Podia Reviews & Product Details
Podia is comprehensive online platform that empowers businesses to sell digital goods online. From digital courses to online learning opportunities, Podia is known for its ability to host online courses with unlimited files and videos, as well audiobooks, and PDFs. The platform can also integrate with popular software such as Zapier, and apps like MailChimp, Google Sheets, YouTube Live and Zoom. The platform is available with a free 14-day trial.
| Segment |
|
|---|---|
| Deployment | Cloud / SaaS / Web-Based |
| Support | 24/7 (Live rep), Chat, Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base, Phone Support |
| Training | Documentation |
| Languages | English |
Podia Pros and Cons
- Unlimited emails and analytics
- Communicate on live chat to your clients
- Free community to grow membership
- Earn passive income from video recordings and webinars
- Beginner-friendly user interface
- Customer support needs improving
- The pages have only recently been SEO-optimised
- Students won’t be able to filter products from the storefront page because the backend doesn’t allow you to categorize products
- Instructors won’t be able embed their courses on their own websites or pages because the platform doesn’t offer custom embed codes
Do you want to create and sell online courses, but you’re not ready to invest time and money in 12 different tools? Podia might be just what you’re looking for.
It’s a comprehensive platform that can help you set up a successful online business without too much technical knowledge or money. But it’s not a perfect tool. In this Podia review, we’ll cover what it can do, and whether or not it’s good for you.
What Is Podia: A Quick Overview
Podia is one of the best all-in-one tools for creating and selling online courses and other digital products. It has plenty of features to help you build communities, promote your products, and reach a global audience. Podia’s core service – course creation – is complemented by a bunch of indispensable features like:
- Support for creating your own community
- Live chat feature for your clients
- Affiliate marketing support
- Email marketing suite
- Seamless integration with other online tools
If you want to sell digital products without too much hassle or tech knowledge, Podia is a solid choice–especially since it has a solid free plan that lets you easily learn the ropes of the platform.
Background on Podia
Podia was launched back in 2014, it’s headquartered in New York, and it has a very clear mantra: creators first.
They focus on building tools that actually help creators, which is a great direction for any online business. It’s also the reason behind their name. Podia is the plural of “podium,” which is what the platform will presumably help creators hop on.
But is this “creators first” mindset anything more than clever marketing? Can creators actually climb on the podium with this platform? Let’s dig in.
Getting Started with Podia
When you sign-up for Podia, you’ll choose what features matter the most for your business:
Your choice determines the layout of the main dashboard. You’ll get a checklist with the first steps to set up each functionality you picked.
This checklist is really useful. You get a video guide on how to set up any of the features and links to support articles that can help you get started. Besides these, you also get a general video guide showing you what Podia can do. You can watch all of them straight in your dashboard:
So even if you’ve never used a learning management system before, and even if you’re not that tech-savvy, you can hit the ground running with Podia. If you need more guidance, you can also join Podia’s community of creators, or get in touch with customer support. Just note that live chat is not available all day.
Podia is really easy to get started with. And that’s impressive considering how many features it has. Creating an online course is not a walk in the park, so it’s great that Podia removes any friction you might have with tech. It lets you focus on the creative part of the process.
Key Features
Podia’s tool stack is well-rounded. It does sacrifices some control to keep things swift and intuitive. But it has everything a fledgling online business needs.
Course and Product Builder
The course builder is Podia’s core feature, and it has a pretty nice flow. You first choose what kind of digital product you want to sell:
And then you get a ton of guides, dedicated walkthrough videos, and support articles to set everything up.
The course creation process is very straightforward. You just need to add lessons, give them a name, a description, and upload supporting files.
Podia lets you upload all types of files. So you can organize your course however you want with external materials. You can also add quizzes, embed files, or schedule coaching sessions throughout the course.
Podia also supports drip content delivery, so it’s a pretty solid course builder.
Granted, other platforms like Thinkific or Teachable feature more lesson types, like audio, presentations, or surveys. So there’s a little more wiggle room there. But Podia’s exhaustive file support usually makes up for it.
