A note on naming first: as of 2026, Gainsight's customer-education product has rebranded from Northpass to Skilljar by Gainsight. The Northpass brand has been folded into Skilljar, so searches for one will increasingly land on the other.
With that settled, this is the least competitive pairing in this series. Skilljar teaches your customers. Poplearn teaches your staff.
At a glance
| Poplearn | Skilljar by Gainsight | |
|---|---|---|
| Audience | Employees | Customers |
| Where learners work | Slack direct messages | Branded learning academy |
| Monetisation | None | Stripe subscriptions, a-la-carte, credits |
| Certification | Completion records | Proctored exams, LinkedIn badges |
| Live sessions | No | Virtual instructor-led training |
Where Skilljar is strong
It's built specifically for external customer education, and that focus shows in features an internal tool would never need. On-demand courses, virtual instructor-led sessions, and learning paths, with AI-assisted content creation — structured around teaching people who don't work for you and haven't agreed to sit through anything.
Monetisation is native. Stripe integration supports subscriptions, a-la-carte purchases, and training credits, so a customer academy can be a revenue line rather than a cost centre. Poplearn has no billing concept at all.
Certification is the other differentiator: certification programs with proctored exams and LinkedIn-shareable badges. For customer education, the credential is often the reason people enrol. Making it verifiable and shareable is the product.
Where Poplearn is different
Poplearn's entire model assumes the learner is an employee who is already in your Slack workspace.
/courses new turns a document you already have into modules with quizzes. /assign #support sends it to a person, a channel, or every new hire from that date forward. /progress gives live completion by team, exportable when compliance asks. Delivery is a Slack direct message, which only works because the audience is internal.
There is no public catalogue, no enrolment flow for outsiders, no payment, no proctoring, no certificates. None of that is a gap Poplearn intends to close.
Which one fits your team
Choose Skilljar if you're educating customers, especially if you want to sell that training or issue credentials that carry weight outside your company.
Choose Poplearn if you're training employees and the material already exists. These are complementary rather than competing purchases — plenty of companies would reasonably run both.
Add Poplearn to Slack for the internal half.
