Ruzuku Reviews

You’re seriously considering Ruzuku as the platform to launch your online course. But you want to read a thorough Ruzuku review to be sure that it meets your expectation.

In this review, I’m going to help you explore this platform from all angles so that you can decide at the end if it’s the best online course hosting platform for you.

This review will cover the following:

  • Course creation
  • Integration
  • Email marketing
  • Affiliate
  • Transaction fee and payment methods
  • Design, Templates, and Customization
  • Automation and Funnels
  • Teleconference and Webinar
  •  Pricing plans
  • Customer support
  • Pros and Cons
  • Alternatives to Ruzuku

Let’s get started

What’s Ruzuku?

Ruzuku is one of the popular online course platforms that offers course creators the features they need to create an awesome learning experience for students.

Ruzuku Reviews

Although not robust as Kajabi, Thinkific, Skillshare, and other A-list online course hosting platforms, it is easy to use and has some great features you need to create, teach and sell your online course.

But when it comes to design, templates, and customization options, Ruzuku lacks behind. So it’s not a choice if care so much about great design.

In that case, what you need is Kajabi which I compared with Teachable in this article. Another highlight of Ruzuku is its pricing plans.

While some course creators see it as reasonable, others see it as expensive compared to the value it offers. But to me it’s affordable.

At least it’s less expensive when compared to Kajabi which many beginner course creators complain of its high pricing plans.

Without wasting much time, let’s start the review properly.

1. Ruzuku Review: Course creation

When it comes to course creation Ruzuku isn’t much different from Podia and Teachable. It doesn’t just deliver in the creation of courses but also in ensuring that the instructing process is suitable for students to derive value from it.

Ruzuku is one Learning Management System that made it easier to set up your school and create your course in minutes.

I doubt if Teachable beats it in this aspect. For a beginner who has little or no experience with LMS but so much excited about creating his first online course, Ruzuku is a choice to make. There’s no learning curve and no coding skill is needed.

Once you login into your dashboard, the features are self-explanatory for you to make use of and create your first course.

As a course creator, you can teach anything you feel like provided it’s in line with Ruzuku’s terms and conditions.

Let’s take a look at what course creation on Ruzuku looks like.

When you log into your dashboard, head to create a new course on the top right side of your dashboard. Click on it to launch your course creator.

Ruzuku Reviews: Course creation

Basically what you do here is to set up your course. You can begin with a welcome video after which you upload the course resources.

Your course resources could be PDFs, audios, videos, or any other kind of file. Ruzuku stores and host all of them for you. You can even decide to make the files downloadable for your students.

In addition, to making the learning process interactive,  you can create a discussion prompt to engage your students in a conversation as it concerns the course.

This I liken to a Facebook group where members interact with one another. The next step in this course creation process is the pricing of your course which you can in minutes.

What are the key course features that Ruzuku offers?

Like I stated above, Ruzuku is awesome if you’re looking for a platform to create and sell your online. Already we have seen from its dashboard what creating a course on it is like. Now let’s look at some of the course features you need to know about.

They are as follows:

  • As a course creator, you can copy a previous course and run it again.
  • There’re daily backups for your courses. This means that your files are safe and you can access them anytime and anywhere.
  • Your course community provides your students with bios, social profiles, and photos.
  • Students know when each activity is completed and can track their individual progress.
  • When students register and pay for your course, they have access to individual support.
  • You can invite or remove participants from your course.
  • Payment for your course is through PayPal or Stripe.
  • There’s a course health feature that shows when a student completes an activity.

 Course payment explained

Of course, you want to make money from your course so it’s important you set a price for it. This is the amount your students will pay before they have access to your course.

To get this done, still, on your dashboard, click on the 3 dots icon beside the notification option to locate pricing. Here you set the price point for your course, save it and grab the link. The link will direct students to register for your course.

Ruzuku Reviews: Pricing point

Once they click on the course link, it requests that they create accounts and make payments with their credit cards and the money goes directly into your account.

2. Integration with third-party apps

Ruzuku integrates with just three third-party apps which are Mailchimp, PayPal, and Stripe. When you log into your dashboard, on the right sidebar, you will see the Integration icon.

Ruzuku Reviews: Integration

This will be a surprise especially if you plan to work with more third-party apps. Its Mailchimp integration allows your student to join your email list as they register for your course.

For those who don’t like Mailchimp and may have liked to use its alternatives for their email marketing, they don’t have an option here.

