Alva Courses vs Podia
Alva Courses is a Shopify app that adds online courses to the Shopify store you already run: students buy through your Shopify checkout and learn in your storefront. Podia is an all-in-one creator platform that becomes your website, with its own checkout, email list, community and course tools. Every Podia fact below was checked on Podia's own site in October 2026.
Podia is an all-in-one creator platform that becomes your website: courses, downloads, coaching, webinars, community, email marketing and a site builder, from $49 a month ($42 billed yearly) as of October 2026. Alva Courses is a Shopify app ($9.99 or $14.99 a month) that adds courses to the Shopify store you already run.
Alva Courses and Podia, side by side.
Alva Courses and Podia both sell online courses, but they sit in different places. Podia is the whole business on one platform: website, checkout, email list and every product type. Alva Courses adds courses to a Shopify store, so Shopify keeps the website, checkout and customer list, and the course sells next to everything else you stock.
| Capability | Alva Courses | Podia |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A Shopify app that adds courses to your store | An all-in-one creator platform that hosts your site |
| Website | Your Shopify theme, plus a ready-made courses page | Podia pages, blog, landing pages and your own domain |
| Checkout | Your Shopify checkout, discount codes and payment methods | Podia's built-in checkout with Stripe, or PayPal from Shaker up |
| Customer records | Every buyer is a Shopify customer with an order | Customers and email subscribers inside Podia |
| Physical products | Same cart and order as your other products, plus a Shopify Product block in lessons | A workaround only: sell the item as a course product and ship it yourself |
| What you can sell | Courses (lessons can hold video, PDFs, audio, ePub and MS Office files) | Courses, downloads, coaching, webinars and events, community |
| Price | Unlimited $9.99/mo · Unlimited Pro $14.99/mo · 14-day trial | Mover $49 · Shaker $99 · Earthquaker $179 a month ($42, $84, $150 billed yearly) · 14-day trial |
| Transaction fee | None from Alva; your normal Shopify payment processing applies | 5% on Mover; none on Shaker and Earthquaker; Stripe or PayPal fees on all |
| Email marketing | Course emails only; newsletters through Shopify Email or Klaviyo | Podia Email for newsletters and automations, 100 to 1,000 subscribers by plan |
| Community | A discussion under every lesson, with threaded replies | Topic-based spaces, group chats and DMs, free or paid; optional lesson comments |
| Memberships | Membership Tags open a course to customers that a subscription app such as Seal or Appstle has tagged | Paid community tiers that gate premium spaces and content |
| Coaching & events | No booking or webinar tools; a Button block can link a lesson to a Zoom or other live-session URL | Paid coaching bookings; live workshops, webinars and in-person meetups |
| Course tools | Quizzes, completion certificates, drip, scheduled publishing and completion gating | Quizzes, certificates, drip, cohorts, pre-sales and waitlists |
| Video | Alva Video Hosting (50 GB) on Unlimited Pro; Shopify-hosted video (1 GB / 10 min each) on Unlimited; YouTube, Vimeo and Loom on both | Upload video and audio; 500, 1,000 or unlimited videos by plan |
| Automation | Shopify Flow triggers and actions on both plans | Zapier from Shaker up |
| Affiliates | Not part of Alva Courses | Affiliate marketing from Shaker up |
Podia facts come from Podia's pricing page, its online courses page and the Podia help centre, checked on 9 October 2026. Podia's pricing page shows yearly prices by default; monthly prices are from Podia's own Skool comparison page, dated October 2026.
What Podia does well.
Podia puts a creator's whole business on one subscription. Every plan includes a website and blog, a checkout, email marketing, a community, online courses, downloads, coaching and events. For someone starting from nothing, that means one login, one bill and no apps to connect, with a 14-day trial that needs no card.
Podia builds the site itself: pages, a blog, landing pages, your own domain, fonts and colours. You don't need a separate website platform or theme to start selling.
Podia Email covers newsletters, welcome sequences and automations. Mover includes 100 subscribers, Shaker 500 and Earthquaker 1,000, and you can add more or move up a plan as the list grows.
Alongside courses, Podia sells downloadable files, coaching that clients book and pay for, webinars and in-person events, and community spaces with group chats and direct messages.
Podia's team migrates products from another platform: up to 50 on Mover and up to 150 on Shaker and Earthquaker. Support is by email and chat on every plan.
Podia's course tools
Podia courses take uploaded video or audio in a built-in player, with drip lessons, multiple-choice and multiple-answer quizzes, and a certificate when a student finishes. You can run a course as a cohort, take pre-orders or a waitlist before launch, and bundle courses with other products.
Lessons can have optional comment threads, and a student progress dashboard shows enrolment date, progress and last activity. Podia also lists free preview lessons, bulk CSV import and access-duration limits for students. On course features alone, the two products are close.
Podia replaces your website. Alva Courses joins it.
If you already sell on Shopify, Podia would be a second website with a second checkout and a second customer list. Alva Courses avoids that split: a course is a Shopify product in your catalogue, buyers check out with everything else in their cart, and every student is a Shopify customer you can tag, segment and email.
A customer can buy a course, a kit and a book in one Shopify order and is enrolled once it is paid. Podia's own help centre says it has no built-in shipping or fulfilment tools.
The Shopify Product block shows live product cards in a lesson, with price, stock and a button that adds to your store's normal cart, so students can buy the tools a lesson uses.
Course buyers sit in your Shopify customers alongside product buyers. Customer Tagging adds a tag when someone buys a course, and Shopify Flow triggers such as Course completed can feed Shopify Email or Klaviyo.
