6 Best Online Course Platforms For Yoga Teachers (Ranked)

What You Need To Know About Teaching Online Yoga Courses

I started making a good profit as a yoga teacher once I went completely online. From my Uplifted membership to my online yoga teacher training, I have multiple revenue streams coming in every day of the year. This is all possible because I set up my online yoga classes in a platform that was easy to manage and even easier to share.

And it’s literally my life’s mission to help other yoga teachers do the same. Honestly, take a look at my 300-hour yoga business training… I give my students a step-by-step look at how to become a millionaire yoga teacher like me.

But if you’re not ready to do an in-depth business training with me, then you can get started right here in this blog post.

Are Online Courses Profitable?

The short answer: Absolutely!

The demand is rising for online learning.

According to a report by Global Market Insights in May 2020, the e-learning market in 2019 was over $200 billion dollars and projected to reach $375 billion by 2026. Hence why it’s a great time to open your mind to this type of offering and income stream and create a course.

What Online Courses Are In Demand?

Great news! The current high level of interest in yoga makes this market the best for course creators to tap into!

Some in-demand yoga courses:

• Yoga for stress relief – These series are great to entice those who have never practiced yoga before and help them receive the stress relief that we all need.
• Yoga for too much sitting/to relieve lower back and hip pain –This appeals to brand new and intermediate students and helps to address a specific need that most of us currently have.
• 21-day challenges – A lot of people like the accountability and group support of these different types of yoga challenges to help them kick-start healthier habits.
• Foundational and beginner courses – Many who have never tried yoga or are brand new students are open to learning more about what yoga is all about and appreciate courses tailored to them.
• Intro to pranayama, meditation, or yoga philosophy – While these courses are described as “intro”, they appeal to intermediate and advanced students who want to explore beyond the poses.
• Advanced asana and pranayama at home – Experienced yogis want to keep learning now too! It’s a great time to help more advanced students deepen their practices safely at home.

How To Create An Online Course For Free

Just like with all things, there is a range of what you can pay to build your course, from zero dollars to $9,997 per year for online course software, and all the options in between.

Let’s start with free, shall we?

You don’t have to spend a lot on course creation software to create and sell online courses. Here are some ways that brand new course creators can keep the upfront cost at zero:

• Work with the tech and space you’ve got. You don’t need super high-quality equipment to create a quality course. A good camera phone, wireless headphones, basic editing software, a well-lit space, and a non-distracting backdrop is all you need to get started making videos. You can see my exact tech stack for teaching yoga online and also the microphones I recommend to get started.
• Use Canva for free to create ebooks, quizzes, worksheets, or handouts to supplement your online course.
• Use the free version of an online learning platform.
• Live-stream series. Offer progressive classes or a workshop series for free Zoom yoga classes, Facebook Live, or Youtube live. Offering multi-week series helps students progress as you get to increase your offering price and collect payments only once.
• Audio files. Use the voice notes on your phone to record your content and upload it to a hidden page on your website, use a free Soundcloud account, or email the files directly to your students.
• Youtube videos. If you’re the type of budding course creator that wants to explore making your content in advance, you can record videos and post them to YouTube as unlisted and email your students the links.

How To Price Your Online Course

Aaah, pricing, the eternal question. Knowing how to price your yoga classes is hard enough, so pricing your online courses can be a bit tricky.

While nothing is ever black and white, we’ll start by looking at the most black and white aspect of pricing: the actual numbers! (If you were never a fan of math, don’t worry, this is the MOST fun kind of math class LOL!)

We can generally calculate our profit with the following equation:

Profit = Audience x Conversion Rate x Price – Investment

If we want to figure out our price, we can rearrange the equation to look like this:

Price = (Desired Profit + Investment) / (Audience x Conversion Rate)

Here’s an example: Let’s say you want to make $5,000 from your course to pay for your dream trip to Tuscany! You’ve invested $200 to make the course, you have a total audience of 2,000 people between your email list and social media following, and in the past, you’ve had about 1% of your audience purchase your offerings. You can calculate the course price as follows:

($5,000 + $200) / (2,000 x .01) = A course price of $260

If you’re not sure of your conversion rate, 1% is a good low-end-of-average number to plug in (very low is around .1% and very high is 10%). And then if you get more, then it’s a bonus—perhaps an extra massage or private vineyard tour on your sweet vacay!

