Choosing the Best Platform For Your Online Course

Tim Cooper

Jul 31 2015

Fedora? Udemy? WP Courseware? Which is the best platform for your online course?

This episode is based on an Infographic I received from Alison Haag who is a content marketer and designer at Fedora.

Click here to view the excellent job Alison did on pulling all this information together.

In this episode we look at the options, benefits and costs associated with hosting your course on Fedora (usefedora.com), Udemy (udemy.com) and WordPress plugins (WP Courseware)

I've had experience with all three platforms and have formed a strong opinion on each of them. I trust the information I provide in this episode will assist you in making an informed decision.

It should be noted the following information is based purely on my personal experience and is given freely.

When it comes to pricing flexibility and options Fedora wins hands down. Udemy provides the least flexibility and in fact imposes a number of restrictions when it comes to minimum and maximum pricing limits.

Udemy doesn't offer a subscription model where both Fedora and WP Courseware do.

Fedora also offers the unique ability to set up pricing options in multiple currencies for the one course.

When it comes to the percentage each platform charges per sale, Udemy charges the highest at 50% per 'organic' course sale. Fedora charges between 0% and 10% depending on the monthly plan you choose.

It costs nothing to set up your course on Fedora and Udemy where it can cost between $80 and 10's of 1000's of dollars when hosting using WordPress plugins depending on your preferred configuration and the plugins you choose.

It's free to host your courses on Udemy and Fedora offers a free hosting plan as well.

With Fedora and Udemy the setup is easy, they offer a fully hosted solution and take care of all software updates automatically.

With WordPress plugins you have to source your own website and media hosting solutions (which can become quite costly depending on volume) and take care of software updates yourself.

Affiliate programs are integrated into, and managed within Udemy and Fedora. If you are hosting on WordPress you could hook into third party affiliate programs such as JVZoo, this does however require some technical ability to setup and maintain.

The biggest issue I believe comes down to marketing and who owns your students details.

If you are hosting on Udemy then Udemy owns the student info. Udemy activity discourages instructors from asking for students email addresses and imposes restrictions on how often you can contact your students and what you can and can't include in your marketing material.

With Fedora and WordPress plugins YOU own your students details and you can market to them when and how you wish, without any restrictions.

Udemy is also the only platform that promotes competitor courses on YOUR course sales page.

Just think for a moment, you set up a paid marketing campaign, you send prospective students to your Udemy course sales page. As your prospective student reads through your sales content they are presented with - students who bought this course also purchased - and then go on to list competitor courses by other instructors, on your sales page, on your marketing dollar!

If the prospective student doesn't click away and purchase a competitor course (a sale that you have facilitated through your paid marketing campaign yet make no affiliate commission on) and actually purchases your course, Udemy then take ownership of that student, withhold the student's email address from you and dictate the terms of contact.

As a marketer this doesn't sit well with me.

The Wrap Up

I will continue to experiment with WP Courseware. I think it is a great product and extremely easy to setup and use. The problems I experienced related to the integration of other plugins and services and security restrictions imposed by my hosting service.

I will continue to post my courses on Udemy. I'm happy to pick up the odd organic sale and make some pocket money. I'd be leaving money on the table if I didn't post my courses to Udemy.

My platform of choice is Fedora. It offers the most versatility and honestly ticks all the boxes.

When it comes to my marketing efforts and marketing dollars I will direct all prospective students to my Fedora school. It just makes sense.

Resources and sites mentioned in this episode

Fedora

Udemy

WP Courseware

PresenterMedia

If you have a question about any aspect of online course delivery, from concept to market, please feel free to send me an email at [email protected]. I'd love to hear from you and your question would very well feature in a future podcast.

I want to deliver relevant material so keep those emails rolling in.

If you enjoyed this episode please like, share and comment below. It would also help me out and I'd really appreciate it if you could pop across to iTunes and leave me a rating and review.