When creating online courses for commercial purposes or for training employees in your company, it’s extremely essential that you use great tools that will see you create educative, useful, and practical courses that will help the people who are working with the courses, get maximum value.
Having this in mind, I’m sure in your efforts to look for a platform that can help you achieve that, you have crossed paths with iSpring and maybe you are wondering if it is a good fit for your objectives, right?
Well, to help you find an answer to that question, this detailed iSpring review seeks to give you more insight into this course creation software so that you understand exactly how it works and determine if it’s a platform you can get the value you are looking for.
So, let’s get right into things here.
Name: iSpring
Website: www.ispringsolutions.com
Cost: Varies with the various plans
Founder: Yury Uskov
Rating: 92/100
Table of Contents
What is iSpring
iSpring is more of software that has been made to help you with the creation of online courses that you can make available to your audience, the team you work with on your company for training purposes, and even be able to do other course creation tasks such as collaboration, among many others.
iSpring not only helps you to create courses but also to market them so that you can make money from the people who are interested in them.
Essentially, with iSpring, you get to have a place where you can create, manage and promote your courses.
They have various resources that I will be walking you through in a few minutes that will help you add everything you want in your course including quizzes, videos, dialogue simulations, interactive assessments, and any other kind of customizations you wish to have to make it thorough and helpful to those who will be using it.
It is a good place for anyone who wishes to come up with any type of online course for any niche out there as it has some of the best provisions for doing that.
In my opinion, I feel that iSpring has really done a good job of providing great tools and resources for course creation.
Spring was founded in 2001, by Yury Uskov and has been in the market for almost 2 decades now. Its headquarters are in Alexandria, United States of America.
So you can be sure that they are here to stay.
It has more than 240 employees serving a client base of around 54,000 clients from various parts of the world and it is constantly evolving to become the best platform out there.
How iSpring Works
iSpring seeks to provide you with the necessary tools for your course creation journey.
Whatever you wish to create, be it webinars, video tutorial lessons, among other forms of eLearning resources, you are provided all the essentials that will help you do that in the best way possible.
The good thing about iSpring is that you don’t need deep IT knowledge and skills to find your way around because everything has been made super easy for you and is actually beginner-friendly, so you can expect that the whole experience will be an easy one for you.
In addition to this, since we know how difficult it can be to market your eLearning materials, the platform offers you a way to get your work in front of an audience so that you are able to make money off of your courses easily and fast.
Once you make your e-learning content available for purchase, learners can buy it through credit cards or other payment options such as PayPal, Visa, Stripe, and Authorize.net.
There are also tools you can use to engage and support your learners as they go through the courses and they even get certificates on completion of the courses.
Other special features such as mobile apps help make your materials more accessible through other mobile devices and improves the overall experience both for you (the author), and the learners.
The Main iSpring Features
There are 3 main products that iSpring offers their users, these are iSpring Suite, iSpring Learn, and iSpring Market.
1. iSpring Suite
This is a content creation tool that allows you to develop the bulk of your course, whether you want to shoot screencasts, add quizzes, video narration, or any other form of learning material.
It is more of a PowerPoint-based tool where you are able to come up with different sections for your courses at a time and include all the visuals and information you want for optimal delivery.
In this tool, you get more than 1,000 location images, 450 slide templates and 65,000 character images, 200 course templates, 1400 buttons, and icons that you can use in your course.
You can even work with teammates on the courses, create assessment tests, and add role plays to your presentations to make things easily understandable.
Once you are done with the course, you are given the ability to publish the courses quickly in many places including iSpring Learn, iSpring Space, any learning management system you want, and even the web.
2. iSpring Learn
This is a Learning Management System (LMS) where you get to create your courses for the employees or people you are training for different purposes.
This tool allows you to not only create courses but also get to track the learning experience of those people and be able to observe and manage their progress easily.
You can use this tool for sales training, product training, channel training, compliance training, getting new employees on-board with the work they will be doing as well as offer certificates to those who successfully complete the courses.
You are able to use your own branding on the courses, you can share data with your colleagues safely, and even get to access the courses using different mobile devices while you are on the go.
iSpring Learn also comes with iSpring suite so get the extra edge with it compared to its competitors.
3. iSpring Market
This is a provision that allows you to monetize your content.
You get the ability to add your courses to the marketplace once you are done creating them and make them available for anyone who wishes to get better in the area you have covered.
With iSpring Market, you will be able to upload all your courses to the marketplace and categorize them so that potential customers can have good user experience as they navigate through your courses.
You can choose to group the courses as one huge course with many useful chapters or sell them separately.
Your courses are exposed to different sources of potential customers including search engines and the people who visit the marketplace regularly.
And you can take advantage of that to promote your work by offering discounts and free courses to get more people to it. You can also track the performance of your courses here easily with the analytics tools provided by iSpring.
Other awesome products you also get in iSpring include:
* iSpring Page – This is another tool that helps you build mini courses on a topic that people can read in a few minutes, understand, and be able to make the knowledge they have gained in that area work in their lives immediately.
With this tool, you can create the mini-courses fast, organize them well and even create questions to effectively test the understanding of the learner with differently structured questions, among other features.
