Mighty Networks vs. Teachable: a comparison
Whether you’re researching and evaluating platforms or WordPress solutions to build your memberships and online courses, the process can be overwhelming.
This in-depth comparison of Mighty Networks vs. Teachable has been created to help you fast track your research and help you find the most ideal fit for your business. In this review, we’ll share everything we know about the most popular features requested by online course creators and membership site owners for these two platforms: Mighty Networks vs. Teachable.
Why We’re Looking at These Two Popular Community Course Platforms
Our team of digital marketers, website designers, and software developers have launched and sold millions in online courses and membership sites over the past 10 years.
And, as the creators of AccessAlly, we’ve invested a lot of time researching the most popular platforms and plugins on the marketplace to keep a strong pulse on what tools are available for today’s online course creators and membership site owners.
Fortunately for you, we gain a lot of knowledge and insights into the inner workings of these tools through our research so we can pass that information along to you.
Let’s take a look at how Teachable and Mighty Networks stack up when it comes to LMS features, design flexibility, pricing, and more.
How do Mighty Networks and Teachable Differ?
Teachable and Mighty Networks both provide the functionality you need to build and sell online courses, but that’s where the similarities end and the differences begin.
From development philosophies to pricing, and features, their commonalities are few and far between.
Both have a strong user base, but they’re both unique in their feature sets, especially when it comes to online course delivery.
As you’ll discover in this review, it’s clear that each tool is developed with a specific type of user in mind. In turn, each has its strengths and weaknesses based on who it’s targeting. As you’ll quickly realize, there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution for online course creators.
Community-Driven Platforms vs. Dedicated Course Builders
Mighty Networks started out as a community-based social network but has recently pivoted its business model. They now promote themselves as a modern-day website builder with native community features, an online course builder, and as a membership site platform.
If your membership or online course is predominantly a community-based network, Mighty Networks might be a good fit for you. There’s less focus on the course itself, and more focus on connection and engagement with your members.
While Mighty Networks allows you to process payments so you can build and sell online courses and memberships within your Mighty Network, it’s not a true all-in-one platform like Kajabi or Podia. It doesn’t include built-in email automation features to support your sales and marketing funnels, or automations triggered by your course participants or members’ actions.
In order to connect your Mighty Network powered courses to your CRM or marketing automation system, you’ll need to use a third-party plugin like Zapier.
In comparison to Mighty Networks, Teachable allows you to create a more structured learning experience for your users.
Teachable focuses on online course creation and develops its features in support of this functionality. In addition to hosting your online courses, you can take payments, deliver your courses all at once, or drip out the content over time.
You can also send targeted emails for each individual based on enrollment and progress throughout the course. If you’re just getting started online, this is a good solution to keep costs down.
The Teachable platform is ideal for course creators who aren’t particular about their course design and don’t want to invest the time and resources into creating a truly custom learning experience for their users but want to infuse features of traditional learning management systems into their courses.
As you grow, we recommend looking into alternative solutions that will give you full control over your content and offers more flexibility in terms of design and course automations.
Pricing limits on members, courses, and products
Teachable offers a 14-day free trial for you to test out the platform, and begin your course setup. After your trial, you will be required to choose the plan that’s right for you.
Teachable offers three plans. Pricing starts at $39/month for their Basic plan, $119/month for their Professional plan, and $199/month for their Business plan. Each pricing tier allows course creators to enroll unlimited students and host an unlimited number of courses.
The Basic plan assesses a 5% transaction fee on top of your monthly investment with Teachable, but the Professional and Business plans do not withhold this additional transaction fee on your sales. If you choose the basic plan and enroll 100 students each month for a $100 course, Teachable will withhold $500 of your revenue on top of the monthly plan fee.
Teachable’s most popular plan is the Pro plan which unlocks a number of features most online course creators look for in a learning management system, such as affiliate management, graded quizzes, certificates of completion, and advanced LMS reporting for student progress and course data.
The business plan comes in at $499/month, includes bulk course enrollment, and allows for advanced theme customization.
In comparison, Mighty Networks also offers three plans for its users to choose from.
- The Free Plan
- The Community Plan ($33/month)
- The Business Plan ($99/month)
Opting for the free plan is a good way to start building, planning, and getting familiar with the platform.
While the plan itself is free, you will be assessed a 5% transaction fee for memberships on top of your payment gateway’s payment processing fees, but you won’t be allowed to create online courses, and won’t be able to assign your own domain name to your Mighty Network.
The Community Plan is only $33 a month, and gives you the ability to use a custom domain name, and provides you with additional features to increase engagement within your community. The transaction fee drops to just 3% on this tier, but you won’t be able to create online courses on this plan, similar to the free plan.
