Podia Review – Is This A Good Course Platform?

In this Podia review, I’m going to talk about one of the options creators have for selling digital products such as courses, ebooks, memberships and webinars online.

Podia is one of the top course platforms on the internet and you may have several questions before you dive into the platform. Questions like:

• Is Podia a good course platform?
• Which platform is better than Podia?
• How do you use Podia?
• What can I sell on Podia?
• Does Podia have a free trial?
• How much does Podia cost?

I’ve tested Podia and its features and I’m going to answer all of these questions here in this Podia review. You’ll be able to make a decision on whether or not to use Podia by the end of this post.

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Table of Contents

What is Podia?

Podia is a cloud-based platform that allows you to sell courses, memberships, digital downloads, coaching, webinars and more, all from one place.

The platform gives creators everything they need to build products, market them and sell them through their own website. You can sign up for a 30-day free trial to get started and test every feature before committing to a plan.

There are two paid plans, Mover and Shaker, with the main differences being transaction fees, PayPal support and access to affiliate marketing.

Podia’s all-in-one nature means you can replace a lot of tools you’d otherwise be paying for separately – email marketing, webinar software, shopping cart, affiliate tracking and more. Everything lives under one roof.

The platform is also very easy to use. You don’t need any technical skills to get set up, and there are plenty of help videos, tutorials and guides to walk you through each feature. Live chat support is available seven days a week as well.

What Can You Sell On Podia?

If it can be delivered directly through the internet, then you can sell it on Podia. This includes:

Podia will host your file and you can use the provided website and marketing tools to build your audience and sell them what you have to offer. Create a membership or community to retain your audience and market to them through the built-in email service.

Who Is Podia For?

Podia is for anyone who wants to sell an online course or downloadable product online.

The pricing makes it a more affordable option than many of the other course platforms like Kajabi or even Thinkific. This makes it perfect for bloggers, marketers, YouTubers and most creators on a budget who would like to share their knowledge in a more structured format.

Since Podia allows you to sell stuff like digital downloads, for example, music files and audio as well as ebooks, this makes it a great alternative to platforms that do not allow direct selling of downloads. For instance, you may want to offer a Lightroom training course and sell presets. Podia would be a better option to go with than any of the other top course platforms.

Podia Interface

It is important for any platform to have an interface that isn’t cluttered and clunky, easy to navigate and allows you to accomplish the tasks you set out to do.

Podia features a very clean and minimal interface with all the important stuff just a click away. When you first sign up for an account, you’re asked to choose what you would like to accomplish during the onboarding process.

You can choose as many options as you like. The options that you choose are added as a dashboard widget so that Podia can help you check off your goals as you achieve them.

When you log into Podia, your dashboard looks like this.

At the top, you’ll find the site menu where you can access the core features quickly.

• Products – start building your course, upload files to offer as a download, set up webinars and more. If you’ve already started offering any products, you’ll be able to manage them here.
• Community – from here you can set up your community which helps to create engagement and interaction around your products.
• Email – this is where you can set up and manage your email marketing within Podia.
• Coupons – you can create and manage your coupons here to offer discounts on your products and memberships.
• Audience – all your subscribers, members and customers show up here and you can manage them all through this tab.
• Affiliate – Podia allows you to offer affiliates a way to promote your product and get paid. You can manage everything through this tab.
• Sales – You can keep track of sales data here, refund customers and set up direct deposit through Stripe or PayPal so that you can get paid.

Other items in the header allow you to see notifications, access help and manage your account settings. The dashboard also has a tour and quick start guide at the top that you can easily get rid of once you’ve seen the video. It’s helpful to have it there if you’ve just signed up.

The goals section of the dashboard allows you to see the goals that you chose during the onboarding process. Once you’ve started any of these, they get checked off.

In the screenshot above, you’ll see that “create first course” has already been checked off and moved to the bottom of the list because I’ve already done this task.

Audience and sales data are also shown in the dashboard. You can get rid of the first two widgets to see them without having to scroll.

Podia’s interface makes this platform very easy to use. There are help files where you’ll need them especially when you just start using a feature.

For example, when you first start using email, you will be able to see a video overview on using email and a link to learn more through Podia help guides.

In the next section, let’s take a look at Podia’s main features.

Podia Features

Podia has a lot of great features that make it a good all-in-one course platform. In this section, I’ll review some of the best features you’ll find yourself using as a creator on Podia.

