Best Picks

Teachable Online Course Platform Review

Teachable is a hosted platform for selling online courses, coaching, memberships and digital downloads, with plans from $29 a month on yearly billing. Only the Starter plan charges Teachable's 7.5% transaction fee; custom domains and email marketing start on Builder.

3.5Editorial rating: 3.5 out of 5Editorial rating · research-basedUpdated October 21, 2026
From $29/mo (yearly billing)Price checked October 21, 2026
Check price at Teachable
Teachable Online Course Platform

Our verdict

A mature, beginner-friendly platform for selling courses, coaching and downloads, with built-in tax handling and no Teachable transaction fee from the $89 Builder plan. Costs stack up: Starter takes 7.5% of sales, payment bundles add up to 2.8%, and free enrollments can trigger student fees. Customer reports are mixed (Trustpilot about 3.3, BBB F), and certificates, Zapier and the API wait until Growth.

Best for
A first-time course or coaching creator in the US, UK, Canada, Australia or New Zealand who wants hosting, checkout and tax handling in one tool.
Skip if
You need built-in funnels, plan many free enrollments, or are put off by billing and support complaints.

Why 3.5/5: Lifted by a mature feature set, built-in tax handling and a 30-day refund window; held back by Starter's 7.5% fee, stacked processing and usage fees, and mixed customer reports (Trustpilot about 3.3, BBB F).

Check price at TeachableHow we research

Teachable is a hosted platform for selling online courses, coaching, memberships and digital downloads. A school gets a course builder with quizzes and drip scheduling, a checkout with coupons, upsells and order bumps, student apps for iOS and Android and, through Teachable Payments, automatic sales tax, VAT and GST handling. Three self-serve plans, Starter, Builder and Growth, cost $39, $89 and $189 a month ($29, $69 and $139 on yearly billing), and a Custom plan is quoted by sales. Teachable, Inc. has been part of the Hotmart Group since 2020.

What is built in

The pricing matrix lists student management, course design templates, lesson comments, drip content, auto-graded quizzes, short-answer assessments and course compliance rules on every plan; completion certificates and bulk student imports start on Growth. On the sales side every plan has bundles, coupons, upsells and order bumps and abandoned-cart emails, while built-in email marketing and the integrated affiliate program start on Builder. The vendor's feature pages also describe AI helpers that draft course outlines, build quizzes and generate subtitles and translations; the cards put 'Create with AI' on every plan and free subtitles and translations on Growth.

Customization and integrations are gated by plan. Starter has no custom domain or CSS snippets; both start on Builder, while removing Teachable branding and custom user roles start on Growth. Third-party integrations are capped at 1, 3 and 5 on Starter, Builder and Growth, and Zapier, webhooks and the public API (10,000 requests a month, 100 a minute) start on Growth. Every self-serve plan lists up to 1 TB of video storage and unlimited students enrolled through Teachable checkout. A product counts toward the cap when a course, coaching offering or download is published; memberships, bundles and unpublished drafts do not.

Plans and pricing

These are US dollar prices read on the pricing page on October 21, 2026. The page opens on yearly billing, advertised as 22% off, with the monthly price struck through, so check the Monthly and Yearly toggle before comparing. The pricing FAQ says the 0% fee applies when you use Teachable Payments.

PlanMonthlyYearly /moProductsAdminsFee
Starter$39$29517.5%
Builder$89$691010%*
Growth$189$1395050%*
CustomQuoteQuoteQuoteQuote0%*
  • Starter: 5 products, 1 admin, unlimited students through Teachable checkout, 1 third-party integration, iOS and Android student apps, global payments and taxes, upsells and cart recovery, email support.
  • Builder adds: a 0% Teachable transaction fee, 10 products, custom domain and CSS snippets, built-in email marketing, the integrated affiliate program, real-time support and 3 integrations.
  • Growth adds: 50 products, 5 admins, course certificates, bulk student imports, removal of Teachable branding, custom user roles, Zapier, webhooks and the public API, free subtitles and translations, and 5 integrations.
  • Custom is quoted by sales and adds a dedicated success manager, priority SLA-based support, a sandbox school, migration help and flexible seats.

