Teachable — Simple & Solid

If you’ve ever bought an online course, there’s a good chance it was hosted on Teachable. It’s one of the most widely used course platforms in the world, and for good reason: it’s focused on doing one thing well — hosting courses — and making that process as simple as possible.

What Teachable Does Well

Simplicity. Teachable’s interface is clean and intuitive. You can create a course, upload videos, set a price, and start selling within a few hours. No coding. No complex setup. The drag-and-drop curriculum builder lets you arrange modules and lessons without thinking about it.

The student experience. Teachable’s course player is one of the best. It’s clean, fast, and works well on mobile. Students can track their progress, skip between lessons, and download supplementary materials easily. Video playback is reliable — Teachable handles the hosting and streaming for you.

Payment handling. Teachable handles payment processing through their own system (Teachable:pay) or via Stripe/PayPal integration. You don’t need to set up your own payment gateway. They also handle VAT/tax collection for international sales, which saves you a compliance headache.

Free-tier history. Teachable long let you publish a course for $0 — 1 course, plus a $1 + 10% transaction fee per sale — which was enough to validate an idea. That free tier was phased out when Teachable restructured its plans in 2025; new creators now start on a paid plan after a trial. Check Teachable’s pricing page for the current entry point.

Pricing

Pricing as of October 2026 — Teachable has restructured its plans more than once since 2025, so verify current numbers at teachable.com/pricing before committing.

Plan	Monthly	Annual	Transaction Fee
Starter	$39/mo	$29/mo	7.5% per sale
Builder	$89/mo	$69/mo	0%†
Growth	$189/mo	$139/mo	0%†

† 0% transaction fee on Builder and above applies when you use teachable:pay or the Monthly Payment Gateway; standard processing fees still apply (2.9% + 30¢ on US cards).

Key limits: Starter gives you 5 products. Builder gives you 10 products and graded quizzes. Growth moves you to 50 products and adds completion certificates, advanced analytics, bulk student enrollment, and priority support.

The transaction fee question: On the Starter plan, Teachable takes a cut of every sale — on a $97 course, roughly $7.28 at the 7.5% rate. If you’re selling at volume, those fees add up fast — which is why most serious creators upgrade to Builder.

Where Teachable Falls Short

No email marketing. Teachable doesn’t include an email platform. You’ll need ConvertKit, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, or another tool for email sequences, newsletters, and student communication. That’s an extra $15–$50/month.

No funnel builder. Want a lead magnet opt-in page? A webinar registration page? A multi-step sales funnel? Teachable doesn’t build those. You’ll need a separate landing page tool (Carrd, Leadpages, ClickFunnels, or GHL).

Limited community features. Teachable added basic community functionality, but it’s not on par with dedicated community platforms. If your course relies on peer interaction, you’ll likely need a Facebook group or Discord server alongside Teachable.

No CRM. Student data lives in Teachable, but there’s no solid CRM for managing leads, pipeline stages, or sales call booking. You’ll need a separate tool for that.

Who Should Choose Teachable

• First-time course creators who want the simplest possible setup
• Creators building 1–5 courses who don’t need complex funnels or marketing automation
• Creators who already have email and funnel tools and just need a clean course host
• Budget-conscious creators who want to start free and upgrade as revenue grows

Who Should Skip Teachable

• Creators building a full marketing stack — if you need email, funnels, CRM, and courses, GHL or Kajabi is more efficient
• Creators who hate transaction fees — the per-sale fees on lower plans eat into margins at scale
• Creators running memberships — Teachable can do memberships, but it’s not its strength

The Bottom Line

Teachable is the “it just works” platform. If you want to focus on creating course content and not think about technology, Teachable gets out of your way. Just know that you’ll need separate tools for email marketing, landing pages, and sales funnels — which means managing multiple subscriptions and logins.