Is Podia An LMS? [Everything You Need To Know]

Podia is a platform that while highly reviewed, and with a lot of hype around it, can be a little hard to understand what it actually is without some context. Many wonder: “Is Podia an LMS?”

This context for many is an LMS, and today we will clear up what an LMS is, as well as what Podia actually is, what it offers, as well as why they are different, and how they actually compare to each other. 

The two platforms are both very similar with similar purposes but are also very different in what they can offer learners.

Keep reading to learn more about what Podia is, what it offers, and how it can differ from an LMS.

Find out this and more below.

What Is An LMS?

LMS stands for learning management system, and is effectively a digital learning environment for training.

An LMS is most commonly used within the industry.

Put simply, a learning management system is often used by a company’s HR department to house all their teaching and training within one system so that various employees can upskill, reskill, or learn new skills in the same place.

As multiple employees are taking the same course, the goal is consistent teaching and training so that all employees learn the same skills the same way so that it can be applied in the same way also. 

From health and safety training to customer relations training, even to learning new skills completely, a learning management system helps a company educate its employees when large-scale training and teaching needs to be implemented.

What Is Podia?

Podia is different from an LMS. Podia provides an online course platform for traditional tutors and content creators or anyone who wants to share their skills, to generate income from tiered memberships, course offerings, and digital downloads. (See ‘Podia Discounts, Coupons 2023: Legit & Official.‘)

Podia helps create a website where creative people can often take online courses and other content so others can pay a membership site to learn from those who are proficient in a specific skill.

For example, a musician may offer tutoring for their music production, create online courses on certain production skills, digital products, share breakdowns of their own songs, and even exclusive downloads and other digital downloads through a tiered membership programme.

The main selling point is that Podia offers a framework and user interface that is easy to use and within which creators can easily create a website that offers their unique courses and programmes, tiered membership, and more in a way that makes it easy for these content creators and independent tutors to offer their skills as well as being able to market their courses and online course creation business to prospective students.

Is Podia An LMS?

No, Podia is not an LMS, they are similar in the sense that they both are course platforms that offer courses to those interested in learning, but they are different in terms of their goals and who uses them.

An LMS is only really used in industry and is specifically for teaching courses that are directly related to a specific job and the skills required for that – whether that is training before starting a job, training so that you can upskill and be more employable, or re-skilling into a new or slightly different role.

Podia offers this type of online learning but with different goals.

The type of courses you find on Podia are wide but often not necessarily industry related.

They may be something like business advice for start-ups, courses of fitness training, music lessons, language lessons, or even dating advice.

Podia allows traditional tutors, such as online piano tutors, as well as content creators, like artists or music creators, to benefit from Podia’s usable interface and practical features.

Beyond just learning, Podia offers a whole host of other more advanced features like tiered membership, webinars, and much more, while an LMS is mainly just the education courses and nothing else.

While an LMS is used for company-wide education, Podia is much more for independent learners who want more than just teaching but interaction and community to help nurture a skill.

What Does Podia Offer That An LMS Doesn’t?

The main thing that Podia shares with an LMS is the digital ability to learn online, rather than having a physical tutor.

Yet, there is even a difference for tutors within this. LMS modules and courses are often not done by independent tutors but are usually from verified institutions, even Universities in some cases, but very rarely offer independent tutors.

On Podia anyone with a skill to share can sign up and pay their flat fee, and start selling online courses and their tutoring skills.

Equally, anyone can start learning who is willing to pay for their education – awesome!

It Doesn’t Stop With Your Course

The awesome thing about Podia is that it is much more than just a course.

With Podia, as a learner, you can access the courses offered by a creator, but they may offer lots of other kinds of content as a member.

By joining as a member, potentially within a tiered system, you can get access to all sorts of contexts to apply and use your new skills.

Your course creator may offer things like a weekly podcast, live webinars, or the chance to get access to archived webinars, downloads of cheat sheets, exercises, or extra content, and you can even have direct communication with your actual tutor, which you just don’t get with an LMS.

Moreover, for creators, this means they can have a more consistent income rather than just relying on single purchases of specific courses, plus it gives them the opportunity to interact with those who are interested in their course.

What Can Podia Offer Course Creators?

