Accredible Review – The Good and Bad for 2023

You love learning. We love learning, too. And while you’re at it, it’s nice to get certificates for completing a workshop or course and be motivated by badges and awards throughout your learning journey.

This is exactly what Accredible does. It’s a one-stop-shop for your digital credentials that gives you the tools to design on-brand certificates, badges, and diplomas to your learners. By rewarding them for their time and effort, you empower them to pursue a path of continuous growth and lifelong learning. And who doesn’t want that?

Accredible: The Good and the Bad

Whether you’re working in a learning management system—or LMS—for corporate training or working in higher education, digital credentials are here to stay. With Accredible, you get everything you need to create and issue digital credentials to your learners that last a lifetime.

Still, there were a few downsides to Accredible. The customization options felt a bit limited, especially when we were using the badge builder, and we noticed a lack of unique designs. Plus, it takes some time to learn.

What Accredible Is Good At

Instant, verifiable credentials: As soon as a learner completes a course module, program, or level, you can automatically generate and award digital badges, certificates, and blockchain-verified credentials to their inbox.

This lets users instantly showcase new skills or achievements on LinkedIn, resumes, and websites. No more waiting weeks for paper certificates to arrive in the mail.

Accredible also allows you to create mobile-ready digital wallet cards that learners can save for on-the-go access without needing wifi or data.

Verifiable authenticity is baked in, too. Metadata attached to each credential allows one-click verification, while bank-level encryption and blockchain logging prevent forgeries.

Customizable on-brand templates: Accredible’s library of templates and customization tools make it easy to create professional, branded digital credentials.

The drag-and-drop badge builder is intuitive, and the editor provides controls to match the look and feel of your learning programs beyond simply designing your logo.

Add custom URLs, emails, and landing pages for a seamless learner experience. Or use white labeling to fully reflect your brand identity. Automatic name assignment and renewal/expiry settings can be adjusted retroactively, further simplifying credential management.

Accredible Pathways: Accredible lets you enrich learning journeys by turning static course catalogs into dynamic roadmaps that steer learners to success.

Visual journeys showcase upcoming courses and complexity levels, mapping out milestones that empower learners to achieve more. At the same time, gamify the process by issuing badges and certificates at key progress points so they stay invested for longer.

Stackable badges illustrate growing expertise as learners advance. You can even build branching pathways, which provide rewards and clear choices like alternative electives.

Spotlight Directory: Accredible’s Spotlight Directory—available at the higher price tiers—is a powerful networking and talent matching tool that transforms static achievements into dynamic opportunities.

Your profile acts like a visual résumé that collects all your accomplishments and developed abilities at a glance.

Using Spotlight Directory, learners showcase their credentials in profiles that employers and recruiters can browse to discover qualified candidates and contact them about job openings.

Even better, insightful job market data reveals to learners which credentials are valued by real companies today. This intelligence helps learners make smart decisions for career growth.

Built-in social sharing features for indirect marketing: Accredible makes it easy for learners to display credentials on social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and over 20 more platforms.

When learners post certificates or badges using the built-in share button, it links directly back to your certification page. Credentials can also be embedded in websites and emails, further amplifying your brand.

This showcasing of credentials works as a kind of indirect marketing that lets contacts discover you organically. As learners display your badges with pride, it simultaneously raises awareness of your offerings through word-of-mouth. It’s a win-win.

Data analytics: Accredible provides a series of dashboards to quantify credential program ROI. It uses key metrics like enrollment numbers, completion rates, social shares, downloads, and clicks.

By monitoring engagement metrics, you can boost learning interventions for maximum return. You also see which courses have been adopted frequently and those that have issued the most certificates.

Job market data pulled from 65,000 sources around the globe illustrates career outcomes and displays the salary ranges aligned to your credentials. This convinces learners of the tangible benefits of pursuing your learning program. You can even showcase high-demand jobs ideal for learners with certain credentials.

LMS integrations for automated workflows: Accredible integrates with major learning management systems (LMS) platforms like Moodle, WordPress, Thinkific, and more. This streamlines issuing certificates and badges as learners complete a course.

By syncing with your existing learning system, credentials can be instantly sent to learner inboxes. Or award them at particular times or under certain conditions—such as passing assessments—based on rules you set up.

For those without an LMS, it’s easy to upload spreadsheets of learner details in bulk thanks to Accredible automatically creating user accounts. With support for all leading course platforms, Accredible simplifies the process of issuing credentials at set milestones without all the tedious manual work.

Recommendations feature: The Recommendations feature lets you target promotions to ideal learners, potentially increasing enrollments and registrations.

Based on a pay-per-click model, this function puts your credentials in front of motivated learners directly on the Accredible platform. At the same time, learners benefit from recommendations tailored to their goals which highlight the credentials that fit their needs.

Keep in mind that Recommendations is a paid promotion channel. Issuers choose placement and pay per click or conversion, and top placement demands higher fees.

