Ruzuku Review – One of the Easiest Course Platforms to Use

Ruzuku has the easiest course builder that creators can use to build and sell online courses.

In this Ruzuku review, I’m going to break down my experience with this online course platform and why this is one of the best options you can use to sell your knowledge.

There are a lot of course platforms competing for the attention of course creators. Each one of them come with a unique set of features that set them apart from their competitors.

Creators will spend a lot of time building and optimizing their course so it’s important that course platforms present a good user experience with the course builder. Most of the top platforms get this right but Ruzuku seemingly takes the crown for the easiest course builder I’ve used thus far.

Course platforms, though, are more than just course builders so in this review, we’ll see what else Ruzuku offers and how good they are for running an online course business.

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Table of Contents

What is Ruzuku?

You probably can’t tell from the strange name, which means “to give aid” in Swahili, but Ruzuku has “everything you need to create, sell and teach amazing courses” according to the tagline on their features page.

This course platform is incredibly creator friendly as most of your resources are unlimited from courses and students to uploads and data storage. There are also no transaction fees, not even on their free plan.

Their main focus is providing a great course building experience for creators which you will notice as soon as you sign up.

Their easy to use course builder takes any frustration or learning curve out of getting your courses up and the student view is beautiful so students have a great learning experience as well.

Besides the course builder, you’ll have access to branding and customization options, webinar and meeting tools, community management, sales pages, payment options and sales features like coupons and bundles, messaging and a whole lot more.

Support and help is also abundant – from friendly staff via phone or email to courses and knowledge base articles.

Ruzuku doesn’t have a free trial but you can sign up and get started on a free plan. The free plan is almost a free trial of the $99/month Core plan with the only difference being the student limitation. You’re only allowed 5 students while on the free plan.

Who Is Ruzuku For?

Ruzuku is for anyone who wants to share their knowledge or expertise on a topic in the form of an online course.

Bloggers and YouTubers who want to monetize their content by sharing it in a more structured format can use Ruzuku to build courses. Authors, speakers and coaches will find this outlet useful for helping their clients while being able to accept payments online and widening their reach.

If you’re looking for an alternative to any course platform or course marketplace, then Ruzuku is also a good option where you can migrate your courses. You’ll get to keep more of your money as you get to set your own prices, there are no transaction fees and you do not have to pay for resources on their simple pricing plans.

Hundreds of creators are already using Ruzuku to create and sell courses. You can find stories of their experiences here.

Ruzuku Interface

The sign up process for Ruzuku is brief and as soon as you provide your details, you’re thrust right into the course builder to start building your course.

Ruzuku is unique in that the dashboard is built around the course you’re building. With most course platforms, you enter the dashboard and then you find the course builder. Ruzuku does have a home dashboard but it is minimal and contains only your courses, a ‘create new course’ button and a couple of other controls.

To move forward, you would have to click on one of the courses you’re editing or create a new course. From there, you would be able to get all the settings you need for your course, including features like meetings, messages and sales page builder.

When you click on a course to manage it, you’re presented with a dashboard with a lot more buttons and actions. There is plenty to do here including:

• Managing your course – you can do a lot of things here like rename your course, create meetings, send messages to your students, build your sales page and more.
• Editing modules and lessons – access the course builder to add or edit modules and lessons.in your course.
• Accessing your launch checklist – A progress bar shows you how much you have done prior to launching your course. You can use the checklist to make sure you’re doing each task that needs to be done before you launch your course.
• Seeing your course as students would – Over the the right hand side, you’ll be able to toggle between creator view and student view. This is an important one as you can see and diagnose any problems with your course when viewed from the perspective of the student.
• Booking a call with Abe = There is a link that offers support by having your book a call with Abe to discuss the platform.
• Managing your account – clicking on your profile picture gives you the options to go back to your courses dashboard allowing you to manage your account settings, modify your profile and see your billing details. You will also find a link to get some support if you need.

The Ruzuku interface is very easy to use for creators and there is very little distractions to work with.

Your students will also benefit from a good interface to consume their courses. In their view, they can also access meetings, view profiles of people who are taking the same course and also manage their preferences.

Ruzuku is very simple to use for both creators and students. With their main focus being to help you create great courses, they’ve managed to make the course the primary focus and not the platform.

