Teachable costs $29, $69 or $139 a month billed annually, or $39, $89 or $189 month to month. Only the cheapest plan charges a transaction fee, at 7.5%. Teachable pricing also includes a 4th plan, Advanced, at $309 a month billed annually, which sits in the help center rather than on the pricing page.
I went looking for Teachable’s price the way anyone would. I opened the pricing page, read 3 plans, and thought I had the answer.
Then Teachable’s own Custom plan card told me otherwise. Sitting there, in small caps, is the line “Everything in Advanced, plus” followed by a feature list. Advanced is not one of the 3 plans on that page, and there is no Advanced card and no Advanced price anywhere on it.
So I went into Teachable’s help center, where the missing plan is documented in full, with a price. Below is every number Teachable currently charges, where its 2 sets of numbers disagree, and what a plan really costs once the transaction fee and the card fees are counted.
If you want the wider version of this problem, the fees that quietly eat a digital seller’s margin, I put the 5 most common ones into a free 5-day email course: the Online Selling Mistakes Challenge.
Key Takeaways
- Teachable has 4 priced plans, not 3. Starter, Builder and Growth are on the pricing page. Advanced, at $309 a month, is not.
- Only Starter carries a transaction fee. It is 7.5%, and it is charged on top of the $29 a month you already pay.
- The 0% on higher plans has a condition. You have to take payment through teachable:pay or the Monthly Payment Gateway to get it.
- Starter stops being the cheap option at $533 a month in sales. Past that point the higher Builder subscription still costs you less in total.
- There is no free Teachable plan. There is a 7-day trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee, and a guide on page 1 of Google contradicts itself on this.
Teachable pricing at a glance: all 4 plans
Teachable’s pricing page shows Starter at $29 a month, Builder at $69 and Growth at $139 when you pay for a year up front, then jumps to a Custom plan with no price on it. The plan sitting between Growth and Custom, Advanced at $309 a month, is documented by Teachable but not displayed there.
| Plan | Billed annually | Billed monthly | Transaction fee | Products | Active students |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $29/mo | $39/mo | 7.5% | 5 | 100 |
| Builder | $69/mo | $89/mo | 0% (conditional) | 10 | 1,000 |
| Growth | $139/mo | $189/mo | 0% (conditional) | 50 | 5,000 |
| Advanced | $309/mo | $399/mo | 0% (conditional) | 100 | 5,000 |
| Custom | Contact sales | Contact sales | 0% (conditional) | Contact sales | Contact sales |
Over a year, paying up front works out to $348 for Starter, $828 for Builder, $1,668 for Growth and $3,708 for Advanced. Teachable advertises the annual saving as 22%. Measured plan by plan against the monthly prices above, it actually lands between 22% and 27%.
A few limits are worth reading twice, because they are the ones that force an upgrade rather than tempt one. Starter allows 5 published products and 1 admin. Builder allows 10 products and still only 1 admin. Growth is the first plan with more than a single admin seat, at 5.
There is also a second student number that gets missed. Alongside active students, each plan caps imported students: 5 on Starter, 50 on Builder, 1,000 on Growth. If you are moving an existing audience over from another platform, Starter lets you bring 5 people with you. It sits quietly in the usage row and it lands hardest on anyone migrating in.
One piece of good news, further down Teachable’s own FAQ: once your school passes $10,000 a year in sales made on Teachable, the active and imported student caps come off entirely.
The Teachable plan that is not on the pricing page
Teachable’s help center article on its June 2025 plan change lists 4 plans by name: Starter, Builder, Growth and Advanced. It gives Advanced a price in 2 places, $309 a month billed annually and $399 a month billed monthly, with a 0% transaction fee and a 100-product limit.
Teachable’s public pricing page shows none of that. I searched the rendered page and its underlying HTML for “399” and for “309” and got nothing in either. The fourth column is headed Custom and every cell in it reads Contact Sales.
The Custom card’s own wording is where this gets awkward. It opens its feature list with “Everything in Advanced, plus” and then names the extras. So the most expensive plan on the page is described against a tier that a visitor cannot see, cannot price, and has no reason to know exists.
Teachable’s own plan comparison. Note the asterisk on every 0%, and the imported-student row: 5 on Starter, 50 on Builder, 1,000 on Growth.
The practical effect is a gap between the most expensive number on the pricing page and the most expensive number Teachable publishes anywhere. The pricing page tops out at $189 a month. Teachable’s documentation tops out at $399 a month, which is more than double.
It also explains a pattern in the search results. Of the 3 pages on page 1 of Google that are not Teachable’s own, only Ruzuku lists Advanced at all. Course Platforms Review and EzyCourse both run through Starter, Builder and Growth and then jump straight to “Custom” or “personalized pricing”, which is exactly what the pricing page would lead you to write.
Teachable is not alone in this either. Our own breakdown of Kajabi pricing found a Kickstarter tier at $89 a month that Kajabi’s public pricing page also leaves out, opening instead at Basic.
The page most people read simply is not the page with every plan on it, and most of the guides written from it inherit the same gap. If you are budgeting for a platform you expect to grow into, plan against $309 a month.