Plan names are not consistent across Teachable's own documents: the Terms still refer to Professional, Business and Enterprise plans and the fees article lists Builder, Growth and Advanced, so match any plan name against the pricing page.

What you pay beyond the plan

Fees come in three layers on top of the plan price. First, the Starter plan takes 7.5% of every sale; Builder, Growth and Custom take 0% when you sell through Teachable Payments.

Second, card processing, which follows the school's country. A September 2026 help article lists, for a domestic card, 2.9% + 30 cents in the US (4.4% + 30 cents for an international card), 2.9% + CA$0.30 in Canada, 1.7% + A$0.30 in Australia, 2.65% + NZ$0.30 in New Zealand and 1.5% + 20 pence in the UK. The pricing page still shows 3.9% + 30 cents for international cards and 3.49% + 49 cents for US PayPal sales, so the two pages do not agree.

Third, a payment bundle. The default Standard bundle adds 0.5% on sales where tax is assessed and 0.7% on recurring payments, and leaves out local payment methods and Adaptive Pricing. The Global bundle adds 2.8% to every transaction and includes them. The article's own example is 5.7% + $0.30 for a US school's domestic card on Global, before any Starter fee.

Usage fees are separate from the plan. Students who buy through a paid Teachable checkout are free and unlimited. Students added any other way, such as admin imports, the API, manual enrollment, free or 100%-coupon checkouts, or access from a sale made on another platform, count against 100 included per school, and each one above that costs $0.50 a month on every plan. Video storage above 1,000 GB costs $15 a month per extra TB. Schools created before September 3, 2026 stay on a legacy schedule until their first renewal on or after April 30, 2027 (for example $0.10 a month per active student above the plan's allowance on Starter and Builder). The Terms and the Fair Use Policy say 'unlimited' features remain subject to those fees and to Teachable's view of normal use, and Teachable says more than 80% of customers pay no usage fees.

Payments, taxes and payouts

Teachable Payments, built on Stripe, is available to creators based in 41 countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Creators elsewhere are routed to the Custom Payment Gateway, which connects their own Stripe account, has no automated tax handling or affiliate payouts, and adds a 2% Teachable fee per transaction for US-based schools. On Teachable Payments the help center says Teachable calculates, collects and remits tax only where the law requires it: US sales tax in a listed set of states, EU and UK VAT, and digital taxes in 20+ other markets.

Payouts run on a daily cadence about two business days after a sale, no reserve is held, and refunds and disputes are debited from a connected bank account when the balance runs short. Payouts are held if earnings pass $500 without the required tax forms. The Terms still allow Teachable to hold part of sales in reserve; the help center says none is held today.

Teachable is moving existing schools to this gateway in waves, and the new checkout drops several older features: post-purchase and thank-you-page upsells, testimonials, bullet lists and course guarantees on the checkout page, product gifting and the Student Referral Program. The Monthly Payment Gateway is closed to new schools; the Terms say it pays on the first of the month, no earlier than 30 days after the end of the month of the sale. The pricing page still lists an optional BackOffice fee of 2% to 2.8%, but the migration article says BackOffice is retired for Teachable Payments schools, and that article still shows an unfinished editing note.

Trial, billing and refunds

The pricing cards promise a 7-day free trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee, and a special-offer panel in the page's code advertises a 30-day free trial that continues on the Builder plan billed monthly; promotions change, so confirm at sign-up. Plans renew automatically until canceled, and cancellation takes effect at the end of the billing cycle. The Terms give creators a full no-questions-asked refund within 30 days of first signing up for a paid plan, monthly or annual (on monthly plans the same applies to an upgrade to a higher-priced plan), and let Teachable refuse refunds to repeat abusers. Teachable may change plan prices on notice from the next billing period, may change transaction fees on reasonable notice from the next renewal, may change usage fees with only commercially reasonable efforts to notify you, and may modify, terminate or refuse its services at any time without notice. Students buying through Teachable's own gateways get at least 14 days to ask for a refund on a course.

