What each week held
Withheld: something was read in 1 week of the last 12. A series needs at least 2 to say anything a single reading does not.
What it declares
- course builder
- live cohort sessions
- community features
- peer review / group projects
- drip content scheduling
- payment processing / checkout
- AI curriculum/quiz generation
- mobile app access
As the company’s own pages describe it. Forge did not test any of these.
What users raised
- loss of customer ownership on marketplaces
- unpredictable/variable transaction fees
- too many payment option configurations
Themes people raised in public. A complaint is somebody’s opinion, not a measurement of the product.
Everything on record
5 observed claims. Newest first; the tag on each row is what kind of claim you are reading.
- COMPLAINTUSER OPINIONSep 30, 2026
A creator using Udemy for exposure noted that when someone buys a course there, the creator only receives the buyer's first name, with no email address or ability to follow up or sell a next course directly.
Highlights a recurring concern among experts that marketplace platforms limit their ability to own the customer relationship and build a repeatable knowledge business.
www.learningrevolution.net/best-online-course-platforms/ - PRICINGFACTSep 30, 2026
Kajabi introduced an own-Stripe surcharge as a new fee structure change in 2026, while still offering 0% platform transaction fees on its plans.
Experts using their own Stripe account with Kajabi now incur additional costs not previously levied, affecting net take-home from course sales.
circle.so/blog/best-online-course-platforms - PRICINGCOMPANY CLAIMSep 30, 2026
Maven operates a revenue-sharing model that removes upfront costs for experts creating cohort-based courses, unlike most self-paced platforms that charge a monthly subscription fee.
Lowers the barrier for experts to test cohort-based course packaging without committing to subscription costs.
www.group.app/blog/cohort-learning-platforms/ - FUNDINGFACTSep 30, 2026
Maven, a startup founded by Udemy co-founder Gagan Biyani that helps professionals teach cohort-based classes, raised a $20 million Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz, following an earlier $4.3 million round led by First Round Capital and a $750,000 equity crowdfunding round.
Signals institutional investor confidence in the cohort-based course model as a distinct, fundable category separate from legacy self-paced platforms.
techcrunch.com/?p=2155328 - PRODUCTFACTSep 30, 2026
The online course platform category has bifurcated into two distinct segments: traditional self-paced platforms (Udemy, Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi, Podia) and cohort-based platforms (Maven, Disco, Circle, Teachfloor, GroupApp) that emphasize live sessions, peer review, and completion rates over static self-paced video.
Experts choosing a platform must now decide between self-paced scale/audience reach versus cohort-based engagement/completion, a positioning split that affects pricing and feature expectations.
www.teachfloor.com/cohort-based-learning
A record of what Forge read in public about Experts packaging what they know — its own pages and what people wrote about it. Nothing here is a test of the product, a ranking or a score, and Forge has no relationship with this company.