Okay, now some of the more grey-area considerations to keep in mind:

• Your biggest investment in creating a course is your TIME! Make sure your price will cover the cost of your time and energy investment as well as your financial investment and charge based on the value of what you’re offering.
• If it’s your first time running a course and you’re not sure about pricing, then consider marketing and selling your first course run as a “pilot course”. Start with a more reasonable price and use it as a test run as you improve your offering then up the price for future iterations of the course.
• A higher price could mean lower enrollment, but the students who enroll will likely value the course more because of its higher price and thereby invest more time and energy into it. They’ll also get more one-on-one attention due to the lower enrollment so they will get more out of the course which could lead to more word of mouth business.
• You can help higher ticket offers feel safer by offering a 30-day money-back guarantee (or however many days suits you because you’re the boss —woot!)
• Remember that if you keep marketing, you can create once but sell many times—this is one of the amazing things about evergreen content! So you might target a certain near term amount of profit, but use a long-term marketing strategy to keep receiving on your investment.

What Makes A Successful Online Course

Before getting started, consider what makes a course successful so you can get clear in your vision and direction and be efficient with your time and energy.

• Choose the right topic. Just because something seems interesting to you, doesn’t mean it is to anyone else LOL. To sell an online course, make sure the topic is in demand with your audience.
• Have clear and compelling deliverables. Help your potential clients clearly understand how your offering will benefit their lives in a concrete way.
• Deliver the heck out of your content. Ease of use goes a long way. Make sure your course website is easy on the eyes and the content is well-organized. Make your course interactive, engaging, challenging, and involve skill application so that you exceed your course deliverables!
• Engage. Your students are choosing your course because of YOU! Your engagement throughout will help students trust you and they’ll get more out of the experience.
• Nail the marketing.  Don’t let your hard-work shrivel on the vine! The online course business hinges on both creating AND selling your course so you need to create a long-term digital marketing strategy. Make selling online courses easier by choosing a learning management system that integrates features like email marketing, pre-made sales pages, and other marketing tools to help you get started.

The 6 Best Online Course Platforms For Yoga Teachers

Ready to create online courses but prefer structure and support to go it alone? With all of the online learning platforms on the market, online course creation has never been easier.

Not only do these platforms allow for easy course creation, but many of them also offer membership options and the ability to build your own yoga app.

Here are some of the best platforms in the online course marketplace so that you can choose the best online course platform for your vision.

1. Hey Marvelous (formerly Namastream)

Price: $33/month for the starter package

Key Features:

• Allows you to create a basic
• Unlimited courses and students
• Options for online courses
• Memberships, live classes
• Marvelous.bio Single-link Sharing

This is for you if: You are new to teaching yoga online and want an all-in-one platform

2. uScreen (This is what I use)

Price: $79-$159 per month plus $0.50 per subscriber per month

• Basic plan $79/mo, Growth plan $159/mo
• Save when paid annually
• 14-day free trial of the basic plan

Key Features:

• A video-based platform that enables HD live streaming
• Community creations (profiles, avatars, discussion, and commenting)
• Gather user feedback
• App creation

This is for you if: You have a strong online presence and audience and would like to turn your audience into paying customers

3. Thinkific

Price: $39-$399 per month

• Basic plan $39/mo; Pro plan $79/mo; Premier plan $399/mo
• Save 20% when paid annually.
• 30-day free trial for the Pro plan.

Key Features:

• Doesn’t require a WordPress LMS plugin
• Discussion forums
• User-friendly drag and drop course builder
• Private and hidden, prerequisite, and expiring courses
• Automated student check-ins

This is for you if: You have a steady student list and want to offer classes online with an easy to use platform

4. Teachable

Price: $29-249 per month

• Basic plan $29/mo + 5% transaction fee; Pro plan $99/mo; Business plan $249/mo
• Save when paid annually.

Key Features:

• Easy to use (no WordPress plugins required)
• Sell courses with pre-made sales pages
• Course creator training
• Gather student feedback
• Integrated email marketing
• Sell coaching products

This is for you if: You are new to teaching yoga online

5. Kajabi

Price: $119-319 per month

• Basic plan $119/mo; Growth plan $159/mo; Pro plan $319/mo
• No transaction fees
• Save 20% when paid annually
• Start with a 14-day free trial.

Key Features:

• Webinars and event hosting
• Ready to use templates
• The ability to create quizzes and surveys
• Chat support
• Marketing automation tools to help sell online courses and products
• 30-day money-back guarantee

This is for you if: You have a strong online presence and audience and would like to turn your audience into paying customers

6. LearnWorlds

Price: $24-249 per month

• Starter plan $24 /mo + $5/course; Pro plan $79/mo; Learning center plan $249/mo
• Save when paid annually
• Start with a 30-day free trial

Key Features:

• Ready-made templates
• In-platform social networking
• Various type of learning activities
• Mobile-ready designs
• 24/7 customer support
• Advanced affiliate management to help market and sell your course

This is for you if: You have a steady student list and who would like to offer classes online