Reputation, support and reliability

Customer reports are mixed. On Trustpilot's Australian site, read October 21, 2026, Teachable showed a TrustScore of 3.3 from about 1,110 reviews, split 38% five-star and 40% one-star. The first page of reviews praises ease of use, quick answers and selling tools, and complains about slow or hard-to-reach human support, rising prices and fees, glitches and billing after renewals. The Better Business Bureau lists Teachable, Inc. as not accredited with an F rating and 72 complaints in three years (7 in the last 12 months), 48 of them marked unanswered. Trustpilot does not check what reviewers write and the BBB does not confirm what complainants say.

Support is email on every plan, real-time support from Builder, and priority support and an account manager only on Custom. Teachable runs a public status page: on October 21, 2026 it showed all systems operational, with a general-instability incident on October 7 and 8 (resolved after about 13 hours) and a Teachable Payments checkout outage on October 19 (resolved within about an hour and a half of the first notice). The vendor says it holds a SOC 2 Type II report, audited by A-LIGN and shared under NDA through an account manager, and that its payment gateways are PCI SAQ A Level 3 compliant; we have not seen the report.

How it compares

Teachable's own comparison page argues against Thinkific on video bandwidth, mobile apps, tax handling and affiliate payouts; those are the vendor's claims. A course-platform review site, Learning Revolution (updated October 6, 2026, with an affiliate disclosure page), recommends Teachable's Builder plan for first-time creators who handle marketing elsewhere, says to skip Starter beyond testing, and concludes that Thinkific offers more value for most course creators and Kajabi suits an all-in-one setup if the budget allows. It lists a thin marketing toolkit, product caps on every self-serve plan and certificates only on Growth as drawbacks.

Before you buy

Teachable, Inc. is a Delaware corporation and part of the Hotmart Group; Hotmart's announcement of the acquisition is dated March 16, 2020, and Teachable's About page still counts Hotmart creators alongside its own. The company says more than 150,000 creators use it in 180 countries and that Teachable and Hotmart creators have earned over $10 billion combined; we could not verify those figures. Disputes under the Terms go to binding arbitration in New York County with a class-action waiver. We read Teachable's pages, legal documents, help center and status page on October 21, 2026 and did not use the product, so the 7-day trial and the 30-day refund window are the practical test, ideally with a real course and a test sale.

What we liked

  • Prices, product caps, admin seats and fees are published for Starter, Builder and Growth, with a plan-by-plan feature matrix
  • Builder and above charge no Teachable transaction fee when you sell through Teachable Payments
  • Teachable Payments calculates, collects and remits sales tax, VAT and GST where the law requires it, in 45+ markets per the vendor
  • Quizzes, drip content, bundles, coupons, order bumps and iOS and Android student apps come on every paid plan
  • The Terms give a full no-questions-asked refund within 30 days of first signing up for a paid plan, monthly or yearly
  • A public status page exists, and the vendor says it holds a SOC 2 Type II report, shared under NDA

Worth noting

  • Starter takes 7.5% of every sale on top of processing fees, and has no custom domain, email marketing or affiliate program
  • Customer reports are mixed: Trustpilot shows about 3.3 of 5 from about 1,110 reviews, and the BBB rates it F and not accredited
  • Students added outside a paid checkout, including free enrollments, cost $0.50 a month each above 100 on every plan
  • Product caps are 5, 10 and 50; certificates, Zapier, webhooks and the API start on Growth ($139 to $189 a month)
  • Fees and plans have changed repeatedly, and the Terms let Teachable change prices on notice and end services at any time
  • Payment documentation is in flux: a September 2026 help article moves schools to a new gateway that drops some checkout features

Questions before you buy

How much does Teachable cost?

