Best platforms to sell an online course in 2026
6 platforms to sell courses compared (Teachable, Thinkific, Podia, Kajabi, Systeme.io, Hotmart): official pricing, fees, limits and video protection. Honest.
Choosing where to sell a video course looks like a price question, but what matters more is what you need: getting paid, delivering lessons, talking to students or protecting your work. Each platform does one or two of these well. Here we compare them on what the platforms themselves publish, and we say what we could not verify.
A note on method. Prices were read from the official pages on 16 October 2026 and they change often, so check again before you decide. Tea is ours and we mention it where it matters, but we don't rank it: today it is not a store.
Which platforms do we compare, and why?
We picked six platforms people use to sell courses online: Teachable, Thinkific, Podia, Kajabi, Systeme.io and Hotmart. The first four are the most cited in comparisons, Systeme.io has a free plan, Hotmart is paid per sale. For each one we read the official pricing page.
It is not a complete list and it is not a ranking: existing comparisons in our searches report conflicting, often dated prices, so here we stuck to what the platforms state today. We have not tested the products one by one: where we talk about features we say where the information comes from.
How much does each platform cost?
The cheapest paid plan runs from $17 a month at Systeme.io to $143 a month at Kajabi on annual billing. In between are Teachable at $29, Thinkific at €39 and Podia at $42. Hotmart has no monthly fee.
Source: official platform pricing pages, read on 16 October 2026. Prices exclude tax and may change.
See the data as a table
| Platform | Price per month |
|---|---|
| Hotmart | 0 |
| Systeme.io | 17 |
| Teachable | 29 |
| Thinkific | 39 |
| Podia | 42 |
| Kajabi | 143 |
The subscription is not the whole cost. Transaction fees apply to every sale and depend on the plan and the payment method. Teachable charges 7.5% on its Starter plan and 0% from Builder, plus processor fees, which for a US card are 2.9% plus 30 cents. Podia keeps 5% on Mover and nothing on higher plans, on top of the processor. Kajabi takes no revenue share; with a gateway other than its own, PayPal aside, it adds a 2% platform fee on Basic. Systeme.io states 0% transaction fees. Thinkific lists 2.9% for its own payments and shows no platform share on the page.
A worked example
Say you sell a $149 course, 50 copies, and it cost you $1,500 to produce. With a combined fee of 5% plus 30 cents, each sale leaves $141.25: you take in $7,062.50 and make $5,562.50 after production. With a 10% fee, the margin drops to $133.80 and profit to about $5,190, roughly $370 less over 50 sales. Try your own numbers with the course profit calculator.
A card for each platform
- Teachable. From the price list: Starter at $29 a month on annual billing ($39 monthly), Builder at $69 ($89) and Growth at $139 ($189). A 7.5% fee on Starter, 0% from Builder with its own payments. Limits of 5, 10 or 50 published products; 7-day trial.
- Thinkific. Basic at €39 a month on annual billing (€53 monthly), Start at €79 (€107) and Grow at €159 (€213). Unlimited courses and 10,000 active students on standard plans; its own payments at 2.9%; 30-day trial.
- Podia. Mover at $42 a month on annual billing ($504 a year), Shaker at $84 and Earthquaker at $150. A 5% fee on Mover, nothing on higher plans; unlimited customers; 14-day trial with no card.
- Kajabi. Basic at $143 a month on annual billing ($179 monthly), Growth at $199 ($249) and Pro at $399 ($499). No revenue share; with an outside gateway, PayPal aside, a 2%, 1% or 0.5% fee is added depending on the plan.
- Systeme.io. A free plan, then Startup at $17 a month, Webinar at $47 and Unlimited at $97. Fees stated as 0%; the page shows its last update as April 2026.
- Hotmart. No subscription, unlimited products, a cut of each sale whose percentage is not on the pricing page.
Questions to ask support before you pay
Before choosing, write to each platform's support and ask for answers in writing. Eight useful questions: how VAT and invoices are handled for customers in my country; which fees apply to each payment method; what happens to my students and videos if I switch; whether data can be exported; whether there is a limit on videos or bandwidth; whether devices can be limited or a watermark applied per student; how refunds and disputes work; and what the cancellation terms are after the free trial.
