The Best Places to Host Online Courses (They May Surprise You)
Ideally, you’ve already decided where to host your online course before creating it. But if you are still trying to decide, we’ve gathered the best online course hosting options. They fit into three distinct categories.
A Learning Management System (LMS)
The first option for hosting an online course is a learning management system (LMS). If you have an external course that you plan to sell, then we suggest Kajabi. If you have an internal course for employee training or something similar, then we suggest TalentCards. TalentCards is the less robust version of Talent LMS, but we specifically suggest TalentCards. That’s because it delivers a mobile experience that users are familiar with. It is very similar to navigation on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube.
Free Alternatives to LMSs
If you don’t want to pay for an LMS, another great option for hosting an online course is the various free alternatives to an LMS. All of the ones we recommend are free or have a very low price.
YouTube is a great example of this, as it is the largest learning library in the world. It is also completely free for you to use to host your online course. Just upload the videos you create and turn them into a private playlist. Then, share the playlist with your learners when they pay for the course.
Another free alternative is Loom. Loom does have a paid plan, but it is very affordable, and the free plan is more than enough to get you started with at least one full course. What we really like about Loom is that it does so much more than just host your course. You can upload content to it or use Loom to record content, making Loom an authoring tool. It focuses on screen capture recordings. And Loom not only lets you create and host your content, but you can share links to the files on Loom with our learners.
Our final suggestion for a free LMS alternative is Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, or something similar. You simply use the spreadsheet to map out your course with topics, learning modules, and any links you need to include. You can even plug in an HTML5 file, a TinCan file, or another type of file.
Marketplaces
The final option for the best online course hosting is a marketplace. Marketplaces are designed to sell courses, so they already have others on there. You simply upload your course. The good thing about these is that you don’t have to worry as much about marketing or the logistics of selling your course. However, you will have to give a portion of the profits to the marketplace.
Udemy is the most popular example of one of these course marketplaces. Skillshare is another, as is Lonely.
Conclusion
You have plenty of options for hosting the eLearning course that you spent so much time and energy creating. You can host it on an LMS such as Kajabi or TalentCards. Or you can host it on a free LMS alternative, such as YouTube, Google Docs, Microsoft Excel, or Loom. Or you can opt to use a marketplace like Skillshare or Udemy.
