Best Online Course Platforms in 2026

Kajabi is a hosted platform for experts who sell courses, coaching, memberships and communities, and it bundles a website builder, email marketing, landing pages, sales funnels and checkout so that a creator can run the business without separate tools. The company describes its mission as giving experts "leverage" and uses the slogan "Build the operating system for human expertise".

Kajabi is one of the most expensive creator platforms by entry price. Basic costs US$179 a month (US$143 a month billed annually) and allows 5 products and 2,500 contacts; Growth costs US$249 a month (US$199 annually) with 50 products, 25,000 contacts, live cohort courses, affiliate programs and removal of Kajabi branding; Pro costs US$499 a month (US$399 annually) with unlimited products, 100,000 contacts, three websites, a branded app in the App Store and API access. Kajabi does not take a platform fee on sales through its own payment processor, but card processing for US entities runs 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic down to 2.7% + 30¢ on Pro, and using an outside processor adds a 2%, 1% or 0.5% fee by plan. A 14-day free trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee apply. The contact caps, rather than product limits, are what usually push growing creators into higher tiers; extra contacts cost US$125 a month per 25,000.

Thinkific Labs is a Canadian company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker THNC. Its investor site reported annual recurring revenue of US$63 million at 30 September 2026, up 4% year on year, third-quarter revenue of US$19 million, average revenue per user of US$187 a month and US$50 million of cash with no debt. Those figures make Thinkific one of the few creator-platform vendors with public financial disclosure.

The product is aimed at creators and at businesses selling training. Start costs US$109 a month (US$82 billed annually), Grow US$219 (US$164) and Expand US$499 (US$374); Plus, for larger organisations, is quoted. All paid plans include unlimited published courses, live Zoom cohorts, quizzes, certificates, memberships and payment plans, with a cap of 10,000 current students below Plus. Grow adds B2B sales and invoicing, bulk enrolment, API and webhooks; exams, single sign-on, SCORM and learning paths are reserved for Plus. Thinkific has no free plan but offers a 30-day trial, and a branded mobile app costs an extra US$199 a month. Through Thinkific Payments the processing fee is 2.9%, while Stripe or PayPal add an unspecified third-party gateway fee.

Teachable is a hosted platform for selling online courses, coaching and digital downloads, and it is part of Hotmart Company, the Brazilian creator-economy group. Teachable says 150,000 experts and businesses use its platform and that creators on Teachable and Hotmart combined have earned more than US$10 billion.

Pricing has four tiers. Starter costs US$39 a month (US$29 billed annually) for 5 products but carries a 7.5% transaction fee; Builder costs US$89 a month (US$69 annually) for 10 products; Growth costs US$189 a month (US$139 annually) for 50 products and up to five admin users; Custom is quoted. Builder and above have a 0% transaction fee when using Teachable Payments, while standard card processing (2.9% + 30¢ for US cards) applies on all plans. Every plan includes unlimited students, up to 1 TB of video storage, AI creation tools, iOS and Android student apps and global tax handling; course certificates, removal of Teachable branding and free subtitles and translations start at Growth. Plan cards show a 7-day free trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee, although a page pop-up advertises a 30-day trial, an inconsistency buyers should confirm.

LearnWorlds is a course platform used both by independent creators and by organisations that train customers or staff, and it has features that place it between creator tools and corporate learning management systems. Starter costs US$49 a month (US$44 billed annually) but charges US$5 per course enrolment; Pro Trainer costs US$99 (US$79 annually), Learning Center US$299 (US$249 annually), and Corporate is quoted. Only Starter carries the enrolment fee; payment gateways such as Stripe and PayPal charge their own fees.

Plans are limited by active learners per month: 1,000 on Starter and 2,000 on Pro Trainer and Learning Center. Pro Trainer adds subscriptions, memberships, payment plans, certificates, learning paths, up to 20 SCORM packages and more than 50 integrations; Learning Center adds full white-labelling, up to ten client groups, automation triggers, unlimited SCORM and scheduled reports. The Corporate plan offers 99.95% uptime on premium servers, daily backups, flexible invoicing and 24/7 phone support. A 30-day trial gives access to core features. The active-learner caps and the per-enrolment fee on Starter are the main constraints for creators with large free audiences.

Podia is a hosted storefront for creators selling online courses, digital downloads, webinars and community access, with email marketing built in. The company states it has operated since 2014. Its approach is simplicity: fewer configuration options than Kajabi or Thinkific, at lower monthly prices.

There are three plans. Mover costs US$42 a month billed annually (US$49 monthly) with a 5% Podia transaction fee, 50 products and email for up to 100 subscribers; Shaker costs US$84 a month annually (US$99 monthly) with no Podia transaction fee, 150 products, affiliate marketing, upsells, PayPal and Zapier; Earthquaker costs US$150 a month annually (US$179 monthly) with unlimited products and email for up to 1,000 subscribers. Stripe or PayPal processing fees of about 2.9% + 30¢ apply on all plans. There is no permanent free plan; a 14-day trial with all features requires no card. The low email subscriber allowances mean creators with large mailing lists generally pair Podia with a separate email service or pay for higher tiers.

Mighty Networks is a community platform on which courses are one component alongside member feeds, chat, events and live streams. It is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, and was co-founded by chief executive Gina Bianchini, chief technology officer Tim Herby and chief product officer Thomas Aaron; Bianchini founded it while the first entrepreneur-in-residence at Andreessen Horowitz. The company states that hosts earned US$500 million on the platform in 2025.

