Podia Review: Is it the Best Online Course and Membership Platform?

Podia is a relatively new online course creation platform, yet, the platform has gained quick traction helping over 25000+ creators in helping them build and launch online courses, membership sites, etc. 

But is Podia really the best online course platform for you? Is it the best platform for creating, launching, marketing, and selling your courses and membership site?

I created this guide to answer these questions. 

My goal with this extensive Podia Review is to help you get a clear understanding of what Podia is, what it can be used for, and who the platform is ideal for.

I’ll also be covering some of Podia’s best features, its positive characteristics, and some of the platform’s limitations as well. 

Finally, I’ll also be comparing Podia to some of the other popular online course creation platforms (Thinkific, Teachable, and Kajabi)

After reading this Podia review — you will have the knowledge and confidence to decide if it’s the best platform for your online courses and membership programs. 

Let’s get started.

An Introduction to Podia

Launched in 2014, Podia is a course creation platform that allows you to build, launch, and sell online courses and membership programs. 

Podia enables you to create a digital storefront (or website), create online courses, create membership programs, sell digital downloads, accept payments, and communicate with your customers or students. We will cover these features and capabilities in much detail in the next few sections. 

Podia is used by creators of many sizes to launch, build, and scale a successful content business. 

Here are just a few prominent users of the Podia platform:

• Ann Handley from MarketingProfs — membership site and newsletter program for marketers and storytellers.
• Joanna Wiebe from CopyBloggers — copywriting ebook and courses.  
• Chase Jarvis from CreativeLive — digital content (courses and books) for designers and creative entrepreneurs. 
• Rachel Simmons from a Non-Profit organization called Girls Leadership — uses Podia for multiple leadership and professional development online courses. 
• Ryan Kulp teaches online courses for startup entrepreneurs on how to buy and grow businesses. 

• Jamie Keddie from LessonStream — an online community for teachers and educators.  
• Justin Jackson from MegaMakerClub — a membership community for developers.
• Reuven Lerner, a software programmer turned programming course creator — teaches Python and Data Science.

Podia Pricing

Podia probably has one of the simplest pricing models amongst online course platforms or Learning Management systems (LMSs). There are two pricing options to choose from based on the features: 

• Mover —— $39/month.
• Shaker —— $79/month.

The Mover Plan includes: 

• Digital storefront (or website).
• Course creation platform (create unlimited courses).
• Ability to host webinars.
• Email marketing.
• Messaging and Chat tool.
• Unlimited students (customers, emails, files).
• 7-day support.
• Free migrations (only on Annual plans).

The Shaker Plan includes: 

• Everything in the Mover Plan.
• Membership building platform.
• Blog creation platform.
• Affiliate marketing.

As you can see, it’s probably the simplest pricing model I have come across in studying course creation platforms. It’s important to highlight that everything is unlimited — courses, students, customers, email marketing, etc. This gives Podia customers the peace of mind knowing that they are only paying for the features they need.

Also, Podia does not charge any transaction fees when you sell courses or memberships. The only fee you would be is for the payment processing fee to Stripe or PayPal.

Podia does offer a 14-day trial for new course creators who are evaluating the platform.

If you are on the month-to-month plan — you can cancel anytime, and you will not be charged for subsequent months. Unfortunately, there are no refunds (or pro-rated refunds) for annual purchases.

There’s also a 30-day money-back guarantee for new customers.

Podia Support

Podia offers its customer and website visitors with multiple support options. The most prominent support feature is Live Chat.

The support team can be reached at any time during these hours.

• Monday to Friday — 9 AM to 6 PM EST.
• Saturday to Sunday — 10 AM to 2 PM EST.

It’s rare to find a company that has support hours 7 days a week. The support team can also be reached via email (hello@podia.com).

Podia promises an average response time of under 2 minutes for their live chat. I believe this is an amazing feature that stands out amongst other competitors like Teachable or Thinkfic. 

In today’s digital age, consumers want information right now, and most people prefer chatting with a live agent rather than sorting through tons of resources to find the right information. 

Podia also has an extensive knowledgebase or Help Center with over 100+ articles — with topics ranging from getting started, to setting up payments, to building email campaigns, etc. 

There’s also a Resource Library with helpful and educational articles, guides, tools for creators to help them start, market, and grow a successful course business.

For course creators who have still not decided to purchase Podia and want to see a DEMO — there’s a weekly live demo every Tuesday at 4 pm EST. 

Also, throughout the platform (within the Podia dashboard), there are in-built detailed videos for every step of the program. 

