Best Platforms to Sell Online Courses 2026: Fees, Features
We rank platforms where creators build and sell their own online courses, memberships and communities under their own brand — not marketplaces like Udemy or Coursera, which have their own ranking. We use only facts from the vendors' own sites: the monthly price of the cheapest paid plan, the platform's own fee on your sales, a permanent free plan, quizzes, completion certificates, drip release of lessons, a built-in community, recurring subscriptions, built-in email to your students, an affiliate program you can run for your products, your own domain, a public API, two-factor login, a public status page and the year the platform started. Every fact links to an official page with a check date. We do not use reviews, user scores or sales promises, and paid placements never change the Score.
| # | Company | Who it serves | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Heights Platform | 85 | $29.00 | 0% | No | Yes | Yes | Certificates Community Subscriptions Email |
| 2 | Graphy | 79 | $49.00 | 0% | No | Yes | Yes | Certificates Community Subscriptions Email Branded mobile app |
| 3 | Systeme.io | 78 | Not verified | 0% | Yes | Yes | Yes | Free plan Certificates Community Subscriptions Email |
| 4 | Podia | 77 | $49.00 | 5% | No | Yes | Yes | Certificates Community Subscriptions Email |
| 5 | Kartra | 77 | $59.00 | 5% | No | Yes | Yes | Certificates Community Subscriptions Email |
| 6 | Kajabi | 76 | $179.00 | 0% | No | Yes | Yes | Certificates Community Subscriptions Email Branded mobile app |
| 7 | Teachable | 76 | $39.00 | 7.5% | No | Yes | Yes | Certificates Community Subscriptions Email |
| 8 | LearnWorlds | 69 | Not verified | Not verified | No | Yes | Yes | Certificates Community Subscriptions Email Branded mobile app |
| 9 | Teachery | 64 | $70.00 | Not verified | No | Yes | Yes | Certificates Community Subscriptions |
| 10 | Circle | 63 | Not verified | 2% | No | Yes | Yes | Community Subscriptions Email Branded mobile app |
| 11 | Mighty Networks | 58 | Not verified | 2% | No | Yes | Yes | Certificates Community Subscriptions Branded mobile app |
| 12 | Uscreen | 54 | $49.00 | 10% | No | Yes | Yes | Community Subscriptions Email Branded mobile app |
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- Cheapest paid plan per month
- $29.00
- Platform fee on sales (cheapest plan)
- 0%
- Free plan
- No
- Built-in community
- Yes
- Subscriptions and memberships
- Yes
Pros
- Low monthly price
- No platform fee on your sales
- Quizzes and tests in courses
- Completion certificates
Cons
- No permanent free plan
Details Visit site ↗ 93% backed by facts
-
- Cheapest paid plan per month
- $49.00
- Platform fee on sales (cheapest plan)
- 0%
- Free plan
- No
- Built-in community
- Yes
- Subscriptions and memberships
- Yes
Pros
- No platform fee on your sales
- Quizzes and tests in courses
- Completion certificates
- Lessons can be released on a schedule
Cons
- No permanent free plan
Details Visit site ↗ 89% backed by facts
-
- Cheapest paid plan per month
- Not verified
- Platform fee on sales (cheapest plan)
- 0%
- Free plan
- Yes
- Built-in community
- Yes
- Subscriptions and memberships
- Yes
Pros
- No platform fee on your sales
- Quizzes and tests in courses
- Completion certificates
- Lessons can be released on a schedule
Details Visit site ↗ 77% backed by facts
-
- Cheapest paid plan per month
- $49.00
- Platform fee on sales (cheapest plan)
- 5%
- Free plan
- No
- Built-in community
- Yes
- Subscriptions and memberships
- Yes
Pros
- Quizzes and tests in courses
- Completion certificates
- Lessons can be released on a schedule
- Built-in community for students
Cons
- No permanent free plan
Details Visit site ↗ 93% backed by facts
-
- Cheapest paid plan per month
- $59.00
- Platform fee on sales (cheapest plan)
- 5%
- Free plan
- No
- Built-in community
- Yes
- Subscriptions and memberships
- Yes
Pros
- Quizzes and tests in courses
- Completion certificates
- Lessons can be released on a schedule
- Built-in community for students
Cons
- No permanent free plan
Details Visit site ↗ 93% backed by facts
-
- Cheapest paid plan per month
- $179.00
- Platform fee on sales (cheapest plan)
- 0%
- Free plan
- No
- Built-in community
- Yes
- Subscriptions and memberships
- Yes
Pros
- No platform fee on your sales
- Quizzes and tests in courses
- Completion certificates
- Lessons can be released on a schedule
Cons
- High monthly price
- No permanent free plan
Details Visit site ↗ 96% backed by facts
-
- Cheapest paid plan per month
- $39.00
- Platform fee on sales (cheapest plan)
- 7.5%
- Free plan
- No
- Built-in community
- Yes
- Subscriptions and memberships
- Yes
Pros
- Quizzes and tests in courses
- Completion certificates
- Lessons can be released on a schedule
- Built-in community for students
Cons
- No permanent free plan
Details Visit site ↗ 93% backed by facts
-
- Cheapest paid plan per month
- Not verified
- Platform fee on sales (cheapest plan)
- Not verified
- Free plan
- No
- Built-in community
- Yes
- Subscriptions and memberships
- Yes
Pros
- Quizzes and tests in courses
- Completion certificates
- Lessons can be released on a schedule
- Built-in community for students
Cons
- No permanent free plan
Details Visit site ↗ 75% backed by facts
-
- Cheapest paid plan per month
- $70.00
- Platform fee on sales (cheapest plan)
- Not verified
- Free plan
- No
- Built-in community
- Yes
- Subscriptions and memberships
- Yes
Pros
- Quizzes and tests in courses
- Completion certificates
- Lessons can be released on a schedule
- Built-in community for students
Cons
- No permanent free plan
Details Visit site ↗ 76% backed by facts
-
- Cheapest paid plan per month
- Not verified
- Platform fee on sales (cheapest plan)
- 2%