This is not the same with Kajabi and Teachable which integrate with Convertkit, Segment, Drip in addition to Mailchimp. Thereby giving you more choices when it comes to email marketing.

Also, Ruzuku lacks apps like Zapier and Webhooks which makes it possible to integrate with a large number of third-party apps.

However, when it comes to payment, it integrates with PayPal and Stripe – two giant payment getaways. Kajabi and Teachable also support these kinds of payment methods.

3. Email marketing

You already know that Mailchimp is the email marketing platform that integrates with Ruzuku.

You need to have a Mailchimp account before you can launch email campaigns on Ruzuku. On your Ruzuku dashboard, you’re to add your Mailchimp API to connect it on Ruzuku.

If you’ve a Mailchimp account and don’t know how to get your API key, here is what you need to do.

Go to the settings of your Mailchimp account. Locate your Mailchimp account name. Down the navigation strip, click on account.

Tap on extra and then API keys. Click on create API Key under the API Keys. You will immediately generate your API key.

Copy it and paste it on Ruzuku. That’s it your Mailchimp account is now connected on Ruzuku. You can now create and send emails to your students.

4. Affiliate Management

You can use an affiliate to promote your course and make more money on Ruzuku. This is simply asking others to refer students to your courses while they earn a certain percentage as commission when a student registers.

Affiliate referral on Ruzuku is different from that of Teachable and Kajabi. On Kajabi and Teachable, you have Affiliate as a feature on your dashboard.

Where your affiliates can sign up, grab their affiliate link, and start promoting your course straightaway. But on Ruzuku, You have 3 ways to sell your course through affiliates.

  • Through your University Administrator for those on the University plan.
  • Price points and discount coupons.
  • Shopping carts.

your University Administrator creates an affiliate code with which someone can refer a student to your course. Also, the affiliate code must be added to the link of the course enrolment for the affiliate to be credited.

To get a report on enrolment through your affiliate code, you’ve to contact your University Administrator.

This is one downside of Ruzuku course referral that shouldn’t be. It means that you don’t have the freedom of monitoring the enrolment through your affiliate code as you first have to contact your University Administrator.

Another is through price point and discount coupons.

You can create a discount coupon and price point for affiliates who promote your course. Thanks to Ruzuku’s integration with Stripe and PayPal.

For any student that enrolls in your course through the price points or discount coupon, you can track and download the enrolment information on the dashboard of the student who registered for the course.

The last option for affiliates to promote your course is through shopping carts. This is a website or software that aids the purchase of a product and service.

This to me is far better than the two options stated above as you can access full shopping cart features and track your affiliates and enrolment properly.

5.Transaction fees & payment options reviewed

Many course creators frown at transaction fees because it takes a cut of their revenue. In case you don’t know what transaction fees are, it is the amount in percentage which some course creation platforms charge you for each time you sell a course.

Luckily Ruzuku doesn’t charge you any transaction fee. You keep the revenue you make through the sale of your courses. You only pay a credit card processing fee to credit card companies.

This is not so with its close rival Teachable that charges 10% + $1 for each sale you make through your courses.

Though it is only applicable to course creators on its free plan. When it comes to payment, PayPal and Stripe are two electronic payment giants that  Ruzuku works with. This is to ensure a seamless and fast payment.

6. Designs, Templates & Customizations

If you’re after awesome designs, templates, and customization options, Ruzuku isn’t the best place to get it. I will suggest you turn to Kajabi.

For example, Creating courses on Ruzuku doesn’t come with advanced customization options. No course builder, website builder, or page builder.

This limits what you can do in terms of giving your courses a great outlook apart from what Ruzuku says it’s good.

7. Ease of use

Ruzuku is beginner-friendly and easy to use. Creating courses on the platform can be done in minutes.

No learning curve, no coding skills. You don’t even need to be tech-savvy. Creating your course is like breeze. With the simple graphical tool it offers, you can create your course on Ruzuku without assistance.

Even on the course creation window, there are articles that can guide you on what you’re expected to do at every stage.

8. Automation & Funnels

Again Ruzuku lacks behind in this area. Automation and Funnels are advanced features some A-list course hosting platforms offer to help course creators drive more conversion to their digital products. Kajabi is good at this.

Its Pipeline offers what you get from funnels in marketing. It has pipeline templates which you can customize to set up funnels for your courses and other digital products.

Teachable also supports this feature but not robust like Kajabi. So if you’re looking up to Ruzuku for automation and funnels, then you have to look elsewhere.