Podia Integrations

To successfully launch and market your online courses or membership programs — you will have to connect with other softwares/tools (email marketing, analytics, etc.). 

Podia is constantly updating its integrations to some of the most popular or widely used tools in the market. Here’s a current list (June 2020) of integrations:

• Payment Gateways — Stripe, PayPal.
• Email Marketing — MailChimp, ConvertKit, Aweber, Drip, ActiveCampaign, MailerLite, GetResponse.
• Analytics — Google Analytics, HotJar. 
• Advertising — Google Ads, Facebook, Pinterest.
• Webinars — Zoom.
• Zapier — Connect Podia with 1000s of other platforms using Zapier.
• Third-party Snippets — Sumo, Fomo, Olark, ProveSource, Deadline Funnel.

Now you know about Podia pricing, support and integrations let’s look at the features in this Podia review.

Podia Features

1. Create Online Courses Using Podia

Here are the following types of courses you can create on Podia:

• Single Course.
• Drip Courses.
• Pre-sell Courses.
• Pre-Launch Courses.

Here’s what makes the Podia pricing model special. There are no limits:

• Unlimited courses.
• Unlimited customers or students.
• Unlimited content (files).
• Unlimited email lists.
• Unlimited sales.

I really like the simple, intuitive, and user-friendly interface inside Podia’s course building platform. The dashboard is set up in such a way that anyone (even a newbie who has never created a course) can get started right away.

With a couple of clicks — you can launch a new product (online course, digital download, webinar) and start adding content. 

The CMS or the Page builder is probably one of the easiest I have come across when studying and reviewing online courses. Podia gives you the ability to add a section (lesson) or files or text quickly and simply. 

The Course Editor is simple to use as well. You have the option to edit and format the text (or course description) for each of your lessons. 

Once you add or upload course content, it’s also simple to add or edit other aspects of the course — files (images, videos), links, quizzes, etc. The drag-and-drop builder also enables you to rearrange/reorganize the course content. 

Once you have added all your course content, Podia also gives you the option to make a few changes to the settings. For example, you can edit the URL of your course to ensure that it’s SEO-friendly. There’s also an option to add “Categories” which will come in handy to organize and search for your content —especially you have multiple courses. 

There’s also an option to set up a launch date for your course. This date will show up on your sales page so visitors can know there’s limited enrollment for that particular course. You can also limit or stop enrollment for the course. It’s great to drive scarcity to boost more sales for a course. 

Once all the course content is created, you can set the price for the product. Podia integrates with both Stripe and PayPal.  After you have connected to your payment gateway,  you can then set up the price for the course.  An added benefit of Podia is that the platform allows you to create and set up installment payments

You can also create a course sales page, using Podia. 

The Page builder or editor allows you to edit the following sections of the sales page:

• Add a Course Banner.
• Add your Logo.
• Add a Favicon.
• Edit Header. 
• Colors — Brand color, headings, buttons, background.
• Typography/ Fonts — Heading and Body.
• Change Page Layout. 

2. Create Membership Programs Using Podia

Building a membership program allows you to build recurring revenue; and Podia allows you to setup a membership program within minutes. 

Podia provides you the option to create custom membership levels. 

For each of your membership levels, you can set up the pricing model, add any payment plans (monthly or annual), and also set up a free trial time period. If you have already created products (courses, digital downloads), you can add them to the specific membership levels. 

Once you create the membership levels — the editor allows you to add your content. You can upload files or videos to each membership program. 

There are also options to edit and customize the URL of your membership program to make it more SEO-friendly.

Once the membership program is created, you can also create and customize the sales page. 

At any point, you will able to preview how the final product (the membership program and the sales page) looks like on the front-end.

3. Sell Digital Downloads Using Podia

One way to warm up your audience to your online courses is to give them a sample or preview — and you can do this with the help of lead magnets.  

Lead magnets are usually free (or sometimes paid) content that your audience can receive from you before they are ready to commit to a more significant purchase. 

Podia allows you to create, host, and sell digital downloads from its platform. 

Here are some of the many different formats of a digital download that you can offer your audience: 

• Ebooks or Guides.
• Templates.
• Text Files, PDFs.
• Image Files, PSDs. 
• Audio Files, MP3 Files.

Creating a digital download is easy and as simple as creating any other product that we have covered so far.

Once you have created and named the digital download product, it’s also simple to add content or files to that product. 

Once you have uploaded the digital download (file or video or image) — you can also set up a pricing model. There’s also the ability to set a specific price and set up a payment plan for the digital download product.