You can also preview your lessons at any time in the course builder, which helps you deliver experiences tailor-made for your audience.
But we would like some more analytics about students. As it stands, you only get basic details about your members or sales. And although there are workarounds (uploading your video somewhere else and then embedding it into Podia), the tool could really benefit from more data analysis.
Site Builder
Building a site with Podia has a very similar workflow to creating a course. You start by choosing what you want to build:
And then you answer a few questions about your site’s identity (logo, header, etc)
Podia’s page builder is decent. It’s very easy to use, but customizable enough to give you some control over how your content is displayed.
Most of these are straightforward page builder options, like resizing elements, filling in metadata, or formatting the page text. But there are some welcome surprises. For example, you can add buttons to most of the pre-built elements, like paragraphs or images. This makes it very easy to create CTAs and improve conversions.
The page you’re working on is very easy to preview, and you get a lot of options for editing your background image:
All of these options are intuitive. Even if development is not your cup of tea, Podia can help you whip up a site quickly.
But the builder does have its shortcomings. For starters, you can’t add any custom CSS. So even if a page looks good, all sites created with Podia have a very similar structure and design.
Moreover, you don’t have any page templates or pre-built blocks that you can drag into a page. These are extremely useful for anyone that’s not a developer but needs a site built for cheap. And they’re pretty common in modern page builders, even free ones. It’s surprising Podia doesn’t have any.
Marketing and Sales Features
Podia’s marketing and sales features are impressive, especially if you get the Shaker or Earthquaker plan. They’re filled with useful tools, so let’s cover each in turn.
Podia’s email marketing is up to the market standard. You can use it to create simple responses, a single broadcast, or even automated drip campaigns. Some form of email marketing is pretty common in most online marketing tools. But where other tools skimp on features, Podia has a useful email creation suite:
It’s a rich-text editor. You can add images, links, Tweets, and plenty more. Unfortunately, you don’t have any option to change the typography. And there aren’t any templates for emails, so Podia falls a bit behind popular email marketing suites. But like the site builder, it’s a passable tool. And you can use it to communicate with 250 contacts for free, so it’s a good deal.
So is the live messaging feature. It’ll display a live chat icon on your site, so your audience can get in touch at any moment. You’ll get notified whenever someone sends a message, which makes it very easy to convert promising leads.
Unfortunately, the feature is only available in paid plans, just like affiliate marketing and embeddable checkouts, other amazing tools. Affiliate marketing can help you establish lucrative deals with brand ambassadors, and embeddable checkouts can be integrated into other sites.
These are great ways to monetize an existing blog or site, without having to learn how to use complicated tools like WooCommerce.
Lastly, you can also use Podia to create coupons. These are super useful to promote your products, and run discounts.
Unfortunately, they’re only available from the Mover plan onwards. So if you want Podia’s best marketing and sales tools, you’ll need to pay up.
Integrations
Podia has tons of integrations that mix it seamlessly into your existing stack. These include integrations for event scheduling, funnel management, analytics, and payment processing.
In some cases, these integrations are crucial. You get limited analytics from Podia, so Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel integrations are essential. Unfortunately, no integrations (bar from PayPal and Stripe) are available in the free plan.
Community
Creating a community with Podia is easy and worthwhile. It won’t be a complex members area, but it’ll have everything you need to engage your students.
You’re in charge of the topics people can post about, and what access different members get based on the plan they’re on.
It’s also very easy to add a new topic, manage existing members, and brand the community with unique headers and images.
If you know your way around Discord, that’s probably a better option. Just as easy to use, yet more customizable. But if you think your audience will appreciate having the course and the community in the same place, Podia’s community tool won’t disappoint.
Podia Use Cases
Podia has tons of features. So as you can guess, there are a lot of use cases for this platform. Let’s go over the most popular ones.
For starters, you can sell courses. It’s their core offering, and it’s pretty decent. It could do with more analytics, but it’s a good no-code solution for small and medium businesses.
Podia is also a good choice for complex online products made by low-tech businesses. The platform can’t replace a WordPress and LearnDash combo. But if you’re not tech-savvy, and you want to sell courses, downloadables, and coaching sessions, Podia is a good pick.
