TL;DR
Beacons is free to start, with Beam, its AI assistant, to set up your page, store and emails on every plan. Creator Plus at $30 a month ($25 billed annually) adds unlimited courses with video hosting, memberships, email with no monthly send limit and 0% Beacons fees. If the course is your whole business, Podia is the deeper course tool, and you pay for that depth: no free plan; billed monthly, Mover is $49 with a 5% fee, Shaker $99 with 0% and Earthquaker $179, after a 14-day trial.
Email is the one line to check: Beacons counts sends, Podia counts subscribers.
Plan snapshot
| Beacons | Podia | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes: link in bio, store, media kit, 50 email sends/mo, Beam | No; 14-day trial, no card |
| Paid plans (billed monthly) | Creator $10 / Creator Plus $30 / Creator Max $100 | Mover $49 / Shaker $99 / Earthquaker $179 |
| Billed annually | $8.33 / $25 / $83.33 per month | $42 / $84 / $150 per month |
| Platform fee on sales | 9% on Free and Creator; 0% on Creator Plus and Max | 5% on Mover; 0% on Shaker and Earthquaker |
| Products | Unlimited on every plan | 50 / 150 / unlimited by plan |
| Courses & memberships | One course (no video hosting) on Free and Creator; unlimited courses with video plus memberships on Creator Plus | Drip lessons, quizzes, certificates and community on every plan |
| Email marketing | 50 sends/mo Free, 500 Creator, no monthly limit on Creator Plus | 100 / 500 / 1,000 subscribers included; more cost extra |
| Media kit / brand deals | Media kit and affiliate marketplace with 12,000+ brands | None |
| Custom domain | From Creator, free for the first year | Every plan |
Prices in USD, checked Nov 2, 2026. Sources: Beacons pricing; Podia pricing; Podia vs Thinkific (monthly prices); Podia Email plan help article.
What it costs you each month
| Plan | Plan price | Platform fee | You keep on $1,000/mo in sales | You keep on $5,000/mo in sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beacons Free | $0 | 9% | $878 | $4,390 |
| Beacons Creator Plus | $30/mo | 0% | $938 | $4,810 |
| Podia Mover | $49/mo | 5% | $869 | $4,541 |
| Podia Shaker | $99/mo | 0% | $869 | $4,741 |
| Podia Earthquaker | $179/mo | 0% | $789 | $4,661 |
You keep = sales minus plan price, platform fee and processing (about 2.9% + $0.30 per order on both), with monthly billing and $100 orders.
Podia's entry plan costs more than Creator Plus and still takes 5%, and Podia stops taking a cut at $99 a month. On Beacons, Creator Plus pays for itself over the free plan at about $333 a month, so the month a course starts selling steadily is the month to upgrade. Podia's price does cover a full website, custom domain, coaching and community on every plan, with affiliates, upsells and Zapier from Shaker.
Sell courses and memberships at 0% for $30 a month.
How we compared
We used official pricing pages (Nov 2, 2026); Podia's monthly prices come from its comparison pages, since its pricing page shows yearly billing. We make Beacons, so where Podia fits better, we say so. Courses aren't my lane, so I leaned on our product docs and on Podia's own pages.
Courses, memberships and coaching
Podia is a course platform first. Courses have sections, drip schedules, quizzes and certificates in a logged-in member area. Community spaces with chats and paid tiers come with every plan, and coaching lets clients book and pay in one flow. Video storage is the limit to watch: 500 videos on Mover, 1,000 on Shaker.
On Beacons, a course is modules and lessons with video, text and files. Creator Plus includes unlimited hosted-video courses and memberships billed weekly, monthly or yearly. Every lesson unlocks at purchase, with no drip, quizzes or community posts. Paid 1:1 appointments work on every plan, and Creator adds the Zoom integration.
Where Podia wins: the course itself as the product, with a community and members' area.
Where Beacons wins: courses next to downloads, brand deals and a newsletter, for $30 a month at 0%.
Email and audience
Podia Email covers newsletters, welcome sequences and automations, and its automations are more mature than ours. The catch is the subscriber cap: a 2,000-person list is above Earthquaker's limit and costs extra, and Podia doesn't publish those add-on prices.
Beacons Creator Plus has no monthly send limit at any list size, and Beam can write, schedule and send your emails. Contacts come in from your page, checkouts and Instagram auto-DMs that deliver a lead magnet.
Website and link in bio
Podia gives you a traditional website with a blog, product pages and a members' area, and no link-in-bio page. Beacons starts with a link-in-bio page holding your links, store, media kit and email signup, plus a website builder, and Beam can build it for you. For social traffic, a tap from your bio lands on a product.
Brand deals and media kits
Podia has no brand-deal tools; its affiliate marketing, from Shaker, recruits people to sell your products. Beacons' media kit is on every plan and refreshes daily. Brands reach you through its "Work with me" form, Beam can find brands and draft pitches that go out only after you approve them, and invoices to brands carry no Beacons fee.
Would you still need a second tool?
If your course needs drip lessons, quizzes, certificates or a community, yes: Beacons doesn't do those, so keep Podia for the course. If courses are a side line next to products and brand deals, Beacons covers it.
Switching from Podia to Beacons
There's no Podia importer, so recreate products and upload course videos and files again. Export your email list from Podia as a CSV and import it on any Beacons plan; each contact gets an opt-in email first. Active Podia memberships don't transfer, so members re-subscribe, and course progress, quizzes and community posts don't carry over, so switch between cohorts.
When to choose Podia vs Beacons
Choose Podia if:
- Your course is the product and needs drip, quizzes and certificates.
- You want a community with spaces and paid tiers.
- You want a full website with a blog on the entry plan.
Choose Beacons if:
- You want to start free and add courses and 0% fees for $30.
- Your traffic comes from social and lands on a link in bio.
- Brand deals are part of your income, or your list exceeds Podia's caps.
Start free, then add courses and 0% fees for $30 a month.
Our data: what Beacons courses and memberships sell for
- The median course sale on Beacons was about $45, and the median membership payment about $23.
Source: Beacons sales data (PostHog), Sep 28 to Oct 27, 2026: paid course sales and membership payments.