Best Online Course Platforms for Selling Your Own Courses

Thinkific is the top pick for creators building a hosted school with a free-lesson funnel; Teachable is the value pick for lower sales volumes and clear plan terms, while Kajabi is the runner-up for a connected course-and-download business. These are conditional recommendations based on documented features and listed fees, not a claim that one platform suits every creator.

This guide compares software for creators selling their own courses, not course libraries for learners. A marketplace places courses in a shared catalog; a hosted school gives a creator a platform for delivering and selling their own learning products.

How to choose a course platform

Start with the work your business needs the platform to do. A long feature list matters less than whether the teaching format, sales workflow, and total fees fit your operation.

• Course delivery: Check whether you need self-paced lessons, quizzes, assignments, community, or live and cohort-based teaching.
• Business workflow: Decide whether you want course hosting alone or also need email marketing, sales funnels, downloads, and coaching products.
• Plan limits: Compare product counts, community access, and the features reserved for higher tiers against what you plan to sell.
• Total cost: Separate the subscription from plan transaction fees and payment processing. Annual-billed monthly equivalents are not the same billing commitment as monthly plans.

A marketplace can help learners discover courses in a shared catalog. A hosted school is a better fit to evaluate when you want to build a branded course business and choose its sales workflow. The video walkthrough separates those models from specialist builders and all-in-one platforms.

Three platforms at a glance

Thinkific and Teachable publish plan prices and limits that can be compared directly. Kajabi’s role here is different: its documented appeal is the set of connected products and marketing tools, so weigh it against the cost and complexity of assembling those functions separately.

Thinkific: best for a hosted school with a lead funnel

Thinkific is the strongest fit here for a creator who wants course delivery and a documented path from a free lesson to a paid course. Its platform supports multimedia lessons, quizzes, assignments, certificates, community, and live lessons with Zoom. The Free Lesson Funnel uses a free lesson to capture leads and guide prospects toward a paid course.

The listed US self-serve plans, observed October 20, 2026, are Start at $109 per month or $82 per month with annual billing, Grow at $219 or $164, and Expand at $499 or $374. These are monthly prices or annual-billing monthly equivalents in USD. Thinkific lists no free plan and a 30-day free trial.

Start includes unlimited courses, one community, and 10,000 current-student seats. Grow adds, among other features, analytics and three communities. A creator who expects to need more communities or analytics should compare the higher tier with the actual features they plan to use, rather than choosing on course count alone.

Pros, cons, and who should choose Thinkific

Best for: Course creators who want a hosted school, learner tools, and a free-lesson lead funnel. Pros: the platform combines course delivery with a documented funnel, and Start includes unlimited courses. Cons: there is no free plan, processing is an added cost, and new material added to an existing course does not automatically trigger a student email. Plan to send an announcement through an email integration or a mass email from the Users list.

Thinkific lists a 2.9% standard processing rate for Thinkific Payments. That is a payment-processing cost, not a complete fee schedule for every payment path; third-party gateway fees may vary by plan. Budget for subscription and processing separately.

Teachable: best for clear plan limits and fee terms

Teachable suits creators who want published subscription prices, product caps, and an explicit distinction between plan fees and payment processing. The listed US plans, observed October 20, 2026, are Starter at $39 per month or $29 per month with annual billing, Builder at $89 or $69, and Growth at $189 or $139. Prices are in USD and annual-plan figures are monthly equivalents.

Starter allows five products, Builder ten, and Growth 50. A product can be a course, coaching offer, or download. Starter charges a 7.5% plan transaction fee; Builder and Growth have a 0% plan fee. Payment-processing fees still apply on the higher tiers.

How Teachable’s fees change the plan choice

For a US school using Teachable Payments’ Standard bundle, a $100 domestic-card sale has a base processing charge of $3.20: 2.9% of $100, plus $0.30. Add Starter’s $7.50 plan fee on that sale and the combined transaction charges are $10.70. On Builder, the same sale has $3.20 in base processing charges and no plan transaction fee. These per-sale figures do not include the monthly subscription, taxes, refunds, or other applicable charges.

The annual-billing monthly price difference between Builder and Starter is $40. At a 7.5% Starter plan fee, that amount equals about $533.33 in monthly gross sales ($40 ÷ 0.075). Below that level, Starter’s lower subscription can make its subscription-plus-plan-fee subtotal lower; above it, Builder’s subtotal is lower before processing. This is a fee comparison, not a full value judgment: Builder also has a higher product limit and other plan features.

Pros, cons, and who should choose Teachable

Best for: Creators who want visible plan costs and a product limit they can match to their catalog. Pros: the pricing and fee tiers are explicit, and the platform supports courses, coaching, memberships, and downloads. Cons: Starter’s percentage fee can exceed the subscription savings as sales grow, while 0% plan fees do not eliminate card-processing costs. Teachable lists a seven-day free trial and a 30-day guarantee, but no free plan.

Kajabi: best for a connected course and digital-product business

Kajabi is the best fit of these three for creators who want courses alongside downloads, coaching, community, email campaigns, landing pages, and sales funnels. Its course options include evergreen self-paced courses and cohort courses with live sessions. Cohort courses are limited to Growth and Pro plans.

Kajabi distinguishes a standalone Downloads Product, which can be sold through an Offer, from files attached to a course as lesson supplements. Its documented e-book workflow also allows a PDF to be delivered after purchase through an Offer and an automated email. That distinction matters if a downloadable workbook is a course resource, but an e-book is a product in its own right.

Pros, cons, and who should choose Kajabi

Best for: A creator or coach who wants course delivery and adjacent digital products and marketing functions in one service. Pros: its documented tools cover courses, cohort sessions, community, coaching, downloads, and email and funnel workflows. Cons: cohort courses require Growth or Pro, and a creator who only needs course hosting may not use the broader toolset. Check the plan’s current price, billing term, and included features against your budget before committing.

If you meant a course to take, not software to sell one

That is a different choice from selecting creator software. For example, Great Learning Academy’s Basics of Object Oriented Programming course offers free course access, but its completion certificate requires a fee.

The short verdict

Choose Thinkific if a hosted course school and free-lesson funnel are the priority, and budget separately for processing. Choose Teachable if published plan terms and product limits make it easier to forecast costs; compare Starter’s 7.5% fee with Builder’s subscription using your expected monthly sales. Choose Kajabi when courses, downloads, coaching, community, and marketing need to sit together, and confirm the plan tier supports the teaching format you need.