Teachable and BuddyBoss are both popular course platforms that help you start your brand for your course-based business. Both of these platforms have almost the same purpose but with some different features.
It is important to know the differences and features between these two platforms before you choose one.
Because course development is a long process, it is crucial to choose one platform that gives you the most support for your course creation process.
Both BuddyBoss and Teachable have supported influencers, entrepreneurs, and instructors in creating courses for niches such as health, spirituality, business coaching, etc.
But how different is Teachable from BuddyBoss? This blog discusses all the details so that you can pick the best option for starting your coaching business.
Let the BuddyBoss vs Teachable comparison begin!
1. The Ecosystem
Teachable
Teachable is a cloud-based system, meaning that all of its services and features are hosted on remote servers and accessed through the Internet. This allows users to create and manage their online courses from anywhere.
BuddyBoss
BuddyBoss is also a cloud-based platform but it makes heavy use of the WordPress ecosystem. For this reason, clients use the BuddyBoss theme and the plugin for starting their course site. The platform provides you with gorgeous aesthetics consisting of templates, fonts, and colors which you can customize to make your course website more appealing.
2. Course creation feature
Teachable
With Teachable you are presented with a Dashboard from which you will be creating and editing your courses. The Dashboard includes everything you need to build your courses. It even creates a course outline for you simply based on the course title. One major highlight of the dashboard is how easy it is to navigate around.
You can upload videos, and images and conduct live sessions to define your courses. You can also set up your brand, landing page, and set up a customized domain for your “school” so that your audience can get to you.
BuddyBoss
When using the BuddyBoss dashboard, every learner is presented with a personal dashboard that displays their profile, enrolled courses, course progression, upcoming classes, future events, and so on. You can also present badges, points, and certificates for course completion.
Other options include setting prerequisite lessons, testing your learners through multiple choice questions, blocking progression if a particular course is incomplete, and push notifications for new lessons, offers, comments, and messages.
Another feature fact is that the BuddyBoss platform integrates LearnDash to create the course and host it on your site.
3. Monetization
Teachable
Like any other course site, Teachable supports monetization through selling courses. This is the main way by which you will be able to make your income on this platform.
If you integrate Circle.so, you can start monetizing your membership community.
BuddyBoss
BuddyBoss provides several ways to monetize your platform. Yes, you can sell courses separately but you can also sell your courses in bundles here. Another way to monetize your community is by using the BuddyBoss membership platform to get access to exclusive content.
All of these monetizations can be in the form of subscriptions or one-time payments.
4. Video Features
Video today is the main way to create a course and both platforms provide video facilities for you to upload and share your video content.
Teachable
Once you have access to the Teachable dashboard, you can upload videos to your course syllabus. You can upload videos with a file size of 2GB or lower. In addition, a user can conduct live sessions, video conferencing, and conduct webinars. There is no native way to add live streams, but this can be done by embedding the third-party live stream code snippet from YouTube, Twitch, or Vimeo.
BuddyBoss
With BuddyBoss you can create a virtual classroom with Zoom. Using Zoom, you can create digital content, live training, and live online courses In addition, you have the option to conduct webinars, and live streams and even host a live event with everyone or specific groups.
Zoom meetings can be scheduled with the link placed on your WordPress site.
5. Customer support
Teachable
Course creators at Teachable get personalized help to launch their courses. Instructors are even given live group coaching sessions 3 times a week. There is a separate community just for where other course creators can interact to get ideas, connect, and get access to content.
In addition, creators can reach out to experts for more guidance or can refer to their blogs, customer support, or live chat.
However, customer support is not available if users face any issues when using third-party tools. So you will not be assisted with maintenance or customization if you face any issues when using third-party tools.
BuddyBoss
Besides the customer ticket system to assist users, BuddyBoss supports its users with various materials to educate their customers for creating courses.
For example, users can visit the knowledge base section, and roadmap section or visit the Youtube channel which is full of updated videos on how to use the platform to create courses for your audience.
6. Integration
Teachable
There are several integrations you can make use of to make your coaching business easier to use. These range from email marketing, Google Analytics, Zapier, Sumo, and so on. This integration assists you to have an all-in-one solution to support your coaching business. There are a total of 10 integrations you can use.
BuddyBoss
Since BuddyBoss uses WordPress to manage its platform, course creators get wide access to more than 100 plugins to manage their coaching business. So plugins such as LearnDash, WooCommerce, WP Rocket, Rank Math SEO, WPForms, Elementor Pro, WPForms, etc.
These integrations help to enhance your coaching business.
7. Membership Community
Being able to create a membership platform is a valuable feature for your own coaching business as it quickly helps to bring relevant traffic to your courses and content. It also helps to be more engaging with your audience. A membership platform is similar to Facebook groups. You can post videos, images, and statuses and even allow comments, likes, and shares for quality online interaction.
Teachable
Although Teachable lets you create courses-it does not have this feature to create a membership platform. However, you can integrate a third-party app called Circle.so. You need to buy the basic plan to integrate this. So if you are using the free plan, you will not be able to create a membership platform. This means you will have to place extra effort into marketing your courses, particularly through social media.
BuddyBoss
On the other hand, you can certainly have a membership platform to enhance your course creation benefits. With the BuddyBoss membership platform, you own it. So you always retain your members and the content you upload.
In addition, you can use it to share your courses with your members to ensure everyone knows your course is ready.
This ensures a faster rate of course purchase as you already have a platform with members interested in learning from you.
8. Community management
Having your community for your business ensures you can make the best out of your business by catering to the diverse needs of your group. It can be a hassle to manage people with diverse needs. This is where the group creation feature comes in handy.