1. Course Builder

The feature that most creators are going to use on Podia is the course builder. This feature is very easy to use and there are tutorials posted to help you as well.

To start using the course builder, all you need to do is to click on Product in the top menu and then click on the “New Product” button that shows up on the following page. You will then see the following pop-up.

You can then:

1. Give your course a name.
2. Choose the product type. Online course is selected by default.
3. Click on “create product” to create your course.

It is that easy to set up. All you need to do now is add the content and define your settings. The course editor looks like this.

Here, you can add lessons and sections to your course. There are also useful links to watch videos and get step-by-step instructions on setting up your course. Your lessons will fill this area and you’ll be able to edit and manage them from here.

The links at the top of the editor allow you to add course details such as the thumbnail image viewers can identify your course by, your course description and category. You will also be able to add certificates for your course if you plan on offering them.

The Pricing link lets you add your price settings. You can set your course to give away for free or add Stripe or PayPal to set a price. You can also add upsells to show during checkout.

In the Availability settings, you can set the status to available for purchase, prelaunch if you’re just collecting emails or draft to make it unavailable. Set the access to open (for purchase) or closed if it’s not available for purchase but still visible on your website. There are other settings to fine-tune how audiences find your product.

To build your course out you can add sections and lessons. Sections are like chapters with different lessons making up that chapter.

In the section editor, just add the title and a description of the section. There is also a delay feature where you can choose to show the section immediately or delay it for a set number of days.

To add lessons, you have a number of content options.

You can add:

• Text lessons – your students can read the lessons. Great for detailed step-by-step instructions.
• Embeds – Podia supports embeds from hundreds of sources including YouTube, Vimeo, Soundcloud, Instagram, Google Docs and more to add to your lessons.
• Quizzes – Write your lesson’s content and add questions and answer options to make a quiz.
• Coaching – Allow your students to book a coaching session with you.
• Files – Upload any files such as a video, audio file, image, pdf or other documents to add to your lesson.

When you’re done, you can organize your course the way you want it to look for students and either publish it for immediate purchase or set it to prelaunch while you collect emails.

The Podia course builder is easy enough for beginner creators to use and there are tutorials and help files available so you’re properly guided on the process.

2. Digital Downloads

Podia also lets you sell digital products that your visitors can download to their computers after they’ve purchased them. This is a feature that not all course platforms offer. Podia doubles as a digital product platform in this regard.

To add digital products to Podia, you follow basically the same process as the course builder but instead of adding lessons, you upload your digital files. These files can include video, audio, pdfs, spreadsheets, presets, templates and more or bundles that include any combination of allowed files.

You can use the links at the top of the editor to add product images and descriptions, pricing details, upsells and availability in the same way as course settings.

If you want to give away a lead magnet for free while building your email list, you can do it through the digital download manager and then sell your course later.

3. Webinars

Podia allows you to do webinars whether they are live or pre-recorded. To sell webinars to your audience, you have two options – use YouTube live to connect through Podia or connect your Zoom account to host webinars or meetings.

Again, not all course platforms allow you to directly offer webinars and meetings so this is another feature that sets Podia apart from its competitors.

You’ll need to have a Zoom account and have it connected to Podia to host Zoom webinars and meetings. You can just enter the YouTube live link to embed it on the platform.

Then inside the webinar editor, you can just add the start and end date and time for the webinar, a webinar description and join instructions, and choose when to remind your viewers that the webinar is starting.

As with other product types, Podia provides instructions for hosting both Zoom and YouTube Live webinars on the platform.

You can add preview details, pricing and other settings using the links at the top of the editor.

4. Community

Podia makes it easy to have a community where you can build the conversation around your course and where your students can interact. This can help create audience retention, higher engagement and interest in your products.

To build a community, you can just click on the community link in the top menu, name your community on the next page and click create.

Your community has been created. From here you can add discussions and then launch your community. Settings allow you to further customize your community to match your branding.

You can give access to students for free or charge a fee. Products can be included with membership and you can choose visibility and access settings. Members can create their own posts and depending on the level of access, they can also embed media from hundreds of websites.

5. Website Builder

One thing that comes standard with all course creators is a sales page or website builder so you can sell your courses. Podia offers a simple website editor that does not require any previous coding or design experience.