Ruzuku Features

Ruzuku is packed with features that every course creator would want to use to build a great learning experience for their students. From messaging to live meetings and more, the platform is very close to an all-in-one solution for creators.

In this section, I review some of the key features of Ruzuku. You see how they work and what I think about them especially in relation to what’s available inside other course platforms.

1. Course Builder

The course builder is the feature that holds the most value on Ruzuku. While the course builder is built into the dashboards of most platforms, the Ruzuku course builder is built around the course builder.

And it’s extremely easy to use when you choose a Ruzuku course template.

You also have the option to create from a blank canvas if you already have experience building out your courses.

Using a template, Ruzuku becomes one of the easiest course builders you will ever use. I chose the “Template Course 1” to start creating my course and this was how the process went.

The first step is to enter a title for your new course. There’s an example title in the field provided and you just type in your title then click on “Create course”.

This creates an entire dashboard around the course and the first thing you’ll see in that dashboard is the ‘quick launch guide’ – a checklist for building out and launching your course.

As you naturally complete steps inside your course, these get checked off in the checklist. Each step has instructions and guidelines to help you along the way. You do not need to follow the guide as creating the course using the template is straight-forward. But you can check back to see if there are any steps you may have missed.

The other section you’ll see is the “modules and lessons” section. You can click on “edit modules and lessons to view the course editor.

Initially, you’ll see the layout above which allows you to create a new module or follow the template and edit the existing modules and lessons or add a new lesson.

You can click the pencil icon to change the module name, delete it or copy it to a new course. You can click on a lesson to edit it.

The template is useful in that it gives you instructions as samples. For example, the first lesson is “How To Use This Template” and contain those instructions.

The entire introduction module contain tips and guides on using the template to create your course. Personally, I would just keep this module until after I’ve crafted my course and then delete it before publishing. You can always create a new introduction module if you need one and start editing from “Core Module #1”.

The text editor itself is great and allows you to format your course in a number of ways. You can add hosted video and audio through the “add media’ tool. This also allows you to upload files like PDFs and also you can add HTML and embed media like YouTube, Vimeo and Wistia videos.

The bottom bar allows you to make your course even more powerful by adding some elements to your lessons.

• Downloads – just click downloads to be able to add attachments to your lesson.
• Assessment – this button lets you add a quiz, poll or assignment to your lesson.
• Discussions – this lets you add a comment section to your lesson where students can interact and discuss the lesson, get feedback and build community. You’ll need to set up your discussion prompt and descriptions and optionally require a comment before the student can continue the course.
• Required – toggle this to require the student to complete this lesson before moving on.
• Copy/Delete – If you want to use this lesson or modify it in another course, you can use the copy button to do this. Or you can use the delete button to get rid of this lesson.

When you’re done editing all the modules and getting rid of the template lessons you’re not going to use, your course is ready and you can toggle the “open for signups” button in the top right hand corner of the page.

You can then set up your sales page which would have your course outline on it or start inviting students. Check your launch checklist to see if you need to do anything else or go to “manage course” to set up things like messages, meetings or adjust your course settings.

Under course settings , you can choose whether your have full access to your course upon signup or if it is drip released. Course limits let you limit the number of students who can take your course.

Other settings let you choose whether some features are visible to your students, if you want to send an orientation email and how often you want to get notified about new signups.

Instant Courses

On the homepage of your Ruzuku account, there is a button right next to your “Create a new course” button that says “Browse Instant Courses”.

At first, I thought this was Ruzuku’s creator training repository where you can access courses that helped you build your knowledge but it turned out to be something different.

Instant courses are a library of more than 30 done-for-you courses that you can sell as your own. You can offer one of these courses along with your own in a bundle or even as a standalone course.

There are a handful of different categories with different courses you could offer.

To get started, you’ll need to purchase the course or get a bundle of 5 courses or all instant courses. The pricing options are available when you click to purchase any instant course.

You can preview each course and you’ll see video instructions on how to use the instant course. There is a module in each course that are for instructors only. It contains slides, graphics, terms of service instructions, worksheets, sales page templates and more. This module is to be deleted before you offer the course. The other modules make up your course material.

This done-for-you aspect of Ruzuku is brilliant and is the only platform where I’ve seen this feature available. If you don’t already have a course or you want a supplementary course to offer then this is a good reason to check out Ruzuku and what they offer.