This feature could provide a lot of value and visibility, but the paid aspect means it should be evaluated for ROI versus other alternatives.

Accredible’s Potential Drawbacks

Limited customization options: During testing, we felt Accredible’s customization options were rather limited. For instance, the badge builder, while simple to use, had a basic range of modification capabilities.

To be sure, you can add backgrounds, text, images, icons, ribbons, and documents to your badge. But it lacked advanced controls like adjusting contrast, brightness, or distortion.

For basic shapes and layouts, the badge builder performs fine. However, it felt restrictive when it came to creating unique designs and the number of provided templates felt inadequate. If you’re looking to craft tailored, one-of-a-kind designs, the toolset definitely has room to expand.

Learning curve: Expect a moderate learning curve when first implementing Accredible. In particular, it takes time to master credential creation, automation rules, and analytics, among other functionalities.

Users commonly cited the challenges of automating workflows, configuring settings, and issuing credentials. The platform’s UI was not the most intuitive, but most users reported getting over the hurdle within a few weeks to months.

Allow sufficient onboarding and training time when transitioning to Accredible. Fluent usage will not happen overnight.

A few user complaints: Despite receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback, some users reported minor frustrations with Accredible, such as its lack of granular analytics.

Users wished there was an ability to view specific social share links versus just high-level sharing metrics, which could optimize your content and engagement. Pricing was also a cause for concern for some, with plans starting around $1,000 per year. For modest budgets, this cost could be prohibitive.

Users faced hurdles when integrating with certain LMS platforms and setting up API syncing, while a few others had difficulty streamlining and customizing workflows. Furthermore, a minority of customers hoped for more design features and templates.

Accredible Plans and Pricing

Accredible’s pricing plans are based on the number of unique recipients you have, not the amount of credentials you issue. That means you can send unlimited badges, certificates, and diplomas to recipients each year.

You choose the plan that has all of the features sufficient for your goals, and only pay for what you use. From small companies to larger institutions, Accredible offers enough customizability in their pricing scheme to fit all needs, with the features to match.

Launch plan

The Launch plan provides complete credentialing capabilities at $960 billed annually. For most issuers, it’s an ideal entry point to begin creating and delivering digital credentials at scale.

It allows you to award up to 1,000 unique recipients with an unlimited number of badges and certificates. Design options are also unlimited.

You gain access to Accredible’s API, standard integrations, blockchain credentials, knowledge base, and email support. Plus, it comes with robust styling tools, automation capabilities, recipient management, and platform integrations.

Whether you need badge programs for online courses or blockchain certificates for university degrees, Accredible’s Launch plan is an affordable way to empower your credentialing.

Connect plan

The Connect plan builds on the Launch plan by including:

• More integrations to streamline and set up rules for your credential automation workflows and synchronization across your tech stack.
• A custom number of recipients and credentials to fit large-scale programs.
• Access to powerful features like pathways for guided learning, departments for organization, and digital wallet cards for mobile display.
• In-depth analytics and insights into credential performance, career outcomes, platform usage, and more.
• Extensive branding customizations and white labeling.
• Support for training, onboarding, and a dedicated account manager.

Growth plan

Accredible’s Growth plan enables unlimited scaling and branding for organizations ready to maximize their impact and reach. This top-tier plan includes all Launch and Connect plan options, plus the following:

• Capabilities to issue endless credentials and serve unlimited recipients.
• Advanced integrations that connect Accredible across your technology ecosystem for automated data flows between systems.
• Extensive white-labeling and branding flexibility for total customization control.
• Priority support access and single sign-on capabilities to streamline usage across teams and simplify access organization-wide.
• Spotlight Directory, marketing analytics, job insights, and dedicated success support.

Professional Services

Accredible also offers professional services to optimize your credentialing strategy, polish branding, streamline operations, boost engagement. Pricing is configured based on unique project requirements.

Experts provide advice in four areas:

• Design services, which create visually compelling, brand-aligned credentials and profile pages.
• Architecture services, which map out ideal tech stacks, integrations, workflows, and automated rules to fit your needs.
• Strategy services, which devise plans to maximize your program’s impact, spur learner motivation, and align efforts to your overarching goals.
• Project management services, which drive implementation and help you adapt to evolving needs with the guidance of skilled pros.

Final Thoughts

Depending on where you look, the average course completion rate today can be as low as 3%. That’s far from ideal. Accredible makes it easy to motivate and reward all of your learners with legitimate, verifiable credentials that they can use to promote their career growth.

That’s not all Accredible does. The job market insights and Spotlight Directory are great ways to inform learners about job opportunity pathways and then connect them with potential employers.

Accredible’s ability to motivate learners, validate accomplishments, automate workflows, integrate with leading LMS platforms, and provide insightful analytics makes it an excellent choice for most training companies, universities, and learning platforms. Especially those that are serious about engaging learners, improving outcomes, and boosting brand exposure.