Want to jump straight to the answer? The best business course for most people is HubSpot Academy or Earnable.
You don’t need an expensive MBA for a good business education.
Some of the best business courses out there are online and really affordable. That means you’ll be able to get a world-class business education from the comfort of your own home on your own time.
The 4 Best Business Courses
- HubSpot Academy – Best Digital Marketing Courses
- Earnable – Best for Creating an Online Business Selling Info-Products
- Seth Godin’s Freelancer Course – Best for Creating a Freelance Business
- Financial Accounting Made Fun: Eliminating Your Fears – Best Business Accounting Course
Keep reading below for our full reviews of each business course.
HubSpot Academy – Best Digital Marketing Courses
A cornerstone of any good business is its marketing. After all, if people don’t know about your business, you won’t get any business.
That’s why you want to learn a thing or two about marketing. Luckily, the days of costly advertisements on television, billboards, and print media are gone. Anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can get started with digital marketing
That’s where HubSpot Academy comes in.
The company is most known for their marketing automation solutions. However, they also offer a stellar line of courses dedicated to:
- Marketing
- Sales
- Service
- Web design
- Web development
- Data privacy
Some of the courses also come with certifications as well that you can put on your personal
website and LinkedIn page.
While they offer courses across a number of categories, its their digital marketing certifications that really shine. Even if you’re a completely newbie to the subject, their expert team of instructor and digital marketing pros walk you through the basics of it all.
We personally really like their inbound and content marketing certifications. They’re excellent and comprehensive courses that consistently test you on your knowledge to make sure you know the information taught.
The best part? HubSpot Academy is FREE. Try any of their courses and certifications today and level up your marketing game.
Earnable – Best for Creating an Info-Products Business
Full disclosure: We have worked with Ramit before in the past.
While we won’t be sharing any insider knowledge with you, we can say that his Earnable product is one of the best courses out there when it comes to creating a business around selling info-products.
What’s an info-product? It’s a digital product that is focused on teaching or informing your customers. Think online courses, e-books, Internet communities, and more.
From coming up with a million dollar business idea, to creating your site, to coming up with your first product, this course shows you it all.
Ramit draws on more than a decade of experience blogging, selling, and building his business online to help. All of his methods are tested, proven, and have helped thousands of people get their online businesses started as well.
The downside? The course itself is pretty pricey.
Though it’s obscured on his website, there are two ways to purchase Earnable. You can buy the full system with lifetime access to all 15 playbooks and a 60-day money-back guarantee for $149 per month. Another option is to join the waitlist for Earnable Live, which comes with additional features like exclusive bonus content and live coaching sessions with Ramit, for a price of $299 per month.
Seth Godin’s Freelancer Course – Best for Creating a Freelance Business
Freelancing is one of the best ways to earn extra money on the side. It’s also a great way to build a business while you work for someone else.
And when it comes to a good online freelance business course, look no further than Seth Godin. He’s an author, entrepreneur, and the instructor for a fantastic course all on freelancing.
In it you’ll learn:
- How to build a stellar freelance reputation
- Tactics to find and choose good clients
- Strategies to create a personal brand
- Methods of increasing demand for your services
This course isn’t just for beginners either. Even if you’re an experienced freelancer, you’ll be able to use the lessons Godin teaches you to separate your offerings from the pack—and earn more money doing it.
Interested? You can purchase the course on Udemy for a one time payment of $199.99. That’s actually quite the bargain compared to some other business courses out there, and you’ll learn straight from a professional while doing it.
Financial Accounting Made Fun: Eliminating Your Fears – Best Business Accounting Course
Your finances are the bedrock of your business. If they aren’t in order, expect to lose money and potentially face legal trouble down the line.
To help solve that, you’ll want a course that’ll teach you the basics on how to manage your business’s finances in plain and simple language. That’s where Babson’s Financial Accounting Made Fun course comes in.
This is the course for any entrepreneur or business owner scared by numbers. It’ll help you make sense of your financial statements and identify the key metrics you need to track in order to grow your business and profits.
It’ll introduce you to concepts such as:
- Income statements
- Balance sheets
- Cash flow statements
- Financial balancing
- Growth drivers
The course itself is four weeks long. Each week, expect to spend 4-6 hours on the course work. You’ll be taught by Peter Wilson, a professor of accounting and law at Babson College.
Pricing-wise, the course costs $199. After you finish, you’ll receive a signed certificate to show your achievements and knowledge. You can also audit the course for free, but you will have limited access to course materials and will not receive a certificate of completion or graded coursework.
How to Choose the Best Business Course
Wondering about which one you should choose? Or maybe you want to know how we went about choosing the courses to include on this list?
Choosing a course is a difficult process on its face. But really, its simple if you consider a few elements:
Goals
Namely, what do you want to learn from a business course? Your answer is likely going to be different from another person.
After all the beginner entrepreneur starting from scratch is going to have much different goals than the mid-career specialist looking to widen his skill set.
So ask yourself: What am I looking to learn? What are my goals and objectives with my career in business?
This will ultimately be the deciding factor of the course you go with. However, if you really want a well-rounded business learning experience, we recommend taking as many courses as you can (depending on your budget of course).
Instructor qualifications
Who is teaching your course is just as important as the subject matter and price point.
In fact, it’s arguably the most important thing.
When looking at these online business courses, you’ll want to see who will be teaching you. What is their background? What are their qualifications? What have they built and accomplished that makes them the subject matter expert on this topic?
It’s also a good idea to do some research on the instructor. Hit Google up and see if there are any reviews about what it’s like to learn under the person.
Trust me: If someone has a bad experience after springing $200-$2000 on a course, they’re going to let the Internet know about it.
Student testimonials
Related to the instructor qualifications are the testimonials. You want to make sure that students who have taken the course before enjoyed the product and review it warmly.
Of course, the testimonials you find on a course’s website are only worth so much. That’s why you’ll want to see if there are any third-party testimonials out there that can vouch for the course.
Some good places you can look for raw, brutally honest reviews are Reddit and YouTube. Just search the course name or the instructor’s name plus “review.” You’ll likely be furnished with tons of different in-depth reviews on the courses.
Of course, experience is going to vary from student to student. However, we find that the most enlightening information you can get about a course typically comes from these sources.
Bonus: Community
This one isn’t necessary for a good online business course, but it is very nice to have. Check to see if the course comes with access to a community of like-minded students.
Why? A few reasons:
First, a community helps motivate you and keep you on track for your goals. It’s easier to let lessons and homework fall by the wayside if no one is checking in on you. Having others there to help you along is incredibly beneficial psychologically.
A good online community also fosters long-term relationships. These are networking opportunities that might open doors to more business in the future. Even when your course is done, you’ll likely find yourself turning to that community later when you’re in need of help—or when you want to help others out as well.
Like we said though, this isn’t absolutely necessary. However, if a course has a solid community of other students, then you can probably bet it’s a good one.
The Top Business Courses in Summary
The best business courses make it easy to get a good education on your own time from the comfort of your own home. You can even earn certifications and credentials to advance your career.
Choosing the right online course depends on your goals. But if you can afford it, we strongly suggest you take as many business courses as possible.