Teachable Free Trial Review

Do you want a smart passive income? Do you have skills or passions that you want to share with the world, but don’t know where to start? Do you wish you could find an easy and affordable way to pursue your interests while earning some money online?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, consider creating online courses on Teachable. However, developing and marketing courses can be difficult for newcomers and involve a lot of tedious behind-the-scenes work, which is why many feel discouraged. Not to mention how expensive the whole process can take with unexpected fees and costs.

Teachable attempts to fix both issues in one swoop, by making online course-selling platforms intuitive and free, and handling all technical aspects for you. Yes, you heard me right… Teachable offers a free trial for those who want to give it a go before committing to anything.

Today, I’ll be discussing what the free trial entails, its positives and negatives, and whether it’s worth signing up for.

About The Platform – What Is Teachable?

First, let’s briefly discuss the platform, in case you are not familiar with it.

Creating online courses and making a profit is a challenging feat, even if you have some experience under your belt. As someone who sells memberships and courses personally, I have first-hand experience in this matter.

You can be a world-class expert and still find it hard to find traction. That is because you are not just selling your knowledge, but also running a business, which comes with its own set of problems.

Teachable is an all-in-one platform that helps you create and sell courses online. It handles all the nitty-gritty details: everything from web hosting to payment processing, so you can focus on what you want – creating courses.

It’s simple to use–you can have your first course up and running in minutes. Plus, it has a number of features that make the process a whole lot easier, such as built-in payment processing, customizable landing pages, and email integrations. The site has garnered more than 100,000 creators who’ve sold over $1 billion in courses and coaching.

The best part? Teachable offers a completely free plan! Speaking of which…

Let’s get into the details of the free trial, shall we?

Creating Online Courses With Teachable Free Plan

In the past few years, Teachable offered a trial period of their paid plans with a money back guarantee. However, due to popular demand, they decided to get rid of their free trial in favor of a new Free plan.

Since free plans are rare and offer such an amazing opportunity for aspiring creators, I wanted to provide my expertise and write a review about the new Free plan.

After using the platform for an extended period of time, here are my findings.

First of all, I enjoyed how intuitive the whole process is. Even though I have been in the field for a long time and had my fair share of experiences with websites similar to Teachable, it stands out for its ease of usability.

As soon as you sign up they will ask you to create your own school. When you do they ask various simple questions about your business.

This helps the platform customize the experience for you. The impact of which you will feel when you start creating your courses. Speaking of which one thing I didn’t like was that I had to sign up again for the creator hub AKA where you need to go to actually start your business.

Other than that they offer you plenty of support like video content for beginners to understand the site and lessons to help you get started.

Once you log in to the Creative Hub you will be greeted with additional instructions, it almost feels like you are the one being taught. It might feel a bit redundant for experienced professionals, but it’s a life saver for beginners.

Once you start making your own courses, you start noticing the core Teachable features

Another bonus to Teachable is the simplicity of its design. Many course creators, including myself, started as blog writers. This follows the same template, think of it as operating on Word, but even simpler. When you want a picture simply upload it, when you want a video drag it on the content.

If we move on to the features, then things start heating up. You will notice that features like student management appear on the lef hand corner, press it and you will be taken to where you want to go. I only tested the Teachable free plan for a little bit, but I think it was more than enough time to decide that the free plan was fantastic, especially when you account for the price tag.

To give you some perspective, most course platforms will make you pay at least $50/month to get basic features like custom branding, student management, and email support.

The User Experience

Let’s talk about what it is like to use the platform on a daily basis.

When you are starting out you need to design your website. While this would a daunting task the platform makes it much more simple. When I was creating my own site it felt more like I was playing a game than anything else. I managed to pull through in just 3 hours, which may seem a lot, but it actually isn’t, considering that I am making an entirely new site. If I used the pre prepared templates the process would have been even faster.

However, it was annoying that I couldn’t remove the Teachable watermark on my courses on the free plan. This lends the site a very cheap look overall and discredits your brand.

Any online teacher knows that you start your day with the Dashboard. Teachable allows you to see the most important figures, such as the number of active students and course completions. This is another plus for the platform as I don’t want to waste too much time looking for my numbers. If you do want more in-depth information you can do so by going into your account settings.

The rest of the pages, such as navigation, bios, and custom text were all very standard and not too far from any other similar platforms.

With Teachable, you get all of that (and more) on their free plan. However, with all good things comes a few drawbacks. Next, we will talk about some benefits and downsides to the free plan when compared to the priced ones.

Advantages

While on the Free plan, you will have access to a limited number of features, including:

1. Unlimited students – there is no cap on the number of students that can enroll in your course.
2. Unlimited hosting – house as many draft courses as you want
3. One published course – while you can create an unlimited number of courses as drafts, only one course can be published at a time (unlimited on paid plans).
4. Upload 10 videos – upload up to 10 total videos in your course lectures across all courses (unlimited on paid plans).

Moreover, some additional features include 1 admin-level user, integrated payment processing, student management, course design templates, lecture comments, basic quizzes, and CSS snippets.

This is a very good offer considering it comes with a 0-dollar price tag when compared with other services most other coaching services and platforms that allow only a limited number of students and hosting. This makes this plan great for newcomers, for whom hosting is a particular challenge.