* iSpring Converter Pro – This is a provision that comes as a PowerPoint add-in that you can use to convert your PowerPoint information into HTML (a programming language for the web) or to MP4 (for video purposes).
If you want to publish your information on a website and get to keep the logic and structure of the information including charts, links, and others, this is a good provision to use.
* iSpring QuizMaker – This is a tool for creating quizzes within your courses. It is one of the most comprehensive quiz makers I have seen.
You can create quizzes using different formats such as drag and drop, multiple choices, matching, filling in the blank spaces, multiple responses, following the right sequence, giving short answers, and even audio quizzes, to name just a few.
* iSpring Cam Pro – This one is used for creating video courses, software tutorials, and how-to videos. You are able to add pictures and presentations as well as allow feedback within any time frame in your video courses.
On top of that, you can easily upload the videos to iSpring LMS or any other Learning Management System and YouTube.
* iSpring SDK – This is more like iSpring Converter Pro. It helps with converting PowerPoint presentations to a web page format and also has different features and resources that are web-based that you can use to further enhance your work.
There are also other tools like iSpring River (for the conversion of PowerPoint information to videos in MP4 format and for YouTube), iSpring Flip (for converting PDF and Word documents to flipbooks using the SCORM format which blends with any Learning Management System out there), and iSpring Free (which offers fundamental eLearning authoring tools for creating quizzes and course for free) and others that are worth exploring too.
iSpring Customer Reviews
Looking at what various people had to say about the platform, most users agree that it is indeed a good platform for creating and promoting eLearning material.
Some of the things that users seem to love about it include providing value for money, how simple it is to use, and also the fact that it offers great customer service.
However, since no platform is perfect, some users had trouble with adding videos to their training and also feel the cost is a bit high.
Here is what they said:
The Positive Reviews
“Both the authoring tools and iSpring Learn web interface are intuitive to use and have plenty of support in the form of documentation, videos and support staff that are always available and quick to reply. I particularly like the reporting functions and the level of detail and control that can be used in tracking users’ progress.”
“Very user-friendly : a child could do it! No lags or bugs slowing the process : very smooth! Nice interface design : buttons / thumbnails / etc are put at the right place! Good customer service : easy to reach them and have tech support!”
“iSpring Suite is straightforward and its ability to generate HTML5 online learning modules is remarkable – no effort is required, conversion of audio and video are effortless and there are essentially NO errors ever! But what I really like is the support. It’s not often that I need support, but the email responsiveness of the Technical Engineers has always been quick, accurate and useful. That was true again this week, prompting me to write this review.”
“Like the title says, the software is easy to use and meets all my e-learning development needs. I like the full integration in PowerPoint, totally seamless moving in and out of the Suite and the Learn LMS.”
The Negative Reviews
“It’s too expensive for a 3rd world country public teacher like me.”
“Video screen capture and editing is not as good a other dedicated screen capture programs, but the merging of these videos is easy and then the animation and narration can be done in iSpring.”
“The yearly maintenance cost is quite high approximately $970 for full version of the iSpring Suite. Sometimes it runs slow and requires good network connection.”
“So far the biggest dislike is that you cannot choose more than one media piece at a time. For example, if I wanted to add numbers for bullet points, you have to manually pick the content one by one instead of having an option to choose multiple pieces of content at once.”
You can read more customer reviews here.
iSpring Pros and Cons
The Pros
~ It is user-friendly because it plugs directly into PowerPoint
~ It offers robust course authoring tools
~ It offers great 24/7 customer support
~ It offers a free 14-day free trial period and you don’t need to provide your credit card
~ It’s mobile-friendly
The Cons
~ It’s quite expensive even if you are assured that you will get value for your money
How to Use iSpring
If you are just getting started with the platform, these are the steps you want to follow;
Step 1. Understand your objective well and use that to determine the tools and resources you feel you will need to use from iSpring.
Step 2. Go to www.ispringsolutions.com to get started.
Step 3. Create a free account that you can use to take advantage of the 14 days free trial.
Step 4. Go to the tools you intend to be using and test drive them for free so that you are able to determine if they are exactly what you need.
Step 5. Once the free trial period is over and you feel that the platform meets your needs, you can start working with it completely by upgrading to a paid plan.
iSpring Pricing
When it comes to pricing, iSpring gives various options.
Firstly, there are two main plans, that is iSpring Suite and iSpring Suite Max, which are paid yearly.
Here they are:
√iSpring Suite
This package gives you access to iSpring Suite and these are the costs depending on the number of authors your account will have.
– For 1 author, you pay $770/year
– For 3 authors, each author pays $650/year
– For 5 authors, each author pays $620/year
√iSpring Suite Max
This package gives you access to iSpring Suite, the Content Library, and iSpring Space (that offers online working space for your projects), and 24/7 customer support. For this plan you will have to cough:
– $970/year for 1 author
– $820/year for 3 authors
– $770/year for 5 authors
Other than these 2, you also get other plans for various provisions. Let’s have a look at them.
√iSpring LMS
This package is what you should get if you want to use iSpring Learn. You will unlock the iSpring Learning Management System (LMS) with this.