Podia allows you to add an upsell offer easily and set up a discount for the purchase. You might have come across this when purchasing a physical product on any eCommerce website such as Amazon or Best Buy — an upsell or an order bump. This helps you increase your Average Order Value (AOV) from your customers.

At any point, you can preview the sales page for that particular digital download. The editor and the page builder is very similar, i.e., you can change the appearance, add a background image, etc. 

4. Site Design and Customization

Once you have created a few products (online course, membership program, digital download) on your Podia website — you can edit how all of them are displayed to your Customers/students through your digital storefront.

The Podia Website Builder enables us to create multiple custom pages and then add and rearrange them.

You can edit and customize the design (look-and-feel) of your new digital storefront. The editor is intuitive and simple to use. It has the same editing features that we have covered so far.

The Website Builder allows you to upload your logo, and also update the storefront to match your brand guidelines.

Podia also allows you to add as many new pages as possible — sales page, product pages, contact us page, about us page, etc. 

The Podia Editor comes pre-built with 5 different built-in themes, which you can customize to your liking.   However, to be frank, the page customization options are limited and not as extensive as Kajabi or LearnDash.

Podia also allows you to collect email addresses on any of the pages you build. 

If you are a new course creator and don’t want to spend time and money on a new website, setting up a digital storefront on Podia be a good option.

If you already have a website and want to migrate it over —  Podia will migrate all your content for free (included in the Shaker plan – $79/month).

5. Payment Processing

Podia offers a variety of payments and monetization features. From setting up one-time purchases to recurring payments to even offering affiliate commissions — the options are comprehensive compared to other online course platforms. 

• Payment gateways — If you have a PayPal or Stripe account, you can quickly start accepting payments using Podia. Connecting to these payment gateways is simple and only takes a single click. Podia does not charge any transaction fees, and that’s a bonus.

• Instant Payments and Refunds — Podia offers a faster payout, meaning the funds (or customer payments) will be deposited into your bank account within 2 business days. It’s also relatively simple to refund a transaction when requested by a customer. 

• Installment or Recurring Payments  — For certain products such as membership plans — you can set up the payment terms (either monthly or annual), making it easier for your customers to subscribe. You can also set up a paid trial periods (set a period after which the subscriptions switches from free trial to a paid plan).

• Upselling — Setting up an Upsell product (or an order bump) is easy through Podia. You can add discounts to the upsells, which makes product bundling very easy. There are two options for setting up an upsell discount — a percentage (%)  or a set dollar value ($) reduction as shown in the image below.

Podia (Pros) — What Do I Like About Podia?

1. Straightforward Pricing Model — Unlimited Everything

As you build and grow your online business, you do not want to be worried about additional or increasing software costs. We’ve all been there. As we grow, our monthly operating costs (mainly software) goes typically goes up. Fortunately, Podia takes that problem away. 

Both of Podia’s pricing plans (Mover and Shaker) offer unlimited everything :

• Unlimited courses.
• Unlimited digital downloads.
• Unlimited membership programs.
• Unlimited emails.
• Unlimited Students, etc. 
• Unlimited support from the Podia team. 

Once you purchase a plan — you can forget about growing costs, and focus your attention on creating and selling stellar content. 

2. No Transaction Fees

Unlike other online course platforms (like Teachable), Podia does not charge its creators a transaction fee.

The only fees you will incur is through PayPal and Stripe for their payment processing fees. 

3. Easy to Create and Launch a Digital Storefront

For new course creators, solopreneurs, and small businesses — creating a new website can sometimes become an expensive proposition. 

You either have to pay a monthly fee for a CMS (Shopify, HubSpot CMS) and/or pay for development costs (WordPress, Drupal,etc.). It can mean additional setup and monthly expenses, but can also delay your course launch.

Podia gives you the option (included in both the Maker and Shaker plans) to create and host your digital storefront/website and house all your content (home page, product listings, sales pages,etc.). You have the option to host your storefront on your Podia subdomain (mycoursewebsite.podia.com) or your custom domain (mycoursewebsite.com).

4. All-inclusive Course Creation Platform

We covered this in the sections above, but it’s worth mentioning again. Podia gives you all the things you need to create and launch an online course business:

• Podia editor. 
• Website builder. 
• Student engagement (emails, chat).
• Quizzes.
• Host webinars.
• Sell membership programs.
• Sell Digital Downloads. 

For solopreneurs and small businesses that don’t have the in-depth technical knowledge — it’s easier to build and launch a thriving content business using Podia. 

5. Drip Course Content

Let’s say you don’t want to release the entire course content as soon as your students sign up. Instead, you want to release course lessons periodically to keep the students engaged and improve the course experience. You can do that using Podia’s Drip settings. 

