When you take your coaching business online, you open up the possibility of who you can reach. But you also open up the possibilities of how you can get your clients closer to their own goals, whether it’s via live one-on-one sessions, resources, or online courses.

With an online course component, coaches of all varieties can bring some new blood into their work and get the most out of their content. But the best platforms for coaches will offer more than just the tools to build and offer online courses.

Ahead, we’re exploring what an online course platform for coaches looks like and counting down the five best options on the market today. Let’s get started.

Try the platform with the most $1 million course communities - free for 14 days!

An online course platform for coaches is a teaching platform that enables coaches of all kinds to do two major things.

First, an ideal coach course platform will enable coaches to offer their services, whether it’s one-on-one and one-to-many live sessions or providing resources for clients. Secondly, a coach course platform will (you guessed it!) provide an easy way to build, offer, and sell online courses to help clients get closer to their goals.

With that, let’s dive a little deeper into the features of the best online course platforms for coaches.

The best group coaching software should give you the tools to create life-changing transformations! That's what makes them sing.

Look for:

• Content & Delivery: Rich course builder (multiple lessons, drip or instant access, videos, slides), livestreaming & virtual teaching options, and content flexibility (articles, polls, questions, live events)

• Community & Connection: Dedicated community spaces, group learning tools like discussions, forums, dashboards, and member connection opportunities for peer support.

• AI & Gamification: Cutting-edge software to create member connections, boost engagement, customize amazing journeys, and keep people coming back!

• Monetization: Flexible pricing options, ability to bundle courses & memberships & events & challenges to create multiple revenue streams.

• Scalability: Room to grow without needing integrations. This means native features for memberships, masterminds, etc.

• Accessibility: Mobile app access (iOS + Android) + web-based access. And the option to build under your own brand or even add branded apps!

The best all-in-one online course platform for coaches

Mighty Networks is G2's #1 community platform, bringing fully integrated courses together with software designed for engagement.

Here's what you can do with Mighty:

• Build flexible course Spaces that mix seamlessly with forums, challenges, chat, short and long-form content, and member profiles.

• Create asynchronous course content with text, video, assessments, and downloads in an intuitive LMS, with the option to drip content.

• Run live virtual experiences with native HD livestreaming, multi-speaker view, Q&As, high-velocity chat, events Spaces with RSVPs and event chats.

• AI built to help members meet each other, surface similarities, help with profiles, and start conversations.

• Gamification to create collaboration with recognitions, unlocks, streaks, and leaderboards. And create and customize your onboarding with a new member journey.

Mighty Networks is an all-in-one online course platform for coaches.

Not only does the software offer a robust course feature, but you’ll also get a well-rounded, dedicated community space with an activity feed; the tech to run live events (including inside of your courses, perfect for lectures and group sessions); and options for flexible monetization, including charging for group access, community access, and subscriptions.

And Mighty means you can do all this under your own brand!

Mighty Networks can be customized with URLs, branding, light/dark mode, logos, and custom fields. And you can opt for a completely branded app, that's YOUR app in the App Store and Google Play Store.

That happens with Mighty Pro. We've built 500+ apps for some of the world's top brands and creators: people like Tony Robbins, Marie Forleo, and Jim Kwik.

Learn more here!

A variety of ways to deliver content. Mighty Networks is a great choice as far as online course platforms for coaches. But courses won’t be the only way you can deliver your content. You can also create and build out content via Topics, posts, polls, questions, native livestreams, events, and more.

Software designed for engagement & retention. With all the tools to get members talking, finding friends, and gamifying their journeys, Mighty Networks sticks. We see huge revenue jumps when people move to Mighty!

Dedicated Space for community. Community plays an important role in any online course platform. And with a Mighty Network, you’ll be able to build a beautifully designed community space, with your own branding, instantly available via the web, iOS, and Android apps.

Lots of different ways to charge. With a Mighty Network, not only do you get the ability to charge, but you get to do it in a way that suits you and your business best. You can charge for access to courses, groups, or your overall community space; charge a monthly or annual subscription or one-time fee; and more.

