Dave Jackson
Years ago there was a course builder called Member Vault that had a fully functional free plan that enabled you to sell your course. This was a great way to get proof of concept. Once you had people buying your course/community, you could then upgrade to a higher plan (which you could afford). Unfortunately, they turned off their free version.
Recently I discovered Fresh Learn, which has a fully functional free plan. If you need to upgrade, it's only $39/month ($29 if you go for a year). If you need to "No Brainer" version, it's only $69 a month ($49 if you go with a year). It's very impressive, and while other sites like Teachable are raising their fees, the two systems I'm talking about today have zero fees.
Fresh Learn has no fees on any plan, and neither does New Zenler. New Zenler is $67/month and is similar to Kajabi. While Fresh Learn also has marketing tools (email lists), New Zenler (being around longer) appears to have a few more. Fresh Learn has 20/7 live chat which is nice.
As a customer of New Zenler I can say that their service is like nothing I have ever experienced. They are constantly doing live sessions where you can connect and work with others as well as demos, open Q&A sessions and more. Their email support was helpful and quick.
Part of this was kicked off by hearing that Teachable is raising their fees (not a ton, but meanwhile, these two options don't have ANY fees)
The point of this episode was to show that if you want proof of concept without paying for a course tool, then Fresh Learn may be something you need to check out.