The answers matter more than the sales pages. If an answer is vague or points you to a generic page, take it as a signal. Keep the messages: they help if the terms change one day.
How to migrate without losing students
If you already have a course on another platform, plan the migration calmly: export the lists of students and content, warn them in advance, keep both environments running for a transition period and explain what changes and why. Check that links, certificates and automatic emails work in the new setup before closing the old one.
What does each plan include and limit?
The most common limits concern products, admins and contacts. Teachable caps published products (5, 10 or 50 depending on the plan) and admins. Thinkific has unlimited courses and 10,000 active students on standard plans. Podia and Kajabi differ more on marketing tools than on courses, and Systeme.io combines funnels, email and courses.
- Teachable: Starter 5 products and 1 admin, Builder 10 and 1, Growth 50 and 5. Unlimited students through its checkout; 7-day free trial.
- Thinkific: unlimited courses on every plan; Basic 1 admin and 100 GB of video bandwidth a month, Start 2 and 200 GB, Grow 6 and 400 GB. 30-day free trial.
- Podia: unlimited customers; Mover 50 products and 500 videos, Shaker 150 and 1,000, Earthquaker unlimited; 14-day trial, no card needed.
- Kajabi: 5, 50 and unlimited products by plan, 2, 11 or 26 admins, and 2,500 to 100,000 contacts. The highest price in the comparison includes unlimited funnels and emails.
- Systeme.io: a free plan with 2,000 contacts, 3 funnels and 1 course; Startup 5 courses, Webinar 20, Unlimited no cap.
- Hotmart: unlimited products, no subscription, the platform takes a cut of each sale; look up the percentage in its help center.
Which platform protects videos best?
On the pricing pages of the six platforms we found no per-student watermark, DRM or device limit advertised. That does not mean they are missing: it means they are not among the features they promote. To know what they really do you need each one's technical documentation. A protected-video vendor, Gumlet, writes in a guide published in May 2026 that Wistia and Vimeo do not support DRM and that its own service, with DRM as a paid add-on, can be embedded in Teachable, Kajabi and Thinkific (Gumlet). It competes with the platforms' own hosting, so its reading is not neutral: we report it as a signal to verify, not an established fact. Some DRM vendors also claim integrations with Teachable, Thinkific and Kajabi.
| Free plan | No revenue share on the entry plan | Built-in checkout | Video protection advertised | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teachable | No | No | Yes | No |
| Thinkific | No | Partly | Yes | No |
| Podia | No | No | Yes | No |
| Kajabi | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Systeme.io | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Hotmart | Partly | No | Yes | No |
Read on the official pricing pages on 16 October 2026. “Partly”: for Thinkific, its payments cost 2.9% and the page shows no platform share; for Hotmart, there are no fees but a cut per sale. In the last column “No” means “not stated on the pricing page”, not “absent”.
Where does Tea fit?
Tea is not a store for selling courses: today it is in early access, with no built-in checkout and no public price list. It shows videos with a personal per-student watermark, limits each account to two devices and logs access and plays. That is the part missing from the comparison above. That is why we don't rank it. If you need somewhere to take payments and deliver lessons, one of the platforms above is a better fit; if your problem is finding out where a copy came from, Tea is built for that, and it can sit alongside a selling system you already use. We explain how the watermark works in Per-student watermarks for video courses, and how real a risk piracy is for a course in our guide to course piracy on Telegram.
How do you choose? Five questions to ask yourself
To choose a course platform, answer five questions: do you already have an audience, how many sales do you expect, how many products will you publish, how much does piracy worry you and how much does owning your data matter. The answers weigh more than the monthly fee, because they decide fees, limits and the risk of having to switch.
- Do you already have an audience? If so, built-in marketing costs matter less and a simpler plan will do. If you start from zero, included funnels and email (Systeme.io, Kajabi) save you tools.
- How many sales do you expect? With few sales, the subscription and the free trial matter; with many, the fees. Run two scenarios with the calculator.
- How many products will you publish? Teachable's and Kajabi's limits arrive fast if you sell bundles, short courses and a community.
