Podia Alternatives: Comparing Podia to Competitors

We’re always curious about who writes reviews for products online, so we want to give you the full disclosure.

We are the creators of the AccessAlly LMS plugin for WordPress, and we’re affiliates for some of the tools that we’re comparing here, which means that we may earn a commission if you buy from our recommendations.

We never let an affiliate incentive sway us in our reviews, but this makes it possible for us to test and provide in-depth and hands-on experience with a lot of the course and membership tools you might be comparing and considering. 

Now let’s see how Podia compares, and why current Podia users might start looking for a Podia alternative in the first place.

While Podia has some great things going for them and we recommend it for users who may need a system to test a “proof of concept” or have no plans of expanding into different setups down the line, there are a number of Podia alternatives that make up for its shortcomings. 

If you’re here you’ve likely tried Podia and found it limiting, or you’ve heard from others who may have outgrown the Podia system and want to learn more. If you want to build a more customized and engaging learning environment, Podia might not be the right fit for you; here are some of the other common reasons why people look for Podia substitutes.

• Lack of design flexibility: Podia’s design options are limited because you must design your course layout within the Podia framework. Their top tier does allow for the use of third-party code for further customization, but you likely won’t be able to manage this without the help of a development team, and could be costly for ongoing support and maintenance of that code. This can be stifling for those who value custom designs and want to be able to put their unique stamp on their courses and membership area. 
• Lack of functionality: Because Podia focuses on a more simple course setup or basic membership site, you may need to adjust your expectations if you want to include advanced quizzing and homework submissions, credit systems, member directories, and other engagement strategies to keep your members motivated. 
• Basic e-commerce: One-time and subscription payments are possible with Podia, however, their PayPal integration does not support recurring payments. Instead, you can use Stripe if you’d like to offer recurring payments to your customers. You can also create basic coupons to specify a percentage or amount off of the total purchase price and set an expiration date, however, if you want to use evergreen funnels to offer expiring coupons that are unique for each person, you’ll need to re-think your strategy or migrate to another solution. Podia does make it possible to offer a free trial for your membership, but if you’d like to offer a reduced price trial, you won’t be able to. There’s also not a way to recapture lost sales through abandoned cart automation within Podia at this time, which has the potential to add a significant amount of income to your bottom line.
• Autogenerated Certificate setup: Many course creators like to issue certificates of completion to course participants, however, this is not a native feature for Podia users and requires the use of a few third-party tools, and manual creation upon the request from course participants themselves.  
• Ownership: Podia is a platform-as-a-service course and membership platform, which means you’re building your business on rented land. If you cancel your Podia subscription, you lose access to all of your courses and students’ information. Plus, migrating off Podia is difficult because everything is stored in their proprietary setup, and your videos are hosted on their servers, too. You’ll need to re-upload your content and export your members, emails, and everything to keep your business going. 
• Extensibility: Because the Podia system is closed, you can’t easily extend it by installing add-ons and plugins. That means you can’t add an integrated forum, gamification, or other features that could improve the user experience for your courses.
• Marketing Automation and CRM integration:   If you offer more advanced sales funnels, segmentation, and automations based on user interactions with your course, you’ll likely find this feature limiting on the Podia platform and will benefit from a more advanced CRM or marketing automation system. This will require integration with a 3rd party tool such as Zapier to connect Podia to your CRM, adding one more piece of complexity to your setup to achieve a seamless user experience. 

Now that we’ve looked at all of the reasons why someone might choose Podia, or switch from Podia to another LMS solution, it’s time to see how Podia compares to alternative LMS solutions!

In these in-depth Podia comparison pages, you’ll see where each tool shines and where it falls short so you can make the best decision for your particular business and needs.