What the 7.5% transaction fee actually costs
The 7.5% fee applies to Starter only. Builder, Growth, Advanced and Custom are advertised at 0%, with a condition attached that is easy to miss.
Teachable’s own FAQ puts it plainly: there are 0% transaction fees on the Builder, Growth and Custom plans “for those using teachable:pay or Monthly Payment Gateway”. Route your sales another way and the headline number stops applying to you.
On Starter, the fee grows with your sales while the subscription stays flat. That is what makes it cheap at the start and expensive once you grow.
Starter is the cheaper plan only until about $533 a month in sales. At $1,000 a month it costs $35 more than Builder, and at $5,000 a month it costs $335 more, every month.
| Monthly sales | Starter, all in | Builder, all in | Cheaper plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| $500 | $66.50 | $69.00 | Starter |
| $1,000 | $104.00 | $69.00 | Builder |
| $2,000 | $179.00 | $69.00 | Builder |
| $5,000 | $404.00 | $69.00 | Builder |
The crossover sits at $533.33 a month on annual billing, because the $40 gap between the 2 subscriptions equals 7.5% of $533.33. On monthly billing the gap is $50, so the crossover moves up to $666.67 a month.
The fees Teachable does not put a number on
Both the pricing page and the help center end the fee discussion with a version of “standard processing fees may still apply”. They do not say what those are, so here they are from the processors themselves.
Stripe charges 2.9% plus 30 cents per successful domestic card transaction, and adds 1.5% for international cards and 1% more if a currency conversion is needed. PayPal Checkout runs at 3.49% plus a fixed fee for domestic commercial transactions.
That international line matters more for course sellers than for most businesses, because courses sell across borders by default. A US seller taking a card payment from a student abroad can be paying 2.9% plus 1.5% plus another 1% on conversion, so 5.4% plus 30 cents, before Teachable’s own cut is counted at all. On Starter, add the 7.5% and you are near 13% of the sale price.
Four separate charges sit between a Starter sale and your payout, and only one of them is the subscription you signed up for.
Is there a free Teachable plan?
No. Teachable’s FAQ states it directly: Teachable is a paid service with a 7-day free trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee. There was a free tier in earlier years, and it is gone.
This one is worth stating flatly because the search results do not. Google’s People Also Ask box for this keyword includes the question “Is Teachable no longer free?”, which tells you people arrive confused.
Course Platforms Review, ranking on page 1, answers it both ways on the same page. Its body text says Teachable “does not have a free trial anymore but instead re-introduce a free plan”. Its own FAQ section, a few screens further down, says Teachable “no longer offers a free plan” and does still have the trial. The second version is the correct one.
EzyCourse, also on page 1 and published by a rival course platform, tells readers Teachable has no built-in community and that you need a higher-tier plan to build one. Teachable’s June 2025 plan documentation says community is included with unlimited spaces on all 4 plans. Read platform reviews written by competing platforms with that in mind.
What Teachable’s own price history says about your renewal
In June 2025 Teachable retired its Basic, Pro and Pro+ plans and moved every school onto the new 4. The help center article documenting that change includes a table of old price against new price, which is unusual and useful, because it turns a marketing announcement into a record of what happened to existing customers.
Pro+ customers saw the sharpest move: $199 a month became $309 a month on annual billing, a 55% rise that adds $1,320 a year.
| Old plan | Old price | New plan | New price | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $39/mo | Builder | $69/mo | +77%, fee cut from 5% to 0% |
| Pro | $119/mo | Growth | $139/mo | +17% |
| Pro+ | $199/mo | Advanced | $309/mo | +55% |
All figures are annual billing, taken from Teachable’s own migration table.
The Basic row deserves a fair reading. Those customers paid 77% more in subscription but stopped paying a 5% transaction fee, so anyone selling a reasonable volume came out ahead. The Pro+ row has no such offset. Those customers were already at 0% and simply paid more.
Sellers in the r/elearning thread about the change reported the effect in real numbers. One long-time user described moving from a legacy annual plan at $1,428 a year to $3,708 a year, calling it “absurd”, and noted that bundles they had already built were now being counted as separate products against the new limits. Another reported a jump from $179 a month to $399 a month with 30 days notice.
That $3,708 figure is exactly $309 a month, which is a useful independent check on a plan Teachable no longer displays. Real customers are being billed the Advanced price whether or not the pricing page names it.
Here is what that means if you are signing up today. Product counts and student counts are the mechanism, so when a platform redefines what counts as a product, your bill can move without any change in how you use it.
When it makes sense to move from Starter to Builder
Work the upgrade out from your sales figure, not from the feature list. Below roughly $533 a month in sales on annual billing, Starter is genuinely cheaper and the 7.5% is a fair trade for a low subscription. Above it, you are paying Teachable a rising share of revenue for nothing extra, and Builder is the cheaper plan.
2 things can force the move earlier regardless of revenue. The first is the 5-product limit, which arrives quickly if you sell individual lessons or short workshops rather than 1 flagship course. The second is the 100-active-student cap, which a single decent launch can clear.