You can also use the platform to test the waters. You won’t create killer sales pages with it. But you can whip up a rudimentary funnel in a day or two, send it to a focus group, and see how it performs.
Lastly, Podia is a good choice if online courses are just a small part of what you do. You can set up the course here, and embed a checkout page on your other sites.
Podia Pricing
Podia has decent pricing. It has no fees on any of the paid plans, and it’s very scalable. Depending on your existing tool stack, you save as much as $1,000 when switching to Podia.
A single tool like ActiveCampaign can set you back $70 per month. With Podia, you get a viable alternative, along with a simple page builder, course creation, and useful marketing and sales features. All for as little as $33 per month.
Not everyone will save hundreds of dollars per month when signing up for Podia. But it’s worth calculating how much you spend now, and how much of the slack can be picked up by Podia. You might be surprised.
Unfortunately, Podia’s most useful features are locked behind a paywall. Affiliate marketing, chat support, integrations, and upsells are not available in the free plan. You can’t even publish courses and coaching products with the free version. You can only create them, and take them public after you make your purchase.
So the free plan is more limited than you might think. But it’s still very useful to see if Podia is for you. For clarity, here’s a roundup of its features:
Free – $0 per month:
- Full website
- Email marketing
- Community
- 1 download
- 1 coaching product
- Draft courses
- Draft webinars
- 8% transaction fee
Mover – $33 per month:
- Everything in Free
- Chat support feature
- Unlimited downloads
- Unlimited coaching
- Unlimited courses
Shaker – $75 per month:
- Everything in Mover
- Unlimited webinars
- Affiliate marketing feature
Earthquaker – $166 per month:
- Everything in Shaker
- Priority support
Summary of Podia’s Pros and Cons
| Pros |
Cons |
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Podia isn’t perfect. The lack of advanced site customization will bother advanced users. And the limited analytics make Podia a pain to use if you like to improve your conversion rate at every turn.
But in our opinion, the pros outweigh the cons. You get a solid course builder, an all-in-one solution for creating and selling digital products, and it’s all a breeze to start with.
Podia Alternatives: Which is best?
Thinkific, Teachable, and Kajabi are all great alternatives to Podia.
They’re easy to use, and at times slightly more customizable. If you’re looking for more control over your course layout, you could check out Thinkific and Teachable. If you want a professional and scalable platform, Kajabi is a decent pick.
And if you need the smoothest experience, a good price, and no fees on your sales, stick to Podia.
Is Podia Worth Your Money?
If you’re looking for a solution that requires a minimal learning curve to sell online courses, Podia’s a fantastic choice. It’s very easy to get started with, and it has all the options you need to make the most out of your digital products.
As you’ve seen in this Podia review, it’s not on par with popular page builders or email marketing tools. But it’s a jack of all trades that won’t let you down. See for yourself– they have a free plan.
Easy to use. To build a site, a landing page, a course can go really fast. It looks good, clean and it's also user-friendly for clients. I moved from a Wordpress site because it's easier with Podia, no need for updates or solving problems and, in the end, it isn't that much more expensive (if it actually is).
I cannot say something isn't working well. There are one or two features I would like to have, like being able to copy lessons and modules from one course to another, but I guess it will evolve to that some day.
Building a site and providing online courses.
With Podia, everything you and your clients need is in one place. No more hopping between sites or sifting through disorganized Facebook groups. My current and potential clients can find everything they need on my Podia site. I can update my website, interact with my community, add new products, track email campaigns, and view audience activity—all from a single platform. Podia's convenience and comprehensive features have been a game-changer for me. I've recommended it to friends and acquaintances because it simplifies my online presence and enhances my connection with my audience. Experience the power of Podia and bring harmony to your online world. It's time to take your business or creative ventures to new heights with this all-in-one solution.
I really don't have any dislikes/ haven't found any downsides.
My current and potential clients can find everything they need on my Podia website; I can update my website, interact with my community, add new products, track email campaigns, and view audience activity. Being able to accomplish that from a single platform is a great convenience for all.