The Drip feature will allow you to unlock and schedule a course lesson (via email)  to your students on a specific day.

6. Create and Offer Coupons

As an online business, you will most likely take advantage of specific events (Memorial Day, Father’s Day, Black Friday) to boost sales. In these cases, coupons can be a useful tool to entice customers and prospects to purchase more of your digital products. 

Podia’s in-built coupons feature is more extensive and flexible than some of the other online course platforms I have reviewed. 

For instance, once you create a coupon — you can choose where customers can use that particular coupon. You can choose of these options for students to redeem the coupon: 

• Storewide.
• Products only (online courses, digital downloads, and bundles).
• Membership programs only.
• Exclusive products.
• Selected plans (applies to membership plan subscribers). 

To provide discounts — you can choose either a percentage of the sales price or provide a price discount.

Podia also gives you control to ensure that only the right customers are using the coupon and the right time. For example, you can set up expiry dates and purchase limits for any of your coupon codes. 

7. Student Engagement and Communications (Email Marketing)

To keep your students engaged and provide a more interactive experience — quizzes are a useful tool. In an earlier section, I have covered how Podia allows you to add simple quizzes for your online course.

Podia also has an in-built email marketing capability that removes the need for another email marketing platform (such as Aweber, ConvertKit,etc.). However, in case you want to use the full functionality of both platforms — Podia does integrate with some of the most widely used email marketing platforms. 

If you are using Podia’s email marketing platform, you can either send broadcast emails or create a multi-step campaign.

Both options (broadcast emails and campaigns) allow you to segment and choose a specific customer list to send emails. 

Image Source: Podia Support (How to Send a BroadCast Email) 

The email campaign feature allows you to set up trigger automation so you can choose which customers are automatically enrolled in a particular campaign. Once you create all the individual emails in a campaign, you can also set up specific dates for when your customers will receive the emails. 

The Email dashboard also provides detailed reporting on the performance of your email broadcasts and campaigns — sent dates, open rates, click rates, email deliverability, unsubscribes, etc.

Image Source: Podia Support (See your email broadcast analytics)

8. Live Chat (Messaging)

Live chat (messaging, chatbots, live chats, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp Messenger) is on the rise. You would be hard-pressed to find a website or a business that doesn’t allow its website visitors and customers to contact them right away for support or sales. 

In a world where every business (large and small) is taking advantage of chatbots and 1-on-1 live chat — you shouldn’t be left behind. That’s why perhaps Podia offers all of its customers (Mover Plan and Shaker Plan) the ability to enable live chat on their course websites.

Image Source: Podia Support (Getting Starter with Podia Messaging)

You can set up messaging so that your students can contact you directly from their Podia dashboard. It removes their need to exit that course and send you a separate email. 

Messaging is an excellent way to build strong relationships with your students. 

9. Affiliate Marketing

Let’s say you have a thriving online course business, and you are acquiring more students and customers each month. Probably your students love your content and can’t stop raving about it. 

Here’s an opportunity to help each other (you and your raving fans). Enlist them to spread the word, and reward (pay) them for helping to get the word out. 

Podia allows you to build a customer referral or affiliate sales program within its platform. The Affiliate marketing program is only available in the Shaker Plan ($79/month).

Enrolling your customers into an affiliate program is easy. Invite them to participate in the affiliate program with a single click.

Podia also allows you to set up the structure of your affiliate program quickly and easily:

• Set the default commission rate.
• Choose the specific programs which qualify for the affiliate program.

10. Multi-lingual Support

If you have an international customer base, you can maximize your revenue by localizing your course website.

Podia allows you to set up your storefront, sales pages, or course pages in multiple languages. You currently have the option to change your store settings to the following languages:

• English.
• French.
• Portugues(Brazilian).
• Spanish.
• German.
• Danish.
• Italian.
• Dutch.
• Swedish.
• Hungarian.
• Russian.

Podia (Cons) — What Don’t I Like About Podia?

Podia has an extensive feature list for helping creators launch and sell courses; it takes care of a lot of the necessary requirements needed to start, grow, and scale an online course business. 

However, there are a few limitations that are worth discussing.

• No Free Version  — Both Teachable and Thinkific offer a free version that allows course creators to create and sell a few courses. It’s a fantastic way for course creators to test drive a platform and see if it’s the ideal platform for their online business. Podia’s fully unlocked 14-day trial is great, however, it might not provide most creators adequate time to create, launch a course or membership program.

