Best Course Platforms 2025: Find Your Perfect Match Based on Your Creator Type

Choosing a course platform based on price alone is like buying a car based on cup holder size. Here’s what actually matters. In this guide, we’re breaking down the best course platforms 2025 based on who you are, not just flashy features or pricing gimmicks.

There is no best LMS

I get it. You’ve spent hours scrolling through comparison charts, watching demo videos, and reading reviews that all sound like they were written by the course platforms (also called learning management systems, or “LMS”) themselves. Every single one claims to be “the best” and “perfect for beginners.” Meanwhile, you’re more confused than when you started.

There’s no such thing as the “best” course platform for everyone. But there absolutely is a best platform for you – and it has everything to do with your needs and your personality, not their marketing promises.

Today, I’m going to cut through all the noise with a personality-based course platform framework that actually works. You’ll discover your “creator type” and get platform recommendations that fit how you actually think and work. No more endless comparisons or analysis paralysis.

By the end of this guide, you’ll know exactly which platform category matches your style, what the real costs look like (hint: it’s not just the monthly fee), and how to make a decision you won’t regret six months from now.

The 5 Course Creator Personality Types

Before we dive into course platforms, let’s figure out what type of course creator you are. Most people try to choose based on features (or what the gurus tell them is the best), but the truth is, the “best” features are the ones that match how your brain works.

Read through these course creator personalities and see which you might just might be…

The Perfectionist: “I Want Everything Exactly How I Envision It”

You lie awake at night thinking about your brand colors. You’ve spent hours on your logo and you want your course platform to reflect that same attention to detail. Templates are nice, but you need the ability to customize everything – fonts, layouts, colors, even the spacing between elements. 

• What drives you: Complete creative control and unique branding
• Your biggest pain point: Template limitations that make your course look like everyone else’s
• What success looks like: Custom branding, unique student experiences, and the ability to make your course look exactly like you pictured

Example of a “perfectionist”
You’re a leadership consultant who wants your course platform to match your sophisticated brand aesthetic. Generic templates feel cheap, and you need the ability to create custom page layouts that reflect your premium positioning.

The Pragmatist: “I Just Want Something Reliable That Works”

You don’t need bells and whistles. You need a platform that won’t crash during your launch, won’t have mysterious bugs, and actually does what it promises. You’ve been burned by “shiny new tools” before, so you prefer platforms with proven track records (and great reviews).

• What drives you: Reliability, stability, and proven results
• Your biggest pain point: Platforms that promise the world but deliver crashes and glitches
• What success looks like: Consistent uptime, responsive support, and features that actually work as advertised

Example of a “pragmatist”
You’re a financial advisor creating retirement planning courses. Your clients expect professionalism, and you can’t afford to have the platform go down when someone’s trying to access their materials.

The Penny-Pincher: “I Need to Keep Costs as Low as Possible”

You’re bootstrapping this new venture, and every dollar counts. You’re not cheap…you’re smart with money. You want maximum value and transparent pricing without hidden fees sneaking up on you later.

• What drives you: Getting the best value for your investment
• Your biggest pain point: Hidden fees, unexpected charges, and platforms that nickel-and-dime you
• What success looks like: Transparent, predictable pricing and getting plenty of features for your budget

Example of a “penny-pincher”
You’re a nutrition coach just starting out. You know your expertise is valuable, but you need to prove it works before investing heavily in expensive platforms.

The Growth Hacker: “I’m Planning to Scale This Into a Big Business”

You’re not just creating a course. You’re building a course empire. You need advanced marketing tools, automation, affiliate programs, and analytics. You’re willing to pay more upfront if it means faster growth and better data.

• What drives you: Scaling quickly and maximizing revenue potential
• Your biggest pain point: Platforms that limit your growth or force you to migrate later
• What success looks like: Advanced marketing tools, detailed analytics, and automation capabilities

Example of a “growth hacker”
You’re a business coach who plans to launch multiple courses, build an affiliate network, and eventually hire a team. You need a platform that can handle complexity and growth.

The Tech-Avoider: “I Just Want to Teach, Not Deal with Technical Stuff”

Technology is not your strong suit, and that’s okay. You have incredible expertise to share, but you don’t want to spend weeks learning complicated software. You need something that works out of the box with minimal setup.

