Skool is the gentlest start in this category: $9/mo on Hobby, one screen, and a community plus a course in the same place. Podia's 30-day trial needs no credit card and its builder is a single page rather than a curriculum tree. Kajabi can wait. At $179/mo for Basic you are paying for funnels and email you will not use in week one. If you want to narrow the field further, run a side-by-side comparison between your top picks or browse the full creator software directory for options outside this category. Every listing is scored using the same review methodology.
Editorial policy: How we review software · How rankings work · Sponsored disclosure
10 best for beginners highlighted below, plus 1 more in this category.
Published price means the vendor states a figure; quote only means it does not. The best-fit line is each tool’s own authored sentence, not a description of its deployment model.
| Tool | Published price | Pricing model | Deployment | Free trial | Best for | Review |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Circle | $89/mo Professional | Flat monthly fee | Cloud | Yes | Branded paid memberships | Read review |
 Kajabi | $179/mo Basic ($143 annually) | Flat monthly fee | Cloud | Yes | Established course businesses | Read review |
 Kartra | $59/mo Essentials ($52 annually) | Flat monthly fee | Cloud | Yes | Creators replacing several tools with one bill | Read review |
 LearnDash | $259/year | Flat monthly fee | Cloud | Yes | Creators who already run WordPress | Read review |
 Mighty Networks | $79/mo Launch ($948 a year) | Flat monthly fee | Cloud | Yes | You'll get the most from Mighty Networks if you're running a paid membership community that also needs courses, events, and a mobile app, and you want all of it under one brand without stitching together separate tools. | Read review |
 Podia | $39/mo Mover ($33 annually) | Flat monthly fee | Cloud | Yes | Small creators selling several product types | Read review |
 Skool | $9/mo Hobby, flat for the community | Flat monthly, no per-member charge | Cloud | Yes | Low-cost paid communities | Read review |
 Teachable | $39/mo | Free plan + paid tiers | Cloud | Yes | You will get the most from Teachable if you want to build and sell online courses without dealing with WordPress, custom hosting, or cobbling together five different tools. | Read review |
 Teachery | $49/mo or $470/year, one plan | Flat monthly fee | Cloud | Yes | Simple video and text courses, marketing handled elsewhere | Read review |
 Thinkific | $0 (free, one published course) | Free plan + paid tiers | Cloud | Yes | Launching a first course | Read review |
| Mighty Pro | quote only | Custom quote | Cloud | No | Communities that need their own branded app | Read review |
Showing 11 of 11
Flat monthly fee · Cloud · Free trial
Circle is an all-in-one community platform that combines discussion spaces, online courses, live events, memberships, payments, and workflow automations under a single branded experience. It's built for creators, educators, and businesses who want to own their community without duct-taping five different tools together. Plans start at $89/month billed annually with a 14-day free trial.
Flat monthly fee · Cloud · Free trial
Kajabi is an all-in-one course and membership platform that combines course hosting, email marketing, website building, sales funnels, and community features in a single dashboard. Unlike course-only platforms, Kajabi replaces your email tool, landing page builder, and funnel software. Plans start at $89/month with a 14-day free trial.
Flat monthly fee · Cloud · Free trial
Kartra is an all-in-one marketing platform that combines online courses, sales funnels, email marketing, membership sites, checkout pages, and automation in a single subscription. It's designed for course creators, coaches, and online businesses who want to replace multiple tools with one platform. Plans start at $59/month with a $1 trial available.
Flat monthly fee · Cloud · Free trial
LearnDash is a WordPress-based learning management system (LMS) used by course creators, educators, and organizations to sell online courses. Available as a self-hosted plugin ($199/year) or a managed cloud platform ($29/month), LearnDash charges 0% transaction fees on course sales. It includes a drag-and-drop course builder, quizzes, certificates, and assignment management.
Flat monthly fee · Cloud · Free trial
Mighty Networks is a community platform that lets creators build membership communities with built-in courses, events, and native mobile apps under one roof. Members interact through Spaces, flexible containers for discussions, courses, events, or content. Plans start at $41/month billed annually, with a 14-day free trial on all tiers.
Flat monthly fee · Cloud · Free trial
Podia is an all-in-one platform for selling online courses, digital downloads, coaching, and community memberships. It bundles a website builder, storefront, email marketing, and community space into a single subscription. Plans start at $33/month (billed annually) with a 30-day free trial.
Flat monthly fee · Cloud · Free trial
Skool is a community platform that combines a discussion feed, course hosting, and gamification into one space for creators, coaches, and educators. Founded by Sam Ovens and backed by Alex Hormozi, it prioritizes simplicity over feature depth. Plans start at $9/month with a 14-day free trial.
Free plan + paid tiers · Cloud · Free trial
Teachable is an online course platform that lets creators build, host, and sell courses, coaching programs, digital downloads, and memberships. It handles payment processing, student management, and basic marketing tools. Plans start at $39/month (or $29/month annually) with a 7-day free trial. The Starter plan charges a 7.5% transaction fee on sales.
Flat monthly fee · Cloud · Free trial
Teachery is a minimalist online course platform that charges one flat price ($49/month or $470/year) for unlimited courses, unlimited students, and 0% transaction fees. There's one plan with all features included, no tiers, no upsells. It targets creators who want to sell courses without complexity, feature bloat, or surprise fees.
Free plan + paid tiers · Cloud · Free trial
Thinkific is an online course platform that lets creators build, market, and sell courses, memberships, and digital downloads from a single dashboard, no coding required. It includes a drag-and-drop course builder, built-in payment processing (TCommerce), community spaces, and analytics. Plans start at $36/month billed annually, with a 14-day free trial.
Custom quote · Cloud
Mighty Pro is the enterprise tier of <a href="/software/mighty-networks">[Mighty Networks](/software/mighty-networks)</a> that gives you a fully white-labeled, branded iOS and Android app for your community, courses, and events. Unlike standard Mighty Networks plans, Mighty Pro publishes your app under your name in the App Store and Google Play. Pricing is custom (sales call required) and reportedly starts at $3,000-5,000+/month.
Skool, because there is almost nothing to configure: Hobby is $9/mo and the community feed, classroom and calendar are all one interface. Podia is the next option if you want a storefront, and its 30-day trial requires no card.
Under $40/mo, or nothing. Teachable Starter is $39/mo ($29/mo annually), Podia Mover is $39/mo with a 5% fee, and Thinkific's free plan handles a single course. Spending $179/mo on Kajabi before you have students is the common early mistake.
Start with whichever one you can actually show up for. Skool and Circle put the community first and bolt lessons on; Teachable and Thinkific do the reverse. A quiet community hurts you more than a missing one.
New reviews, repriced plans and fresh comparisons in course & membership platforms, as we publish them.
Read our buyer guides for deeper editorial takes, check the glossary when a term needs clarifying, or explore pricing calculators to model costs before committing.
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