To start using the website builder, you can just click on the “edit site” button on your dashboard at any time. As usual, if you need help building your website, Podia provides a walk-through video as well as links to their help center.

Podia offers a few choices depending on how you would like to set up your website. Once you’ve chosen how to start, you can’t really go back or delete your website.

You can start with:

• Blank site – Podia will let you edit your site without a prebuilt template.
• Email Lander – Gives you a pre-built template focused on collecting emails.
• Link Page – A simple page template that lets you show off links to your existing online presence.
• Full Website – Build a full website with multiple pages, each with different layouts and sections.

The initial setup asks for a few things like brand colors and a logo, then you can edit your pages using the website editor. It isn’t drag-and-drop, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You can click to add sections and choose from style and layout options to customize how you want your site to look. The tight customization choices mean you end up with clean, good-looking sales pages that are built for conversions.

You can set SEO titles and descriptions and control whether Google should index certain pages.

Podia also now has a built-in blogging tool, which was a missing piece for a long time. If you want to publish content to drive organic traffic alongside your products, you can do that without needing a workaround or a separate platform.

One thing I do like is that you can preview your fully responsive website as seen on desktop, tablet and mobile right there in the editor.

6. Email Marketing

You do not need to have your own email marketing service such as Aweber, GetResponse or MailChimp when you’re using Podia. Although Podia has integrations for these services, they also have a built-in email marketing service that you can use to reach your audience.

You can send broadcasts or cue up a series of emails to send out at intervals. Podia also gives you all the tools to collect emails such as forms and even page templates. You can build funnels in order to convert leads into paying subscribers and more.

Podia’s email marketing service let’s you do the things any great email marketing service allows you to do. Segmentation is one of those things and also analytics. You can get insights into open rates, clicks, bounce rates, unsubscribes and more.

Everything can be managed from your email dashboard by clicking on Email in the top menu.

To get started with Podia email, you will be able to see a walk-through video as well as help guides on how to use the product. You will also be required to add your address for compliance and set up a few other things.

Being able to reach your audience with the right marketing messages and see how your efforts are performing is something you need when using any platform. Podia provides everything you need in this regard and saves you yet another subscription.

If you however have an existing list with one of the email marketing services, you can also use the direct integrations to link to Podia and run your campaigns from an external service.

7. Marketing & Sales

Podia has a number of marketing and sales features to help you convert more of your visitors into buyers.

These include:

• Coupons – Available on both paid plans, coupons let you offer discounts on courses, downloads, memberships and bundles. You can create and manage them from their own dashboard by clicking on the Coupons link in the top menu.
• Live chat – You can offer convenient messaging and live chat to visitors browsing your site to help turn them into customers.
• Upsells – Offer other products on the order page of an existing product, which is a great way to earn more per customer.
• Bundles – Combine two or more of your products to boost sales, whether that’s a download with a course, a course with a webinar, or any other combination.
• Embed buttons – Easily integrate Podia into an existing website you already own using embed buttons for your products.

To use the sales features you’ll need to connect Stripe for payment processing. PayPal is also supported but only on the Shaker plan. Keep in mind that the Mover plan carries a 5% transaction fee on sales. If you plan on selling regularly, it’s worth factoring that in when choosing your plan – the Shaker plan at $89/month has no transaction fees.

You can track all your sales data under the Sales tab in the top menu.

8. Affiliates

Affiliate marketing is a great way to extend your reach and reward your existing customers for telling others about your courses. Podia offers a built-in affiliate program for subscribers on the Shaker plan ($89/month) or higher.

As usual, whenever you start using a feature on Podia, you’ll be able to see a walk-through video and also help guides to show you how to use the feature.

Affiliate marketing on Podia is simple and you can set it all up and manage it from your dashboard.

To have people promote your products, you can set your affiliate program to either invite-only or open. Commission rates can be set to either a flat fee (like $10 per sale) or as a percentage of the sale (say 35% per sale). You can also set specific products to have their own commission rates which will override the globally set commission rates.

You can see sales data in your affiliates dashboard and you’ll be able to see which affiliates have not been paid and pay them directly from the dashboard.

Podia Support & Help

One thing Podia is great at is the support and help they offer to creators who use their platform to build their online business. There are many support channels on Podia and they aren’t just available to members on paid plans but even for free members.

Get started with any of the core features on Podia and you’ll be shown a video walkthrough and links where you can learn more about doing the task at hand.