• What drives you: Simplicity and ease of use
• Your biggest pain point: Complex setups, technical problems, and having to learn new software
• What success looks like: One-click solutions, excellent support, and intuitive interfaces

Example of a “tech-avoider”
You’re a wellness coach with 20 years of experience helping people transform their lives. You know your stuff inside and out, but you just want to upload your content and start helping people – not become a web developer.

Well, what did you come up with? Now, let’s dive into the course platforms – and see what they’re all about.

Best Course Platforms 2025: Categories Explained

Now that you know your course creator type, let’s look at your options for course platforms. I’m going to organize this section by platform personalities – yes they all have their own personalities too.  I think this will help you think about them in terms of what you need and where you are on your course creation journey.

All-in-One Giants: The Swiss Army Knives

The platforms offer everything you could possibly need under one roof: course hosting, email marketing, landing pages, sales funnels, membership sites, and more. These are often ranked among the best course platforms in 2025 (a time when we LOVE one-stop shopping) because they try to replace your entire tech stack. Instead of juggling five different tools, you get everything in one place.

The big players: Kajabi, ClickFunnels, Podia

Pricing breakdown:

• Kajabi: From $89/month (1 course, 250 contacts) to $399/month (100 courses, 100,000 contacts). No transaction fees.
• ClickFunnels: From $97/month (3 courses, 10K contacts) to $297/month (10 courses, 150K contacts). Focused on funnels.
• Podia: From $39/month (5% transaction fee) to $89/month (0% transaction fees). Most affordable all-in-one option, with a simple pricing plan.

Best personality match for: Perfectionists and Growth Hackers who want control and advanced features. 

These platforms can do everything, but they’re complex. If you’re a Tech-Avoider, the learning curve might overwhelm you. If you’re a Penny-Pincher, the costs add up quickly.

Marketplace COURSE Platforms: Let Them Do the WORK

With the marketplace course platforms, you upload your course to their existing marketplace and they come with a huge student base. They handle marketing, payment processing, and customer acquisition. You split the revenue.

The big players: Udemy, Skillshare

Pricing breakdown: 

These platforms are free to sell your course, but use a revenue sharing model:

• Udemy: You keep 97% when students use promotional links to your course that you share, but only 37% for sales you get from Udemy’s marketing. For example, if you sell a $200 course on Udemy and 100 people buy it through Udemy’s marketing, you’ll earn $7,400 instead of $19,400 from your own marketing. That’s a $12,000 difference!
• Skillshare: You earn based on minutes watched from their subscription pool (~20% of total revenue allocated to teachers monthly)

Best personality match for: Penny-Pinchers who want zero upfront costs and don’t mind giving up control. Also a great match for creators who just want to teach a free course.

With these platforms you’ll reach more students faster, but you give up significant revenue and have no control over pricing, branding, or student relationships. It’s like being a tenant instead of a homeowner.

Course-Focused Platforms: Feature-Rich Specialists

These particular platforms focus specifically on course creation and delivery, but pack in advanced features like detailed analytics, custom certificates, advanced quizzing, and robust student management.

The big players: Thinkific, Teachable

Pricing breakdown:

• Thinkific: From $49/month (unlimited courses, basic features) to $199/month (advanced analytics, API access). No transaction fees.
• Teachable: From $39/month (7.5% transaction fees) to $189/month (0% transaction fees, unlimited students). Their “Growth” plan at $189/month is most popular. Warning: Teachable’s $39 plan looks affordable until you factor in the 7.5% transaction fee. If you sell $5,000/month in courses, that’s $375 in fees – making your real cost $414/month, more than their $189 plan with 0% fees.

Best personality match for: Pragmatists who want course-specific features without all-in-one complexity.

These platforms give you course-focused features for teaching and marketing, but aren’t as overwhelming as all-in-one giants. But they do try to bring in all the features of the All-In-One Giants so that you feel you have everything to run your “course business” in one place.

Quick Course Sales: The Digital Storefronts

These guys aren’t course platforms. Instead, they’re selling platforms that cater to small creators who want to sell digital products. You can upload your  finished course files (like PDFs, videos, or zip files) for people to purchase and download.

