A Teachable alternative for subscription video businesses
Checked 4 September 2026. Compare Teachable with Propel for recurring video memberships. Keep the course platform when structured lessons, coaching or certification are what customers buy.
- ✓ For membership video, not courses
- ✓ Propel is pre-launch and open for early access.
Verdict by use case
- Stay with Teachable if you teach a curriculum
- Structured lessons, student progress, assessments, certificates, coaching products, commerce around individual courses — that is Teachable's territory, and it is genuinely good at it. If your students start, progress and complete, you are its customer, and this page recommends staying put.
- Consider Propel if you sell recurring access to video
- If your paid product is a growing catalog that members subscribe to — browse, watch, come back next week — the course container is the wrong shape. Propel is a branded streaming service: your library, subscriptions as the model, and your own apps on web, iOS, Android, Apple TV and Android TV.
- Choose neither if you have not validated paid demand
- Neither platform brings you students or subscribers. If nobody has paid for your video yet, prove that first with the audience and tools you already have — the platform decision is easier, and cheaper, once real people are paying.
Do members progress through lessons or return to a growing catalog? Start there.
Courses vs a streaming library
Two promises, two sets of machinery. The revealing metric is renewal.
| Course | Membership library | |
|---|---|---|
| The promise | One with an ending: enrol, follow the lessons in order, finish changed. | One without an ending: keep paying, and the catalog keeps being worth it. |
| The machinery | Modules, drip schedules, progress tracking, quizzes, certificates. | Series and collections to browse, artwork that sells a session, resume from phone to television. |
| Sold and consumed | Once. Completed once. | Monthly. Nobody completes a library; they return to it. |
| Fits | Certification programs, cohort courses, client curricula. | Workout catalogs, weekly classes, tutorial libraries, film collections. |
| Both at once | A flagship course sold outright. | On Propel, one-time purchase exists so a signature program sells beside the subscription. |
When browsing and playback drive renewals, compare a creator VOD platform.
Propel vs Teachable: like for like
Structure only — for Teachable's current figures and plan details, see their published pricing.
| Dimension | Propel | Teachable |
|---|---|---|
| Primary job | A branded subscription video service: library, playback, paywall. | A course platform: create, market and sell structured learning products. |
| Content model | A catalog — series, collections, categories — built for browsing and resuming. | Curricula — lessons in sequence, with student progress as the spine. |
| Web, mobile, TV | Supported screens: Web, iOS, Android, Apple TV, Android TV. Own-brand web on Studio; own mobile and TV apps on Brand. | Teachable documents its own app and branding scope per plan; read the current terms on teachable.com, dated below. |
| Membership support | Subscriptions are the centre of the product, beside one-time purchase and free previews. | See Teachable's current plan pages. |
| Limits and fees | Published: Studio €199/mo, Brand €599/mo plus a one-time €3,500 app launch; 150 h to 500 h library; excl. VAT. No revenue share. See /pricing. | Plan caps and any transaction fee are exactly what to read on Teachable's pricing page — no figure verified for this page. |
| Brand ownership | Studio includes your own domain and own-brand web app; native apps come with Brand. | What carries Teachable branding, on which plan, is a question for its own published material. |
| Maturity | Propel is pre-launch and open for early access. | An established course platform with years of shipped creator businesses. |
Memberships and recurring access
Compare payment modes, then confirm the billing details you need before moving.
- Modes: subscriptions, one-time purchase, free previews; payment by card, apple pay, google pay.
- Sell subscription access to your video library alongside one-time program purchases and free previews.
- Unconfirmed and therefore unpublished: trial mechanics, currencies, tax handling, payout terms. Teachable's membership capabilities are its own documentation's business.
- Insist on the same four answers in writing from both: what a member pays, through whom, what the platform keeps, what happens to billing if you leave.
Apps and branding
Propel's list is a boundary, not a roadmap; Teachable's full scope is on their own site.
