Tip #27: Stand-Alone Membership Site using Wishlist Member vs. Hosted Course Platform

Online courses are very popular nowadays, one very popular dilemma our clients are facing is whether to use Wishlist Member to build their online course or whether t o go with hosted course platforms like Udemy.

In this tip we go over each of the options to help you decide which is best for you.

Stand Alone Membership Site using Wishlist Member

Wishlist Member allows building at least 10 membership sites models, including online courses.

These are the pros and cons of choosing to build a stand-alone membership site using Wishlist Member over hosted platform.

Pros:

• Pricing the way you want – You can price your course they way you want to with out any limitations set by any hosted platform. Also, Wishlist currently offers, in the latest version, 17 different shopping carts integrations that allow you to practically go with every pricing model you have in mind.
• Building your own mailing list – You can build your own mailing list instead of empowering the mailing list of a hosted platform. Wishlist integrates with more than 10 very popular autoresponders.
• Ability to drip your course’s models – Using the Sequential Upgrade feature, you can upgrade (move / add) students between the course models easily.
• Pros relevant to any self-hosted platform: no need for approval time, no strict guidelines, you set your own rules, design, structure etc.

Cons:

Depending on the complexity of the course you need to build: the number of modules needed, using dripping etc. the more complex the structure of your course, it is more likely that you will need to use a course self-hosted course platform to manage the course. One course platform that integrates with Wishlist is WP Courseware.

Hosted Course Platform

There are many online courses platforms, Udemy is one of them.

These are the main pros and cons of creating an online course and publishing it in a hosted platform:

Pros:

• Taking advantage of existing traffic – The main pro of using a hosted course platform is that fact that you are can use the platform’s traffic, you don’t need to bring all the traffic by yourself.
• Taking advantage of solid mailing lists – Also, if the course is popular it can be included in the platform’s mailing list and get you even more traffic
• Ready-made course platform – Another benefit is the fact that you don’t really need to build the platform, you can upload the content to an existing ready-made website

Cons:

• Strict rules & guidelines – You are subject to the platform’s rules and guidelines (for example: length of videos, number of modules and the list is long… You will find the complete list if guidelines in the platforms’ guidelines section.
• Approval time – Requires approval time, if you are planning a launch or it’s important for you to release the course on a certain date it can be limiting
• Limited Niches – Not useful for all niches, depending on the platform you choose
• Pricing problem – The platform may have limitations in setting the price of the course and there also maybe limitations in the pricing models allowed
• Power is not in your hands – All the power is in the hands of the platform itself, including emails and reaching out to potential customers

So What’s the Best Strategy?

The way we see it, hosted platforms are good for one main reason…

Taking advantage of the hosted platform’s existing traffic in order to shift it to your own website.

You can do that by releasing free courses (that may also have less strict guidelines) or even paid courses if you only want some extra money.

If you are looking to build a real business and make decent income for yourself, you should go with a self-hosted membership site.

Access the Complete Wishlist Member Tips Series

Access the complete Wishlist Member tips series in this link 

You May Find These Posts Interesting:

Tip #23: 5 Powerful Models to Pricing Your Membership Site

Tip #24: 5 Tips to Increasing Sales Using Downloadable PDF files inside a Closed Membership Site

Tip #21: Monthly Membership Subscription vs. Limited No. of Payments

Choosing the Right Affiliate Program for Your Membership Site

Tip #26: Wishlist Member Membership Site Pre-Launch Checklist

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