Latest full audit
All five modeled platforms were rechecked on August 26, 2026.
We verified current subscription prices, platform transaction fees, per-enrollment or per-sale fees, material payment-route assumptions, scheduled price changes, and the source notes used by every calculator. The next scheduled full review is September 26, 2026, with earlier updates whenever a vendor announces a material change.
August 26, 2026
What the latest audit found and changed
| Platform | Verified | Material finding | Site action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thinkific | Basic, Start, Grow; annual and monthly prices; 5%, 2%, and 1% third-party provider rules; first-$1M annual sales limit | August 13 pricing is current; annual invoices are $475 for Basic and $978 for Start, and the conditional fee is waived after the first $1M in calendar-year Thinkific sales | Calculator uses exact annual invoices divided by 12 and applies one-twelfth of the annual fee-bearing sales limit to a steady monthly scenario; pricing tables, CSV, and caveats aligned |
| Teachable | Starter and Builder prices, fees, usage limits, and current payment setup | Current Teachable Payments and connected-Stripe routes must be separated from legacy gateways | Fee guide expanded and a dedicated payment-gateway guide added |
| Podia | Mover, Shaker, Earthquaker prices, fees, product, video, space, assistant, and email limits | Current plans have explicit operating limits; Earthquaker is a capacity upgrade, not a fee reduction from Shaker | Plan table and decision framework expanded |
| LearnWorlds | Monthly and annual prices, enrollment fees, active learners, admins, AI credits, and support | The Starter–Pro break-even remains 11 paid enrollments on annual billing; capacity can decide sooner | Pricing guide now separates fee economics from operational limits |
| Gumroad | Direct, Discover, processing, and monthly high-volume fee rules | Later eligible direct sales after $20,000 in paid monthly sales use 5% + $0.50 instead of 10% + $0.50 | Both calculators, CSV data, fee guide, comparisons, and caveats updated |
What “verified” means
We check the model inputs, not just the headline price
A plan's subscription is only one line in a creator's cost. Each full audit checks published monthly and annual pricing, platform transaction fees, fixed enrollment or transaction charges, whether payment processing is included or separate, material gateway rules, relevant plan limits, and any announced effective date.
We then trace changed facts through the homepage calculator, specialist calculators, machine-readable CSV, fee guides, comparison examples, FAQ answers, page update dates, and sitemap dates. A central audit date is advanced only after all modeled platforms have been checked.
Model boundaries
What the calculators intentionally do not promise
- Payment processing defaults are editable assumptions, not universal quotes.
- Taxes, VAT, currency conversion, chargebacks, refunds, and payout costs can vary.
- Country eligibility is a separate gate from a plan's published fee.
- Legacy, negotiated, nonprofit, enterprise, or account-specific pricing can differ.
- Feature value and migration cost are not reduced to a single ranking number.
That is why every result is presented as an estimate and every article links back to primary vendor documentation.
Reusable research data
Download the verified pricing model as CSV
The machine-readable dataset contains one row per modeled plan with its exact annual subscription, monthly annual-billing equivalent, platform percentage fee, fixed charge, any modeled annual fee cap, explanatory notes, audit date, and primary source URL. It is designed for independent checking and spreadsheet analysis—not as a substitute for a vendor quote.
Quality assurance
Each release candidate is tested as rendered HTML
The site is built before release and every sitemap URL is requested from the production bundle. Automated checks cover HTTP status, canonical URLs, titles, descriptions, one-H1 structure, Open Graph metadata, social-preview URLs, responsive viewport and charset, indexability, JSON-LD validity, image alternatives and dimensions, form labels, button names, skip links, heading order, new-tab safety, duplicate IDs, broken internal links, orphaned sitemap pages, broken fragments, feed coverage, and official-source integrity. Initial JavaScript and CSS are also measured against explicit gzip budgets.
August 26 product milestone
The research now supports decisions, not just reading
This audit also connected the verified fee model to four practical decision aids: shareable calculator scenarios, downloadable result files, plan-level break-even explorers, and a weighted platform scorecard. The international creator guide gained a payment-readiness check that treats country, currency, gateway, payout, and identity requirements as separate gates instead of assuming that a globally advertised platform works identically everywhere.
These tools use the same tested pricing functions as the published tables and CSV. They do not replace a vendor quote, and their editable assumptions remain visible so a reader can challenge the result. Canonical redirects, page-specific social previews, structured-data entity references, accessibility states, and route-level asset budgets were checked in the same release candidate.
Earlier milestones
How the research library evolved
| Date | Work completed | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| August 26, 2026 | Re-audited all modeled prices and added scenario sharing, exports, break-even tools, a decision scorecard, and payment-readiness checks | Turn verified fee research into transparent, repeatable decisions while tightening crawl, social, accessibility, and performance quality |
| August 23, 2026 | Added profit, cost, and pricing tools plus a broader course-platform comparison cluster | Serve decision intent with original calculators and structured research rather than isolated articles |
| August 20, 2026 | Expanded Thinkific payment and currency coverage | Answer the specific payment-route searches already producing impressions |
| August 17, 2026 | Completed the previous five-platform pricing audit | Establish a truthful common baseline for calculators and comparison tables |
| August 15, 2026 | Reduced client-side work and added privacy-safe first-party measurement | Improve load efficiency while measuring pages and outbound clicks without personal identity data |
Primary vendor sources