Mighty Networks vs. Podia: a comparison

When it comes to selecting community and membership platforms, there is a lot to consider and it can be pretty overwhelming to review software functionality, design limitations, integration options, and pricing models.

In this comparison of Mighty Networks vs. Podia, we break down all the important considerations for you, so you can find the perfect software for you and your business.

Podia is an all-in-one, platform-as-a-service provider that tries to do everything from host your website, handle email marketing, design landing pages, take payments, and deliver online courses and memberships.

Podia offers a ‘plug-and-play’ setup so you can set up your storefront, add website pages and products, and start taking payments without being a tech expert.

It’s a plus to be able to get your site up and running quickly, however, since this is a platform-as-a-service provider, you’re building on ‘rented’ land. Meaning, when it comes time to move to a different system, you’ll have a manual migration on your hands, and might have limits in place on what you can and can’t do with your space.

Podia is a great option if you’re just getting started online and looking to host everything in one place.

Mighty Networks started off as a social network. But, in recent years they’ve expanded into a modern-day website builder that can support community, online courses, and memberships. Mighty Networks is also a platform-as-a-service provider meaning that you drop your content into their existing plug-and-play systems.

Mighty Networks has a strong focus on community. If a major part of your business is connecting members, building community, answering questions, and facilitating conversations, Mighty Networks could be a great choice for you.

Understanding the pricing structure for each platform is essential to making an informed decision. On top of the monthly costs, it’s important to consider transaction fees, costs of the current systems that you have in place (CRMs, for example), and your website if it’s already hosted somewhere else.

Mighty Networks has three tiers to consider:

1. 1. The Free Plan
   2. The Community Plan ($28/month)
   3. The Business Plan ($98/month)

The Free Plan is a great way to get setup and running, but you’ll quickly run into limitations such as limited number of admins, inability to charge for online courses, and lack of SEO resources. The transaction fee on this tier is 5%, which is in addition to merchant account fees. .

The Community Plan is their mid-level tier. With this option you’ll have unlimited members, hosts, and moderators, but you won’t have the ability to charge for online courses. The transaction fee on this tier is lower at just 3%, which is in addition to merchant account fees.

Lastly, with their Business Plan, you can have unlimited members, admins, and moderators. You’ll have the ability to charge for online courses as well. While there’s still a transaction fee at this tier it’s only 2%, which again, is in addition to merchant account fees.

In comparison, Podia offers two tier options to meet your needs:

1. 1. The Mover ($39/month)
   2. The Shaker ($79/month)

There are no transaction fees on either tier and you have unlimited members on both tiers.

The Mover plan does not include the ability to setup and sell memberships, blog functionality, offsite buy buttons, affiliate marketing, and the ability to incorporate third party code. If these elements are part of your business now, or will be in the future, budget for the Shaker plan.

Based on the typical features desired to set up and run a membership site and sell online courses and/or memberships, you’ll need The Shaker plan ($79/month) on Podia and The Business Plan ($98/month) on Mighty Networks.

Having access to great customer support, or not so great support, during your new setup can make or break your launch.

Setting up the user experience and learning environment that your students expect and deserve will result in better retention rates with the material, and long-term relationships with your students so finding a tool with great support to make that happen is imperative to your success..

Podia does provide chat tech support at every tier, available 7 days a week within their business house. They also provide email support where they’ll respond to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

It’s important to note that although chat support can be nice for easy, quick, one-off questions, receiving actual technical support on a complicated or confusing issue is sometimes best handled over email support.

Podia’s team page introduces you to their support team so you can become familiar with the folks on the support team and know who you’re connecting with. They also offer a Help Center that’s supported by the Podia team and Podia users.

Mighty Networks also offers a help center for both hosts and members. They have a contact form where you can submit your questions as well. They don’t offer chat support and don’t set an expectation in terms of how quickly they’ll respond to your contact form.

The general learning environment should be considered here. Mighty Networks is resemblant of a social media network, which can lead to a very distracting environment.

For example, when students log in, they can see a feed of all activity. For some, this initial distraction will keep them from ever getting to the online course they originally logged in to see.

With Podia you can set up online courses, programs, and more without these distracting feeds.

With Mighty Networks, you can track if someone has watched a video, but you cannot create quizzes, video bookmarks, and course progress checklists. Mighty Networks is not a good choice if these types of learning reinforcements are important to you.

Podia offers multiple choice quizzes you can add at the end of your lessons to reinforce and check comprehension, but they don’t offer any kind of video tracking or video bookmarking.

If these features are important to you, your brand, and your online courses or programs, neither Mighty Networks or Podia will be able to offer a robust enough solution for you.

Mighty Networks uses Stripe as their third party payment processor. They do not currently support payments via PayPal or other payment processors.

You’ll also want to keep in mind that Mighty Networks withholds a transaction fee on top of your Stripe fees.

You can accept one-time payments or subscription plan payments with Mighty Networks and you’ll also have the ability to offer upsells and free trials.

The upsells are presented within your Mighty Network, which means that potential customers must be a part of that network in order for them to see your offerings.

With Might Networks, there are pricing limitations when it comes to the cost of your Mighty Network, online course, or membership.

They provide a populated drop down list for pricing, and you must select one of those amounts to charge for your offerings. At this time, you cannot charge more than $999 for a one-time payment.

Podia can integrate with both PayPal and Stripe. You can accept both one-time payments and subscription plans.

However, recurring payments can only be accepted via Stripe at this time, not PayPal.

Remember that Podia does not have any additional transaction fees so they have the slight edge on Might Networks.

With Podia, you can offer free trials and upsells.

Unlike Mighty Networks, your customers don’t have to be part of your community in order to see these types of offers, which is a benefit in most business models.

Using Podia you can set your online courses, memberships or programs to be any price. There aren’t pricing limitations or restrictions with Podia either.

Both Mighty Networks and Podia accept international payments based on Stripe’s policies.

They both offer use of coupon codes and discounts. Podia supports multiple currencies, but Mighty Networks does not.

Podia offers more e-commerce and pricing flexibility than Mighty Networks.

A full fledge affiliate system is one that supports new affiliate sign ups, and a beautifully designed dashboard where they can find their unique affiliate links, commissions, leads, and their affiliate assets including images and swipe copy.

If affiliate marketing is part of your business, the more important this set up becomes. Without a proper management system it can become a full time job to manage affiliates and their needs.

Mighty Networks offers an Ambassador Program. However, it’s not an Affiliate Program that tracks commissions and referrals. It’s designed to drive your current members to refer to new members based on the value of your Mighty Network.

Podia does include a built-in affiliate system on their more expensive Shaker tier. With Podia your affiliates can sign up to become an affiliate, and see sales, commission totals, clicks, and their conversion rate via their affiliate dashboard.

The limitation with Podia is that there’s no way to seamlessly share assets, such as approved images and copy, with your affiliates.

With that said, Podia’s affiliate marketing feature is still more advanced than Mighty Networks.

• You want a social media-like platform to connect your members 
• The look and feel of your online course isn’t important to you and you’re willing to conform to the layout and design options 
• You’re willing to lead your students through what can be a very distracting learning environment 
• You’re willing to use a third party like Zapier to integrate with your current systems 
• You’re not looking to create a true LMS experience for your students

• You’re a creator looking for a simple course website
• You have offerings like free and paid webinar, digital downloads, or simple courses with no plans to expand to a fully functional and integrated membership site
• You’re willing to modify your setup when you’re met with Podia’s platform limitations
• You don’t have a CRM and plan to keep automation and interaction with your customers simple
• You won’t mind migrating off Podia and into a new software-as-a-service offering as your business grows