The fact that independent course creators can create their own course pages and paid plans is really great and separates Podia from other learning platforms like an LMS. (Check out ‘Can I Sell Services On Podia?‘)

If you are looking to share a skill there are reasons why you might favor Podia over sharing with an LMS-type programme.

But there are other platforms that offer similar things to Podia, what does Podia offer to these course creators that makes it so popular?

Keep reading to find out.

Flat Fees

No matter how well your course is doing, and how much you are selling, the initial sign-up fee and plan you choose with Podia will not change.

Put another way, you only pay one flat monthly fee to be a creator with Podia and this does not change depending on how well you sell online courses. 

Payout 

As an independent course creator, it can be hard to get a consistent wage to plan your wages. With Podia they pay you directly and pretty instantaneously with the student’s purchase, entering your bank at least 2 days after purchase.

Uncapped Features

If you sign up to Podia as a tutor you get uncapped access to all the tools and their unique features, allowing you to fill them to your heart’s content so that you can boost your sales as much as possible.

This is really helpful for high-volume sellers who can shoot past their peak and continue to keep getting orders with new content.

Email Marketing

As part of being a Podia tutor, you can use your email list to really get the most sales you can. Podia has an in-built marketing tool that can help you send newsletters to previous students, one-off marketing emails, and even target certain groups to effectively get more sales.

Memberships

The memberships programme is similar to Patreon and when combined with the educational courses is really useful for both tutors and students.

While students get extra access to things that can help them learn and continue learning after their initial courses, the membership programme allows tutors to continue getting a consistent wage for their teaching while continuing to provide useful materials for their students.

What Can An LMS Offer That Podia Can’t?

Arguably, the actual courses themselves in Podia are potentially the weakest part of their service. While in combination with their other features, Podia can be really great for learning, the actual modules and courses can do with some upgrading.

Put another way, Podia can’t really offer proper certification at all. If you go through an LMS with your company you will almost always get some sort of certification at the end, this is kind of the point that they need their workers to have a certificate so that due diligence can be met.

Even those who really enjoy Podia will tell you their quizzing feature is quite underdeveloped. You can complete all the courses or modules content but the final quiz at the end is a little basic.

There isn’t necessarily a way to add graded quizzes like on other platforms, your tutor can’t provide feedback on wrong answers, and Podia can’t actually provide legit verified certification like an LMS can.

Equally, if you are looking to learn a skill or follow a programme specifically for a job, Podia isn’t the palace to be.

Podia is more about self-improvement and learning skills that benefit you rather than an institution, usually for your own reasons.

You can get online business-style courses on Podia, but you can’t really bring this up to a potential employer as proof you have learned a specific skill that the job may need.

An LMS is an ideal platform for people to gain the certifications and training they need in order to meet an employer’s specific requirements. 

Final Thoughts

What should be clear is that Podia is not an LMS, although they can be considered to be similar. Both are platforms used for digital independent learning, completed online.

An LMS is used within the industry and can provide real qualifications and certificates for all kinds of skills and training you may need in a workplace.

This can range from health and safety training to more specific reskilling or upskilling that has longer courses with some qualification at the end.

Importantly, an LMS can provide you with certified and legitimate courses usually from institutions that you can actively use and reference to employers both present and potential.

On the other hand, Podia is the place to go for independent learning.

Maybe you want to learn a skill or expand your knowledge on a topic, Podia creates a useful platform for content creators and professionals to offer to teach to those who want to pay for it, allowing people to learn a skill independently from someone who knows their stuff, while also creating more consistent income for the tutors.

Podia is more for those who want to better themselves and learn new skills outside the professional world, Podia cannot provide you with certifications you can actually use but simply the knowledge that can increase your skills.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who Owns Podia?

Podia isn’t actually owned by any company but is the creation of the founder and CEO of the company Spencer Fry.

He originally created Coach, which was later renamed to Podia, originally was more for traditional tutors trying to teach traditional content.

Fry found that the platform was being used more by content creators who offered membership tiers for exclusive content and also educational behind-the-scenes content and courses that taught the skill the content creator was known for.

By combining the two in Podia, along with a large chunk of seed investment, Fry was able to create a platform that supported both kinds of learning allowing them to mutually benefit from each other’s approach to education.

While traditional tutors learned from the content creators’ model of membership tiers and downloadable content, content creators could equally benefit from the more traditional approach to providing courses and the like, rather than more clandestine content.