The screenshot above is just an example of this. When you start using their email feature, you’ll be shown a video tour of the feature and how to set it up. You’ll also be given a link to some help files so you can get step-by-step instructions that you can go through.

And if you get stuck while you’re setting things up and prefer talking to a human being, no matter what plan you’re on, free or paid, there is the live chat available.

From your account, you can also click the “question mark icon” in your header navigation next to your profile picture and access a host of help and support channels.

• Weekly Live Demo – A weekly webinar every Tuesday at 2pm EST where you can see how Podia works and get questions answered.
• Podia Blog – Updates on new developments, creator stories and tips to help you level up your online business.
• Video Library – Useful video content to help you grow your business, updated regularly.
• Podia Guides – Step-by-step instructions on how to use Podia and its features to achieve your goals.
• Creator Wiki – Short articles covering everything from creating digital products to marketing on social media.
• Free tools – A collection of free tools to help you generate content including sales pages, emails, terms and conditions pages and more.
• Creator Community – Podia practices what they preach. Instead of sending you off to a Facebook group, they’ve built a community using their own platform where members can ask questions, share stories and interact.
• Help Center – A knowledge base written by the Podia team to guide you through every aspect of using the platform.

All Podia members have access to all the above help and support channels.

Podia Plans and Pricing

Podia currently has two paid plans – Mover and Shaker. Both come with a 30-day free trial that gives you access to every feature so you can properly test the platform before committing to anything.

The free trial used to be a permanent free plan, but Podia has since moved away from that model. The upside is that the trial gives you full access rather than a limited preview, which is actually more useful if you want to see how everything works before you hand over your card details.

When compared to other top course platforms, Podia’s pricing is still one of the more affordable options out there. Kajabi’s cheapest plan starts at $179/month, which puts Podia’s entry plan at a fraction of the cost.

Here’s what you get on each plan:

Mover Plan ($39/m or $33/m on annual billing)

Everything you need to get started – full website with blogging, unlimited products, online courses, digital downloads, coaching, webinars, community, email marketing, coupons, custom domain and 7-days-a-week support.

The one thing to be aware of is that Mover carries a 5% transaction fee on sales. PayPal is also not available on this plan – you’ll need to use Stripe for payment processing. Affiliate marketing is not included on Mover either.

Shaker Plan ($89/m or $75/m on annual billing)

Everything in Mover, plus no transaction fees, PayPal support and a built-in affiliate program.

If you’re selling regularly or want to run an affiliate program to extend your reach, the Shaker plan is the one to go with. The transaction fee savings alone can make the higher monthly cost worth it depending on your volume.

Both plans include Podia’s email marketing platform free for up to 100 subscribers. As your list grows, you can add more subscribers using Podia Email starting at $9/month.

One other thing worth mentioning – Podia now offers free migrations on both plans if you’re moving over from another platform. Mover covers up to 20 products and Shaker covers up to 30.

Podia Pros & Cons

Podia is a pretty good all-in-one course platform offering a lot of features at a budget-friendly price. But they aren’t perfect, as is the case with most platforms.

Here’s what I liked and didn’t like after test driving Podia.

The main thing to be aware of with Podia is the transaction fee on the Mover plan. Five percent might not sound like much when you’re just starting out, but it adds up quickly once you’re making consistent sales. If you’re serious about selling, it’s worth doing the math on whether the Shaker plan at $89/month makes more sense for you financially.

The blogging addition is a genuinely welcome change. It was the one thing that always felt like a gap in the platform and it’s good to see it filled. You can now drive organic traffic through content without needing a separate tool or a workaround to make it happen.

Other than those two things, Podia is still the same solid, affordable platform it has always been – easy to use, packed with features and a good fit for creators who want everything in one place without paying Kajabi prices.

Podia Alternatives

Podia is a decent course platform that offers a lot of great features. However, it may not be the best platform for everyone depending on a number of different factors. For instance, you may want to edit your website’s code to further customize your website and this isn’t an option with Podia.

There are many great alternatives to Podia that might be a better match for you depending on what you’re looking for. Here are some of them.

1. Thinkific

Of all the choices you have when it comes to course platforms, Thinkific is one of the best you can go with. It’s a great alternative to Podia if you’re offering courses, communities, and memberships. However, if you want to sell downloads or offer webinars and coaching, these product types aren’t available on Thinkific.