2. Sales Page Editor

Before you can edit the automatically generated sales page for your course, you’ll need to first add a price point after connecting your payment provider ie. PayPal or Stripe.

Ruzuku doesn’t give you a full website that you can use to market your course which means there’s no blog option either. You’ll get an editable sales page and the link to share.

The sales page editor is also very easy to use. You will be able to edit all the different sections including the header, testimonials, video, course layout, pricing, FAQ and more. You can also delete and add sections as you see fit.

For each section, you can change the background image, the color or the layout. For example, I can change the header background pictured above from a solid color to one of the template images or to my own custom image.

There are prompts throughout to guide you and you can use the rich text editor to add additional media, formatting and more to your text and sections. The page is automatically saved as you update it so that you don’t lose your work.

The student view tab allows you to preview your template exactly how new students will see your sales page and there’s a button to instantly go back to edit mode.

Ruzuku gives you all the essentials to help you build and market your online course so the sales page is one of those things you’re going to have. You don’t get a full website where you can add your own pages and a blog.

You do have the option of using your own website and adding the sales page link into your menu if you prefer. There are ways to get around not having a full website.

To use a custom domain for your sales pages, you’ll need to be on the Pro plan which costs $199/month.

3. Community

Ruzuku doesn’t have a very strong community product and you may not even realize that it’s there since it’s not as well defined as on other platforms.

In terms of community, students each have a profile and can engage in discussions on your course lessons once enabled. You can build a community vibe by adding discussions to your lessons and ask questions that engage a response.

Students can add their responses with text, images, video, audio and file attachments. Others can like their responses and add reply to previous comments or add their own.

In a student’s account, they can see a list of other people doing the same course. However, there is no messaging or other actions that are normally done inside community platforms.

Another way for creators to foster community is to create meetings or live teleconferences where creators and students can share audio and video using the live meeting feature. You can set up meetings in your course dashboard and use native video to stream and connect with your students.

It’s not a very strong community offering where students can message and follow each other, group chat and have a dedicated board or space for discussion but it can work. I wouldn’t recommend if you need a more community-first platform or stronger community features.

4. Messaging

You can stay connected with your students via email marketing on Ruzuku thanks to the built-in messaging feature.

With no way to segment your students should you need to, Ruzuku’s messaging isn’t as powerful an email marketing tool as some other course platforms like Kajabi’s, but it’s there.

If you already have an email automation provider, then you may opt to continue using them with Ruzuku. However, keep in mind that you would have to use Zapier as there are no native integrations to manage your list building.

Besides being able to send scheduled messages, you can also edit and manage the premade system messages Ruzuku sends when you invite students and they enroll to your course.

It’s great to have email marketing available natively on any course platform. Ruzuku’s isn’t the best but it works if you don’t already have an email marketing service that connects with the platform.

5. Sales & Marketing

Creating a course is the easiest part of running a course business. The hardest part is getting and retaining students. For the marketing, Ruzuku has a few tools to help you get sales.

The first thing you’ll need to do before you can start selling your course on Ruzuku is to connect a payment provider and then set up price points.

Stripe and PayPal are the two options available for you to collect payments so you could connect one or both to start getting paid. You’ll find them in your integrations list by going to your account settings.

Next, you will need to create price points. If you don’t have a payment provider connected, the only price point you can create is FREE. Once a payment provider is connected though, you can set the price you’d like to charge for your course.

Ruzuku also lets you create coupon codes so that you can offer discounts or run sales on your course. You’ll need to have a payment provider connected before you can create a coupon and set up a price point for this as well.

Bundles are another sales tool you can use. This allows you to sell two or more of your courses at one price. This is a great way to offer related courses to your students without them having to enroll separately and possibly save them some money.

Ruzuku also has sales pages which you can easily configure from the template they give you. I’ve already covered that in the above section. Checkout pages are simple and automatically created when you set price points.

Unfortunately, there are no affiliate or referral programs at this time, a feature that I’m always happy to see available. Affiliate programs can help spread your reach an reward students for sharing your course. Hopefully, they can add this feature in the future.

6. Meetings

Hosting webinar, live video presentation or group coaching call inside Ruzuku account is another great feature that you can use.