You’ll need to invest in the Business plan at $99/month to unlock the course builder. You’ll still have an additional transaction fee withheld by Mighty Networks on your sales, but this plan has the lowest fee at 2%.
Extensibility and Ownership
As with any platform-as-a-service tool, there is a lack of full ownership of your content and setup. You’re essentially building your business on rented land, meaning the platform owns the space you build on.
When you outgrow these platforms or want to uplevel your business, you’ll have to manually migrate off these platform-as-a-service providers and that migration will be time-consuming. You also assume the risk of potentially losing information or content in the transition.
On the upside, with hosted, platform-as-a-service solutions you won’t have to invest in website hosting, a premium theme or page builder, video hosting, security, or platform maintenance because these are included in your investment.
Some platform-as-a-service tools have made it possible for you to export your content if you’re already on, or upgrade to their more advanced pricing plans. Unfortunately, your content may not be in a very user-friendly format.
Teachable and Mighty Networks are both fairly easy-to-use systems, but in order to expand on their core features or connect them to other systems used to power your business, you’re forced to rely on a third-party tool like Zapier.
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Onboarding and Customer Support
We know how important it is for you to have reliable access to customer support when you need it most.
Spending less time troubleshooting your tech issues, means you’ll have more time to focus on the things that matter most to your business – like taking care of your students and potential customers.,
Mighty Networks has developed a comprehensive Help Center to guide you through the setup of your Mighty Network. You’ll have access to their written step-by-step tutorials complete with screenshots and videos.
They also guide you through the onboarding process by highlighting their most popular articles to best support you throughout your initial setup
You can contact their customer support team via email, but they don’t make it clear how quickly you can expect a reply.
Based on our experience, email support is generally pretty effective when it comes to troubleshooting your online course setup but there’s no guarantee to how quickly your issue will be resolved.
Teachable has an award-winning customer support team and provides more resources for new users, in comparison to Mighty Networks, to onboard users onto the platform easily.
Teachable also provides an extensive KnowledgeBase to guide you through the setup process. Their customer support team is available via email, plus all paying customers have access to TeachableU – their online course library.
Pro and Business account holders have access to live chat Monday-Friday, 10 am – 5 pm EST for real-time support, as well.
Upon signup, you will also receive access to an onboarding webinar to quickstart your setup.
Integration with your Email marketing automation platform
It’s important to understand how Mighty Networks and Teachable can integrate with your current tech stack.
When it comes to integration, there are essentially three levels:
-
- No integration
- One-way push integration – where one system can push information to another, but not return any data to the other system.
- Two-way integration – where both systems can send data to each other seamlessly
In our experience, the deeper the integration, the better. You won’t find yourself at the mercy of a third-party tool that could fail at any time, and it makes it possible for you to create more customized onboarding experiences when new members or students purchase your membership or courses.
You can also trigger automations based on actions they take on your site such as logging in, visiting certain pages, or completing a video on your membership site.
Plus, members can easily manage their profiles and subscriptions with a two-way integration, alleviating time spent on customer support to ensure both systems stay up-to-date.
You don’t want to accidentally continue sending emails prompting members to log in and re-engage if they’ve canceled, or keep trying to sell them a course if they’ve already purchased.
Mighty Networks can integrate with your CRM or marketing automation system through a third-party connection using a tool like Zapier. This is an example of a one-way integration. Your CRM will receive data from Mighty Networks, but won’t push information from your CRM back to Mighty Networks. If you make an update in the CRM for a specific user that needs to be reflected on your Mighty Network, you’ll have to make the update manually.
Teachable offers one-way integrations with some of the more popular CRMs, but if you don’t use one of those, it also requires the use of Zapier to power your integration with your marketing automation system or CRM.
Whether you choose Mighty Networks or Teachable, native integrations for some of the most popular CRMs and marketing automation systems used by online course creators aren’t built-in. Unfortunately, the third-party integration tools you’ll need come at a cost, adding an additional expense for your business.
Looking for something that integrates both ways?
Marketing automation tools are here to stay.
Use your marketing automation tool to power your course and membership program by taking advantage of AccessAlly’s deep 2-way street integration.
It’s built to help you sell more, teach better, and engage with your students longer.
Learning reinforcements: quizzes, progress tracking, homework, and certificates
LMS features such as quizzes, progress-tracking, homework submissions, and certificates all contribute to the overall success of your online course in terms of retention rates for your students, and content retention by your students.
Teachable has native quiz functionality that makes it possible for you to build in learning reinforcements for your course material and test student retention. Your options for quiz and question types aren’t as robust as some tools and their questions are limited to multiple-choice and true/false responses.
With Teachable you can use built-in certificates to celebrate your students’ success upon course completion. You can also assign and review homework submissions for your students with Teachable.
Online courses have only been recently added to the Mighty Networks feature set and it’s not designed to be a true learning management system. Their focus continues to remain on the social aspect and community engagement within your Mighty Network.