- Free plan
- No
- Built-in community
- Yes
- Subscriptions and memberships
- Yes
Pros
- No platform fee on your sales
- Quizzes and tests in courses
- Lessons can be released on a schedule
- Built-in community for students
Cons
- No permanent free plan
Details Visit site ↗ 70% backed by facts
-
- Cheapest paid plan per month
- Not verified
- Platform fee on sales (cheapest plan)
- 2%
- Free plan
- No
- Built-in community
- Yes
- Subscriptions and memberships
- Yes
Pros
- No platform fee on your sales
- Quizzes and tests in courses
- Completion certificates
- Lessons can be released on a schedule
Cons
- Email only through a separate service
- No built-in affiliate program
- No permanent free plan
Details Visit site ↗ 77% backed by facts
-
- Cheapest paid plan per month
- $49.00
- Platform fee on sales (cheapest plan)
- 10%
- Free plan
- No
- Built-in community
- Yes
- Subscriptions and memberships
- Yes
Pros
- Lessons can be released on a schedule
- Built-in community for students
- Sells recurring subscriptions
- Email your students from the platform
Cons
- Takes a cut of your sales on the cheapest plan
- No permanent free plan
Details Visit site ↗ 75% backed by facts
Not ranked yet: not enough verified data
These services are known to us, but we haven't verified enough facts to rank them fairly.
- Ruzuku (69% backed by facts)
- Thinkific (site closed to automated checks, )
Sites marked as closed refuse automated reading (403 error, captcha or a robots.txt ban). We don't bypass such protection, so we can't verify their facts and they are not ranked. This says nothing about their quality. A company can send links to its official pages to [email protected].
How we calculate the Score
30%
Price and fees
Monthly list price in USD of the cheapest paid plan with monthly billing: $0 scores 100, $150 or more scores 0 (weight 3). Annual-billing discounts and first-months promotions are ignored; if the page does not say in text which billing a price belongs to, or a script fills in the price or the currency, the fact stays empty. The platform's own fee on your sales on that cheapest plan, through the platform's built-in checkout: 0% scores 100, 10% or more scores 0 (weight 2); card processing fees of Stripe or PayPal are not counted. A permanent free plan (weight 1); a free trial is not a free plan.
30%
Teaching tools
Whether the platform offers quizzes or tests in courses, completion certificates, drip release of lessons on a schedule and a built-in community space for your students (weight 1 each) on any of its plans. Comments under lessons alone do not count as a community. The fact shows that a feature exists, not that the cheapest plan has it: check the note under each fact.
25%
Selling tools
Whether you can sell recurring subscriptions or memberships, send email to your students or leads from the platform itself, run your own affiliate program in which other people earn a commission for selling your courses, and connect your own domain (weight 1 each). An integration with a separate email or affiliate service does not count as built in.
15%
Platform and security
A documented public API, two-factor login for your creator account, a public status page with incidents (weight 1 each) and how long the platform has been running: 15 years or more scores 100 (weight 1). Beta and preview features do not count.
How to choose a platform for your online courses
Count the fee on your sales
Multiply your expected monthly sales by the platform fee of the plan you can afford. If the fee costs more than the next plan up, the more expensive plan is cheaper for you.
Check the limits of the cheapest plan
Entry plans often limit the number of courses, students, contacts or admins, and keep certificates, affiliates or your own domain for higher plans. Read the plan comparison before you build.
Decide how you will keep students engaged
If you sell memberships or cohorts, a built-in community and drip release of lessons matter more than a large video library. For one-off courses, quizzes and certificates matter more.
Make sure you can leave
Check that you can export your students' emails and your content, and that you can connect your own domain so your links keep working after a move.
Frequently asked questions
Which platform is best for selling my own online courses?
The platform in first place has the highest Score under our open method, but the Score does not measure design, video quality or how well a tool fits your teaching. Compare the monthly price, the fee on your sales and the features you actually need.
How is this different from your online courses ranking?
The online courses ranking compares marketplaces and course catalogs where students buy courses made by others, such as Udemy or Coursera. This ranking compares software that you, the creator, use to build your own school, sell under your own brand and keep your students' contacts.
Why does the fee on sales matter so much?
A platform fee of 5–10% on the cheapest plan can cost more than the plan itself once you sell regularly. We record the platform's own fee with its built-in checkout; Stripe or PayPal card fees come on top on every platform.
Why is the price empty for some well-known platforms?
Some pricing pages show only the annual-billing price, do not say which billing a price belongs to, or fill in the price with a script. We record only a monthly-billing price that is readable on the official page, so the fact stays empty and lowers data completeness. The note on the platform's page explains what we saw.
What does an empty fact mean?
We could not confirm it on an official page, sometimes because the vendor's site refused automated access. An empty fact scores zero and lowers data completeness. A platform with too little data is not ranked.