I am requiring a Podia account for students who enroll in my paid workshops and courses from May 22, 2023 forward. The growth of Podia services is eliminating (totally!) the need for a truly SOLO creator to need anything else based on the SOLO Lady Creator system I have developed.
I am working to increase my knowledge of Podia to an expertise level, not Podia certifications but my working knowledge to help my students learn its full capabilities.
Podia is an excellent website creator, my email marketing service, community, product and course delivery system. Live humans support, always adding more features, making it a One Stop Shop!
Being able to sell and email and blog all in one spot!
Only thing isn't being able to go live in community for live Q&As or trainings.
Being able to streamline my business in one software vs three or four! Saves so much money!
Using podia for years so couldn’t recommend it more. It’s especially great for people like me who want a tool that is both simple for the end-user and the content creator. Many tools out there just have such a bad UX for the end-user and this one makes a lot of things right.
The fact that the ability to add custom code is in the higher pricing tier.
Have all my courses, books, templates, community, and emails in one place.
I enjoy Podia for its simplicity and beauty. I appreciate the entrepreneurial smartness in creating such a precise and lean product, ease of use, very fast and thorough support, balanced functionalities outweighs the frustrations. As far as I know I'll keep using it. From many angles, it's obvious that it wasn't just designed to be the next average thing, but it was carefully planned and optimized to solve specific problems and really make a difference. It was precisely what I was looking for for a solopreneur that is looking for lean features that just work. I loved how they were honestly able to compare themselves to other solutions and companies without bragging or other ego dynamics, and how they presented themselves as the solution with clarity. It shows a lot of great signs of a company I'm inclined to work with.
some bugs with the editor were really annoying. Solved now.
managing all my digital information in one simple platform. Super useful and powerful.
Podia simplifies website & selling online
Provide more options to schedule/pay for appt.
I have simplified my business with Podia because I host my online classes, showcase freebies and digital downloadable products, build a community and accept payment. Their tech support is the BOMB-DIGGITY and when I get stuck or have a question if it's not part of their resources, I can just reach out and they help me through it! They are amazing!! HIGHLY recommend Podia!
I am definitely no professional at figuring out how to navigate online platforms. I found the Podia site pretty easy to navigate, and not only is their help menu super helpful, but hands down, they have the most wonderful support staff who respond to any questions you have that you haven't been able to figure out.
I have signed up for notifications of new posts in the podia community, and they do not offer a digest version of this, which is a shame. I may just Unfollow all the topics that I am interested in, and then from time to time I can go through and see if there's anything of interest to me. A minor inconvenience.
I had a couple of online workshops for on-demand classes via a platform that has now seized operating. So I had to migrate all my information to this new site. Thank goodness Podia is there. I was able to reconnect all my students with the workshops they had paid for so they are very happy campers. Also, they offer the opportunity to create community, free or paid, and to offer coaching.
0% fees on all sales Community Coursees
No subscription support for PayPal, nothing more
I run my online course / mentoring / community business
Podia is an All-In-One platform for creators to showcase their products, information, and stories for all to see. Moreover, you can also generate passive income using the built in email, community, and membership capabilities. I love it! One place - Does it all!
I dislike the fact Podia charges so much to embed a pop-up. I also dislike not having a "blog" feature with sidebars and other links a blog format has. Podia, please add this feature!
No issues. Chat is available. Response to emails is less than 24 hours. All questions answered.
Podia is super easy and fun to use! The whole design is incredibly simple - you never feel overwhelmed or confused (I'm looking at you, Wordpress!). It's very efficient - meaning that whatever you are trying to do - it has a function for that. And if you are unsure about say, whether your product is an online download or a webinar, they can help you with that! The staff is incredibly helpful and insightful with whatever query you may have, big or small.
I can't think of any downsides, really, I haven't had a problem yet. The only thing is that sometimes there is a bit of a delay in the response from the Podia team, but this is a very minor delay.
