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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.

Mats Bergqvist

GävleUpdated 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% / 1% / 0% plus Stripe

Spike takes 5% on Free, 1% on Pro, 0% on 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% / 1% / 0% 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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