Ruzuku lets you create meetings with native video or you can use the Zoom integration or an external provider if you like.

You can start a presentation by opening one of your courses and going to the course dashboard. Find and click on “meetings” to get started.

On the next page you will be able to create your first meeting. The meeting settings allow you to add the meeting name, start date and time, duration from 15 minutes to 4 hours or custom duration and the type of meeting.

There are 4 options for meeting types all depending on how you want to connect with your students.

1. Video Conference – you can add up to 60 participants but you can also record the event and optionally allow students to download the recording. For this option, you can add your slides preferably in PDF format. Video conferences use native video streaming from Ruzuku and both hosts and students can stream video and audio.
2. Presentation – If you would rather run a webinar where only the host can stream video and audio, you can use the presentation option which supports up to 250 participants. You can also add your slides in this option similar to video conferences.
3. Zoom – If you prefer to use Zoom then you’ll need to first connect your account in integrations section otherwise you wouldn’t be able to select it.
4. External – You may want to use an external platform like YouTube Live or GotoWebinar to host more participants or for other reasons. You can choose this option and paste your meeting link in.

After you’ve created a meeting, you have the options to add a description, send reminders, reschedule or duplicate the meeting for another time. You can also preview how everything will look.

For your students, when you add a meeting, it will show up in their dashboard under the meetings tab and they have the option to add it to their Google or desktop calendars.

Meetings allow you to have interactions and build relationships with your students so it’s definitely a plus to have this important feature with such flexible settings available in Ruzuku.

7. Integrations

Ruzuku doesn’t have a big list of native integrations. You can send emails to your students on Ruzuku so it’s no surprise that there aren’t any email platforms listed here. There is Zapier though so you could connect your Mailchimp or GetResponse accounts and do your email marketing with those.

There are the essential integrations for payments – PayPal & Stripe available and there is Zoom for meetings if you want to use this option.

To configure these integrations, you can click on your profile icon in the top right corner of the dashboard and choose Account. Click on the integrations tab and connect your accounts.

You can also embed content on Ruzuku when building a course so YouTube, Vimeo, Loom and other video sites that provide embed codes are going to work with Ruzuku as well.

What’s Missing

Ruzuku does have everything that you need to create and sell courses but there are also some things that would be nice to have that are missing.

Keep in mind that these can be added in future updates but as of this writing they’re currently not there.

The community aspect of Ruzuku could be stronger but since they have profiles and discussions within courses then I wouldn’t worry too much about it.

An affiliate program feature would be a great marketing feature to have since it rewards students to help expand your reach. Even a simple referral system would work.

Native integrations for popular email automation software would also be a welcomed addition. There’s no way to segment your audience in Ruzuku messaging if you needed to. You could use Zapier but it would cost less for creators to have native integrations.

Certificates of completion aren’t available in Ruzuku either. It would also be a nice addition to have.

These omissions don’t necessarily make Ruzuku a bad course platform (in fact, it’s great), but depending on your needs, they could influence your decision on whether to use the platform or not.

Ruzuku Help & Support

As simple as Ruzuku might be, there will be times when you’ll need help or support to find how to do something or fix an issue.

Ruzuku has a few channels for getting support including email support and a knowledge base.

There are links to support in your account dashboard under your profile photo and other places. Here are a few different ways you can get support and help on Ruzuku.

1. Email Support

This is the preferred communication method for getting support from Ruzuku. They provide a support email which you can easily find inside your account. You can also use the chat icon in the bottom of your course dashboard.

You will normally get a response within 24 hours of your email request and they are very friendly and helpful.

2. Knowledge Base

Before turning to email support, you could check out the knowledge base. It is filled with help files for using all the features on Ruzuku and for guiding you through any problems you might encounter as a Ruzuku course creator.

There are a number of sections like:

• New to Ruzuku – answers common questions about subscriptions & pricing, Ruzuku platform, service and support and more.
• Guide Help – guides you on how to use Ruzuku features and account as well as FAQs.
• Student Help – knowledge base help for students enrolled to your courses.
• Tips & Suggestions – for troubleshooting common problems

The knowledge base is a good place to go if you’re new to Ruzuku or before you decide to send an email. You may be able to solve your problem faster this way or get familiar with certain features that you find confusing.

