An online course platform hosts your lessons, gates them behind a payment and handles the checkout. The 8 below are the ones people actually shortlist, and the figure that decides your bill is rarely the monthly price: it is what the platform takes from each sale, and whether that rate holds when you bring your own payment processor.
Disclosure: we make Drry, which sells courses among other things, and we cover it honestly at the end. Every figure below is quoted from that platform’s own pricing page and carries the date we last checked it.
Which online course platforms are worth shortlisting?
These 8 all let you build a structured course and charge for it, and they come in three shapes that are not substitutes: course-first platforms, all-in-one marketing suites with courses inside, and community-first platforms where lessons sit beside a feed. Pick the shape before comparing prices and the list usually drops to two or three.
- Thinkific. No free plan. A 30-day free trial on the paid plans. Using Thinkific Payments: will not incur a third-party payment gateway fee, at 2.9% to process the card. Verified September 2026 against thinkific.com/pricing. Full pricing and how it compares.
- Teachable. No free plan. The free tier was discontinued in June 2025. 7-day trial. Starter: 7.5% of every paid sale. Verified July 2026 against teachable.com/pricing. Full pricing and how it compares.
- Kajabi. No free plan. Free trial only. With Kajabi Payments: Marketed 0%, but subscriptions carry a 0.7% recurring-payment fee. Verified July 2026 against kajabi.com/pricing. Full pricing and how it compares.
- Podia. No free plan. The free tier was removed in October 2024. 30-day trial, no card required. Mover: 5% of every paid sale. Verified July 2026 against podia.com/pricing. Full pricing and how it compares.
- Skool. No free plan. Both tiers are paid. Hobby plan: 10% + $0.30 per member payment. Verified July 2026 against skool.com/pricing. Full pricing and how it compares.
- Circle. No free plan. 14-day trial on paid plans. Professional: 2% of member payments. Verified July 2026 against circle.so/pricing. Full pricing and how it compares.
- Mighty Networks. No free plan. 14-day trial, no card required. Launch: 2% of member payments. Verified July 2026 against mightynetworks.com/pricing. Full pricing and how it compares.
- ClickFunnels. No free plan. 14-day trial plus a 30-day money-back guarantee. Platform fee on sales: 0% platform fee. Verified July 2026 against clickfunnels.com/pricing. Full pricing and how it compares.
Which online course platforms have a free plan?
8 of the 8 above record no free plan, and most offer a trial instead. Course platforms sell software rather than a share of your revenue, and software is billed monthly, so the bill starts before the first sale does. That is the opposite trade from the marketplaces and checkouts, where nothing is due until you sell and the cost then never stops.
It matters most at the start, when you have a course and no audience yet. A subscription that begins the day you sign up is a real cost against an unproven idea, and it is the single most common reason a first course never launches.
Where does Drry fit?
Drry is a flat-priced platform where the course sits beside a community, guides, audio and events rather than on its own. It takes 0% of member payments on every plan including the free one, the free plan holds up to 100 members with no card required, paid plans start at $29 a month, and the money lands in your own Stripe account.
The honest limit: if a deep course catalogue is the entire business, with prerequisites, completion reporting and a large multi-course library, a course-first platform goes further on those mechanics than we do. We are built for the case where the course is one reason people stay rather than the only one.
Questions coaches ask
What is the best online course platform?
It depends on whether the course is the business or part of one, and a roundup that names a single winner is ranking products built for different jobs. A course-first platform goes deeper on catalogues, prerequisites and completion; an all-in-one suite sells you the marketing around the course; a community-first platform treats lessons as something members work through beside a feed. Of the 8 priced here, the monthly price varies less than what each one takes from a sale.
Which online course platforms have a free plan?
Of the 8 priced here, 8 record no free plan, and most offer a trial instead, so the bill starts before the first sale does. That is the category's sharpest split from the marketplaces and checkouts, where nothing is due until you sell and the cost then never stops. Drry is free up to 100 members with no card required, and takes 0% of what those members pay you on every plan including that one.
Do course platforms take a percentage of my sales?
Many do on their entry plan and drop it higher up, and several advertise 0% with a condition attached: it holds only while you use that platform's own payment processor, which keeps the billing relationship inside their product. Bring your own Stripe and a gateway fee often comes back. Read the fee row and the condition together rather than the headline, because the two are quoted differently across this list.
Can I sell a course and run a community on the same platform?
Yes, and which half the platform is actually built around is the thing to check, because almost all of them now claim both. A course platform with a discussion tab and a community platform with lessons look identical on a feature grid and feel completely different to use daily. Decide which half your members will open every week, and pick the platform built around that one.