Monthly prices are $39 (Starter), $89 (Builder) and $189 (Growth); yearly billing brings them to $29, $69 and $139 a month. A Custom plan is quoted by sales. Payment processing, payment-bundle fees and any usage fees are extra, and the pricing page says charges are subject to change.

Does Teachable charge transaction fees?

Starter takes 7.5% of every sale. Builder, Growth and Custom charge 0% when you use Teachable Payments. Card processing is separate (2.9% + 30 cents on a domestic card for a US school), and the Standard bundle adds 0.5% on sales where tax is assessed and 0.7% on recurring payments; the Global bundle adds 2.8%.

Is there a free plan, a free trial or a refund?

There is no free plan. The cards promise a 7-day free trial, and the Terms give a full refund if you cancel within 30 days of first signing up for a paid plan (monthly or annual). A pop-up on the pricing page advertised a 30-day trial, so confirm which applies when you sign up.

Which plan do I need for a custom domain, certificates or Zapier?

A custom domain, CSS snippets, built-in email marketing and the affiliate program start on Builder ($69 to $89 a month). Completion certificates, bulk student imports, Zapier, webhooks, the public API, custom user roles and removing Teachable branding start on Growth ($139 to $189 a month).

Which countries can use Teachable Payments, and when do I get paid?

Teachable Payments is open to creators based in 41 countries, including the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Payouts run daily, about two business days after a sale, with no reserve per the help center, and are held above $500 of earnings until tax forms are filed. Other countries use the Custom Payment Gateway.

Does Teachable handle sales tax and VAT?

On Teachable Payments it calculates, collects and remits US sales tax in a listed set of states, EU and UK VAT and digital taxes in 20+ other markets, only where the law requires the platform to. On the Custom Payment Gateway you handle tax yourself. The Standard bundle adds 0.5% on sales where tax is assessed.

Is there a limit on students?

Students who join through a paid Teachable checkout are unlimited. Students added any other way, including free enrollments, 100% coupons, imports and API enrollments, count against 100 included per school and cost $0.50 a month each above that, on every plan.

What do customers say about Teachable?

Reports are mixed. Trustpilot showed 3.3 of 5 from about 1,110 reviews (38% five-star, 40% one-star), and the BBB lists Teachable as not accredited with an F rating and 72 complaints in three years. Reviewers praise ease of use and complain about support response, price and fee increases and billing after renewals.

Sources & verification

What this review is based on and the day we last read it. Specs and claims from the maker are the maker’s own; the verdict and the rating are ours.

From the maker

Independent

What we couldn’t verify

  • The SOC 2 Type II and PCI SAQ A Level 3 statements are the vendor's own; the SOC 2 report is shared under NDA and we have not seen it.
  • The figures of 150,000 creators, 100M students, 180 countries and $10B earned are the vendor's own and were not verified.
  • Trustpilot and BBB figures are snapshots of customer reports read on 2026-10-21: Trustpilot does not check reviews, the BBB does not verify complaints, and we read the first page of reviews.
  • The pricing page's processing table (3.9% international cards, optional BackOffice fee of 2% to 2.8%) differs from the September 2026 help article (4.4%, bundles); we relied on the article.
  • The cards say a 7-day trial while a special-offer panel says 30 days; which applies, and for whom, is not stated.
  • The pricing page embeds machine-readable prices that differ from the visible cards (for example Starter at $59 a month); we relied on the visible cards.
  • Which features sit on which plan comes from the pricing page; we did not test the gating, and legacy plan names still appear in the help center and the Terms.
  • The payments page advertises instant payouts while the payout help article describes about two business days; customers report older payout holds, and current timing was not tested.

Spotted an error or something out of date? Tell us and we’ll fix it and update the date.

Related reviews

See all