The main player: Gumroad (10% + $0.50 per transaction)

Pricing breakdown:

• Gumroad’s pricing is simple: 10% + $0.50 per transaction. If your course is $20, Gumroad takes $2.50 off the top. This is a flat fee regardless of price. However, here are two warnings:
  • This does NOT include credit card transaction fees. There is a 2.9% + $0.30 credit card processing fee in addition to the base fee.
  • If your course is recommended in their Discover marketplace, Gumroad will take a 30% transaction fee. The payoff is that you get to take advantage of their buyer marketplace, similar to Udemy.

Best personality match for: Tech-Avoiders who have simple course materials and want the absolute easiest way to start selling. It has all the features you need to start selling fast. 

If you have a simple course (like a PDF workbook with video tutorials) and want to test the market before investing in a full course platform Gumroad is perfect for you. You create your course content separately (maybe record videos, create PDFs), then upload the files to Gumroad for people to buy. 

WordPress Solutions: Maximum Control, Maximum Complexity

With WordPress you’re not just choosing a platform, you’re building a custom solution. It requires hosting, themes, plugins, and technical maintenance. Then in addition to building your WordPress website you’ll need course management plugins to run your course.

The big players: LearnDash, LifterLMS

True cost breakdown:

• LearnDash: $199/year (1 site) plus hosting ($10-50/month) plus theme ($50-200) plus maintenance time. Warning: Your $199/year LearnDash license can easily become $400-800/year when you add hosting, themes, and your time investment. But you get complete control over everything.
• LifterLMS: Free core plugin to $749/year for unlimited sites, plus same hosting and theme costs

Best personality match for: Perfectionists with technical skills who want unlimited customization

WordPress solutions are not for just anyone. If you are a perfectionist and think that you need WordPress for complete control, you may need to hire a web developer to help you build and customize your course platform. 

You may also need to keep them on board for additional support because with WordPress you’re pretty much on your own.  But it is 100% worth it to be able to create a unique learning experience for your students.

Just expect a much longer time getting your course set up just the way you want it.

Making Your Decision: The Personality Matching System

Here’s your shortcut to the right platform category based on your creator personality:

Creator Personality	All-in-One Giants	Marketplace Platforms	Course-Focused Specialists	Quick Course Sales	WordPress Solutions
The Perfectionist	✅ Best Match Complete control over branding and customization	❌ No control over branding or student experience	⚠️ Limited customization options	❌ Very basic, no course structure	✅ Best Match Unlimited customization with technical skills
The Pragmatist	⚠️ Complex but reliable	⚠️ Reliable but revenue dependent on their algorithm	✅ Best Match Proven, stable, course-focused	⚠️ Simple but limited features	❌ Requires ongoing maintenance
The Penny-Pincher	❌ High monthly costs	✅ Best Match Zero upfront costs	⚠️ Mid-range pricing	✅ Good Match Pay per sale only	⚠️ Lower monthly fees but hidden costs
The Growth Hacker	✅ Best Match Advanced marketing tools and automation	❌ Limited growth control	⚠️ Growing feature set but not comprehensive	❌ No advanced marketing features	⚠️ Unlimited potential but requires technical expertise
The Tech-Avoider	❌ Too many features can overwhelm	✅ Good Match Simple upload process	⚠️ Moderate complexity	✅ Best Match Easiest to get started	❌ Technical skills required

Note: Even the best course platforms won’t magically build your program, but they’ll remove roadblocks so you can focus on teaching.

The Bottom Line: Pick One and Start Creating

Here’s what I want you to remember: the best course platform is the one you’ll actually use to help people. A simple course on Gumroad that transforms lives beats a perfectly designed Kajabi course that never gets finished.

Your expertise is what creates transformation, not your platform choice. Students care about results, not whether you used the most expensive tool.

Find your personality type, pick a platform from that category, and commit to it for at least six months. You can always upgrade later, but you can’t help anyone while you’re stuck in analysis paralysis.

The world needs what you know. You don’t need every feature. You just need one of the best course platforms 2025 that fits your workflow and helps you deliver results. So stop researching platforms and start teaching people!

Ready to turn your expertise into your own course or program? Download my free checklist “20 Signs You Have a Program Inside You” to see if you’re ready to get started.

Have any questions about this post? Please contact me.