You pay this plan according to the number of active users you have.
– For 100 users, you will be charged $3.66 per month but will be charged annually. Once you pay, you will be able to create up to 50 courses, access to the iSpring Suite authoring toolkit and you will also get full customer support.
– For 300 users, you will be charged $3 per month, charged annually and you get access to the iSpring Suite authoring toolkit, the ability to create unlimited courses, and the single sign-on feature that helps your users skip the login step when they are on your website.
– For 500 users, you will be charged $2.82 per month, also charged annually, and you will get 2 accounts of the iSpring Suite authoring toolkit as well as the single sign-on and premium support.
If you have more than 500 users, you can contact iSpring to get a custom plan that fits your specific needs.
√iSpring Market
If you plan on using the iSpring market, you get charged based on the number of users you have. Here are the payment options you have and what each comes with:
– For 500 users, you get 25GB of space and you pay $77/month or $924/year
– For 1000 users, you get 50 GB of space and you pay $147/month or $1,764/year
– For 2000 users, you get 100GB of space and you pay $277/month or $3324/year
For more than 2000 users, you can also contact the support team to create a plan for you.
If you want to get the other single tools for your various business projects, here is what you are going to pay:
– For iSpring Page, you pay $97/year
– For iSpring QuizMaker, you pay $370/year
– For iSpring Converter Pro, you pay $270/year
– For iSpring Cam Pro, you pay $227/year
– For iSpring Flip, you pay $227/year
– For iSpring River, you pay $97/year
– For iSpring SDK, you have to ask for a quote.
One thing to note is that you can try them out for free first before you invest, which is great.
Competitor Comparison
There are many other platforms that provide course creation tools online and they form the basis for competition with iSpring.
Let’s have a look at some of these other similar sites including Articulate 360, Cenario VR, Lectora as well as Easy Generator, and see how much competition they give iSpring.
iSpring vs Articulate 360
This is a platform that offers e-learning solutions through tools such as Storyline 360, Rise 360, Content library 360, and Review 360, among others.
Compared to iSpring, the platform’s starting price is $1299/year and offers a better free trial period of 60 days.
Looking at features, both platforms offer really great features for creating online courses.
As far as support is concerned, iSpring boasts of better support than Articulate 360 because for instance it offers 24/7 support which isn’t the case with Articulate and when it comes to training, it offers more options too.
Basically, when it comes to pricing, iSpring offers value for money and thus would be a better option because with it you get all the features in Articulate 360 and then some, at a more cheaper price.
So I would recommend iSpring in this case.
iSpring vs Cenario VR
This is another site that offers authoring tools for e-learning materials.
Putting it up against iSpring, the platform offers a 30-day free trial period which is superior to that of iSpring and pricing starts at $89 so it’s cheaper.
Looking at the features, iSpring emerges as the winner because it offers great audio and support features, as well as tools for responsive design.
Despite all this, Cenario is better than iSpring in areas such as offering virtual reality features, and also caters to a wide range of customers than iSpring does.
The bottom line on these two platforms is that both are great and but if seeking more features iSpring would be great.
On the other hand, if you are getting started and don’t want to strain your pocket along with the need for the advanced virtual reality features and live score updates for your course users, then Cenario offers is a good option for you.
iSpring vs Lectora
This is another platform that allows you to start your creating your courses using various interactive tools.
Compared to iSpring, the platform has a free trial period but to know what you will get with the free trial or access other parts of the platform, you have to sign up for it to get your way around it, which is not good for most people who like “window shopping” first even before they start the free trial.
Its pricing plan begins at $899/year.
When it comes to features, a lot is similar between the two platforms but when you look at the types of interactions you get with each, Lectora offers more options such as wizard-based interactions.
In addition to this, looking at the types of navigation, Lectora offers more options such as virtual reality features.
Therefore, if you feel these are important in your course creation process, then Lectora would be the best option.
√iSpring vs Easy Generator
To start with, in this category of e-learning development, Easy Generator has been rated well for usability, usefulness, and customer experience.
The same case applies for iSpring but looking further at comparisons, its pricing plans start at $99 and offer a 14-day free trial period.
Looking at the features, iSpring caters to more customers, offers better support, animation features, audio and image features, interface options, and much more.
With that said, iSpring is better than Easy generator in many ways and would be better placed for a smooth online course creation process.
My Final Thoughts on iSpring
In my opinion, iSpring is an outstanding legitimate platform for your course creation needs, and for this reason, I highly recommend it to you.
It provides amazing, user-friendly features thereby making course creation an enjoyable journey for you.
Yet, as much as it’s a great platform, I would like you to know that it’s not without fault and you are bound to experience a few hiccups with it along the way, but the good thing is that the platform keeps on making improvements so you will not experience problems forever.
Plus, with the great customer support, you will always be in a position to get quick help when you get stuck.
I hope this iSpring has come in handy for you as you consider it as an option for making your courses.
If you have any questions about it or online course creation platforms in general, shoot them in the comments and I will shoot an answer right back. 🙂
I would also love to hear your thoughts about iSpring.
So make sure you remember to tell us what you think below or you will be haunted by Casper the friendly ghost. 🙂