Alva Courses gives your store a courses page and a storefront course player. Students reach their courses from the thank-you page, My Courses in their customer account or their enrolment email link.
What Alva Courses leaves to Shopify and other apps
Alva Courses has no website builder, blog, marketing email, coaching scheduler, webinar hosting, community spaces or affiliate tracking. Your Shopify theme, Shopify Email or Klaviyo, and other Shopify apps cover those jobs, which suits a store that already has them and adds work for one that doesn't.
Alva Courses does send the course emails itself: enrolment and certificate emails that can come from your own domain. Both start switched off, so tick them on before your first sale. See send from your own domain and send course completions to Klaviyo.
Selling products inside lessons is covered in how to sell products inside course lessons, and putting courses in your menu in add a courses page to your theme.
What each costs, fees included.
As of October 2026, Podia costs $49, $99 or $179 a month, or $42, $84 or $150 a month billed yearly, and its Mover plan adds a 5% transaction fee. Alva Courses costs $9.99 or $14.99 a month with no transaction fee, but it needs a Shopify store, which Podia doesn't. Both offer a 14-day free trial.
| Podia plan | Billed monthly | Billed yearly | Podia fee | Email subscribers | Products | Community spaces |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mover | $49/mo | $42/mo ($504 a year) | 5% | 100 | 50 | 25 |
| Shaker | $99/mo | $84/mo ($1,008 a year) | None | 500 | 150 | 100 |
| Earthquaker | $179/mo | $150/mo ($1,800 a year) | None | 1,000 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Sources: Podia pricing (yearly prices and limits) and Podia's own comparison page (monthly prices), checked 9 October 2026. Stripe or PayPal charge their own processing fee, which Podia lists as 2.9% + 30¢. Affiliates, upsells, PayPal and Zapier start on Shaker.
What the numbers mean in practice
On Mover, every $1,000 of sales costs $50 in Podia fees before processing. Billed monthly, Shaker's extra $50 pays for itself at about $1,000 of sales a month; billed yearly, the $42 gap closes at about $840. A year of Alva Courses Unlimited Pro costs $149.99 billed yearly ($179.88 paid monthly), against $504 for Mover billed yearly.
That comparison only holds if you already pay for Shopify. Podia's price includes a website, checkout and email marketing; with Alva Courses those come from your Shopify plan and apps. If you have no store yet, price a Shopify plan too before you decide.
| plan | Unlimited $9.99/mo Everything to sell courses | Recommended Unlimited Pro $14.99/mo Adds Alva Video Hosting |
|---|---|---|
| Courses, members & comments | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Quizzes, certificates & drip | ||
| Branded course email + custom domain | ||
| Shopify Flow triggers & actions | ||
| Alva Video Hosting (50 GB, no per-video limit) | — | |
| Alva File Storage (course files up to 500 MB) | — | |
| Transaction fee | None | None |
| 14-day free trial |
Plans are chosen on Shopify's app pricing page when you install, and billed through your Shopify invoice. There is no free plan. Full details are on the Alva Courses pricing page.
Which one fits your business?
Start from what you already run. If your business has no store and you want one platform for the site, list, community and courses, Podia is built for that. If you sell on Shopify, especially physical products, Alva Courses adds courses without moving customers to a second site.
Choose Alva Courses if you…
- Already sell on Shopify and want courses in the same checkout
- Sell physical products, kits or books alongside lessons
- Want course buyers in your Shopify customer list
- Already use Shopify Email, Klaviyo or other Shopify apps
- Want long lesson videos hosted for $14.99 a month
- Prefer a flat price with no percentage of sales
Podia may suit you better if you…
- Don't have, or don't want, a Shopify store
- Want the website, blog and email list in the same tool
- Sell coaching, webinars or files as well as courses
- Want community spaces with group chats and DMs
- Want affiliate marketing built in (Shaker and up)
- Would like the vendor to migrate your products
For a community-first platform, see Alva Courses vs Skool. Podia also appears in the Kajabi alternatives roundup and in course app pricing compared. The wider trade-off is in Shopify course app vs standalone LMS, and selling access by subscription in membership courses on Shopify.
Moving courses from Podia to Shopify.
Moving from Podia to Alva Courses is a rebuild, not an import: Alva Courses has no Podia importer. Gather your videos and files, recreate each course in the builder, link it to a Shopify product and enrol existing students from a CSV file. Keep Podia running until you finish, because cancelling takes the Podia site offline.
- Export from Podia first. Gather your original videos and files, copy your lesson text, and export each course's customers to CSV. Podia's help centre says your data is deleted 180 days after a plan is cancelled.
- Install Alva Courses from the Shopify App Store and start the 14-day free trial.
- Rebuild each course. Recreate sections and lessons in the drag-and-drop builder. Upload video to Alva Video Hosting on Unlimited Pro, or embed it from YouTube, Vimeo or Loom.
- Link each course to a Shopify product and set its price. Buyers are enrolled automatically when their order is paid.
- Import students from Members → Bulk Import CSV: email, name and up to ten course columns per row, up to 1,000 lines a file. There is no column-mapping step, so rename Podia's columns to match the template. The enrolment email for imports is optional and starts off.
- Test, then switch. Place a test order, point your links at the store, and cancel Podia once sales arrive in Shopify.
The CSV format is in import members with CSV, and product linking in link a course to a Shopify product. Progress from Podia does not carry over.
Alva Courses fits Shopify sellers who teach. See how it works for content creators and coaches and consultants.
Alva Courses vs Podia: common questions.
Sell courses on Shopify — no second website.
Install Alva Courses from the Shopify App Store, rebuild one course, link it to a product and place a test order while Podia keeps running. Both plans include a 14-day free trial.