Teachable alternative for Shopify
If you already run a Shopify store — or want one — Chapters puts your whole course business inside it. Courses sell as native Shopify products at your own checkout, video hosting is included, and there's no monthly platform fee: 5% only when you sell, capped at $29 a month.
Free to install · No monthly fee · 5% only when you sell, capped at $29/month
The short version
Teachable is a complete standalone platform — a hosted "school" website with its own site builder, checkout, and payouts — and if you don't run an online store and never want to, that all-in-one approach can serve you well. But if you're a Shopify merchant, choosing Teachable means running two platforms: two checkouts, two customer lists, two sets of analytics, and a subscription that bills even in months you sell nothing. Chapters takes the other path — it's a Shopify app, so your courses sell as products at the checkout you already own, your students live in your Shopify customer base, and you pay nothing until a course actually sells. If consolidation is the goal, that's the difference that matters.
Side by side
The structural differences a Shopify merchant actually feels — pricing model, where the money flows, and where your students end up.
| Chapters (Shopify app) | Teachable (standalone platform) | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Free to install, no plans or tiers. 5% commission on course and exam sales, capped at $29/month. Billed on your normal Shopify invoice. | Subscription tiers: Starter $39/mo ($29/mo billed annually) with a 7.5% transaction fee; Builder $89/mo ($69 annually) and Growth $189/mo ($139 annually) with 0% transaction fee. Plan limits on products, admins, and active students (e.g. Starter: 5 products, 100 active students — limits removed at $10k USD/year in sales on the platform). |
| Monthly cost at $0 in course sales | $0 | $39 (Starter, monthly billing; $29 if billed annually) |
| Monthly cost at $500 in course sales | $25 (5% of $500) | $76.50 (Starter: $39 + 7.5% of $500) |
| Monthly cost at $2,000 in course sales | $29 (5% would be $100 — the cap kicks in) | $189 (Starter: $39 + 7.5% of $2,000) — or $89 on Builder with 0% transaction fee |
| Video hosting | Included — hosting and streaming on a global CDN, no Vimeo or Wistia needed. 30 GB storage free, then $0.16/GB/mo automatic; 300 GB student streaming free each month, then $0.08/GB. Signed expiring URLs, per-student watermark, copy/print blocking. | Included — up to 1 TB of video storage on all listed plans. |
| Exams & certificates | Quizzes (7 auto-graded types), graded assignments, timed exams with retakes and randomized pools, standalone sellable exams, certificates with public verification pages, optional paid certificates. | Not detailed on the pricing and support pages we reviewed — confirm current assessment and certificate features on Teachable's site. |
| Where students learn | A branded portal on your own domain at /apps/courses, installable to the phone home screen. Students are customers in your Shopify store. | A hosted school site on yourschool.teachable.com (or a custom domain pointed at Teachable via a Cloudflare CNAME, "depending upon your plan"). Students hold accounts on the Teachable school, not in your Shopify customer base. |
| Checkout & payments | Your own Shopify checkout — course orders sit beside your other orders, with your discounts, analytics, and multi-currency. Payment processing is whatever your store already pays Shopify; nothing changes. | Teachable's own checkout via teachable:pay (Stripe-powered): U.S. cards 2.9% + 30¢, international 3.9% + 30¢, $15 chargeback fee; payouts to your bank on a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule. A custom-gateway mode (your own Stripe/PayPal) exists but drops automated tax handling and some payment methods. Either way, course sales don't appear in your Shopify orders. |
Teachable details as of August 2026, per their public pricing page and support documentation. Sale-scenario figures are before payment processing on both sides. Chapters figures are our own current pricing — full details on the pricing page.
Why the model matters
On Teachable's Starter plan at monthly billing, a slow year still costs $39 × 12 = $468 before you've sold a single course — plus 7.5% of everything you do sell. Chapters flips that: $0 until a course sells, then a flat 5%, and the total commission is capped at $29 a month no matter how much you sell. Your worst month costs nothing, and your best month never costs more than $29.