Disadvantages

1. Limited features – many key features are limited. You can only make videos, get 1 admin, on republished course and etc.
2. No Drip Content – with the free plan, you can not release your content gradually (drip it). You have to publish them all at once.
3. No Completion Certificates – your students will not get a certificate of completion on the free plan (available on paid plans).
4. $1 + 10% for each transaction

There are a few detrimental downsides. Most course creators would find it very challenging to make a full living on the Teachable Free plan with the restricted number of courses and video uploads.

Since the free plan only allows 10 videos, you might want to consider one of the paid plans if you intend on having more lectures in your courses.

Not to mention the transaction fees. It is a risky gamble: the more your earnings, the more you are going to pay in transaction fees, in which case it might just be better to get any of the paid Teachable pricing plans.

Moreover, perhaps the simple nature of Teachable is to its detriment. On the free plan at least you can ONLY create and manage one online course with no additional features. Things I would have appreciated were live seminars, online meetings, and a chat room. While these are by no means deal-breakers, it just means that you will have to turn to other applications and services, draining your time and perhaps your wallet.

How To Sign Up?

To join Teachable as a new customer on the Free plan:

1. Click Get Started on the Teachable homepage.
2. Create an account. (Please use a valid email address and choose a password you’ll remember.)
3. Name your school. You can change your school name at any time.
4. Answer the survey questions and click Next.
5. Your school will be created and you’ll be in the owner’s Admin dashboard.

If you’re new to the platform and want to upload your first online course, your account will be automatically enrolled into the free plan.

Overall, the Free plan offers a great way to learn about the platform and how it can help you fulfill your ambitions. However, sooner or later you will need to decide what to do once you use all your resources. As the number of your courses is limited, your business will hit a ceiling.

Even Teachable on their website suggests using the Free plan as a stepping stone to launch your business and gain students, and to move on to a paid plan to gain more features and take your enterprise to the next level.

The Next Step – Teachable Pricing Overview

Teachable only offers 2 Pricing plans: the Basic plan and the Pro plan (both billed annually). Both are quite distinct from each other. Check our plan comparison for more details about the differences between the two plans.

The Basic Plan (29$/month)

In addition to all the features of the free plan, the Teachable Basic plan offers:

1. Unlimited coaching services
2. Unlimited video
3. Private community
4. Launch accelerator training
5. Custom domain
6. Drip course content
7. Integrated email marketing system
8. Third party integration
9. 5% transaction fees

The Teachable Basic plan provides all of the key features necessary to begin selling courses and building your business. With this plan, you get a lot more leverage on your business.

The unlimited video and drip content allows you to steadily upload your courses and gain bulk student enrollments.

However, it’s not advised for professionals. The transaction fee is the biggest drawback. When you have to pay 5% of your total earnings, it is just not a sustainable strategy. Even though it may seem like a small number, it will keep on gradually adding up and potentially drain you hundreds of dollars.

Overall, the Basic plan is great for hobbyists and beginners, but if you are an expert or looking to make a full-time profession on Teachable then you may want to explore other options.

Professional Plan (99$/month)

If you are looking to make a living as a course creator then the Professional plan is a fantastic option. It has every feature that Teachable has to offer. The exclusive features are:

1. Dedicated customer success manager
2. Priority support
3. Custom number of admin user access
4. Advanced reports
5. Advanced developer customization
6. Custom user roles
7. Bulk import students

The clear selling point of this plan is

Unlimited courses

As a professional being able to create unlimited courses is a must in the long term. You never want to be in a position where you can’t upload your classes. In general, more classes mean more content, which attracts more students.

NO transaction fee on online course

I have already emphasized the importance of no transaction fees. But please bear in mind that you should always think about your situation first. Which one will be more cost-effective? Is it the plan with fees or with a monthly subscription?

In addition to these privileges, you will also get better deals on certain features, such as improved live chat support and email management.

Final thoughts

To conclude, the Teachable free plan is a great opportunity for all who wish to set up their own business and sell online courses.

I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical at first when I heard that platform underwent some drastic changes and got rid of its free Teachable trial as well as its Teachable business plan. However, my worries were unfounded.

As it’s one of the industry front-runners even its Free plan has many great qualities. I mean to have unlimited students and hosting all for the sweet price of zero dollars is a steal no matter how you look at it.

Nonetheless, if you want to take to make a full-time income on the platform, then I would advise using the Free plan merely as a demo, as a device to test out Teachable services. After you have familiarized yourself with the services, you should upgrade to the Teachable pricing plans for a more long-lasting business model.

While the premium Teachable cost may seem high, the Teachable courses and other benefits such as group coaching will make up the difference over time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Teachable accept PayPal?

Yes, Teachable accepts PayPal and all major credit cards, and all plans come with money back guarantee.

How do I downgrade or upgrade my plan?

If you decide to switch your plan, then the process is simple. Go to your account dashboard and choose your preferred plan. Just be aware you may lose or gain certain features by doing so. When you do this, the app will show a dialog box that explains the features you’ll be losing or attaining. For more information visit here.

Should I upgrade from the Free plan?

If you want to seriously pursue this profession, then it is better to upgrade for more sustainability and features in the long term. However, if you feel like you are satisfied with the Free plan, then there is absolutely no rush to upgrade, as the Free Plan lasts indefinitely.