Teachable alternatives with a lifetime deal: 5 course tools compared
Comparison· by Bernardo Mannelli
Teachable is one of the best-known platforms for selling online courses, but it is a subscription: you pay every month for as long as your courses are online. If you are just starting, or you sell a handful of courses, that monthly bill can be larger than what the courses bring in.
Lifetime deals are a different kind of alternative to Teachable: you pay once and keep the plan. Below are the five course tools that currently have a lifetime deal on Lifetime Tools, what each one is for, and where it falls short compared with Teachable.
The usual lists of Teachable alternatives — Thinkific, Kajabi, Podia, Mighty Networks — are all subscriptions too. This guide is for course creators who would rather avoid another monthly bill.
The five alternatives at a glance
Prices are the lifetime deal prices at the time of writing and can change.
| Tool | Deal price | Type | Hosts and sells courses? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Academy LMS | $49 | WordPress plugin | Yes, on your WordPress site |
| CourseGlade LMS | $59 | WordPress plugin | Yes, on your WordPress site |
| Open eLMS Learning Generator | $59 | AI course authoring | No: it creates courses for another LMS |
| MyCoachingSoftware | $79 | Hosted coaching platform | Yes, hosted |
| Mini Course Generator | $99 | Hosted AI course builder | Yes, short interactive courses |
What Teachable costs today
These are the prices on Teachable’s pricing page on 5 November 2026:
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed yearly (per month) | Transaction fee | Live products |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $39 | $29 | 7.5% | 5 |
| Builder | $89 | $69 | 0% | 10 |
| Growth | $189 | $139 | 0% | 50 |
Card and PayPal processing fees come on top on every plan. There is no free plan, only a free trial. The Builder plan billed yearly comes to $828 a year; two years cost $1,656.
The five tools are not copies of Teachable. They fall into three groups, and the right choice depends on where you want your courses to live.
WordPress plugins: your site, your hosting
If you already have a WordPress site, a plugin turns it into a course platform. You keep full control and there is no platform fee on sales, but you also take care of hosting, updates and plugin conflicts yourself.
Academy LMS
Academy LMS is the most complete of the five on paper. It covers courses with drip content and prerequisites, quizzes and exams with question banks, assignments and a gradebook, certificates, badges and points, multiple instructors with revenue sharing, and SCORM support. It also has features for schools, such as attendance, timetables and parent, student and teacher roles. Sales go through its own store add-on or through WooCommerce, SureCart and Paid Memberships Pro.
Where it falls short: it only works inside WordPress, performance depends on your hosting, and the many add-ons can make the setup complex.
CourseGlade LMS
CourseGlade LMS is a simpler WordPress LMS focused on building, grading and selling courses from one dashboard. Lessons can use text, audio, video and assignments, with drip scheduling. Quizzes have eight question types, and there is a gradebook with letter grades and GPA, automatic certificates, Stripe checkout or WooCommerce, coupons, bundles and multi-instructor commissions.
Where it falls short: learners must create an account even for free courses, and the product information does not say whether SCORM, xAPI or an API are supported.
Hosted platforms: closest to Teachable
These run on the vendor’s servers, like Teachable: nothing to install or maintain.
MyCoachingSoftware
MyCoachingSoftware is aimed at coaches who sell courses alongside one-to-one work. Besides courses with quizzes and certificates, and SCORM, xAPI and H5P support, it includes a client CRM, appointment booking, contracts with e-signatures, communities, a website builder with custom domains, funnels, a checkout with Stripe and PayPal, affiliates and webinars. Of the five, it is the one that replaces the most separate tools.
Where it falls short: the iOS and Android apps for members are still waiting for app-store approval, according to the product page.
Mini Course Generator
Mini Course Generator is built for short, interactive courses rather than large catalogs. AI drafts a course from a topic, a file or a YouTube link; you then edit it with a drag-and-drop editor and add quizzes, polls and games. Courses can be shared by link or embedded, kept public, password-protected, invite-only or paid, with Stripe, Lemon Squeezy and Pabbly for payments.
Where it falls short: a reviewer found the landing-page customization limited, and PDF exports may need cleanup. AI drafts still need checking.
Course authoring: when you already have a platform
Open eLMS Learning Generator
Open eLMS Learning Generator does something different: it turns a prompt or an existing document into an eLearning course with text, images, animations, voiceovers, video presenters and quizzes. You then edit it in the browser and export it as SCORM 1.2 or 2004, embed it or share it by link.
Where it falls short: it is not an LMS. It does not host courses or manage learners, so it does not replace Teachable on its own. It suits trainers and HR teams who already have a platform and want to produce content faster.
How to choose
- You have a WordPress site and want everything there: Academy LMS if you need school features or SCORM; CourseGlade LMS if you want something simpler.
- You coach clients and sell courses: MyCoachingSoftware.
- You sell short courses or lead magnets and do not want a website: Mini Course Generator.
- You need to produce training content for an LMS you already use: Open eLMS Learning Generator.
What to check before buying a lifetime deal
A one-time price changes the maths, but not everything else:
- Payment fees still apply. Stripe and PayPal charge their usual fees on every sale, on any platform.
- WordPress plugins need hosting. Count a reliable host in the cost, especially for video.
- Plan limits. Lifetime deals usually come in tiers with limits on sites, courses or students: read the deal page before you buy.
- The vendor’s future. A lifetime plan is only worth it while the company keeps the product running. Most marketplaces offer a refund window: use it to test the tool with a real course.
Our guide to buying lifetime deals explains these checks in more detail, and where to buy lifetime deals compares the marketplaces these deals come from.