A month with no sales
$500 in course sales this month
$2,000 in course sales this month
Teachable figures as of August 2026, per their public pricing page; all figures before payment processing on either platform.
What you get
No feature paywalls, no tiers. Every store gets the full product from day one — unlimited courses, lessons, and students.
Courses sell as native Shopify products. Students are enrolled the instant payment completes — including guest checkout — and orders sit beside everything else you sell.
Students learn at /apps/courses on your own domain — your brand, not ours — and can install the portal to their phone's home screen like an app.
Streaming on a global CDN behind signed expiring URLs, with a per-student watermark and copy/print blocking. 30 GB storage and 300 GB monthly streaming free.
Seven auto-graded question types, graded assignments, and timed exams with retakes and randomized pools. Exams can even sell standalone as their own products.
Branded certificates with public verification pages anyone can check — and the option to sell certificates as a paid add-on.
Drip by date, days, or sequence; seat caps and access windows; bundles and compare-at pricing; live Zoom lessons; multi-currency; and an Insights dashboard.
To be fair
Teachable has built a genuinely complete standalone business-in-a-box: a hosted school site with its own builder, coaching and digital-download products alongside courses, up to 1 TB of video storage on its listed plans, automated remittance of U.S. sales tax and EU/UK VAT on its checkout, and BackOffice payouts that handle paying co-authors and affiliates for you. If you don't run a Shopify store and don't want to — or if automated multi-jurisdiction tax remittance and built-in author/affiliate payouts are central to how your business operates — Teachable's all-in-one model may genuinely be the better fit, and its paid plans come with a 7-day free trial and a 30-day guarantee so you can judge for yourself. Chapters makes the opposite bet: that if Shopify is already your home, your courses should live there too.
FAQ
Yes. With Chapters, each course becomes a native Shopify product sold at your own checkout. Students are enrolled instantly when payment completes — including guest checkout — and they learn in a branded portal on your own domain at /apps/courses. Video hosting and streaming are included, so you don't need Teachable, Vimeo, or Wistia alongside your store.
Chapters is free to install with no monthly fee — we earn a 5% commission on course and exam sales, capped at $29 a month, billed on your normal Shopify invoice. As of August 2026, Teachable's public pricing starts at $39/month ($29/month billed annually) on Starter, which also carries a 7.5% transaction fee; Builder and Growth are $89 and $189 per month with 0% transaction fee. In a month where you sell nothing, Chapters costs $0.
There's no one-click importer — you rebuild in Chapters, and most of it is faster than it sounds. Upload your lesson videos once to the shared media library, recreate your chapters and lessons, and bulk-import quiz and exam question banks from an Excel or CSV spreadsheet. Publishing a course creates its Shopify product automatically, so from then on students buy at your store's checkout and appear in your Shopify customer list.
No. On Teachable, students hold accounts on a hosted school site that lives on a teachable.com subdomain or a custom domain pointed at Teachable. With Chapters, students learn on your own domain at /apps/courses, can install the portal to their phone's home screen, and exist as customers in your own Shopify store — the same customer list as everyone else who buys from you.
Yes. Video hosting and streaming on a global CDN are included — there's no separate video host to wire up or pay for. Every store gets 30 GB of storage free ($0.16 per GB per month after, billed automatically with a warning email first) and 300 GB of student streaming free each month ($0.08 per GB after). Playback is protected with signed expiring URLs, a per-student moving watermark, and copy/print blocking.
Something we didn't cover? Email chapters@pixipace.com and a human will answer.
Install Chapters free from the Shopify App Store and bring your courses home to the store you already run.
Install FreeFree to install · No monthly fee · 5% only when you sell, capped at $29/month
Teachable is a trademark of its respective owner. Chapters is not affiliated with or endorsed by Teachable. Comparison details were retrieved from public sources in August 2026 and may change — always confirm current pricing on the official pages.