Learnworlds vs Podia Compared: Which One is Best for Courses and Other Digital Products?

Last Updated on December 20, 2023 by Ewen Finser

Nowadays, it’s easy to promote your brand and sell digital products. But the platform you choose to host your websites and products is the key to your success. Course creators have numerous LMS programs to choose from, LearnWorlds being one of the most popular.

But there are times when creators will want to offer more digital products, such as digital downloads, multimedia, coaching, and webinars. In this case, you can choose a more versatile platform, such as Podia.

Is LearnWorlds or Podia the best option? I’m working on my first course, and this is the main question I had in mind. While these are two different platforms, they offer many similarities. While I like how LearnWorlds offers a robust LMS, I like the idea of selling more services with Podia.

I decided to test out both platforms to see which one is best. Continue reading my LearnWorlds vs Podia compared guide to learn which program you should use.

Bottom Line Up Front

	LearnWorlds	Podia
Pros	· The basic plan is packed with features. · Built-in marketing features. · Impressive integrations. · User-friendly website builder. · SCORM-compliant Mobile app.	• Can make different digital products. • User-friendly. • Affordable plans. • Free plan. • Two-week free trial for paid plans. • The free plan offers many features. • No transaction fees for paid plans. • Code-free website builder. · Payment processing on your website. · Great support and customer service. · Impressive integrations. · Community features.
Cons	· 24/7 customer support doesn’t start until the second tier. · Can’t remove LearnWorlds branding until the third tier.	· Lacks course-specific group and collaboration features.
Who Is It For?	LearnWorlds is popular among online educators, specifically instructors, trainers, and corporations. In short, anyone who wants to train and teach students online and in one place will benefit from LearnWorlds. LearnWorlds offers one of the best learning experiences and a powerful LMS, and their platform is versatile enough for all instructors.	Podia is a more versatile platform, and it’s ideal for various creators. It’s perfect for any creator who wants to sell online courses, downloads, memberships, gated content, and webinars. The entire backend is very user-friendly, so it’s perfect for new creators and those without a lot of tech experience. Their course creation is simpler than LearnWorlds’, but Podia still offers learning activities to keep students engaged.
Pricing	· Starter: $29/month · Pro Trainer: $99/month · Learning Center: $299/month · High Volume & Corporate: custom pricing	· Free plan · Mover: $39/month · Shaker: $89/month

Main Differences Between LearnWorlds vs Podia

The main differences between LearnWorlds vs Podia are:

• LearnWorlds is an LMS, whereas Podia is a community and digital product platform
• Podia has a free plan, whereas LearnWorlds doesn’t
• LearnWorlds is SCORM-compliant, whereas Podia isn’t
• Podia has more community features, whereas LearnWorlds has more course-creation capabilities
• LearnWorlds offers more course content, whereas Podia has more digital products

LearnWorlds

LearnWorlds is a course creation platform where instructors can offer free and paid courses. This platform is popular among many course creators – everyone from educators to corporate trainers.

They offer a user-friendly platform where instructors can create courses easily – no code needed. To create your website, you can choose from numerous themes and customize them with only a few clicks.

If you want to make a business out of your course, LearnWorlds offers many impressive integrations. These vary between e-commerce platforms, payment processing apps, customer service capabilities, automation, and video.

While LearnWorlds doesn’t offer a free plan, they do have multiple plans that are reasonably priced and are packed with features. These plans are scalable, so you can easily upgrade when needed. All plans include a 30-day free trial with no credit card needed to sign up.

Pros

• The basic plan is packed with features
• Built-in marketing features
• Impressive integrations
• User-friendly website builder
• SCORM-compliant
• Mobile app

Cons

• 24/7 customer support doesn’t start until the second tier
• Can’t remove LearnWorlds branding until the third tier

Who is it For?

LearnWorlds is popular among online educators, specifically instructors, trainers, and corporations. In short, anyone who wants to train and teach students online and in one place will benefit from LearnWorlds. LearnWorlds offers one of the best learning experiences and a powerful LMS, and their platform is versatile enough for all instructors.

Course Creation

LearnWorlds goes beyond simple course creation features and offers a more engaging learning experience. I’m a big fan of their advanced teaching features, such as interactive video, group sessions, and live meetings.

When creating your course, you have the option to use the AI editor. While I’m not a fan of the AI writing tool, I got a lot of use from the automated quiz generator.

To gauge your students’ success, you can offer exams, self-assessments, diaries, and open-ended questions. You can access a comprehensive grade book to keep up with your student’s progress and assign certificates when they complete the course.

LearnWorlds also has the option for your students to complete prerequisites before accessing your full course. I also like how you can set your course to private.