Teachable
The community system is not available if you are using Teachable although it is accessible if you integrate with Circle.so. Keep in mind, that this is only available once you use the basic plan. Using Circle.so, you can manage your members who will be able to access your community by logging in.
This integration is a third-party integration so you will have to refer to the third-party site for using the community feature.
BuddyBoss
Since BuddyBoss has its own community platform, you can manage your community in many ways. For example, you can create groups within your community.
You can create groups based on specific needs such as classes, team members, and different countries. These groups can be private or public.
So having more members means you are given the rein to grow and manage users with groups of needs.
Members can interact with each other through photo sharing or video sharing, direct messages, mentions, likes, comments, and even shares. Users can receive notifications and have their profiles as members of the community.
9. Scalability
Teachable
Although you can start your coaching business for free, you will have to upgrade several times once you start adding more courses and admin users. For example, with the basic plan, you can upload 5 courses and 2 admin users. But If you want to expand your courses or admin users, you must upgrade to the Pro plan where you will finally be able to upload unlimited courses.
Also keep in mind that until you choose the Pro and Business plan, there will be a transactional fee of 5% on your sales.
BuddyBoss
Once you purchase the BuddyBoss platform, you can scale your coaching business without any limits! This means as your business grows, you can include more members within your community.
The platform also lets you create unlimited groups which is a vital feature to use as your members grow. This feature gets even more useful as you can create unlimited events and add unlimited admins. These features are vital for you to keep your business running as your members span hundreds or even thousands of users.
9. Mobile application features
Teachable
Teachable is a platform that is most suitable to use when using a desktop or a laptop. Although you can view a course from any IOS app, the site recommends using a desktop or a laptop for the best experience.
Students can use the mobile app to view the course but for best results, Teachable advises learners to use their desktop or laptop device.
Teachable has an iOS app that is compatible with the iPhone and iPod Touch. The app works with iOS 9.0 or later. Unfortunately, Teachable does not have an app for Android devices.
Creators also will not get any support if they edit the custom code for the mobile app. It would be best to use the app already given to you.
BuddyBoss
Since BuddyBoss uses cloud-based technology to support course creators, it also provides a mobile application to host the courses. All the course materials are available on the mobile app which is also usable as a web application. Since BuddyBoss addresses each brand, you will need to separately purchase your mobile app as all mobile apps are custom-made for every course creator or influencer.
The mobile application also works offline so learners can access the application even without an internet connection.
Unlike Teachable, the apps are made for both Android and iOS.
11. Content creation features
Creating and publishing courses is not enough. You will have to do marketing for your courses to bring traffic to your site. Teachable and BuddyBoss both support course creators with content creation facilities to keep their coaching business sustainable.
Teachable
Like any course creation platform, Teachable has everything to guide you to create not only courses but also other online content for social promotion. Teachable has a separate blog section focusing on marketing, branding, and content creation. If you are into creating digital products, then you can upload digital products that your audience can download.
In addition, you can also embed content such as video players, audio players, forms, and webinars into your course content.
BuddyBoss
The platform has a dynamic content management system to bring traffic to your course-based site. For example, it has a full set of social media tools to share your content. If you use the membership system then you can share your content with your members only.
This method of content sharing ensures better results for your content creation as you will get traffic a lot faster from people who are already eager to buy your course.
You can share e-books, blogs, images with captions, status, and of course your video tutorials. Just recently, BuddyBoss released a new feature where users in a community can bookmark any blogs shared so they can read them later.
Pricing
Teachable
When it comes to pricing, Teachable is a pricier option especially if you take into account the limitations that integrate with the plans. For the basic option, you pay $468/year. If you choose to be billed monthly, the bill will stand at $59 which is much more affordable. But this comes with a set of limitations.
For example, for the Basic and Free versions, there is a transaction fee for your course sales. The number of courses and admin users is also limited. So if you want to expand your coaching business to include more than 5 courses, you will have to expand to the pro version early on to upload additional courses.
This is also the same for adding more admins. If you want to add more than 5 admins, you must upgrade to the Business plan.
BuddyBoss
On the other hand, the pricing for using BuddyBoss is a lot more affordable. Pricing depends on the number of sites you need. It also depends on whether or not you want to include a mobile app. Mobile apps need to be developed separately for each client since not all course creators are the same.
For each site, you will be billed yearly. For the mobile app, you choose to be billed yearly or monthly.
The price for a 1-course site is $299 which is billed annually. With this, you get both the BuddyBoss Theme and the BuddyBoss Platform Pro.
For 1 mobile app, you are charged $179 per month if you choose the Yearly plan. Whereas you are billed at $219 per month if you choose the monthly plan.
Whichever plan you choose, there are no limitations in adding more admins or courses. You also face no limitation to adding members to your community.
The Final Verdict on BuddyBoss vs Teachable
Both platforms have their advantages and disadvantages depending on your needs and budget. If you want a straightforward course platform with easy-to-use features all within a dashboard, then Teachable may be the better option.
But if you want more control over your platform and want to create a social learning environment within your WordPress site, BuddyBoss is a better fit especially if you are looking to integrate a mobile app and create a membership site for your course.
In terms of pricing, BuddyBoss is again a better fit within your budget. You do not have to pay any percentage on the sales of your course. You can also upload unlimited courses and add admin users as many as you want.
Whereas, with Teachable, you have to upgrade your plan a few times if you want to upload more than 5 courses or want to add more admin users. There is also a 5% transactional fee for the course sales you make until you upgrade to the Pro or Business plan.
