We don’t say this often, but this LMS is quite possibly the ultimate all-in-one deal.
We enjoy LMS systems that have no hidden fees, no hollow marketing, and actually provide exactly what they say they’re going to provide. We like Mighty Networks.
However, in this Mighty Networks review, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. They did impress us in some aspects, but you really can’t have it all, no matter what system you go with. Hopefully, the caveats described here fall in line with what you need from an LMS system (if not, we have other guides).
Let’s find out if this Mighty Network is the last LMS you’ll ever need.
What is Mighty Networks?
Mighty Networks allows you to take your existing and engaged online community platform, and completely port it over to their platform.
The benefit of doing this? Powerful, lag-free course-building and community-building methods will leave your students in awe.
Launch dynamic websites, enhance, rebuild, or begin your community, and start charging people for access to your courses, resources, and anything else you see fit. Mighty Networks is about protecting your courses from weak paywalls and giving them somewhere to actually shine while earning an income for it.
Who Should Use Mighty Networks?
Mighty Networks is designed to be used by people who don’t just want to earn an income but build a community.
If you want to actually turn your ideas and passion into a driven community-centered online area, you’d do well to start with Mighty Networks.
We don’t just say this for the sake of it, but anybody can use Mighty Networks—it’s designed for educators, business owners, entrepreneurs, and anyone who wants to get started with selling courses and resources online.
There is a slight learning curve to this platform, but it’s nothing that takes too long to learn. You can get acquainted with it in an afternoon, and become proficient with it in about two weeks tops. It’s an intuitive, easy-to-learn system that truly anybody can use.
Mighty Networks Ease of Use
We’ve tooted the ease of use, and we’re not done yet. Out of every LMS out there, this is perhaps the easiest one to use.
Let’s go over the main settings so that you can understand where we’re coming from.
Setup
The ease of use is rather stunning. While it may take up to two weeks to feel comfortable with the system—knowing where things are located, how to find help, etc.—it’s rather straightforward from the first time you fire it up.
You can easily access the ability to make contests, create a Facebook group, design courses, host discussions, and everything in between. While the course seller areas of Mighty Networks aren’t the entire reason why people use Mighty Networks, it integrates with the community and content creator side of things so well. Setup is easy—you’re going to have an enjoyable time using this LMS.
Hosting
Website hosting works well with Mighty Networks. From our independent research, it appears as though there’s very little time when sites are down. You want your students to be able to access information all the time, which is why this is perfect.
You do have access to something fantastic, which is called Mighty Hosts. It’s basically a creator-friendly dashboard that filters feed activity. This is part of your package, and it’s where you’ll get to perform optimized tasks so you aren’t opening a dozen different tabs with different parts of the LMS at once.
Video hosting is nonexistent at the time of this review. You’ll have to host your videos on protected web pages (pages that require payment to get to) and host the videos on Vimeo, or other similar services such as Wistia.
Domain Setup
Setting up your domain is simple. For the most part, Mighty Networks does it for you. You just sign up for either the Community Plan or the Business Plan, and both come with domain registration.
This is great, but it’s unable to properly integrate with an email handle from your domain. With the domain setup, you do have access to Zapier under the Business Plan, which helps you automate tasks in an easy way. You won’t find that on the Community Plan, though.
With domain setup, you’re not bottlenecked much by either plan apart from transaction fees. Whichever one you choose, you’re going to have the right simple time setting everything up.
Mighty Networks Pricing
You can sign up for their Free Plan, which is limited but doesn’t cost you a thing.
This is a good option to get started so you can explore the site, and the way things work, and get familiar with everything before committing to the purchase. This acts like a free trial in a way.
There’s the Community Plan, which runs you $28 per month and includes upgraded sort of all the features such as the ability to charge for memberships, your own domain, and unlimited moderators.
With the Business Plan, it’s $98 per month, which includes 2,000+ Zapier integrations (which come in handy especially when you run things on your own), as well premium analytics that is normally locked away.
Mighty Networks Templates
While the Mighty Networks course and community templates are somewhat simple, they’re effective.
Students aren’t here looking for cutting-edge design; they want something that looks appealing and is easy to navigate.
Point blank, Mighty Networks takes a minimalist approach to their templates, but it’s all you really need. With quick access to course material and a clean, spacious design, it works well with mobile responsiveness for every template.
How to Use Mighty Networks
Sign up, make your profile, and you’re basically in. Mighty Networks shows you your social media-esque dashboard, where you can post to your community, receive comments, and connect with other community members and students.
If you’ve ever used any social media platform in the past, you’re going to feel right at home in no time. Mighty Networks walks you through everything, but even so, it’s a good idea to check out their FAQ page as well for miscellaneous tidbits of information.
Course Builders
Building your course has a clean, simple layout. You begin by outlining the different sections of your course (module one, module two, and so on), and inside each of those modules, you have multiple options.
It’s a very straightforward system that feels as simple as making subfolders within folders on your PC.