• Not a full-blown LMS — The student engagement features are limited. There are no current options for grading or issuing certificates to your students. There’s an option to create quizzes, however, the functionality is limited compared to platforms such as LearnDash.

• Limited branding and customization options — The Podia editor allows you to make changes to the appearance (fonts, background colors, font colors), however, the options are limited. Unlike Kajabi there are no options to edit HTML/CSS settings to fully customize the course website. 

• Limited Checkout pages — You’re able to build sales pages, however, there are limits to the information you can put on the page. There’s no option to add social proof (testimonials, reviews,etc.) that usually helps boost conversion rates. 

• Limited marketing ability  — Currently, there’s no option to build marketing funnels, pipelines, or landing pages. It means you will have to rely on the marketing automation capabilities in other platforms ConvertKit, AWeber, etc.). 

• No Community Feature  — There’s no current option to build a community (customer forum) for students to engage with each other. Also, there’s no integration with community tools such as bbPress, BuddyPress, etc. 

• Not ideal for a full-website   — You can quickly set up a storefront to display and sell your digital products. However, it will not replace a full-blown website that you can control, manage, and customize. There’s also no blogging feature. 

• Limited Upload functionality  — You can only upload each file or video manually (one by one). There’s no option to connect your cloud storage (Dropbox, Google Drive,etc.). It makes it a cumbersome and challenging process to upload videos. You have to download each of your course videos to your desktop and then upload it to Podia one-by-one. 

• Limited eCommerce functionality  — Podia does not integrate with other payment gateways or shopping cart software. It’s currently limited to PayPal and Stripe.

• No Direct WordPress Integration  — Podia currently offers an option to create embed links. You can then add those embeds to your blog, landing pages, or email campaigns. However, there’s no direct integration between Podia and WordPress. There isn’t an option to connect your WordPress blog or user list to Podia and vice versa. 

Podia Alternatives

1. Podia vs Thinkific

Like Podia, Thinkific is an online course creation platform that allows entrepreneurs, marketers, and coaches to create, market, and sell their courses.

There are many basic similarities between Podia and Thinkific — create courses, sell courses, accept payments, etc.

However, there are a few significant differences as well that make them different, specifically the pricing model. Thinkific offers a free version (allowing you to create 3 courses) while Podia doesn’t, and that might be useful for solopreneurs and newbie course creators who want to start without committing to a platform.

Let’s review the differences between Podia and Thinkific in detail:

Want to learn more about Thinkific? You can find my opinion about Thinkific in my Thinkific review.

2. Podia vs Teachable

Like Podia, Teachable is an online course creation platform that allows digital entrepreneurs to create, market, and sell their courses.

Podia and Teachable are similar in many ways — create courses, sell courses, accept payments, etc.. However, there are a few significant differences. Teachable offers a free version (allowing you to create one course) while Podia doesn’t. However, Podia doesn’t charge a transaction fee for both it’s Plans, while Teachable charges a 5% transaction fee for its Free and Basic plans.

Let’s review them in detail:

More information about Teachable you can find in my Teachable review.

3. Podia vs Kajabi

Unlike Podia, Teachable, and Thinkfic — Kajabi is slightly different. It’s not just an online course platform; it is an all-in-one online business platform with an extensive feature set that will allow you to create a course, market courses, sell courses, and manage a student community.

There are many similarities between Kajabi and Podia —  create courses, membership programs, build a website, etc. However, there are a few significant differences in the pricing model, scalability, integrations, etc. 

Podia is suited for course creators in the beginning phases of their journey, while Kajabi is for more advanced online course entrepreneurs (and with bigger budgets). Kajabi also has relatively fewer integrations because the platform takes care of most marketing functions (funnel building, email campaigns, etc.) 

Let’s review the differences between Podia and Kajabi in detail:

Want to learn more about Kajabi and it’s features? Read my Kajabi review.

Podia Review: Conclusion

Podia is an online course platform for solopreneurs and small businesses. It’s very versatile, intuitive, and easy-to-use. 

In this Podia review, you saw that you can create online courses, market courses, sell memberships, sell digital downloads, communicate with your customers (email and chat). 

However, versatility is also a disadvantage —  Podia offers basic functionalities (quizzes, emails,etc.), and these features are more elaborate & extensive in other online course platforms.

If you have multiple courses and want more automation and enhanced marketing (landing pages, sales pages, funnels,etc. ) — you should look at Katra or Kajabi.

If you want more online student engagement features like graded quizzes and certificates — Thinkific or Teachable are better options.
Podia is an excellent online course platform choice for you if you want to create courses, memberships, and sell digital downloads, without having to commit a large budget.