Plenty of room to grow. Because a Mighty Network allows you to deliver a variety of content in a variety of ways, you’ll get plenty of room to grow in the future. So even if you’re starting out with just one-on-ones with your clients, you’ll have plenty of space to scale to memberships, subscriptions, mastermind groups, and more in the future.

Mobile app access. Lastly, a Mighty Network lets you offer access to your course via the web, iOS, and Android. That’s a biggie: It means that your members can access your course content from the comfort of wherever they are.

It's not a Facebook Group, so your people may not want to follow you to another platform beyond where they spend a lot of their time already (even if they already followed you off Facebook to an online course platform).

The bottom line: Mighty Networks is a robust coach course platform. Not only does the platform enable you to build and offer beautiful courses, but you can also deliver a dedicated community space and expand to memberships and more in the future. In other words, it’s the perfect option for right now and the future.

The most complex course-marketing engine

Kajabi is a well-known online course platform that focuses heavily on the marketing side of things. As such, the platform has some serious tools that, alongside its online course builder, allow creators, entrepreneurs, and more to easily build, deliver, and market online courses.

This means an asynchronous course platform that works great, with funnels designed to drive people to those courses and make sales. And you can build sites that showcase your courses and offers.

The place where Kajabi struggles is with live courses and live engagement. Kajabi added a second app with communities and livestreaming - Kajabi 2.0. It required a second login. It looks like Kajabi has recently ended the Kajabi Communities app with a redesign of their main app, so we'll see what happens.

Here's the bottom line. Kajabi is great at driving traffic through funnels to asynchronous courses. It's not great for live and synchronous experiences.

Lots of options for customization. If you’re planning on using Kajabi as an online course platform for coaches, you’ll be able to design and customize your landing and sales pages. You’ll also have the opportunity to deliver your content via email drip campaigns.

Robust monetization. Kajabi focuses a lot on the marketing side of selling a course. It makes sense, then, that the platform has some robust monetization features. If you use Kajabi as an online course platform for coaching, you’ll be able to sell courses at a one-time, monthly, or annual fee; create and deliver coupons; and build out recurring payments for subscriptions or memberships.

Access to a mobile app. Kajabi recently released a mobile app that is available on both iOS and Android. This is a win: Course members and clients alike will be able to stay up to date with your content from wherever they are, whenever they want.

An oversimplified community feature. Kajabi's community features were added through acquisition. As they work to merge these with Kajabi's main platform, it remains to be seen how the UX for this will work.

Not much room to grow. Kajabi is, first and foremost, an online course platform. And it does online courses very well. While its recent expansions—including its community product—are absolutely a step in the right direction, you’ll probably end up adding a second platform for a more robust membership or community experience.

But all that comes at a price. And by that, we mean that Kajabi is expensive. Its lowest tier plan starts at $179 per month (monthly billing) and is pretty limited in scope.

The bottom line: Kajabi is a very solid platform, and would make a good coach course platform for many. But if you’re looking for a piece of software with a robust community feature or room to grow, you’ll either need to add another platform or go with a more all-in-one solution.

The best online course platform for coaches for a DIY course

Coaching.com isn’t an online course platform for coaches, per se. But it is a decent option for coaches who are looking for software to help them automate practices—and it’s certainly possible to build out a kind of DIY course for clients on the platform. Just prepare to get your hands a little dirty.

A thoughtful approach to invoicing and payments. Coaching.com has a variety of options when it comes to monetization. You can set billing metrics; automate invoice creation and delivery; create and send invoices with the click of a button; and collect payments using Coaching.com’s Stripe integration.

Mobile app access. Coaching.com also offers a mobile app that’s available on iOS and Android.

Delivering content? Not a priority. As a scheduling platform, Coaching.com offers a ton of helpful options for coaches. But if you’re looking for a solution with features beyond that, you won’t find them here. Coaching.com does offer a dashboard to help you keep track of your clients; a dedicated client portal where you can schedule sessions, join video sessions (aka, your DIY course!), use a chat function, and respond to forms; and a feature that lets you easily share documents with clients. But in terms of delivering content like resources, or utilizing a feature like an activity feed, there’s just nothing to work with.