- How much does piracy worry you? If the course is your main product and costs hundreds, treat video protection as a criterion, not an afterthought.
- How much does owning your data matter? Ask what happens to your contacts and content if you switch platform: export and ownership are in the terms of service.
If you are still before choosing, our guide to creating and selling an online course puts the steps in order, from idea to first sale.
Which hidden costs should you check?
Beyond the subscription and the fee, check what happens on each payment: card processing, PayPal, currency conversion, refunds and disputes. Teachable, for example, lists separate processing costs for US and international cards and a fixed charge per chargeback. If you sell to customers in Europe, check how the platform handles VAT and invoicing: we could not verify it on the pricing pages.
Check the exit too: can you export your students and your content if you switch platform? And the trial: a free trial of 7, 14 or 30 days (Teachable, Podia, Thinkific) lets you test, but check what happens when it ends.
Who should choose what?
From the data we read, a few rules of thumb. If you start from zero and want to spend little, Systeme.io is the only one with a permanent free plan and stated 0% fees. If you want a platform built around courses, Teachable and Thinkific are the most cited: Thinkific has unlimited courses on every plan, Teachable caps published products. If you also need integrated marketing (email, funnels, sites), Kajabi includes it at a higher price. If you prefer no subscription, Hotmart is paid per sale. These are pointers, not purchase advice: we have not tested the platforms one by one, and a criterion that matters to you may not matter to others. If piracy is a concern, look beyond the price lists and read Per-student watermarks. For tax on what you earn, see the VAT number guide.
Key terms. A course platform is software that hosts lessons, takes payments and manages students. A transaction fee is the percentage a platform keeps from each sale. DRM is encryption that lets only an authorized player decode a video.
How we checked this. We found no pricing page that advertises per-student watermarks, DRM or a device limit. We ran the fee example ourselves with the calculator's formulas. We found the fee figures on each platform's own price page, not in third-party reviews. Contact: hi@heytea.app. Editorial note: we fact-check every figure against the sources listed below and correct mistakes openly.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best platform to sell an online course?
There is no single best platform: it depends on what you need. Systeme.io has a free plan and 0% transaction fees, Teachable and Thinkific are built around courses, Kajabi bundles email and marketing at a higher price, and Hotmart is paid per sale. If you want to protect videos with per-student watermarks, you have to look past the price lists.
How much does an online course platform cost?
On the official price pages we read on 16 October 2026, the cheapest paid plan runs from $17 a month at Systeme.io to $143 at Kajabi on annual billing. Teachable starts at $29, Thinkific at €39 and Podia at $42. Payment processing fees come on top and apply to every sale.
Do Teachable, Thinkific and Kajabi protect videos from piracy?
On the pricing pages we read, none of the six platforms advertises per-student watermarks, DRM or a device limit. A protected-video vendor lists them among platforms where a third-party DRM player can be embedded, which suggests DRM is not native, but it is a competitor, so read that with care. Check each platform's official documentation before choosing.
Is an all-in-one platform better than separate tools?
An all-in-one platform cuts setup work: payments, course area and email live together. Separate tools give more control, for instance over video protection and data ownership, but need more integrations. People starting from scratch usually take the first road; those with an audience and valuable content to defend look at the second.
Where does Tea sell my course?
For now Tea is not a store: it has no built-in checkout and no public price list, and it is in early access. It is built for the part many platforms leave uncovered: showing videos with a personal watermark, limiting devices and logging access. It can sit next to a selling system you already use.
Sources
- Teachable, pricing page, read on 16 October 2026. teachable.com/pricing
- Thinkific, pricing page, read on 16 October 2026. thinkific.com/pricing
- Podia, pricing page, read on 16 October 2026. podia.com/pricing
- Kajabi, pricing page, read on 16 October 2026. kajabi.com/pricing
- Systeme.io, pricing page (last updated as stated: April 2026). systeme.io/pricing
- Hotmart, pricing page. The per-sale percentage is not on it: see the help center. hotmart.com
- Gumlet, guide to secure video hosting for courses (published May 2026). A competing vendor's source. gumlet.com