How to Choose an Online Course Platform: 5 Questions That Cut Through the Noise

TL;DR — what actually matters

1. Start with your expected month-6 MRR — not today’s revenue, not your wishlist
2. If your budget is under £100/mo, transaction fees determine the winner (Thinkific 0% vs Teachable 7.5%)
3. If community is your primary product, choose a community-first platform (Circle, Mighty Networks) and bolt courses on later
4. If you need SSO, SCORM, or compliance, your budget floor is £239/mo — skip the entry-tier platforms
5. Avoid Kajabi until you can justify the bundling with tools you already pay for

Question 1: What’s your real budget — all-in, including processing?

The marketing page says £31/mo. Your real budget includes:

• Platform subscription
• Payment processing (Stripe 2.9% + 30p, always)
• Platform transaction fee (varies 0–8%)
• Any add-ons (community, email, analytics)

The most common mistake is budgeting for the subscription and ignoring the transaction fee. At £3,000/mo revenue, Teachable Starter’s 7.5% fee adds £225/mo to your “£31/mo” plan. Your real cost is £256/mo — more than triple the marketed price.

The right question: At my expected month-6 revenue, what will I actually pay each month?

Question 2: Will you need community as a core product feature?

This is the question that splits the market into two distinct decisions:

Community is a nice-to-have (or not needed): → Choose a course-first platform: Thinkific Basic (£39/mo), Teachable Builder (£71/mo), Podia Mover (£31/mo) → Add Discord or Slack externally for free if you need a community

Community is core to your value proposition (members pay for the group, not just the content): → Start on Circle (£89/mo) or Mighty Networks (£39/mo) → Add Kajabi Growth (£127/mo) if you also need the marketing automation bundled → Never start on Teachable for this use case — the community feature is vestigial

The structural mistake is choosing Kajabi because it has “everything,” then discovering the community product is weaker than Circle and you’re still managing two platforms.

Question 3: How many courses will you publish in year one?

This is the question that catches first-timers. Several entry-tier plans cap course count:

• Teachable Starter: 1 published course (and the 7.5% fee)
• Thinkific Free: 1 published course (but 0% fees)
• LearnWorlds Starter: Unlimited courses, but $5 per sale

If you plan more than one course in year one — which most creators do, even if the second is a free lead magnet — you need at minimum:

• Thinkific Basic (£39/mo): unlimited courses, 0% fees
• Teachable Builder (£71/mo): unlimited courses, 0% fees
• Podia Mover (£31/mo): unlimited courses, 0% fees

Don’t start on a capped plan unless you’re running a genuine one-course experiment.

Question 4: Do you need any of these enterprise features?

The presence of any one of these features gates you into higher tiers or different platform categories:

If you checked any of the first two boxes, your conversation is with LearnWorlds or Thinkific Plus — not Teachable, Kajabi, or Podia. Budget accordingly.

Question 5: What’s your integration stack?

The platforms differ significantly in how they connect to your existing tools:

If you use ConvertKit / ActiveCampaign / Mailchimp: All major platforms (Teachable, Thinkific, Podia, Kajabi, LearnWorlds) integrate via native connections or Zapier. Kajabi is the only one that replaces your email tool rather than integrating with it.

If you use Zoom for live sessions: All platforms support Zoom links in lessons. Kajabi and LearnWorlds have tighter Zoom integrations for scheduling and recording. Thinkific’s Zoom integration requires their app marketplace.

If you want Stripe checkout control (no platform transaction fee, own branding): Thinkific, Podia, and LearnWorlds Pro Trainer all support this. Kajabi’s own-Stripe option carries a 0.5–0.8% transaction fee.

If you need API access for custom integrations: Thinkific has the cleanest API implementation for course platforms. Kajabi’s API is more restricted. Teachable’s API is functional but thinly documented.

The practical decision tree

Start here
    │
    ▼
Need SSO / SCORM / white-label app?
    │
    Yes → LearnWorlds Pro Trainer (£79/mo) or Learning Centre (£239/mo)
    │
    No ▼
    │
Budget £0–£40/mo?
    │
    Yes → Thinkific Free (1 course, 0% fees) or Podia Starter (8% fee, skip this)
    │
    No ▼
    │
Community is primary product?
    │
    Yes → Circle (£89/mo) or Mighty Networks (£39/mo)
    │
    No ▼
    │
Already paying for email + funnel + community tools (combined £80+/mo)?
    │
    Yes → Kajabi Growth (£127/mo) replaces them all
    │
    No ▼
    │
Default → Thinkific Basic (£39/mo) — 0% fees, real free plan, cleanest upgrade path

The realism caveat

Most platforms will work for most creators at most revenue levels. The difference between choosing Teachable and Thinkific for a creator at £2K MRR is a few hundred pounds per year in fees — meaningful but not catastrophic.

The catastrophic scenarios are:

1. Starting on a transaction-fee plan and hitting £5K+ MRR before you notice
2. Choosing a course-first platform when community is your actual business model
3. Jumping to Kajabi before you have the revenue to justify the bundling

Avoid those three and you’ve made 90% of the decision correctly. Take the decision wizard for a personalised recommendation, or use the cost calculator to run your specific revenue numbers.