9. Webinars

You can host webinars on Ruzuku. This feature is incorporated into your course. As an instructor, you can stream live videos to your students who enrolled in your course with your computer’s webcam.

For optimum performance, a maximum of 100 students are allowed to participate in your webinar. If the number is above 100, it may affect the quality of the Iive event.

You can share your slide with your participants and they can interact with you through chat. Instructors on Ruzuku can record the webinar to enable students who didn’t participate in the webinar to listen on-demand.

To help increase the number of participants to your webinar, Ruzuku automatically sends reminders to students who enrolled for the event. The reminder can be 2 days or a few hours before the start of the webinar.

Let’s see how the webinar set up on Ruzuku looks like.

On your dashboard, click on course. You will see the webinar option on the top side of your dashboard.

Ruzuku Reviews: Webinar

Click on it and you see the option to create a webinar. A pop up will appear where you name your webinar, set up the date and duration for it.

10. Instructor – Student Relationship

A cordial relationship between the course instructor and students is key in any Learning Management System. It leads to the actualization of the course objectives. Ruzuku has some features to support this.

For example, a student can post a question about the course and the instructor gets notification of it in real-time so as to respond appropriately.

There are also prompts/questions for specific course activities where the instructor and students review the progress made.

Plus that you can send email notifications to them as it concerns the course. This kind of relationship is a win-win for all.

The course creator earns from the payments students make to access the course. Students themselves derive value from the course they paid for.

11. Ruzuku’s Pricing Plans Reviewed

Ruzuku’s pricing plans are the amount you need to pay either monthly or yearly to be able to be on this platform as a course creator.

It’s important we review them because no matter how you prefer Ruzuku, you can’t create courses on it if the pricing plans are what you can’t afford.

Ruzuku has 3 different pricing plans:

BootStrapper ($99/month)

Its features are:

  • Supports payment through PayPal and Stripe.
  • No transaction fees.
  • Payments are made directly to you.
  • Host unlimited audio, video, and data.
  • Basic commerce features with the option to offer coupons.
  • Create unlimited courses.
  • No restriction to the number of students you can have.
  • One course instructor.
  • Offers support.

Up and Comer ( $149/month)

Here are its features:

  • Single instructor.
  • Host unlimited webinars.
  • Create unlimited courses.
  • Unlimited students.
  • Create polls and quizzes.
  • Unlimited data, audio, and video hosting.
  • Charges no transaction fees.
  • Customers pay you directly.
  • Payment methods are Stripe and PayPal.
  • Payment and subscription plans.
  • You can offer coupons.
  • Offers support.

University( Starting from $ 199/month)

Its features are:

  • Several site managers.
  • More than a course instructor.
  • You have a domain.
  • Create unlimited courses
  • No restriction to the number of students who can enroll in your course.
  • Host unlimited webinars.
  • You can create quizzes and polls.
  • 0% transaction fees.
  • Supports Stripe and PayPal as payment methods.
  • You have a dedicated account manager.
  • Basic commerce with the option to offer coupons.
  • Customers pay directly to you.
  • Host unlimited video, data, and audio files.
  • Customer support.
Ruzuku Reviews: Pricing plans

I guess you’d like to save money with Ruzuku’s pricing plans. Ruzuku also has an annual plan. Here you get a discount for paying 12 amounts upfront.

Below is what you for any of the plans annually.

  • BootStrapper ( $74.75) Billed annually.
  • Up and Comer ( 83.08) Billed annually.
  • University ( Starting from $125) Billed annually.

If you’re not skimming this article, you’ll observe that the features in each of the pricing plans vary.

The higher the pricing plan, the more features you’ve access to. You will also notice that the annual plan offers you a discount when you compare it to the monthly plan.

With that being said, let’s look at the features all the pricing plans I discussed with you above have in common.

  • Integration with two electronic payment giants – PayPal and Stripe.
  • Daily backups for your courses.
  • Teach your students from anywhere around the world with Global Content Delivery Network.
  • Unlimited data storage.
  • Upload video and audio files without limit.
  • Unlimited courses.
  • Dedicated customer support.
  • Unlimited students.

12. Ruzuku Review: Customer support

Already from the pricing plan features, we got to know that Ruzuku offers customer support. But it’s time to examine it to see the kind of customer support it offers.

You can reach out to Ruzuku customer support through email for assistance.  They respond to emails within 24 business hours.( Monday – Friday, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm Eastern time).

