Ruzuku Review – Is it Really the Best Online Course Builder?

If you want to pass down information, create a passive income, and design a good online course Ruzuku is the ideal software for you.

But where do you even begin to create an online course by yourself? 

In this review, we will go over how Ruzuku can help you in online course creation, its features, benefits, and Ruzuku alternatives. 

Quick Summary of the Main Product

Ruzuku was created by designers Rick Cecil and Abe Crystal in 2012.

Since then it has facilitated thousands of tutors across the world. It also helps you build your online course and manage the subsequent tutoring process.

One thing we loved about the Ruzuku platform is that it simplifies the process of setting up the online school. 

As a matter of fact, Ruzuku can get you started in less than two hours. 

It does this by providing you with graphical tools for creating your online course while it handles the underlying coding process. 

This makes it a perfect online course platform for amateurs, who would like to join the online teaching bandwagon but aren’t exactly tech-savvy. 

Moreover, the Ruzuku platform allows you to:

• Host webinars and teleconferences
• Set pricing for your courses 
• Pay monthly or annually 
• Gives you a 14-day free trial 

…and so much more.

Features and Benefits

To write this Ruzuku review, our team researched the platform extensively. 

Here are some of the features and benefits of Ruzuku:

Course Creator 

To see how the Ruzuku course creator works, our team signed up for a 14-day free trial.

We learned that you can create your courses based on:

• Lessons 
• Activities 
• Messages 

Lessons essentially consist of both activities and messages. You can add a title or a description to it so your students know exactly what they’ll learn. 

Whereas, activities will be the main content of your online course. 

They can be in the form of:

• Text 
• Lists 
• Audios
• Videos 
• Images 
• Discussions 
• Polls

Lastly, messages will help you communicate with your students on course dates, upcoming seminars, etc. 

Now, over to the actual course creation process. 

It took our team an incredibly short amount of time to set up a test course. 

The editor is straightforward to use. You can use it to create lists, write paragraphs, add links, and embed videos quite easily. 

Everything of the following can be customized:

• The welcome page
• Pricing
• Payment option
• Sales page
• Coupons, etc.

This is how the activity editor looks like: 

Course Management

It’s important to define your course look and feel to market it better. 

Ruzuku has a “Managing Courses” option where you can add coupons, adjust prices, set notifications, events, etc. 

For example, you can tweak the color scheme, font, and other design parameters to change the outlook of your course. 

You can also upload relevant images to guide your students better.

An engaging course introduction might also be appreciated as a warm welcome to your lesson. You can find all these options under the “Welcome” section.

Another useful feature we found was the “Scheduling” option. You can use it to provide online courses continuously or have set start and finish dates.

Monitor Students Progress

One of the biggest problems people face while creating online courses is ensuring student engagement. This encourages a student to review your course content and participate. 

Although emails are useful in this sense, everyone receives a ton of emails and your reminder may get lost in the mix. 

Ruzuku lets you review the progress of all your students in the dashboard. You can monitor how well a student is doing and notify them if there is a need. 

Student Payment Options 

The Ruzuku platform offers quite a flexible system to charge your students. 

You have three options:

• Single Payments – This allows your students to pay in one go through PayPal or Stripe
• Payment Plan – Students can pay through multiple installments over a period of time. It is only available through Stripe 
• Subscription – Students are charged on a recurrent basis via Stripe.

However, it is important to note that all these payment plans are not available to all Rukuzu users. 

You’ll have to subscribe to the Up and Comer or the University plan to use any of the three options. 

You can find these details in our Ruzuku Pricing Section later in the article.

No transaction fees

On the upside, Ruzuku doesn’t charge you a transaction fee irrespective of the payment plan you choose.

This means you keep 100% of all your course sales. The only fees you will incur are direct with the payment getaways (Stripe and PayPal).

Coupons and Discounts 

If you’re creating your first online course, we recommend you take full advantage of the coupon feature. 

You can find this feature under the “Sales” section of your course settings. You’ll also be able to set up discounts based on a percentage or dollar amount.

Moreover, you can set a limit to how many discount coupons can be redeemed and set expiration dates. 

Create Unlimited Courses 

Most online course platforms have a limit to how many courses you can create. 

Luckily, Ruzuku lets you upload unlimited courses. You also have the option to add unlimited students to your lessons. 

Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy Ruzuku

Ruzuku Pricing

To write this Ruzuku review, we have compiled an in-depth review of its pricing plan. 

It offers both yearly and monthly payments.

But since you have to pay a large amount of money upfront, the yearly option can help you save a lot of money in the long run. 

Below is a detailed look at what each plan offers: 

You can get the Bootstrapper for $99/month or $897/ year. 

It offers:

• Single instructor 
• Unlimited students 
• Unlimited video, audio, and data hosting
• Basic commerce with coupons 

But, keep in mind that even though the Bootstrapper plan is the cheapest plan it doesn’t allow webinars, polls, and quizzes. 