- Propel supports web, ios, android, apple tv, android tv; check its plans for branded-app availability. No other screen is confirmed.
- Teachable documents its student apps and which plans remove platform branding. No claim is made here about how white-label its experience is; that would need live evidence.
- Ask whose brand members see and whether they can watch on TV.
Screen by screen: branded streaming apps.
Pricing, fees, and limits
As of 4 September 2026, this page prints no Teachable figure: plan prices, transaction fees and product or student caps have not been verified against Teachable's own pricing page for it. Those three lines decide your real cost as you grow — read them directly on teachable.com on the day you decide.
No Teachable figure is printed on this page.
Current Teachable pricing and limits have not yet been verified against Teachable's own published pricing for this page — so it states no plan price, no fee, no percentage and no cap, not even as a range. A figure appears here only after it has been read on Teachable's own site, dated, and quoted as the source states it.
Until then, the only source worth your trust is Teachable's own pricing page — read it directly on the day you decide, because published pricing changes without notice.
| Cost line | Read on Teachable's pricing page | Published for Propel |
|---|---|---|
| Share of each sale | Whether the plan you would be on takes a share of each sale. | No percentage of your sales, on any plan. A flat plan fee, plus any active paying members beyond your allowance, excl. VAT. |
| Caps | What happens when you hit a product or student cap. | Library 150 h on Studio, 500 h on Brand; storage add-on beyond (price not published). |
| Growth | What the next tier costs when you outgrow the current one. | Studio includes 300 active paying members and Brand 1,500; extra members are charged per month. Delivery allowances are not published; ask before planning around one. |
See the full plan table and revenue model.
Where Teachable is stronger
Course delivery is the obvious advantage. Maturity is the quieter one.
- Structured curricula, assessments, certificates and coaching products: real capabilities Propel does not have, and for an education business, the product.
- Mature commerce around courses: checkout, order bumps, affiliates, the machinery of selling individual products at scale.
- Years of shipping: edge cases worn smooth, a deep help centre, and hiring someone who already knows the platform is easy.
- Propel is pre-launch. Consider whether your business can absorb early-product risk.
What Propel does not do
If these tools are what students pay for, Teachable is the better fit.
- No LMS
No lessons, modules, drip schedules or student progress.
- No quizzes or certificates
Nothing to grade and nothing to award.
- No coaching or scheduling
No bookings, sessions or client management.
- No marketplace discovery
Propel brings no students. Your subscribers come from you.
- No funnels
No landing-page builder, email marketing or automations.
- Migration is a paid add-on on Studio
Done-for-you migration is €490 on Studio and included on Brand; recurring billing does not transfer from Teachable by itself, so some members will need to re-subscribe.
Sources and dates
- Teachable — Pricing Checked on
FAQ
Is there a free alternative to Teachable? +
Free tiers exist across the course-platform market; check Teachable's current pricing page. Propel gives you 30 days to build free, without a credit card, and is paid after that. It is not a permanently free course platform.
How much does Teachable cost, and is there a transaction fee? +
No Teachable figure is verified here. Check teachable.com/pricing, linked above with its checked date, for current plan prices, caps and transaction fees.
Does a video membership need a course platform? +
If members progress through a curriculum, a course platform fits. If they browse a catalog, replay favourites and return for new videos, compare a streaming library.
Does Propel have apps? +
Propel supports web, iOS, Android, Apple TV and Android TV. Check its published plans for branding and app availability. No other device or store is confirmed.
What does switching from Teachable involve? +
Export masters, reorganise courses into a catalog and move the paywall. Recurring billing does not transfer automatically; some members may re-subscribe. Done-for-you migration costs €490 on Studio and is included on Brand.
How mature is Propel compared with Teachable? +
Teachable is established. Propel is pre-launch and open for early access, with a narrower video-first product and direct contact with the team. Consider whether your business can absorb early-product risk.