Hosted vs Self-Hosted Courses: Which Format is Right for Your Online Institute?

If you have created an online course or planning to create one, you basically should be exploring the two most used options. If you already own a WordPress website, you can integrate several plugins and tools & turn your WordPress site into your hosted online institute. However, it comes up with regular maintenance cost & expertise in technology. Along with several other, most important aspects of building & selling online courses, you also get the trouble to build & maintain your course website.  On the other hand, in self-hosted courses, you sell content through a third party course platform. If opting for this option, you no more have to worry about creating & maintaining your course website. It’s taken care of. You just need to upload your content & start selling. Spayee (Create and sell online courses Launch your own Teaching Website) is one such course platform which allows to you launch your own web & app-based course business within minutes.

Control

If you choose hosted solutions you would be required to relinquish a lot of control over your courses. You wouldn’t have a say in your own sales pages design. You can’t even control the way certain software behave. In some cases, you can’t control the way your institute earns revenue.  A self-hosted course platform restores that control. You have the full authority to take important decisions. You don’t limit your potential and become more successful.

Exposure

In hosted courses, you have more exposure if you are using course marketplace like Udemy. They come with an in-built user base which you can tap to sell your courses.  On the other hand, in self-hosted courses, you need to learn how to get traffic to your course platform. However, if you already have an offline institute, the process becomes smoother.  

Earning Potential

One of the major reasons why business-savvy educators prefer to stay away from hosted course platforms like Udemy. These platforms typically take a huge cut for every transaction/sales that take place. For Udemy, you give 50% of your course sells to udemy, however, it goes as high as 75% for other platforms. The worse part is, Udemy promotes your courses only if you opt for their promotional program. As a result, udemy drops your course price to less than Rs. 700. In turn, you earn around Rs. 350.

Competition

When you host your own course through a platform like Spayee, there is no side-by-side competition. Which means you are free to decide your pricing structure & teaching methodologies.  Whereas, hosted platforms are saturated with several teachers operating in the same domain, parked together.  teaching the same things as you.

Pricing

You can sell free courses on platforms like Udemy. As a result, you also pay nothing to the platform.  On the other hand, if you opt for self-hosted platforms like Spayee, you better be serious about selling paid courses. Essentially because you pay certain monthly charges to operate. The prices are competitive if you are serious about making money from your online courses.

Longevity

Yet another legitimate concern. If somehow Udemy or Skillshare cease to exist your course & audience is gone too. There is no other mean you can reach out to them because you were never given access to your students’ data. 

Final Thoughts

With the above points in mind, it’s easy to choose your perfect platform. If you are serious about making a brand & your own successful Online Institute then you must go with course platforms like Spayee. Alternatively, if you have no audience & just want to see how building the first course would be like, go with Udemy.