This isn’t always the most ideal environment for all course types, certification programs, or memberships.
If you plan to offer auto-generated certificates to students upon course completion, require quizzes to gauge student comprehension, or monitor progress-tracking with automations to keep members on track, then Mighty Networks isn’t the right tool for your business.
We recommend investing in a software or platform solution that’s built to support the goals and vision you have for your online courses. You shouldn’t have to conform or make sacrifices to your course plan to fit within the tool’s framework. If you do, you are likely to outgrow the system, hinder your business growth, or be forced to migrate to a more compatible tool in the future.
Comparing Customization and Design Flexibility
Mighty Networks wasn’t built with design flexibility in mind. It’s pretty plug-and-play when it comes to your online course setup. While their drag and drop builder is easy to use, you don’t have much freedom or control when it comes to customization of the layout and features within your network.
You can choose your fonts, specify your colors, and add marketing copy to provide a course overview on your course landing page to promote it, but unfortunately, you’re not able to create a custom course design or sales page within Mighty Networks. Your sales page can be hosted on another platform such as WordPress. For your course design, you will choose from three course formats within Mighty Networks to present your course content.
One format allows you to create your online course to be purely content where the community and comment features of Mighty Networks aren’t built into the course itself.
You can also create a “community” that’s only accessible to members of your course so it’s not public to everyone who joins your Mighty Network.
Lastly, you can put the community front and center in a live course style format. When you choose the live setup, the focus of your course is on the community activity, and your course content comes secondary and can be added over time.
If you’re looking for a preset design to drop your content in and get going, Mighty Networks could work for you, especially if community engagement is important to your course. Social connections and community are at the heart of the platform so your members will feel more like they are part of a social network, not an online learning hub.
To give you some insight into what you can expect in terms of user experience, hosting your courses within your MIghty Network is comparable to running a course within a Facebook group, just with a more modern design.
If you’re a brand conscious entrepreneur, Mighty Networks might not be the right fit for your business. You’ll lose your brand look and feel on the platform, however, if you invest in Mighty Pro you can regain some brand recognition with a customized app.
Similarly, there are limitations on the Teachable platform, but you will have more design flexibility in comparison to Mighty Networks.
Teachable’s basic plan is the most restrictive when it comes to design flexibility, however, the platform has come a long way since its early days and is evolving to keep up with the rise in popularity of WordPress page builders. You will have more customization options when you invest in their Professional and Business plans.
Teachable is a good fit for new course creators who are just starting out or business owners who may not be very specific about the look and feel of their sites. However, it’s not the best fit for those who want full design flexibility.
If you want full design flexibility, AccessAlly is for you
Because AccessAlly is a WordPress plugin, you can use any WordPress theme or builder you like.
Or start with AccessAlly’s theme, which comes with all of the progress tracking and navigation menus integrated out of the box.
Power, flexibility, and beauty all in one course platform.
Managing Bulk Course Sign Ups and Teams
Bulk course enrollment allows you to create a set of online courses that can be sold as a package to multiple people at one time.
This feature serves business models who sell their courses or memberships to companies, families, or schools. The team leader can assign the allotted number of courses purchased to each student on their team.
This functionality opens your business up to possible opportunities to expand your offerings in a whole new way.
Neither Teachable nor Mighty Networks offer a fully automated solution for bulk course enrollment.
The closest thing that Mighty Networks has to offer is their Ambassador Program; team leaders can invite Team Members to join the Mighty Network they are part of, but there’s no team management features or functionality beyond that.
With Teachable, the process isn’t fully automated, but it is possible. You can sell courses in bulk by creating an offer for the number of people the buyer is purchasing access for. Each person who should have access is then given an individual coupon code to enroll in the course.
E-commerce: Payment Processing and Functionality
Mighty Networks has a direct Stripe integration so its users can process payments for members to join their Mighty Network, purchase online courses, or sign up for a membership.
You can collect one-time payments and recurring subscriptions, but Mighty Networks will withhold a transaction fee ranging from 2-5% in addition to the processing fees withheld by Stripe. It does not currently integrate with PayPal or other payment gateways.
Mighty Networks’ e-commerce functionality does extend beyond payment processing. You also have the ability to offer upsells, coupons, and free trials.
Unfortunately, the prices you charge for your offers are somewhat dictated by Mighty Networks’ predetermined pricing. You’ll choose your price points from the list when you create your products
Teachable’s built-in e-commerce functionality has come a long way over the past few years. Originally, you could only offer one-time payment options for your students, but now you can offer coupons and advanced pricing options including subscriptions, memberships, bundles, and more.