Bottom line: LearnWorlds offers a robust course creation platform with advanced learning features and multiple ways to gauge progress.

Community Features

While LearnWorlds’ community features aren’t the best, they offer many ways for your students to interact with each other. For example, you can offer group sessions where your students can collaborate. Instructors can create groups for their students, where they can engage in conversations. You have the option to make the group private to just students or open to where you can join in on the discussions.

Bottom line: Students can interact with each other via group sessions. That said, LearnWorlds’s community features aren’t the most advanced.

Security and Compliance

LearnWorlds has a highly secured platform. Instructors are in control of their student’s data, which can be protected in any way that best suits your industry. For example, instructors can control private messaging and groups to see who has access to these communication features and who doesn’t.

LearnWorlds is also GDPR-compliant and offers immense data security protection. You’ll also feel better knowing LearnWorlds is SCORM-compliant.

Bottom line: LearnWorlds has seriously impressive data security protocols, and they’re also GDPR-compliant.

Pricing

LearnWorlds loses points here because it doesn’t offer a free plan. Still, its plans are packed with features, including the basic plan.

Here are the plans and their prices:

• Starter: $29/month
• Pro Trainer: $99/month
• Learning Center: $299/month
• High Volume & Corporate: custom pricing

You also have the option to add a mobile app for an extra fee. All these plans include a 30-day free trial with no credit card needed to sign up.

Bottom line: Unfortunately, LearnWorlds doesn’t offer a free plan. However, they do offer numerous plans at different price points, all packed with features. You also have the option to add a mobile app to your course at an extra cost.

Podia

Podia is a platform where creators and entrepreneurs can offer digital products to their audience. While you can create an online course, Podia also offers digital downloads, a website, and a community. Because of their free plan and user-friendliness, this is the perfect platform for creators new to selling digital products.

As stated previously, Podia offers a free plan, which is what I used for this review. The free plan is still packed with features; you get your own website and community and can make any digital products.

There are also some built-in marketing features you can access. If you need to upgrade your plan, Podia offers a number of paid options with more features. But for this review, I will choose to make an online course to better compare Podia to LearnWorlds.

Pros

• Can make different digital products
• User-friendly
• Affordable plans
• Free plan
• Two-week free trial for paid plans
• The free plan offers many features
• No transaction fees for paid plans
• Code-free website builder
• Payment processing on your website
• Great support and customer service
• Impressive integrations
• Community features

Cons

• Lacks course-specific group and collaboration features

Who Is It For?

Podia is a more versatile platform, and it’s ideal for various creators. It’s perfect for any creator who wants to sell online courses, downloads, memberships, gated content, and webinars.

The entire backend is very user-friendly, so it’s perfect for new creators and those without a lot of tech experience. Their course creation is simpler than LearnWorlds’, but Podia still offers learning activities to keep students engaged.

Course Creation

I’m impressed with Podia’s user-friendliness. When you create a course, you can see clear navigation to create different types of content. Podia’s course hierarchy starts with a Section, and you can add individual Lessons to each. When you create a Section, you can add a title and description so students can know what to expect.

When you create a lesson, Podia lets you upload different content types:

• Text
• Embed
• Coaching
• Quiz
• Files

Podia is already winning with the text feature. You can add text directly to the course, which is super convenient. The issue is that Podia offers virtually no text editing features. What you can do is create the text in Word, Google Docs, or another word processor, and paste the content into the text box.

You can also add a file to your Podia lesson. While Podia accepts nearly all file types, only audio and video will be playable in the course. All other file types will be available as downloads. The course player also has limited customizations and features. For example, I wish there was the option to add transcriptions and captions.

I really like the coaching function. Podia accepts embeds from various calendar apps, or you can add your own custom calendar link. I wish they added the Zoom integration with course creation, but it’s only available with the webinar product.

The quizzing function is user-friendly but very limited. You can only offer multiple-choice questions- no true/false, short answer, or other types. It’s also important to note that Podia doesn’t offer a grade book, certificates, assignments, or any AI features. You also can’t make any Sections or Lessons private.

Bottom line: While Podia’s course creator is more user-friendly than LearnWorlds’, it lacks essential teaching features. For example, the quiz feature is very limited in question types you can offer.

That said, Podia’s course creator comes with many perks. You can add different types of content, coaching, and files. I love how you can add text within the lessons, which LearnWorlds doesn’t offer.

Community Features

Podia’s community platform is more like a designated forum for your digital products. You can post updates, topics, and more. Your followers have the option to react to and comment on your posts, boosting engagement.

When you create your forum, you can invite your members to participate. To better organize your posts, you can create numerous topics and assign one to each post.

While I wish there were course-specific community features, you can always use this forum to post about your course and entice conversations among your students. Unfortunately, there are no course group and collaboration features.

You can also direct message your students, but can only communicate with those currently online. Your students also can’t private message each other.

Bottom line: Podia’s community platform is more like a forum where you can post updates and topics, and your audience can react to and respond to your posts. I just wish there were more course-specific community and communication features.

Security and Compliance

Podia is a hit or miss with this section. On your forums, you can remove any comments that you may consider spam or dangerous in any way. Podia offers integrations with many secure payment gateways, such as PayPal and Stripe.

You can rest assured knowing Podia is completely GDPR-compliant; you can read their blog to learn more information. The only problem is that Podia isn’t SCORM-compliant, which is a huge downside for serious course creators.

Bottom line: Podia has great security features for creators, integrations with secure payment processors, and is GDPR-compliant. Unfortunately, Podia isn’t SCORM-compliant.

Pricing

Podia‘s free plan definitely attracts more users, including me. But even if the free plan isn’t enough for your needs, their paid plans are reasonable.

Podia has two paid plan options:

• Free plan
• Mover: $39/month
• Shaker: $89/month

While LearnWorlds has cheaper paid plans, Podia offers some serious perks with the first option. You can create unlimited digital products, and Podia will take no transaction fees.

Bottom line: Podia shines here because of its free plan. While Podia only has two paid plan options that are more expensive than LearnWorlds’, you get great features with even the first tier.

Alternatives

Did you read through this article and realize neither LearnWorlds nor Podia is the best option for you? There are plenty of alternatives for both programs. Here are the alternatives I recommend the most.

Teachable

The main alternative to both LearnWorlds and Podia that I recommend is Teachable. Teachable offers a little something of both platforms, and I feel this alternative offers the best of each. For example, Teachable offers impressive course creation features and also has a free plan.

Like Podia, Teachable is also very user-friendly. You can make an entire course in no time, and there are far more customization options than on Podia. If you’re ever stuck, Teachable offers excellent support with their help center.

While LearnWorlds still offers a more robust course creation interface, Teachable is a good middle-ground between Podia and LearnWorlds.

Teachable also offers more than just courses. You can also sell digital downloads and coaching, making this an exceptional platform for other creators and entrepreneurs.

Teachable also offers other features that stand out. For example, I love their sales capabilities. You can price per product on Teachable and also offer bundles and subscriptions to your audience. Teachable also offers built-in sales and marketing features, such as tracking pixels, lead magnets, coupons, affiliate marketing, abandoned cart, and more.

You also get a website with every plan – even the free one. Teachable offers a no-code website builder where you can customize your site in any way you want.

Kajabi

If you love Podia’s all-in-one platform for digital products but want something more robust, I suggest Kajabi. Kajabi offers the same user-friendliness as Podia and includes more, such as AI content creation tools.

Since Kajabi is all about helping entrepreneurs profit, they offer a ton of sales and marketing solutions. I’m especially a big fan of the funnel builder since I haven’t seen this software on most of these platforms.

With the funnel builder, Kajabi automates the tactics to nurture your leads at every stage of the sales funnel, so you drive sales without putting in any effort. And if you need more functionality, Kajabi offers numerous integrations to apps such as CRMs and email marketing.

Every plan includes a website, unlimited landing pages, and access to an easy-to-use site builder. If you get stuck, I’m a big fan of Kajabi University and all its onboarding tools.

With all these features and options, it’s important to note that Kajabi doesn’t have a free plan – and is quite expensive. Plans start at $149/month, which is extremely expensive. I should also note that even though you can create courses on Kajabi, I think they’re set up to function more like a blog than an actual course.

Read More: Learnworlds vs Kajabi Compared: Which One Is Best for Your Course?

Mighty Networks

If you want a platform with serious community features and offers a better course builder, I suggest Mighty Networks. You have many community options, events, web pages, and different types of courses you can create.

While it doesn’t have a free plan, Mighty Networks is an affordable option for small business owners and instructors. Plans start at $33/month, in the same pricing range as LearnWorlds and Podia.

While their first-tier plan is pretty limiting, Mighty Networks is scalable if you ever need more features. Their platform is easy to learn, and you can access their educational series if you’re ever stuck.

FAQs

Bottom Line

Out of both options, I recommend LearnWorlds more – especially if you want to create a course. Even though LearnWorlds isn’t as flexible as Podia, it still offers the best course creation capabilities and more ways for instructors to turn their knowledge into a business.

LearnWorlds also has many communication and collaboration features so students can learn in groups. The main downside to LearnWorlds is it doesn’t offer a free plan, which is where Podia shines. That said, LearnWorlds‘ plans are packed with features, so you get more bang for your buck.

Read More: How to Find the Best Course Building Platform