No dedicated community space. With Coaching.com, you’re definitely not going to get any sort of community space. And that’s a missed opportunity: Courses that offer course members an opportunity to connect and collaborate with each other are by far more effective. Course members get a lot more out of your content when they can work through it together. And that means they’ll be way more satisfied with what you’re offering, upping the chances of them coming back to you and relying on you as an expert in your field. In the end, the best online course platforms for coaches will have some sort of community space where your members can grow, together.

Limited room to grow. Because of the two above points, Coaching.com doesn’t offer much in the way of room to grow. If, in the future, you want to add on memberships or mastermind groups, you’ll have to integrate a second or third platform.

The bottom line: As far as online course platforms for coaches go, Coaching.com is better suited for the coach looking to automate scheduling and invoicing. For a more robust option, you’ll want to look at a platform that better delivers course content.

The best integration-heavy online course platform for coaches

Teachable is an online course platform that enables users to build video-based courses—a perfect option for coaches. That means with Teachable, you’ll be able to build and offer lectures, presentations, live coaching sessions, and more.

Teachable is strong in its LMS features, with good options to build course content and deliver it (again, its focus is on asynchronous courses). It has an AI quiz generator, as well as integrated landing pages and sales options. And you can build websites to host your products on.

Like Kajabi, Teachable is strongest for asynchronous courses and marketing. It has a great affiliate program too.

Teachable isn't strong for live learning experiences, since it has no native livestreaming and very basic community features.

Good options for customization and content. Teachable offers its users access to its “power editor,” which helps creators and coaches alike to build video lectures and offer live coaching. This includes some cool AI tools for generating quizzes.

Ability to charge. Teachable offers its users options for a variety of subscription models, memberships, and content bundles. So not only can you charge, but you can do so in a way that best fits your model. It also has a strong affiliate program.

Weak community space. Unfortunately, Teachable doesn’t have a decent option for a community space. To get something like this, you’ll have to add an additional platform, like Mighty Networks or Circle.

Limited room to scale. Teachable does courses very well. But beyond that, there are just not many options in terms of expanding or growing your business. It claims to offer memberships, but hasn't put the infrastructure in place to offer synchronous experiences and great communities.

The bottom line: Teachable is a decent option for a coach course platform. It has some helpful coaching-oriented tools. But ultimately, it doesn’t have much in the way of expansion, meaning you’ll end up partnering with additional platforms and integrations to get everything just right.

Solid content-creation heavy online course platform for coaches

Thinkific is an online course platform with robust content creation tools. This means a drag-and-drop editor for course building—no coding required. It adds an AI course outline generator, and a powerful quiz function with question randomization, question banks, and bulk import. There are lots of content types to choose from: audio, video, text, PDFs, presentations, and downloads. And the LMS is SCORM compliant.

Thinkific's community features are its weakness. It's basically a discussion forum, not robust enough for coaches with a high focus on synchronous experiences. It's also missing native livestreaming. And the apps are the lowest-rated of any of the platforms on this list; users report frequent glitches, bugs, and UX problems.

Good course creation tools. In terms of content, Thinkific has great course-forward features, including quiz creation options, feedback surveys, and the ability to create and publish rich media articles.

A basic community space. Thinkific also has a few options for creating a community alongside your course. You can create your own Thinkific Community outside of your course content where you and your clients can foster conversations with written posts and comments. It’s pretty barebones, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Decent options for monetization. Thinkific is pretty robust in this regard: The platform accepts over 100 currencies, doesn’t charge translation fees, and allows you to charge subscription fees and offer paid memberships, as well as utilize coupons and discounts.

Poor mobile apps. Thinkific's apps are routinely poorly rated across both iOS and Android.

Limited room to grow. While Thinkific does offer memberships and subscriptions for online courses, that’s all it really offers: online courses. That means no room for paid mastermind groups or paid community access.

We’ve looked at five distinct online course platforms for coaches. And although each of them offers something unique, there’s one that stands out above the others: Mighty Networks.

With a Mighty Network, you’re getting more than a robust, well-designed community space. You’re also getting the tools to build and create courses, paid groups, memberships, and live events, all under your brand and instantly available on the web, iOS, and Android. It’s the perfect fit for creators, entrepreneurs, and coaches alike.

Ready to start building your course?