Launch costs US$79 a month or US$950 a year with a 2% transaction fee; Scale costs US$179 a month with a 1% fee; Growth costs US$354 a month with a 0.5% fee; Mighty Pro is custom-priced. Course features, including on-demand, cohort-based and live courses, challenges, quizzes and tests, appear on all plans; tiers differ in host and moderator seats, monthly streaming hours (20 to 50), viewers per stream (100 to 3,000) and storage (200 GB to 4 TB). A 14-day trial with Growth features requires no card. Creators who want a standalone course website with detailed assessments may find the community-first structure less suitable than course-first platforms.

Circle is a community platform used by creators, brands and companies to run membership spaces, with courses, events and paid access built in. All plans include courses and unlimited members. Professional costs US$89 a month billed annually with a 2% transaction fee, three admins and 20 spaces; Business costs US$199 a month with a 1% fee, five admins and 30 spaces; Scale costs US$419 a month with a 1% fee and 100 spaces; Circle Plus is custom-priced with unlimited admins and moderators with a 0.5% fee.

Course migration from another platform is free for annual Business plans and above, and a 14-day trial without a card is available on the three self-serve plans. Circle's structure suits organisations whose courses depend on discussion and cohort activity, such as professional communities and customer communities. The pricing page lists only annual-billing prices, and the per-sale fee, while lower than on some community tools, applies on every plan, which adds cost for high-volume sellers compared with platforms such as Systeme.io that charge no platform fee.

Systeme.io is an all-in-one marketing platform that combines sales funnels, email marketing, blogs, affiliate programmes and online courses at prices well below most course-specific tools. Its free plan has no time limit and requires no card; it includes 2,000 contacts, one course, up to 500 students, three sales funnels, a custom domain and unlimited email sending.

Paid plans are Startup at US$17 a month (5,000 contacts, 5 courses, 10 funnels), Webinar at US$47 a month (10,000 contacts, 20 courses, 50 funnels, evergreen webinars) and Unlimited at US$97 a month with unlimited contacts, funnels and courses; annual billing gives two months free. All plans charge 0% transaction fees on Stripe or PayPal payments and include unlimited file storage and students, affiliate management and 24/7 online support, with a stated average response time of under two hours. The breadth of marketing features is its main appeal; the course player and assessment tools are simpler than those of LearnWorlds or Thinkific, and the vendor's pricing comparison table did not render when checked, so course-level feature differences by plan are taken from its FAQ.

Skool combines a community feed, a course "classroom", a calendar and gamified leaderboards in a single, deliberately limited product. It was founded in 2019 by chief executive Sam Ovens and chief technology officer Daniel Kang and is based in Los Angeles, California. Communities on Skool can be free or paid.

The pricing structure is unusually simple: Hobby costs US$9 a month with a 10% transaction fee, and Pro costs US$99 a month with a 2.9% transaction fee. Both plans include unlimited members, courses, videos and live calls, a custom URL and affiliates. The design minimises configuration, which shortens setup but restricts branding and course structure; there is no built-in sales-page builder of the kind offered by Kajabi or Systeme.io, and the 10% fee on Hobby makes it expensive once paid membership revenue grows. The pricing page advertises a free trial and a "2 months free" yearly option but does not state trial length or annual prices.

Payhip is an e-commerce platform for digital products, including ebooks, downloads, memberships, coaching and online courses. Its pricing is structured around transaction fees rather than features: the Free Forever plan costs nothing but takes 5% of each sale, Plus costs US$29 a month with a 2% fee, and Pro costs US$99 a month with no Payhip fee. All three plans include all features, unlimited products and unlimited revenue, and PayPal and Stripe charge their standard rates on top.

For a creator testing a first course, the free plan removes fixed cost entirely; the break-even point between plans depends on monthly sales volume, since the percentage fee falls as the subscription rises. Payhip's course tools are simpler than those of dedicated course platforms, and the pricing page does not list course-specific features, so assessments, certificates and drip scheduling should be checked against the product's own course documentation before committing. It suits creators whose courses sit alongside downloadable products in one shop.

Udemy is an online course marketplace on which independent instructors publish courses that Udemy markets and sells to individual learners and, through its business offering, to employers. Unlike the hosted platforms above, instructors do not run their own storefront or set the terms of sale; Udemy controls pricing, promotions and the learner relationship.

On 11 May 2026 Udemy merged into Coursera: each Udemy share was converted into 0.800 shares of Coursera common stock, and Coursera recorded merger consideration with a fair value of US$673.6 million. The combined company says it reaches more than 290 million learners and 18,000 enterprise customers. At closing it stated that the two platforms would not be integrated on day one and that there would be no immediate changes to existing agreements, contracts, economics or support structures, meaning instructor arrangements continued as before. Coursera reports in Enterprise and Consumer segments. For creators, Udemy offers reach without marketing work, at the cost of control over price and customer data; the long-term effect of the merger on instructor terms had not been set out publicly by November 2026.

Coursera is a learner-facing course platform launched in 2012 by Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, which offers courses, professional certificates and degrees from more than 375 universities and companies. It is not open to independent creators in the way Udemy or the hosted platforms are: content comes from institutional partners, which makes it a destination for learners seeking credentials rather than a tool for selling one's own courses.

Coursera reported revenue of US$376.7 million for the quarter ended 30 September 2026, its first full quarter including Udemy. Its 10-Q reports two segments, Enterprise and Consumer. With the Udemy combination completed on 11 May 2026, the group operates both a credential-focused partner catalogue and an open instructor marketplace. For learners comparing online course platforms, Coursera's distinguishing features are accredited degrees and university-branded certificates; its limitations for that audience are that many credentials sit behind a subscription or per-programme fees, and that course availability depends on partner agreements.