Still, there are many pluses, including the ability to edit your website’s code or integrate Thinkific into your existing website.

Thinkific is a little more expensive than Podia with their plans starting at $49/monthly or $36/month when you use annual billing. However, they have a better free plan where you can sell with no transaction fees.

You can start a 30-day free trial on their Start or Grow plans, or you can explore core features for free.

2. Kajabi

The main difference between Kajabi and Podia is the pricing. Kajabi’s entry-level Basic plan starts at $179/month, with the Growth plan at $249/month and the Pro plan at $499/month.

Those differences aside, Kajabi is a powerful alternative to Podia that gives you everything you need to sell courses, memberships, digital downloads, webinars, coaching and more. Their email marketing and automation tools are among the strongest of any course platform, and support and training are top-notch.

Both Podia and Kajabi offer a free trial, but Podia gives you 30 days while Kajabi’s standard trial runs for 14 days. Neither platform has a free plan, so the trial is your only window to test things out before committing.

3. Learnworlds

Learnworlds is another awesome alternative to Podia. They allow you to sell courses, memberships, digital downloads and offer webinars. You can engage your students with beautiful interactive video, ebooks, assessments, surveys and more.

The drag-and-drop website builder is also great and allows you to build high converting pages with plenty of themes to choose from. The website builder also allows you to have a blog. There is also an app your students can download and access your online school.

Learnworlds doesn’t have a free plan like Podia but offers a free trial on all of their paid plans with no credit card needed to access. Plans start at $29/month ($24 if paid annually), but the downside is that Learnworlds takes a $5 fee on each course sale for the Starter plan. The other paid plans, Pro Trainer for $99/month and Learning Center for $299/month) do not have any transaction fees and are rich in features.

4. Teachable

Teachable is a popular alternative to Podia for creators who want to build and sell courses, coaching programs, and digital products. Like Podia, Teachable covers courses, coaching, and digital downloads in one place. Teachable also has a native community feature built in, so no third-party tool is needed.

Like Podia, Teachable no longer has a free plan. Both platforms offer a free trial instead, but the trial lengths differ. Podia gives you 30 days while Teachable’s trial runs for only 7 days. If you want more time to evaluate before committing, that’s worth factoring in. A credit card is required to start either trial.

The Starter plan starts at $39/month (or $29/month billed annually) and carries a 7.5% transaction fee. The Builder and Growth plans have no transaction fees. Teachable’s plans are comparable in price to Podia’s across the board.

5. Mighty Networks

Mighty Networks is primarily a community and membership platform, which makes it a natural alternative if Podia’s community builder is the main thing drawing you in. The platform also has a native course builder so you can sell courses alongside your community.

Since it’s built around community first, it goes deeper on that side of things than Podia does – think social network-style features, AI-powered tools, gamification and more ways to keep members engaged.

The trade-off is that Mighty Networks doesn’t support digital downloads or coaching products the way Podia does, so it’s a narrower tool overall.

There are three main plans. The Launch plan starts at $95/month and covers community, courses and basic automations – a solid starting point. The Scale plan at $215/month adds more automation options, integrations and migration services. The Growth plan sits at $354/month (only billed annually) and is aimed at hosts who want advanced features and dedicated support.

All plans carry transaction fees, 2% on Launch, 1% on Scale and 0.5% on Growth, so factor that into your cost comparison with Podia.

Mighty Networks offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required. Podia’s 30-day trial gives you more time to evaluate if you’re not in a rush to decide.

These are five of the best and most popular alternatives to Podia. All of them offer a free trial so you can try them out if you’re not completely sold on what Podia has to offer.

Final Words

Podia is a solid course platform that caters to bloggers, freelancers, YouTubers and any creative type who wants to sell their knowledge online without paying for a dozen different tools. The all-in-one nature means you can handle your website, email marketing, products and community all from one place.

You can sell courses, digital downloads, webinars, coaching and memberships on Podia. Not all course platforms let you do all of those things, which is what makes it stand out at its price point.

The main thing to keep in mind going in is the transaction fee on the Mover plan. If you’re just starting out and not generating consistent sales yet, $39/month with a 5% fee is a reasonable entry point. But once sales start moving, it’s worth running the numbers on whether upgrading to Shaker makes more financial sense.

If you want to try Podia before committing, you can start a 30-day free trial and get access to every feature on the platform. That’s enough time to build something out properly and see whether it’s the right fit for you.