The upgrade from Builder to Growth works differently, because the transaction fee is already 0% on both. You are paying $70 a month more for 40 extra products, 4 extra admin seats, the ability to remove Teachable branding and API access. You are buying features and team seats there, and the fee never enters into it.
How Teachable pricing compares to other course platforms
Every course platform in the table below hosts your course for you. CartMango is included for the checkout side of the job only, because CartMango does not host courses yet.
Skool has the lowest monthly price at $9 and the biggest cut at 10%, which makes its cheap plan the most expensive on fees in this group, above Teachable’s 7.5%. Thinkific and Kajabi advertise no cut but start at $40 and $143 a month. CartMango takes no cut and is free until October 2026, then $10 a year, and it does not host the course yet.
| Platform | Entry price | Platform cut on the entry plan | Hosts the course |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skool | $9/mo | 10% | Yes |
| Teachable | $29/mo billed annually | 7.5% | Yes |
| Thinkific | $40/mo billed annually | 0% | Yes |
| Kajabi | $143/mo billed annually | 0% | Yes |
| CartMango | Free until October 2026, then from $10/year | 0% | Not yet, planned for October 2026 |
Check the payment-route condition before you count on any of those 0% figures, because the Teachable pattern repeats. Kajabi charges 2% on its Basic plan if you take payment through a third-party provider instead of Kajabi Payments, and Teachable’s own 0% holds only through teachable:pay or the Monthly Payment Gateway.
I should be upfront that CartMango is my platform, so read that last row with the same scepticism you would apply to any vendor writing about itself. CartMango handles the checkout, the order bumps and the upsells. Course hosting, a community and an affiliate program are still being built, with affiliate management targeted for September 2026 and the learning management system and community following in October 2026.
For the full tier-by-tier numbers rather than entry prices, we have separate breakdowns of Kajabi’s pricing tiers, Skool’s real per-transaction costs and Teachable against Thinkific. If you are weighing a move away, the Teachable alternatives comparison prices 6 platforms against each other, and Kajabi against Teachable covers the 2 most-compared all-in-ones.
FAQ
How much does Teachable cost?
Teachable costs $29, $69 or $139 a month on its 3 visible plans when billed annually, or $39, $89 and $189 month to month. A 4th plan, Advanced, costs $309 a month billed annually or $399 monthly, and appears in Teachable’s help center rather than on its pricing page. A Custom plan sits above that with no published price.
Can you really make money on Teachable?
Yes, and the platform cost is rarely what decides it. On Starter, Teachable takes 7.5% of every sale and Stripe takes 2.9% plus 30 cents, so a $200 course nets you about $179 before your own costs.
The harder problem is traffic. Teachable hosts and sells your course, it does not bring you students, which is the part most new sellers underestimate. Our guide on how to sell online courses covers that side.
Is Teachable better than Udemy?
For most solo creators building a brand, Teachable is the better bet. Udemy is a marketplace that brings its own buyers and takes a revenue share, and it controls your pricing and discounting. Teachable is a platform you pay for, where you keep the pricing, the customer relationship and the email list.
Pick Udemy if you want the built-in traffic and accept the cut. Pick Teachable if you want to own the audience you build.
Is Teachable no longer free?
Correct, there is no free plan. Teachable offers a 7-day free trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee, and its cheapest paid plan is $29 a month billed annually. A free tier existed in earlier years, which is why several guides still describe one.
Does the 7.5% fee apply on every plan?
No. The 7.5% applies to Starter only. Builder, Growth, Advanced and Custom are 0%, on the condition that you take payments through teachable:pay or the Monthly Payment Gateway. Card processing fees from Stripe or PayPal apply on every plan regardless.
Can I switch between monthly and annual billing?
Yes, from the plan settings inside your school. Annual billing saves you money on every tier, and Teachable’s own guidance during its last price change was that moving to annual locks your current pricing in for a year, which is worth knowing if a change is announced.
The part of the bill you can stop paying for
Teachable pricing pays for 2 very different jobs. Most of the bill covers hosting: the video, the student accounts, the lesson player, the admin seats. The transaction fee covers the checkout, which is a far smaller job.
If you already have somewhere to put your content, that split is worth questioning. CartMango is a checkout built for exactly that case. CartMango takes no cut of your sales, it runs the order bumps and upsells that raise what each buyer spends, and CartMango is free until October 2026, then $10 a year.
About the Author
👋 I’m Welly, founder of CartMango (the site you’re on), a checkout platform for digital product sellers. We’ve previously processed $179M+. I also run BirdSend (email marketing tool, 3.1B+ emails sent). On the side I show other non-techie digital sellers how I use AI workflows to automate 50%+ of my operations. Find me on LinkedIn.
Related Reading
- Teachable alternatives: 6 platforms priced live, if Teachable pricing has pushed you to look elsewhere
- Kajabi pricing: the same treatment applied to Teachable’s most-compared rival
- LMS for online courses: real fees across 7 platforms and where each one starts costing more
- How much it costs to create an online course: the spend before you pay any platform