Unlike Mighty Networks, you won’t be restricted to Stripe as your payment processor; Teachable natively integrates with PayPal, Stripe, and 2checkout, in addition to their internal payment gateway. You also have the option to set up both Apple Pay and Google Pay as well.
The option to use these additional gateways can potentially lead to increased conversion rates, especially on mobile devices for Teachable users.
One of the most unique e-commerce features Teachable offers to its users is the option to have them collect and remit VAT for your business when appropriate when you use their back-office feature. Some shopping cart integrations and tools will handle this for you, but most learning management platforms don’t.
If you require this advanced e-commerce functionality, Teachable is a better fit for your business.
Affiliate Management and Program Options
Mighty Networks does not offer a traditional affiliate management system that many online course creators and membership site owners use to increase sales and enrollment in their courses and memberships
Their affiliate functionality does not support affiliate sign-ups, commissions, unique links, click tracking or a dashboard that shares promotional copy and images.
Instead, Mighty Networks’ Ambassador Program tracks commissions and referrals from your existing members. It’s designed to incentivize current members to refer new members based on their experience within your Mighty Network.
In comparison, Teachable’s affiliate management features are more in line with your traditional affiliate marketing platform. You do have to be a user on their Pro or Business tiers, but if you plan to use affiliate marketing to help sell and promote your courses or membership, it’s worth the investment.
With the use of Teachable’s back office, you can even automatically pay affiliates, collect W-8 and W-9 forms, and issue 1099s to your affiliates. You will have to pay an additional 2% fee based on your revenue for this functionality. Alternatively, you can side-step this additional fee and choose to do these things manually.
You can also create custom cookie windows and create unique tracking links for URLs hosted outside of Teachable.
Your workflow on Mighty Networks vs. Teachable:
- Create your Mighty Network
- Add your own branding, content, events, and members
- Get familiar with the different areas setup in your Mighty Network
- Set up templates for creating your foundational content
- Add your member guidelines
- Add your online course content
- Connect payment methods
- Add any integrations you’ll be using
- Add moderators or admins to your Mighty Network to help manage the community
- Name your Teachable school
- Create your first course structure
- Directly upload your videos, text, and course information to Teachable
- Edit the look and feel (change colors and fonts)
- Figure out how to use your own domain (to brand your school)
- Set up payments and the terms of purchase
- Set up Zapier zaps to integrate with the other systems you’ll need to achieve the functionality
- Or, wait for Teachable to release the features you want to add to your courses
See How Mighty Networks and Teachable Features Compare
We’re a digital marketing software company built by marketers and software engineers. With our particular background and expertise, we’ve designed our membership management and LMS WordPress plugin AccessAlly, to give you everything you need in an easy to use, powerful package, you’ll see where Teachable and Mighty Networks fall short or shine in comparison.
| Software Feature | AccessAlly | Teachable | Mighty Networks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Protected course content |  | | |
| Built-in Recurring Stripe and PayPal payments | | ||
| Course builder for modules, lessons, and topics | | | |
| Automatically creates tags, pages, and menus | | ||
| Deep 2-Way Integration with Infusionsoft, Ontraport, ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit, and Drip | | ||
| Multiple currencies, automated expiring coupons, and order bumps | | ||
| Cart abandonment automation | | ||
| Progress tracking, and progress-based unlocking content | | | |
| Multiple types of quizzes, and auto generated certificates of completion | | | |
| Course Licensing with Teams or Umbrella Accounts | | limited features | |
| Searchable member directories and editable custom fields through profiles | | ||
| Gamification where members can earn points, and activity-based automation, login tracking | | ||
| Media player, video bookmarks, tagging automation on quizzes | | ||
| Cross-selling dashboards, with 1-click upsells | | | |
| Built-in affiliate tracking with multiple tiers, links, and reporting | | limited features |
The true cost of Mighty Networks vs Teachable
These pricing models will give you an idea of what you can expect when comparing the cost of Mighty Networks vs. Teachable but it’s not the whole picture.
If you plan to use a third-party integration tool to connect your online courses to your existing CRM or marketing automation systems, be sure to budget time and money for those connections and maintenance. Also, don’t forget to factor in the transaction fees for each platform and plan when calculating your investment.
These are important considerations to keep in mind when comparing pricing to accurately budget for your online course investment.
In Summary
Mighty Networks might be right for you if...
- You want a community platform resemblant of a social network
- 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
Teachable might be right for you if...
- You want a basic course-website and have no plans of expanding your offerings in the future
- You’re not attached to a specific design and willing to flex your vision when met with system limitations
- You don’t have a CRM setup and have no plans of setting one up in the future
- You won’t mind setting up your business on ‘rented land’ and manually migrating when your business grows
Take AccessAlly for a test drive
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Do you have comparisons to other platforms and plugins?
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We can help you sort out all of the different options. We’ll let you know if AccessAlly is a good fit or not, too.
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