takes the quiz, so users get different questions to really test their knowledge. Then you can reward learners with custom certificates!

You can win more revenue for yourself and engage your learners by launching your own affiliate program. You can set custom commissions and cookie duration and manage your affiliate members from one simple, centralized dashboard. You can even enable affiliates to onboard themselves and create clear terms-and-condition pages.

Plus, you can utilize in-built tools like form building or increase Learnworlds’s functionality with integrations for slide sharing, ebooks, and SoundCloud. You can also access Zoom and social media integrations. 

Where analytics are concerned, you’ll receive data on adoption rates, engagement, and learner performance. Like other platforms on this list, you can also sell courses as memberships, subscriptions, bundles, etc., – not just to individuals but to educational institutions with full white labeling. This means LearnWorld’s brand isn’t visible anywhere on your course website or courses – instead, all of your educational assets reflect your own brand. Lastly, it’s worth noting that you can accept customer payments with Stripe, PayPal, Apple, Google, Klarna, and many more.

Pricing

Compared to other platforms on this list, their starter price of $24 a month is low. On top of that, however, the $5 per course sale fee creeps in. Depending on your sales volume and pricing structure, this expense could quickly affect your profits! 

This might incentivize you to purchase the higher ticket option, which is more than double at $79 per month. It unlocks integrations, question banks, the form builder, and premium support.

After that, the Learning Centre plan for $249 per month unlocks premium onboarding, a dedicated customer support manager, full white-label options, interactive video (add buttons, transcripts, offers, and questions into your video), advanced affiliate marketing, and more.

Finally, you can add additional admins, custom bulk enrollments, and premium cloud servers for an additional fee if you’re a corporation with high-volume requirements.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

You get access to a free trial.
You benefit from fantastic features for engaging your learners, including question banks, quizzes, custom certificates, and more.
LearnWorlds enables you to add subtitles to your video content, which is fantastic for accessibility.
All plans come with 24/7 support except for the Starter plan, which offers 24/5 support.
You can create highly customizable websites – you even have the option to create different versions of your site with different color schemes.

Cons 👎

To access Learnworlds’s video subtitle feature, you’ll have to opt for their highest ticket option, at $249 per month.
Some users report a learning curve at first.

Who is it Best For?

LearnWorlds is one of the best Thinkific alternatives for institutions, educational organizations, or teachers who want to create more formal educational products. 

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Thinkific Alternatives: LearnDash

At first glance, LearnDash might not immediately present itself as polished as some of its competitors. However, they more than makeup for this with their intuitive course creation. You can use their drag-and-drop course builder to quickly create educational content on a new, standalone website powered by WordPress. However, if you already have a WordPress website, you can also use the LearnDash plugin to add courses to it. 

LearnDash enables you to create quizzes, set course prerequisites, drip-feed content, and ensure users progress linearly through the content (should you wise). With the latter, learners gain points to unlock new content as they progress. You can also incentivize learners with certificates and leaderboards. While the former is a nice reward for course completion, the latter allows users to compare themselves to other learners and strive to overtake them in quiz performance. You can even give out badges to high performers! 

On top of the above, there’s a plethora of other nifty features, like a focus mode. Here the student can blend everything out except for your course to help them concentrate on the task at hand. You can also utilize discussion forums where your students can discuss the course. Plus, you can request assignments to be completed and prompt students to submit them for your grading. 

LearnDash also boasts built-in marketing features that enable you to set course discounts and generate coupons. In addition, you can use LearnDash’s built-in reporting features to retrieve enrollment, student progression, and course performance data. 

Lastly, you can sell courses as one-time purchases, bundles, or memberships via PayPal, Stripe, or 2Checkout. You’ll also find integrations for WordPress, MailChimp, WooCommerce, and Zapier. 

Pricing

There are two types of pricing plans available. One is based on their WordPress plugin. The other is for using LearnDash as a standalone course creator to create courses for a brand-new WordPress website. 

There’s a 15-day free trial.

For the plugin, pricing begins at $199 a year for one site, or $399 to integrate with up to ten sites, or for unlimited sites; you’ll have to shell out $799 (billed yearly).

Alternatively, you can create a WordPress website at $29 monthly (monthly billing) and host your courses on it. Here, you can choose from 15 themes to style your site and access WordPress’ themes and plugins thereafter. Learndash will handle your site maintenance and provide secure hosting.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

You get access to plenty of in-built course engagement tools, such as a focus mode for distraction-free learning, advanced quizzes, discussion forums, badges, certificates, and more.
LearnDash provides plenty of tools for monitoring learner progress, including a leaderboard, assignments, and course points.
You can import a course directly from a YouTube playlist
LearmDash integrates seamlessly with WordPress and works with modern WordPress themes. You can also use page builders like Elementor or Divi for extra customization.

Cons 👎

There’s no free plan availble
You’re tied to WordPress
There are very few built-in marketing features. For instance, you can’t build sales funnels or generate coupons.
You can’t set up free trials or sell courses requiring one-time signup fees.
You can only restrict access to courses based on membership – there are no other membership features you can utilize.

Who is it Best For?

LearnDash is a highly efficient tool for creating and marketing courses online, especially for those who are fans of WordPress. However, if you don’t like WordPress, you’re better off elsewhere because Learndash’s course websites are based on the WordPress framework.

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The Best Thinkific Alternatives: Our Final Thoughts

While Thinkific is an excellent option for course creation, as you can see, there are many Thinkific alternatives on the market. So with that said, here are our final thoughts:

If you’re just dabbling with online course creation and don’t want to invest any money, experimenting with Udemy is a good start. Udemy will take a cut of your revenue, but you won’t have to pay any fees to start instructing.

Alternatively, suppose your goal is to create a complete online school with a serious reputation. In that case, LearnWorlds is a great tool thanks to its white-labeling capabilities and extensive features.

On the other hand, WordPress users might find LearnDash the perfect addition to their existing WordPress site.

But that’s enough about what we think -the question is, which if any of these Thinkfic alternatives is right for you? Hopefully, this list will help you make the best choice for your business!

The post Thinkific Alternatives Worth Considering appeared first on Ecommerce Platforms.

Original Source: https://tympanus.net/codrops/collective/collective-736/

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