3. Phone Support?

If you prefer to talk to someone at Ruzuku, there is limited phone support. However, they would pretty much prefer that you use the email channel for any communication.

To get phone support, you’d have to book the call via their online calendar. Spaces fill up quickly so this may not be the fastest way to get support. You’re encouraged to use the email support whenever possible as they respond within 24 hours.

Also keep in mind that their office hours are from Monday to Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM Eastern Standard Time.

No courses or community?

Most course platforms offer courses for creators to learn more about using their platform and getting the most out of launching your course business with them. For example, Thinkific has Thinkific Academy and Kajabi has Kajabi University. Skool offers several courses that you can access inside your account.

There is no similar offering inside Ruzuku although you can find lots of help in the knowledge base.

I also didn’t find a creator community natively on Ruzuku or externally on Facebook as many other platforms offer. I did find one private Ruzuku Instructors group on Facebook that may not be officially offered by the company. This seems to be a good group as there are close to 1000 instructors present there.

Ruzuku Plans & Pricing

Ruzuku has very simple pricing with a free plan and two paid plans.

You wouldn’t have to keep your eyes on how much of anything you use or any account limits because nearly everything is unlimited. The plans only differ in a couple of exclusive features on the higher tier.

While there is no free trial available, you can start on the free plan which is very much like getting a free trial of the Core plan. The only limitation is in the number of students that you can have enrolled which is limited to 5.

On all plans, you can create unlimited courses, upload unlimited audio and video and there are no transaction fees to worry about even on the free tier.

The two paid plans are the Core plan which is $99/month (or $997/year) and the Pro plan which is $199/month (or $1997/year). Subscribing annually can save you up to $391/year.

The Core plan has all the features you can get on the free plan with the only difference being that you can enroll unlimited students. All the core features include:

• live meetings and video conferencing
• discussions and online community
• sales pages
• payment integrations from PayPal and Stripe
• creator and student support
• daily backups of course content

The Pro plan includes all the Core features and adds a couple of important features for creators on this higher tier.

If you want to use a custom domain name, have multiple instructors or use premium branding then the Pro plan is the option you need.

Personally, I like the unlimited nature of the plans which is a great benefit to creators. Most course platforms have a $99 tier and include custom domains but you’ll need the $199 plan to be able to connect a custom domain.

Ruzuku is also one of few course platforms that do not have transaction fees on a free plan. This makes sense here as you can only sell to 5 students anyway.

Ruzuku Pros & Cons

Ruzuku has a great, easy to use course builder but this may not be enough to convince everything that this is the platform to use. There are some other great features as well. However there are some important omissions that may or may not be deal-breakers.

Here’s a quick look at some of Ruzuku’s pros and cons – things that I liked and things that I didn’t like about the platform.

For me, I loved the course builder as the course templates make it super easy to get your course built out. The pre-made instant courses can also be useful if you want to add them to your course library and sell them to your students.

I also loved the unlimited nature of Ruzuku. Some platforms force you to upgrade by placing caps on how many students you can enroll or how many courses you can sell on a plan. On Ruzuku, you choose a plan based on your needs and you don’t have to worry about caps.

On the minus side, no creator education is a weird omission. No courses or a section dedicated to giving creators knowledge on how to use their platform to build an online course business.

Affiliate program management or even a referral system for students is also an important one for me but not a deal-breaker. There isn’t one available on Ruzuku currently so that students can get motivated to share your course and be rewarded for their efforts.

Ruzuku Alternatives

If you found that Ruzuku didn’t quite meet your expectations for a course platform, even with such great course-building features, then there are dozens of alternatives you can try.

Ruzuku in my opinion is great but you can also check out these 5 alternatives from our best course platforms list.

1. Thinkific

When it comes to course platforms, Thinkific is one of the best options you can go with. It’s a great alternative to Ruzuku as they offer courses and a very powerful community product. Despite having a similar interface as Ruzuku’s, their course builder isn’t as simple to use but is still very user-friendly and has powerful built-in features.

Thinkific has lots of integrations via their app store that you can use to add even more features that are not on their official feature list. You can integrate with apps you already use and third-party apps that allow you to offer more to your students.

Not only does Thinkific offer a free plan, but they also offer a full 30-day free trial on their mid-tier plan, the Start plan. Similar to Ruzuku, there are no transaction fees on any plans including their free plan.