The Up and Comer Plan will cost you $149 per month and a yearly payment of $997.

It offers:

• Single instructor 
• Unlimited courses 
• Unlimited students 
• Unlimited webinars 
• Polls and quizzes
• Unlimited videos and audio
• Basic commerce and coupons 
• Subscription and payment plans 

The monthly cost for the University starts at $199/month and the yearly payment starts at $1500. 

However, the prices depend on what you need. 

We would recommend this plan for more advanced users. 

It offers: 

• Your own domain 
• Multiple instructors 
• Multiple site managers 
• Unlimited courses 
• Unlimited students 
• Unlimited webinars 
• Polls and quizzes 
• Unlimited video and audio files
• Subscriptions and payment plans 
• Dedicated account manager 

Support 

As mentioned before Ruzuku is fairly easy to use. 

But if you still need help, Ruzuku offers email support at support@ruzuku.com. 

You can contact them from Monday to Friday (9 am to 5 pm EST) 

While testing Ruzuku.com we sent their support team multiple emails on different topics such as questions on course payments, discounts, and webinars. 

As promised, they got back to us within 4 business hours. 

Other than this, they also have a 30-minute call that you can book to discuss any issues you face. While the University Plan provides an account manager for 1-on-1 support. 

If you’re an online course creator who has never created a course, you can take the help of its Support Page. It covers all basics for creating your first course. 

It includes lessons and free courses on:

• Lesson structure and planning 
• Content creation 
• Sales and marketing tools 
• Branding and styling 
• Course Payments and discounts 
• Student engagement features 
• Course lessons on Student progress 

Webinars and Teleconferences

Webinars and teleconferences are a great way to engage your students on a 1 on 1 basis. 

However, it is important to note that Teleconferences at Ruzuku can only hold 200 students in one go. 

Webinars on the other hand are more flexible as they can be streamed by 1500 learners at the same time. 

So, if you’re going to teach more students than that, you’ll have to hold multiple sessions. 

During our research, we also learned that Ruzuku does a great job to keep your students posted to ensure maximum participation. 

When it comes to the actual teleconferences you’ll be able to track your students and provide downloadable resources to aid your audience. 

The only problem we found with this feature is that teleconferences and webinars are considered to be advanced features on Ruzuku. This means you’ll only be able to use it on the Up and Comer or the University plan. 

Discussion Forums 

Unlike other websites, the Ruzuku online course platform is built around teacher and peer interactions.

Each lesson has an integrated discussion forum and optional discussion prompts to increase student engagement. 

This gives you a space to ask questions and students to reflect and share as they progress along the course. 

The students can respond through texts, documents, pictures, and even videos. 

To add to this, the “Notifications” make it easy to see what people are posting and discussing.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Ruzuku 

What we liked	What we didn’t like
• Zero transaction fees • Multiple subscription plans  • Email support is extremely responsive • Ruzuku supports both single and multi-student analytics • Student tracking • Discussion forums to facilitate student and teacher interaction.	• Customization options are not limited • Ruzuku supports only two payments processes  • It may be expensive for some users • Need landing pages for a full marketing program

Social Proof

For a better understanding of the platform, we went through some Ruzuku reviews. It has 4 out of 5 stars on www.g2.com 

Many course creators with limited technical knowledge were pleased with its easy-to-use interface and flexibility. 

While others were satisfied by its peer-to-peer support, discussion forums, and multiple price points for the same course.  

Here are some of the reviews our team came across: 

Similar to Ruzuku (Recommendations)

#1: Best Online Course Creation Platform – Teachable Review 

If you specialize in internet marketing and technical programming, creating a course on Teachable would be a better option for you.

However, if you’re unaware of what Teachable is, it is designed to help sell online courses for information marketers. 

So, with Teachable you can host courses on your website, manage its branding, student data, and pricing all from a single point. 

It also lets you build online courses by posting content for your online lessons. These can be in the form of videos, audio recordings, articles, and downloadable course material. 

Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy Teachable

Pricing

Teachable offers the following pricing plans: 

• Basic Plan for $39/month 
• Professional Plan for $119/month 
• Business Plan for $299/month 

In addition to the subscription cost, Teachable also takes course transaction fees. 

For example, if you’ve subscribed to the Basic Plan and you’re earning $50,000 revenue a year. Teachable would charge you a 5% transaction fee, which will be $2,500. 

Support

Teachable provides reasonably good “inline” support on its website i.e explanations that pop up next to the question mark features. 

However, we found the use of the question mark icon to be inconsistent throughout the website.

But Teachable also has a knowledge base that has up-to-date articles on all major aspects of the platform. 

Lastly, with any paid subscription you get access to Teachable U. 

It is a collection of lessons, articles, webinars, and other resources to enhance your course content and grow your business. 

Webinars and Teleconferences

Currently, Teachable does not offer webinar and teleconference features. 

However, you can use audio and video hosting to record your videos and add them to your online course. 

Discussion forum 

Teachable is pretty behind Ruzuku in online discussions and student engagement. 

It does not offer discussion forums besides the “Experiment Lab” feature.

However, students can use 3rd party integrations like Disque to leave comments under course pages and lectures. 

But, adding external devices to your course means a greater loading time. 

What we liked	What we didn’t like
• Progress tracking • A great option for people who just started their online course journey  • Can get started for free • Multiple monthly payments plan to choose from • Integrated payment process	• No multi-tenancy option • Discussion forms mission • Transaction fees

Best Online Course Creating Platform

The best online course creating a platform is Teachable. It allows users to create, design, and edit websites however they want to. 

You can create your first course, add course content, and accept payments all in one place. 

#2: Best User-Friendly Online Course Builder – Thinkific Review 

Just like Teachable, Thinkific is tailored towards educators who are interested in marketing.

However, while using Thinkific you will notice that their software is designed towards creating the most user-friendly experience possible.  

They offer tools and apps to ensure you have everything that you would require to make a successful online course. 

The online platform also allows direct integration to set up your affiliate marketing campaign from your dashboard. This will prove priceless when it comes to increasing brand awareness and generating sales.

Furthermore, Thinkific makes sure that more than 100 currencies are accepted on the platform. So, you’re unlikely to face any technical issues regarding payment. 

Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy Thinkific

Price

Thikific offers a Free Plan and four paid plans as follows:

Free Plan for $0 per month.

It gives you access to:

• Instant notifications for your funds
• Student notification 
• Complete eCommerce features 
• Option for easy Drag and Drop course builder 
• Discussion forums 
• Upsell features 
• Multiple instructors
• Choose your language
• Polls and quizzes

And much more. 

Basic Plan for $49 per month.

It includes:

• All free features plus:
• Unlimited courses and students 
• Discounts 
• Drip schedule content 
• Manual student enrolment 
• Student emails 
• Zapier taggers and more. 

Pro Plan for $99 per month.

It has:

• All Basic features plus:
• Two site admin accounts 
• 5 courses admins 
• Hidden or private courses 
• Membership and bundles 
• Certificates 
• Priority support 
• Assignments 
• Live sessions 

And finally, Premier Play for $499 per month. 

It includes everything in the Pro Plan plus:

• 5 site admin accounts
• 15 group analysts 
• 50-course admins 
• Single sign-on 
• Onboarding package 

Note: All paid plans come with a 30-day satisfaction guarantee. 

Support

Thinkific claims to have a solid support panel. 

However, we were not able to find it on the website while testing out the platform.

What we tend to do is use Google search with the word “Thinkific” to search what we are looking for. 

Webinars and Teleconferences 

Thinkific offers unlimited video hosting on all subscription plans. However, we would recommend compressing the video to ensure it is under 2GB. 

For webinars, Thinkific has direct integrations with Zoom for live sessions. 

If you’re not a fan of Zoom, you can also live stream with platforms such as YouTube and Live Stream.

Discussions forums 

If we compare Thinkific with Ruzuku, Thinkific also falls behind in student communication. 

Although you can enable discussions for your course under “Support Your Students”, they can only be added on per lesson or per course basis (which is a much-needed improvement).

What we liked	What we didn’t like
• Easy to create your own website • SSL certificates are included in the platform • Can upload pre-existing course material 0% transaction fee • They accept payments on both PayPal and Stripe • Flexible payment plans	• No support is available when hosting live conferences • You need to know how to code for some of the site customizations • The discussion forum is not up to par.

Best User-Friendly Online Course Builder

The best user-friendly online course builder is Thinkific thanks to its simple interface and easy website creating tools. It is also the only platform to offer viable, long-term, and free options to sell online courses. 

Ruzuku Review – Guide to Buy

Choosing the right online course builder isn’t the easiest task if you’re just starting your business. 

To aid you in the process, our team has created a Guide to Buy.

Here are some factors you need to consider before making your decision:

Price

If you’ve just started your online course business, we imagine you won’t be getting a lot of revenue coming in. 

Therefore, we would recommend going for a course builder that is within your budget.

Also, look for a platform that takes either 0% or less than a 5% transaction fee. 

Support 

Always go for a platform that offers prompt customer support. 

If you’re constantly facing problems that are not being addressed it will only waste your time. 

Webinars and Teleconferences 

Webinars and teleconferences have been an important pillar of online teaching since the beginning of covid-19. 

Look for a website that lets you host face-to-face sessions with your students for maximum engagement. 

Discussion forums 

For a successful online course business, go for an online course creation platform that goes beyond just uploading courses. 

Discussion forums are a great way to interact with your students and address all queries and problems. 

Wrapping Things Up…

This concludes our Ruzuku Review. 

If you are looking for simple online courses that make life easier for you, Ruzuku is your go-to website. 

It is hassle-free, concise, and well equipped to help you create new online courses with ease. 

The best part is that you don’t own Ruzuku a single penny after paying the monthly fee. 

Do you think Ruzuku is the best online course builder? Let us know in the comments below.