They also offer limited telephone support hours. You have to book a call with them. You can get help through knowledge base articles that can guide you on how to resolve issues yourself.

Plus you can connect with them through Facebook and Twitter to be updated on new developments.

Going further, let’s dive into the Pros and Cons of Ruzuku. I have collated this information to help you in deciding if this online course hosting platform is for you or not.

Ruzuku: Pros

  • Has decent features you need to create a course.
  • You can create as many courses as you want.
  • No restriction on the number of students that can enroll in your courses.
  • Beginner- friendly and easy to use.
  • Affordable pricing plan.
  • You can host webinars and teleconferences.
  • You can promote your course through affiliates.
  • Charges no transaction fee.
  • Has features that support the instructor-student relationship.
  • You can host unlimited video, audio, and data.
  • No cap on storage.
  • Offers a 14-day free trial which doesn’t require credit card details.
  • You get a refund if you cancel your plan in the first 30 days.
  • Your courses remain on the database even if you cancel your plan and exit the platform. This is in case you may want to refer to them later.
  • You can upgrade or downgrade your plan anytime with no charges.
  • Teach students from anywhere around the world.
  • Fast servers ensure that your course pages load speedily.

Ruzuku: Cons

  • Lacks advanced designs, templates, and customization options.
  • Affiliate program for courses isn’t robust.
  • Email marketing lacks advanced features.
  • Integrates with PayPal, Stripe, and Mailchimp only.
  • You can’t build advanced funnels.
  • Lacks Live Chat as a customer support channel.
  • No free plan.

That’s it with Ruzuku review. At this point, I trust you must have made up your mind whether  Ruzuku is the platform to create and sell your course or not. Whichever decision you take is up to you.

But there’re other online course platforms that are alternatives to Ruzuku. I collated a few pieces of information about them should you decide not to go with Ruzuku.

Ruzuku Alternatives

1. Podia

Over 25,000 course creators are on this platform, creating and selling their online courses and other digital products.

Podia

It has the features you need to create your online course. For example, it has a website builder, course builder, and email marketing tools. It can help you migrate your content free from another online course platform.

While Ruzuku integrates with only Mailchimp, PayPal, and Stripe, Podia integrates with more. For example, it integrates with ConvertKit, Aweber, Mailchimp, Drip, Activecampaign, GetResponse, MailerLite.

Others are Facebook, Pinterest, and Google Ads. With Zapier one can connect with 1000+ third-party apps. Also, you can create a membership site to make money from your exclusive content.

It has good customization options that allow you to add and remove pages, add a logo, and make some changes to your website.

Just like Ruzuku, it charges no transaction fee. When it comes to customer support, it offers Live Chat assistance. It’s pricing plans are less expensive when compared to Ruzuku.

2. Kajabi

This is a giant and a leading online course platform. In fact, it is an all-in-one business solution when it comes to creating and selling your digital products.

Kajabi

Although it has higher pricing plans when compared to Ruzuku, its designs, templates, and customization options are on point. You can build funnels to automate and scale your marketing through its Pipeline feature.

It has robust email marketing features. Zapier helps it connect with 500+  third-party apps. When it comes to course setup, it offers great features but they may be complex for a beginner.

It also limits you to the number of courses you can create and the number of active students you can have. Read this article where I compared Podia and Kajabi in detail.

3. Teachable

Teachable is another platform that offers you great features to create your courses. 100,000+ course creators are already on the platform.

Teachable

You can create unlimited courses and have unlimited students. It integrates with third-party apps through Webhooks. It has a good course design and few customization options but not advanced as Kajabi.

You can promote your digital products through affiliates and it has email marketing features to capture your target audience and sell to them.

Teachable supports you to receive payment through PayPal and Mobile pay in 130+ different currencies worldwide.

It offers support through email and request forms for sales-related issues. But one downside of Teachable is that it charges transaction fees for creators on its free and basic plans. For free plan, it’s 10% + $1 and 5% for basic plan.

This applies to every sale you make through your courses. Check out the comparison I did on Teachable Vs Kajabi.

Conclusion

I trust by now you know what it means to host a course on Ruzuku. I have explored all its features and what one can expect from an online course platform.

It’s left for you to decide if Ruzuku is for you. One takeaway here is that Ruzuku is okay if you want a mid-range platform to create and sell your courses.

Also, I revealed to you some of its alternatives you can try should you decide not to go with it.

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *