Podia Review (August 2023): Detailed & Honest – by Miha Cacic

Podia is a one-stop shop for course creators looking to grow their infobusinesses and online communities.

It stands out as an affordable solution for knowledge experts and empowers them to create, market & sell courses, and engage communities—all in one place.

We’ve tested a bunch of tools in the course creation space and discovered Podia is one of the easiest-to-use platforms out there. Besides course creation, Podia enables you to build a professional website even if you don’t have any technical skills. Every aspect of creating online courses is taken care of.

In this review, we take an in-depth look at Podia’s full potential, including pricing and how to get the most benefit from its features. We’ll also look at some of Podia’s alternatives.

Let’s get right to it!

✅️ Capterra.com Rating 4.6 out of 5 ✅️ G2.com Rating 4.6 out of 5 ✅️ Trustpilot.com Rating 3.7 out of 5
Our Rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4 / 5)
Creators & knowledge experts with a large online community, and no technical experience will love Podia. It’s easy to use and has affordable community management and course creation features.
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What is Podia?
“Start, Grow, and Succeed with Podia” 👨‍🏫👑

Spencer Fry’s love for business drove him to start Podia in 2014. His goal was to provide creators with the tools and features they needed to grow and succeed with a single easy-to-use platform.

Podia is a tool that lets you effortlessly create, market, and sell your online courses and other digital products. It’s equipped with a no-code site builder that, paired with its pre-designed sections and templates, enables you to whip up beautiful websites in no time. It also includes some marketing tools like email marketing and affiliate marketing, which eliminates the trouble of having to rely on multiple additional platforms.

Furthermore, creators have their communities on the same platform as well, so students and coaches can easily interact right where they learn. It’s a perfect platform for beginners and knowledge experts with growing communities looking to test-drive their course creation ideas before they spend anything.

Podia Review: Criteria for Evaluation

Podia Review: Pros & Cons

Podia Pros	Podia Cons
Marketing Tools
✅ Automated emails and affiliate marketing	❌ Affiliate marketing included only on the highest plan
✅ Allows coupons, bundles, upsells, and lead magnets	❌ Email marketing tool works as a payable add-on
✅ Access to a free website in all plans (with multiple pages included — storefront, single sales pages, checkout page, and more)
Educational Tools
✅ Unlimited members in built-in communities	❌ Limited products in free plans
✅ Customizable branding and customization	❌ No AI for fast course creation or idea generation
✅ Course certificates are available	❌ Unlimited webinars only available on the highest paid plan

Podia Review: Affordability & Pricing

Podia is an affordable course creation platform with a free plan and two paid plans that scale with features.

Podia has three plans that scale with products and features.

Podia has one free plan and two paid plans that scale with the number of products, features, and support services.

The free plan charges an 8% transaction fee on each sale and lets you offer one downloadable and one coaching product. Users can also create draft courses and webinars which is a great way to test the system before upgrading to a paid plan.

In addition, you’ll get a free website with a free subdomain which is perfect for beginners or creators on a budget.

The next tier is Mover at $39/month or $33/month on annual billing.

It’s an ideal plan for knowledge experts who prefer a custom domain for a consistent brand identity. The Mover plan has unlimited courses, downloads, and coaching products that creators can use to sell knowledge in various niches. That means learners choose what they need and pay per course.

What’s more, you get to migrate up to 5 products for free if you’re moving from a different platform to Podia. While at it, you can get assistance via live chat, email, or the creator community.

The final and highest-paid plan is Shaker at $89/month or $75/month on annual billing. It has everything from the Mover plan and more, including unlimited webinars.

This plan comes with subscription-based models and one-on-one coaching sessions with only a few students. Also, the plan lets you market courses using affiliates which is a cost-effective way of increasing your customer base and revenue.

Podia Pricing Comparison to Competitors

Podia’s lowest paid plan is $39/month, and the highest is $89/month, making it one of the best course creation platforms on the market at its price point.

The feature-rich platform has easy-to-use tools and an intuitive interface that’s ideal for non-tech-savvy creators on a budget. Plus, if you need any help, you’ll meet friendly customer service available through email and live chat.

Thinkific is Podia’s closest rival, and you’ll notice it also has a free plan. However, Thinkific’s paid plans are more expensive, starting at $49/month and going up to $199/month.

Podia Value for Money Assessment

Podia has easy-to-use tools that allow you to manage and market courses, memberships, and communities without worrying about integrations. You have everything you need on the same platform.

You’ll get the most value for money if you have a medium-sized community and plan to sell low-ticket products.

If you have a medium-sized community, the Mover plan is ideal for attracting students and selling low-ticket products. On the other hand, creators with larger communities upsell to their members directly, so it makes more sense to market courses using automated campaigns — which Podia also provides.

Knowledge experts can also take advantage of the unlimited coaching sessions on the Shaker plan to sell high-ticket products.

But if you’re just starting out, you should look into online course platforms that have zero transaction fees on their free plans, like Xperiencify.

For those that are primarily looking for a platform to educate and don’t have a strong community yet, Teachery would work great. Although it has a very basic community feature, it offers unlimited courses, students, and landing pages at a wallet-friendly price of $49/month or $470/year (20% off).

Podia Review: Key Features

Podia is a simple all-in-one course creation platform. Its monetization strategy focuses on selling products, building an online community, and affiliate marketing.

Course Creation

Podia’s well-organized and easy-to-use course builder is best for new users or first-time creators. The training videos on the platform make your learning journey shorter and let you build and sell your courses without much trial and error.

Your course can be built with many different content formats. Allowed course content includes videos, which are hosted on Podia, audios, PDFs, text, quizzes, and embeds.

With endless customization options, like customizing the logo, colors, and fonts, you get to design your course completely up to your taste and branding guidelines.

Along with online courses, you can offer products like:

• Webinars to offer live or pre-recorded sessions while promoting other products,
• Digital downloads like Excel sheets and PDF documents such as eBooks,
• Coaching sessions for one-on-one learning,
• Bundles to group complementary products and sell them to your audience.

Video Tutorials

Podia platform has video tutorials all over its website, demonstrating how to use various features so you don’t waste time on trial and error.

Let’s say you’re creating courses or using an affiliate marketing program for the first time — the platform offers step-by-step guides and tutorial videos, perfect for first-time users.

Course Pricing Models

In Podia, you get to choose the business model that works best for you. If you’re selling low-ticket products, you can opt for a pay-per-course model or a subscription-based model for those selling high-ticket products.

Creators can also upsell relevant courses to students looking to take the next step in their quest for knowledge.

Other times, you can make courses available or unavailable, set sign-up limits, and adapt access duration.

Capping sign-ups or limiting access gives an exclusivity feeling and motivates customers to buy, which brings up conversions. Limits also help you manage your workload, especially if you’re offering high-quality one-on-one coaching sessions.

Online Communities

As a knowledge expert, it’s not enough to have courses or digital products.

You need an engaging community that supports learning within social interaction. Having a community around your courses brings people with similar interests into one place and creates a forum where you can start helpful discussions and share extra courses & downloadable content like images, videos, or text.

A community can also serve as a private feed to share updates with members.

When it comes to managing these communities, Podia creators are spoiled for choice. They can offer free memberships, charge a subscription fee, or offer them as an add-on to their online courses.

I found Podia’s free communities ideal for basic discussions. Alternatively, paid plans offered better tools for selling products like videos, ebooks, and audio files within your community.

Affiliate Marketing

With Podia, you turn your loyal customers into advocates by offering paid affiliate programs:

• Invite-only, which only allows invited customers to become affiliates,
• Open, which allows any customer to become an affiliate.

It’s easy to manage your affiliates from the platform and perform actions like setting commissions and tracking affiliate clicks.

At a glance, creators can see total revenue, total sales, and unpaid affiliates. This makes releasing payouts fast and easy.

Email Marketing

Podia’s email marketing feature lets you broadcast your emails, build automated funnels, and track their performance. It’s an effective method of capturing new students and increasing revenue while keeping existing ones engaged.

Payment and Monetization

Creators can easily set up and receive payments directly via Stripe or PayPal. The platform also allows you to collect taxes and customers’ tax information for reporting. This is helpful because it’s an important part of your tax obligations and it also gives you a clear picture of the revenue you’re generating.

Podia Review: Ideal Users

Podia’s affordability and easy-to-use features make it ideal for beginners, solopreneurs, and non-technical users.

Use Podia If:

• You are looking for a no-code course creation platform.
• You’ve got a large online community.
• You’ve got an existing tech stack and are interested in third-party apps.
• You’re running a subscription-based model and want to sell high-ticket products.

Who Uses Podia?

Podia is behind the success of some of the most influential people. Here are the most notable users:

Michael Glock Ph.D.

Michael Glock is a coach with 35+ years of experience partnering, coaching & mentoring companies and cultural creatives. He prefers Podia’s quick and easy-to-use platform to monetize his blogs and market his digital products like ebooks.

Megan Dixon

Megan Dixon is a business strategist and travel enthusiast who is in love with Podia. She uses this all-in-one platform to streamline her online business.

Matt Thomas

Matt Thomas uses Podia for his business and is happy to recommend it as the go-to platform for selling content and courses. He is a satisfied Podia user and an entrepreneur with a knack for affiliate marketing.

Podia Review: Customer Support

Podia provides friendly and efficient customer support and comprehensive video guides.

Podia offers friendly and efficient email support for 7 days a week within all its plans. Plus access to the creator community for inspiration and helpful tips. Mover and Shaker payment plans provide more personalized assistance through live chat, and you get free migration services.

Podia Review: Real User Experiences

Podia is highly recommended, with an overall rating of 4.6 on Capterra, 4.6 on G2, and 3.7 on Trustpilot.

Podia’s rating is about 80% or more on the most trusted review sites. It’s highly recommended as a feature-rich platform that offers value for money. Users are mostly satisfied with its ease of use, setup, quality support, and affordable pricing. However, there’re also some complaints that I’ve listed in the table below.

Podia Common Praises and Complaints

Podia Review: Alternatives to Podia

Podia alternatives focus on specific features that are ideal for other types of users and use cases.

Podia is an all-in-one course creation platform, so some of its alternatives offer more specialized features that work better for specific use cases.

Recommendations for Different User Needs

We have tested quite a few course creation platforms like Podia. Check out our other articles to learn more about our experiences with those platforms.

• Teachable has a reliable free plan (check our Kajabi vs Teachable article)
• Kajabi has an AI hub for fast course creation (check our Kajabi vs Podia article)
• Xperiencify has gamification features making learning more engaging (check our Kajabi vs Xperiencify article)
• LearnDash is a learning management system that works as a WordPress plugin (check our Kajabi vs LearnDash article)
• Skool has leaderboards for gamified learning (check our Kajabi vs Skool article)

Podia Review: Conclusion

Podia is a one-stop course creation site for knowledge experts looking for growth.

Podia is ideal for creators with some experience looking to grow their businesses and online communities. Beginners and creators on a budget will also find Podia pricing favorable.

Recommendations for Potential Users

• Use Podia’s website builder to create an attractive and professional website quickly.
• Use Podia’s on-page live chat through which you can send messages directly to your students.
• Use Podia’s affiliate marketing to sell more courses by leveraging your loyal customer base.

Click here to get started with Podia!