I had help with putting together a website with Podia. I had extensive help with the set-up. My friend walked me through it. I was amazed at how easy and simple and intuitive using Podia was. I am using it for a website that sells online courses. I have made 20x sales in about a month and I couldn't be happier. Anytime I hit a snag or have a question I just send one through the chat-box and I get a very helpful response in minutes, usually.
I switched to Podia after using/researching a number of the other platforms like Kajabi, Teachable, Thinkific, WordPress plugins, etc. (even clickfunnels). Podia is SUPER streamlined, very easy to use, way more affordable, and beautiful for the user (not just for the content creator).
The only thing I wish they had was the original landing page feature that they removed. It allowed someone to download a digital product by entering their email, but without creating a whole account for all your courses.
Online courses, digital downloads/workbooks, monthly memberships, etc.
Podia is a beautiful tool. It has an amazing design and offers all features for course hosting (and payment management). Instead of charging for each sale, it only charges a fixed amount per month. It is perfect for people who makes a high volume of sales per month, what will be my case next year, and I'm sure I'll switch to Podia. Currently, I'm using a tool called Hotmart. The tool is also good (but Podia is better), but it charges 10% for each sale, what is very very high.
I think Podia could also offer an option to charge for each sale. I haven't switched to Podia yet because of this. Currently, I have a low amount of sales (~ $250 / month) and it is better to pay Hotmart 10% fee. If Podia implements this type of plan, teachers with low volume of sales will be able to use it.
I have subscribed for the trial. I've hosted one of my online courses there to test, and I really really liked it. The best thing, as I said, is that it only charges a fixed amount per month. Of course you'll need to pay for payment management (Stripe) but the fee is very low compared to other membership areas tools.
Its very easy to use and I have created a lot of programs in that.
A little more detail brief on how to add multiple emails at one shot while inviting people
I loved creating programs and sections in podia, it helped me create a lot of my videos converted into courses
I'm very disappointed with the brand. Please see my comments in the next answer.
I've been a user of Podia for almost a year but ended up getting very disappointed with their approach to customer support. Stripe has reported that one customer filed a fraud dispute for the products she bought through my podia account. As a way to show Stripe that it was a real customer and not a fake scam, I was asked to provide server logs. The amount disputed is $3000 so it's a pretty big deal. I requested Podia to help me out but they refused saying this is not what they can help with. They only sent me an HTML version of an email which was sent to the customer. How can this help me to explain that the product was really bought? Podia doesn't request people to provide their mailing address nor checks for any scam verification before a purchase is made and thus this leaves space for scams. Considering that, they could at least make an exception and provide extra help, especially when the sum is like this. I just don't understand the humanity behind such a brand. So disappointed with this brand!!! It clearly shows the values of such company.
elearning
I love the affordability and convenience for starters. Creating a course and program is easy for me as one who is starting out.
I just don't like that Podia isn't funnel-driven and the email automation isn't working for my account. Also I can't sell products. They're are only options for digital downloads and services.
I'm able to create a platform for my clients to utilize my course - watch videos, answer questions, download files, etc. I can also upsell of service. I can create a website. I can use integrations such as Convertkit, Active Campaign, Zoom.
An excellent platform for storing and conducting online courses. I like the simple and easy-to-understand design, the simplicity of creating courses, the colourful pages in templates.
It would be nice to have a free version with certain limits to test the functionality well.
Podia solves the problem of the inconvenience of many online learning platforms. They are often quite difficult for students to understand. But Podia offers excellent and perfectly structured information. It's easy and convenient to create courses.
I use podia for courses and appreciate how easy it is to upload my videos and set up my sales page. I also like the upscale feature.
The email options are limited but I'm told they're working on this.
I am selling courses and memberships and like having everything all in one platform.
Very simple to use and intuitive, it makes it easy to sell digital products and courses in no time. It's really easy to setup everything, and they have affordable plans without fees.
It's hard to personalize your sales pages as their editor is limited. That would be great to have more options of styling and also add media easier like timers etc...
I was looking for a simple solution to sell digital products and saw some video reviews so I tried it and really enjoy using it as it make everything easy and simple.