Ruzuku

Ruzuku is an online course platform with the basic tools you need to offer your program to the world.

It was started in 2010 and is one of the longest standing in the industry.

The platform falls into the course-only category and is more catered to people that don’t need the full stack of tools an all-in-one could provide.

We’ll review the different features Ruzuku offers and see how it compares to other platforms in the industry.

Let’s start by digging into everything Ruzuku can do for you and what it doesn’t.

Here are the main features available:

The bottom line is that you can easily take payments and deliver your program with Ruzuku, but there aren’t many marketing tools.

Again, if this is something you already have sorted and just somewhere to host the course - then Ruzuku could be a good fit!

Sales Page

When setting up your online course on Ruzuku, you’ll be able to set up sales pages (1 per course).

This isn’t fully customizable but you’ll be able to add premade sections to make it yours.

You can’t really move elements around too much but you can change the content, colors and assets from the done-for-you sections.

That being said, you can surely create a well-designed sales page using Ruzuku, you may just have to make some concessions on exactly how it looks.

Another thing to mention is the fact that you won’t be able to use a custom domain on the platform.

All of your pages and courses will use the Ruzuku domain…

You can’t create standalone pages that aren’t sales pages of course. That’s why Ruzuku isn’t meant to be used as a site or funnel builder

Checkout & Payment

The platform allows you to take payment and sort course access directly to create a seamless purchase experience.

You can connect 2 payment gateways: Stripe or Paypal.

You’ll then create Price Points for your course:

Different payment types are available:

• Free
• One-time payment
• Subscription (monthly or yearly)
• Payment Plans

You can also enable free trials or limit access duration of the course.

This will then create a checkout link you can use to sell your courses - note: you can’t edit the design of the checkout.

That’s really all the checkout features offer, you won’t be able to create upsells or downsells and there is no affiliate program feature.

Online Course Building

The main feature Ruzuku offers is a fully fledged online course builder.

You can build different Modules that can then be broken down into Lessons.

Each Lesson can contain a range of media: text, video, files,etc.

You can also enable the following for each Lesson:

• Enable downloads
• Enable a discussion
• Enable Assessments

Discussions take the form of a chat like space where members can interact with each other and ask questions directly within the program:

Assessments can be Quizzes, Polls or an Assignment.

Quizzes and Polls can serve as a passing test for students' knowledge and are a great way to create engagement on your online program.

Assignments are a way to let users submit their work which you can then review for them.

You can track a student's progress in the course in the back-end of the platform too.

Lastly, you can release your modules on a drip timeline, whether that’s on a specific date or based on the student’s enrollment.

Other Tools

Here are some other features worth highlighting:

• Live meeting: Ruzuku has a native feature to allow online meetings or conference calls. There is a limit depending on the type of meeting you want to run.

These sessions can be recorded and downloaded after.

You can also connect your Zoom account for a seamless connection between the two platform

• Calendar: this feature allows you to take a look at events for your online course community and create new meetings or emails to go out on certain dates.

Note that there are no email features offered in Ruzuku, but you can set up a welcome email or an external CRM via Zapier.

Ruzuku offers a very satisfying experience with very contrasting colors and easy to understand navigation.

I particularly like the fact that you can switch to see the Student View once your course is ready:

As we’ve pointed out throughout this review, there is a lack of customization in some aspects of the platform which could impact the student’s experience.

But again if you’re using Ruzuku for your online courses only and another platform for your main website, then this might not be a big deal!

Ruzuku has one of the best free plans in the industry, with no transaction fees and unlimited video hosting.

The paid plans you’ll need to enroll more than 5 students start at $99/mo.

This is relatively on the high end considering that Ruzuku doesn’t take care of things like funnel building or email marketing, which are going to be additional expenses.

You’ll need to upgrade to the $199/mo plan if you want to use a custom domain - and not the default Ruzuku one.

This may be a turn off for some users that are already paying for a lot of other tools and just need a course host, but may be worth it if you don’t want to compromise on quality.

Ruzuku provides a few Help Articles which should help you answer some of the basic questions around using the platform.

You can also use the live chat feature to get an answer from the support team directly and fairly quickly.

There is no official forum or group to meet and connect with fellow Ruzuku users but there is an unofficial Facebook group with about 1,000 users!