Why I Use Teachable Instead of Squarespace Members Areas
If you’re thinking about creating courses, you may go down the rabbit hole trying to decide which platform is best for you. A while back, I wrote a post about why I chose Teachable over its main competitors, but I’ve had so many people reach out about using Squarespace Members Areas for courses that I wanted to walk through why I feel Teachable is a much better fit for hosting traditional online courses.
Marking Your Course Progress
As your students progress through lectures in Squarespace, there is no way for them or for you to see which lectures they’ve completed. Your students have to remember where they are in the course to pick up where they’ve left off. In Teachable, lessons are marked as not viewed, started, and completed, plus you see a percentage of the course you’ve completed at the top of your screen:
winner: Teachable
Account Management
Account management in Squarespace Members Areas has a long way to go. If a student needs to change their email address, they aren’t able to do it on their own. And you aren’t able to do it as the course owner. You have to cancel their account and start a new one with the new email address, which is frustrating for everyone. Depending on the number of students you have, this might be something that ends up taking a lot of administrative time. In Teachable, your students can adjust profile settings on their own.
winner: Teachable
Built-in Affiliate Program
Teachable offers a built-in affiliate program at their Pro level, but Members Areas does not. This allows other people to market your courses for a cut of the sale. If you want to set up an affiliate program for your course on Members Areas, this post covers How to Track Affiliate Sales in Squarespace - basically, if you want a robust approach you’ll need to pay for a third-party platform. Affiliate sales of your products can contribute significant additional income, so definitely consider setting one up.
winner: Teachable
Video Hosting
To add videos to your Members Area course, you’d need to first upload them to a third-party video host like Vimeo, pay to make them private, then embed them into your course. Teachable offers unlimited video uploads with no need for third-party video hosting.
winner: Teachable
Bundles and Upsells
To bundle courses on Members Areas, you have to do a wonky workaround. Kerstin Martin explains it well in her Members Areas FAQ post. To Upsell on Squarespace, you’d need to add code and an additional page as a workaround. You can upsell and bundle easily on the Pro plan of Teachable.
winner: Teachable
My Personal Pet Peeve
With Squarespace 7.1 Members Areas, when a student logs into your course your normal website navigation disappears and is replaced with your course navigation. This drives me crazy, since you have to log out of the course to use the website as usual.
winner: Teachable
Simplicity
There’s always something to be said for having to learn less tech, keep up with one less platform, and just generally keep things simple. If that's you, then Squarespace Members Areas keeps everything in the Squarespace universe, all under one roof. With Teachable, you’d have an additional login, you’d need to learn another platform, and it’s one more thing to keep up with. Plus, your students don’t have to remember to go somewhere else to access your course - it’s right there on your website.
winner: Squarespace Members Areas
The Money
With Teachable’s Pro plan, you pay $99/month and that includes:
an affiliate program ($19 - $59/month value)
video hosting ($20/month for Vimeo pro)
account management ($ priceless)
bundles and upsells
and, in my opinion, a better user experience
If you don’t need the affiliate program, bundles, or upsells, Teachable’s Basic plan is $29/month + a 5% transaction fee for unlimited products. You still get the built-in video hosting, account management, and a great user experience.
Squarespace Member’s Areas pricing depends on the number of courses you offer. For their Starter plan, you could host one course and you’d pay $9/month + a 7% transaction fee. The Members Areas Pro Plan is $35/month + a 1% transaction fee and allows for up to 10 courses. If your course has videos, you’ll need to pay for third-party (usually Vimeo Pro) video hosting. If you want to add an affiliate program, that is also an extra expense. If you are on a tighter budget and looking for an inexpensive proof of concept for a course, the $9 + 7% Starter Plan for Members Areas might be worth checking out.
Teachable vs. Squarespace Members Areas
Squarespace Members Areas makes sense to use as a proof of concept for your course, so you don’t have to learn another platform. It also keeps things simple for you and your students - everything is on your website (well, except for the videos you have to embed). But if you are looking for overall ease of use for both you and your students, plan to offer multiple courses, or want to use upsells, bundles or affiliates, I love Teachable.