In these different courses, you can create Quick Posts to notify your students of changes or if immediate action is required for a new course. With polls and events, you’ll have everything you need to keep the community aspect in your courses.
Community Builder
The community-building function of Mighty Networks is perhaps its strongest feature, although this isn’t something you can force on students. Some students who are already juggling hectic lives may want to just hop on, do their coursework, and get out. Nothing in between.
Mighty Networks, focuses on user retention. You want your students to spend (necessary) time on your site or in the app so that they can get the best value out of it. Community engagement is an excellent analytical tool to see how well your courses are being received.
Mighty Networks App
While it would be great if you could build your own amazing app through them, Mighty Networks allows you to access your courses, student contact information, and nearly every other part of your Mighty Networks website and service through the app.
It’s intuitive, but it could use a bit of sprucing up. While most of it is responsive, some sections of the app still lag quite a bit, and even though it’s only one or two seconds at a time, it can be a right pain in the behind when it does happen. Solid app, just not the best.
How to Sell and Market Your Courses Via Mighty Networks?
With Mighty Networks, you create plans. You can either sign up for network memberships, which is how you sell courses online through their course creator, or you can sell a bundle.
You can sell membership sites to that same service and groups, additional courses (not in the same category perhaps), and community content all at once. Kind of like an all-in-one pass.
As far as marketing goes, no LMS is going to give you everything, but Mighty Networks does give you the ability to create online courses and build sales pages, which act just like landing pages. Use these through a PPC advertising method to reel in potential students, and get those courses selling.
What Makes Mighty Networks Stand Out From the Competition?
Mighty Networks, as you may have imagined, is all about the network portion of hosting online courses. With an emphasis on allowing students to interact in a community instead of just looking at an FAQ, MN helps you build trust with your students.
It’s encouraged to have you become part of the community-driven content, too. With a large enough class size, you can expect constant community contact to help draw organic SEO traffic to your site as well.
The community aspect—Mighty Networks’ biggest selling point—does more for you than you think at first. You can also set this information to private or paid so it doesn’t appear in search results if you don’t want it.
Mighty Networks Analytics
For the most part, analytics are pretty solid. Course views, students, and things of that sort, but because there’s no current inbuilt video hosting platform, you can’t get helpful video-based analytics.
As of right now, we can’t find any information stating that this will be an added feature at a later date.
The data that you do have access to is enough to make predictions about your course, who’s viewing it, and where it’s headed if you stay on the same path. Not great, but certainly useful for man analytical needs.
Mighty Networks Customer Service
Contacting Mighty Networks is simple, and hearing back from them doesn’t take long at all.
Emails were generally responded to within one to three hours after sending them, with helpful information, and extended work hours over what most companies offer for customer service hours.
Apart from the experience being awesome, it’s also helpful. We’ve all had run-ins with customer service teams that just don’t seem to know what they’re doing, but with the small dedicated Mighty Networks team, you’re in good hands. To date, I haven’t had a single issue with them.
Pros and Cons of Mighty Networks
While they are a pretty good LMS system and they’re very user-friendly, you can expect to have a few issues here and there.
These are the cons you need to look out for, and the pros you’ll enjoy.
Pros
- Clean Interface: Plenty of spacing, and a completely clutter-free design make this a treat to use and design courses on. You can even see on the Mighty Networks website that they use their own designs because they know it works.
- User-Friendly Designs: For students and for course builders, everything is easy to use. Information and course material is simple to access, and overall users just have an enjoyable experience on the platform.
- Charging for Community and Course Access: This is the entire point, of course, but being able to charge for access to your services is done effectively at a low transaction cost here.
- Notifications for Students and Other Members: Send notifications to students when you update course material, when new courses are added, or if you return a message to them via social features. They can customize it to their liking so it doesn’t get annoying or ignored.
Cons
- Payment Issues: Unfortunately, Mighty Networks supports only it own payment system. PayPal is not supported by Mighty Networks, which is once again the main way that people spend money online (compared to other services). You also can’t accept Cash App.
- No Course Integration With Other Platforms: If you’re porting over from another LMS, it’s touchy. We talked about porting over communities in the opening, and while it’s easy, it’s only for and from certain platforms. Otherwise, you run into some barricades. You can do it, there are just a few hurdles here and there.
- No Quizzes: One of the best ways to test your students along the way is to see if they retain small amounts of previous lessons. Quizzes are synonymous with any online learning platform, but as of right now, Mighty Networks doesn’t offer them. Using third-party quizzes (which can’t be integrated into your site easily) ruins the immersion a bit.
Is This the Mighty Solution You Need?
It could very well be. We know Mighty Networks’ strengths, weaknesses, and what they’re able to help you achieve.
Only you know your needs, and if you’re liking what you see, then it’s worth it to give them a try.
Take advantage of their free model so that you can get a taste of what the LMS will look like, and even at that point, you can still just do the 14-day free trial. When you get into monthly costs, it’s not too bad, although it is higher than some other LMS systems we’ve reviewed.
