If you're reading this post it's probably because you are considering using Podia to host your online course. And while we're still using Podia as our course hosting portal, there are a few things I should have looked at more in depth before diving in. I'm not listing everything that I like about Podia (we are still using it), so this is more of a list of things to consider. (And there are no affiliate links in this post - the only links go to my example courses on Podia).
Top things I wish I knew about hosting my course at Podia.
And before you read the list, please know that Podia is very clear on their pricing about what is and what is not included, so this post is not a knock on them. There was no bait and switch, and I was not misled in any way. Podia's product is great, and their support is good and fast. And I've never had any problems with downtime or speed - my courses are lighting fast.
I am on their lowest paid plan of Mover ($33/mo [yearly] at the time of this writing) so my list is based on what you get at this level.
- You can only add one Facebook Pixel. This is an edge case (I think) but I would have loved the ability to have more than one pixel. You could do it with custom code, but custom code requires the top plan (Earthquaker) at $166/mo (yearly price).
- You can't add custom code. See #1 above. At first glance I was fine with that, but in retrospect I would have loved to have been able to split-test our product page -- but you need to be able to add custom code to do that. Of course once your course generates enough revenue to break even or be profitable, you can upgrade, but I want to be able to A/B test when I'm not profitable.
- It's hard to segment out email campaigns. For example, I while I can segment my emails by courses purchased (any combination), I can't filter out individuals. So if I wanted to send an email out to the people who purchased my GA4 Migration Process Training course who don't live in the US or the UK, I can't do that.
- You can't easily sync unsubscribes. We use Zapier to push our course purchasers (free and paid courses) to ActiveCampaign which is great. But we can't tell Active Campaign which people from Podia opted-out, which means we need to go through our list by hand and make sure we aren't emailing someone in Active Campaign who previously opted-out in Podia.
- Speaking of Zapier, the Mover plan only allows limited Zapier functionality as you only have access to Triggers - so you need to move to the Shaker plan to have access to Zapier actions. However, you CAN use a Zap on this plan to push a Podia Purchase even to the Facebook Conversion API (thank you, Podia!).
- No matter what plan you have, you only get one user included with it, and additional users are $20/each per month.
We still use Podia to host our online training courses and you should check it out to see if it works for you.
Podia is a great tool and we still use it despite the limitations of the Mover plan. That being said, I might have gone in a different direction if I had taken more time to dig deeper into the limitations of my plan - though their pricing is competitive when compared to the other players in the online course space. The biggest limitation for me is that I can't add custom code unless I have the top plan, and I would happily upgrade to the Shaker plan (2nd tier) to get the custom code feature.
Hopefully you found this information helpful when you decide whether or not to use Podia to host your own online courses.