Ruzuku wins with its simplicity and generosity with resources while Thinkific is a platform packing more features and more affordable plans for lower budgets. While they both have the same $99/month and $199/month plans, Thinkific has a $49/month Basic plan. Both platforms offer annual billing.

Thinkific is a great option when you’re looking for perhaps a more powerful alternative to Ruzuku.

2. Podia

Podia is another great option that lets you offer unlimited courses. They don’t have a free trial anymore but you can sign up for a free account to test drive and get started.

As an all-in-one platform, you can also sell courses, downloads, webinars, coaching and memberships. They also do not have transaction fees on any paid plan. The only thing you can sell on the free plan are downloads and this comes at a cost in the form of 8% transaction fees on sales.

This platform has three paid plans which appear to be much more suited for creators on a budget. The platform, though simpler to use than most other course platforms still doesn’t have a course builder that’s as easy to use as Ruzuku’s. I would still recommend Podia as a worthy alternative due to their focus on creator-friendliness.

3. LearnWorlds

LearnWorlds has some great features available for building and marketing your courses. Their most popular plan seems to be the Learning Center plan which is also their most expensive plan apart from the Corporate plan. It costs $299/month which is more than any of Ruzuku’s plans.

The course builder in LearnWorlds is very easy to use and guides you through the course creation process. There are a bit of tabs to go through before you’re adding lessons which makes Ruzuku’s straight-to-the-point course builder even more easy to use.

With LearnWorlds, you can also get your own branded app for both iOS and Android devices which is something not all course platforms offer. There’s an additional cost for this but it’s worth all of the benefits that it brings.

LearnWorlds doesn’t have a free plan but you can start with a 30 day free trial without having to submit your credit card details.

Finally, if you’re looking for a course player that has interactivity built-in, LearnWorlds is a great option.

4. Teachable

Teachable is a very popular choice for many creators and a good alternative to Ruzuku if you ignore the transaction fees on the free plan and their Basic plan. There are no fees on the higher plans which is where you should probably start. Though more expensive, the $159/month Pro plan will get you unlimited courses and unlimited students similar to Ruzuku’s Core plan.

On Teachable, you can sell courses, coaching and digital downloads and access a host of very advanced features including affiliate marketing management. Teachable also handles your tax for you while most other platforms leave it up to you to do your own.

You can start using Teachable with a free account with quite a bit of limitation. This is your only way of trying Teachable as there are no trials for any of the paid plans.

5. Heights Platform

Heights Platform is a course platform that shines with it’s gamification features. You can award students with points and badges as they go through your courses with motivates them to complete and stick around for more.

In Heights, badges are automatically awarded to students for completing different tasks (such as completing their first lesson in a course). Creators can make it even more exciting by creating their own custom badges and requirements.

Heights Platform also has all the essential features for running a course business including sales checkout and checkout features, as well as video hosting and many other course features. They also have one of the easiest course builders I’ve used.

Like all of the other alternatives here, Heights also has a $99/month plan. This plan, called the Pro plan, includes all of the features that they offer including community, courses and sales features like bundling and selling hidden products.

Heights offer a 30-day free trial for anyone who wants to try out their platform and you don’t need to enter any credit card details during their one-step start process. This is a great alternative to Ruzuku if you’re looking for something with more advanced features and gamification.

Final Words

Ruzuku is one of the easiest course platforms you’ll ever use and this is due to the simplicity of the course builder and the fact that the dashboard is built around it.

Done-for-you courses is another aspect that makes Ruzuku attractive to course creators. You can just pay for an instant course and start building a course business especially if you’re a beginner.

The platform has all the essentials available, from native video, sales pages, email marketing and meetings to some semblance of community as well as a few necessary integrations. The features are made available but you do not have to use them if you can use your own website where you’ll have much better tools.

Some features like affiliate marketing management and even certificates of completion are totally missing but they aren’t necessary to have a successful course.

Ruzuku is still very strong course platform thanks to its very user-friendly, template-driven course builder. They do not offer free trial but you can create a free account where your only limitation is that you can only have 5 students. The simple pricing is dependent on only a few features to choose from between two plans starting at $99/month.

If you’re thinking about starting a course business then there is little in the way stopping you from trying Ruzuku. It’s free and fast to sign up and get started.