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Podia vs Spike

Podia is a campus: courses, memberships, emails, a place students log into. Spike is a pack: a folder, a preview, a price. You can sell a ZIP on Podia. You should not put a classroom costume on a gallery.

Trygve Holmstad

KongsbergUpdated 3 min read

Podia vs Spike is a campus versus a door, the same category error as Patreon vs Spike. Podia earned a following by putting courses, memberships, and a shop in one login. That is the right extra when the product is a programme. It is a heavy costume when the product is a folder of stems, a preset pack, or last term's PDFs.

Keep Podia when students should return, watch, and belong. Use Spike when they should fetch. Educators often need both: the campus for the term, the folder for the files that outlive the login.

A campus has doors, a timetable, a login. A pack is a folder with a price. Do not enrol someone to fetch a ZIP.

What Podia is for

  • Courses with a player and a path.
  • Memberships and email as a campus, not a tip jar.
  • A shop attached to that campus.
  • Students who should come back next week.

What should not require a campus

A one-off worksheet. A live recording. A brand kit for a client who is not a student. SendOwl vs Spike if you were choosing an engine instead of a campus. Spike is the third column: no player, no membership feed, a treated preview and a download.

What you getPodiaSpike
Courses and membershipsYes, that is the jobNot the job
Student loginYesThey open a page
One-off file packPossible as a productThe starting point
Client deliveryA course productPassworded folder
Spike feeTheir pricing5% on Free, 1% on Pro and Business plus Stripe

Spike takes 5% on Free and 1% on Pro and Business, from the payout. Stripe's card fee still applies. A campus that is working should stay. A PDF that keeps getting uploaded into the wrong lesson should become a folder with a URL you can paste in the announcement.

Enrol them when there is something to attend. Send a folder when there is something to take.

  1. Keep the campus for the term

    Modules, a player, a login. That is Podia earning rent.

  2. Put fetchable files in a folder

    Slides, recordings, worksheets. Treat the unpaid view if they have not paid.

  3. Paste the URL where they already are

    The announcement, the YouTube description, the follow-up email. Not a second enrolment.

How educators sell and deliver course files is the year-of-jobs version. Stan Store vs Spike if the campus was actually a creator bio shop.

A good campus is worth the login. Students know where to go. Comments live somewhere. The mistake is using that login as a file host for people who will never watch a module. Workshop attendees who already paid in person still need a door. Put the slides and the recording in a folder. Send the URL in the follow-up. Do not make them create a Podia account to fetch what they already sat through. Spike fees stay 5% on Free, 1% on Pro and Business plus Stripe on that fetch. The campus can keep the term. The folder keeps the files after the term ends.

Questions

Good to know

Not for courses, memberships, and a student login. Yes for the ZIP, the worksheet pack, or the recording that should not require a campus. How educators sell and deliver course files is that job.

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Try the workflow in the article.

Upload a folder, protect the preview, share or sell from one link.

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