Thinkific vs Vimeo

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We are all familiar with the saying, “Knowledge is power.” Having its roots in the Latin: scientia potentia est, it holds just as true today as all those years ago.

Knowledge is what makes us more powerful than other creatures. While eagles and other intelligent creatures may have better vision than humans, we have been able to see more by understanding the workings of the world.

Sure, that example might be overly dramatic, but you get the idea. Because of our knowledge and ingenuity, the human race has risen to the top in food chain.

As such, it is only beneficial for us to share what we know with our fellowmen, lest we let this knowledge consign only to our minds, rotten and forgotten. After all, for knowledge to grow and develop, it must be shared and evolved.

That said, while it is ideal for sharing your knowledge and ideas for free, there is nothing wrong with selling it. After all, Knowledge is Power, and power can be money. The knowledge owner has the final say in what happens to it. That is the beauty of it.

For years, the only way to “sell” knowledge has been to directly teach or tutor the buyer or indirectly teach them through writing books on the subject.

This ability to share what you have learned has been made possible by the internet. Anyone can share their knowledge, even those without a teaching license or who don’t know how to write books.

The kinds of things being taught around have also been busted wide open. Whether for good or for bad, people can teach others how to make or do the most mundane or nonsense of things through multiple platforms like Youtube or TikTok.

Even formal education can have its niche platforms too. Online courses platforms are the answer.

thinkific-logo

For those of you who prefer a more visual experience, here is a video review from the YouTube channel SoftwarePundit. To get a comprehensive overview of Thinkific, you may still want to check out our article below.

Thinkific: An Online Course Platform Thinkific vs Vimeo

When it comes to online courses, Thinkific is among the best services to host your classes. A Learning Management System (LMS) creates, promotes, and sells your courses online.

Thinkific was founded in 2012 by a group entrepreneurs who wanted to create an environment that would allow students and instructors to learn and teach.

They were fortunate to find a solution to their problem. Thinkific became an effective solution for creating, managing, and marketing online courses. Thinkific also did it easily, as even those without technical knowledge could use the platform.

Thinkific is a great tool for creating online courses. This allows users to concentrate on content. Good content is what drives students and teachers to engage.

Thinkific offers many features to fulfill that promise. We will examine these features later to see if the promises are true.

Enjoy the Thinkific Benefits

Thinkific is not the only platform that is a decent course maker. Many LMS and CMS can do the same job as Thinkific. We would be remiss if this were not mentioned.

What is it that makes thinkific such a great platform?

  • Unlike most other platforms, Thinkific does not take any transaction fees from your sales. As a bonus, Thinkific immediately makes your funds available for withdrawal whenever you make a sale. So when it comes to sales, Thinkific makes sure that whatever is yours is absolutely yours
  • You can try Thinkific’s core features and have a feel for the environment through its free plan. Although you are only limited to uploading 3 courses, you can have unlimited students enrolled in it as well as host most of the core content that Thinkific allows
  • As a commitment to their promise of letting content creators focus on the content, Thinkific makes it easy to build an online course through its drag and drop builder. Thinkific also allows multiple kinds of content, from video files, audio files, PDFs, quizzes, text, surveys, and more.
  • You can also play with the course engagement through Thinkific’s many capabilities. The platform allows you to organize cohorts, schedule your content, and deliver them by drip-feed, locking them through prerequisite lessons and many others.
  • You can also engage with students via Thinkific’s multiple channels. You can email them their progressions, engage them in discussions, and give them awards. And even have them compete with the leaderboard.

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Thinkific Features

Thinkific features are almost identical to other course builders. The only exceptions are a few differences here and there. This is mostly because they focus on certain sections of the entire experience. These features include:

  • User-friendly course builder

This isn’t a new feature, as many online course builders already offer it. A course builder who doesn’t have a user-friendly one will find it very difficult to compete in the market.

  • Drag-and-drop web page builder

Drag-and-drop page builders, like the course builder are common issues for these types of services. Course marketers need to promote their courses. It is essential that they have the tools and resources to market their courses. Just like with Thinkific.

  • Marketing and promotion tools

Thinkific, a course builder, should also be able to offer coupons, as well as the necessary email and affiliate marketing tools.

  • Flexible payment options

All of those marketing features will be for naught if there are not many payment options available for customers. Having more than one payment option is also optimal, as it removes friction from wannabe customers, and more payment options can make it easier for your leads to paying you.

  • Reporting

Analytics is key to content creation. Analytics is the only way to discover your approach and your weaknesses. Thinkific offers this feature to its users to make it easy for their users as to the direction their content should go.

Should they continue doing tutorial videos with direct samples, the best way to go about things, or just plain instructions would be better? Without proper tracking of revenues, engagements, business performance, one cannot determine the best course.

  • Support for students and student communities

A good way to increase your customer base is to have a strong community that uses your content. Besides that, it is also good for branding as well as engagements. Remember, good customer support and community greatly improve customer retention. It is good that Thinkific provides the avenue to do so with these features.

  • Training tools

Although we are in the business selling knowledge, it’s a good idea to have our own. Selling and course building are two different things. Many people who try Thinkific may be unfamiliar with the process and will stumble around until they feel at ease.

These newbies, as well as veterans, have the opportunity to benefit from the tried-and-trued knowledge of Thinkific. In doing so, they can speed up the process of making courses and allow newer people to use the app more.

  • Thinkific App Store

The Thinkific App store sells apps and programs that take your online courses to another level. The best thing about the AppStore is its community-made nature. It is a great place for fellow course creators and content creators to come together and have discussions with Thinkific developers.

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The Thinkific Course Builder: Is it Good?

At the end of the day, the only way to know how good a course builder is to test the crux of its service, which is the course builder itself.

A course builder service will only be as good as its main builder. If they don’t have a well-functioning course building system, then what can we expect from them about secondary and additional features?

In the case of their course builder, Thinkific provides a handy “Get Started” checklist that guides you on what to do at your first foray into course building.

Build Your First Course

Upon starting your first course, you will be presented with a draft called “Your First Course” for you to use.

Opening this file brings you to the first-course builder interface, wherein the layout is very easy to follow. Course content is divided into Chapters and Lessons.

To begin creating lessons, you only need to click the aptly named “add Lesson” button and pick a content type.

You can choose from the following content types:

  • Video
  • Audio
  • Text
  • PDF documents
  • Slideshow presentations
  • Live zoom lessons and webinars.

Any of these files can be uploaded as your lessons. You can upload multiple courses to the Bulk Importer. You can also copy old lessons from other courses using the “Copy Lessons From” button on Thinkific.

Pick the Course Type

Thinkific allows you to pick what course you are currently building. For some of the choices, the service provides you with pre-formatted and good-looking templates that are structured for the appropriate course content.

While you can have perfect flexibility by using a blank template, these course templates can be extremely helpful when doing your job in a hurry or when you are just beginning to make courses.

These premade courses include:

  • Mini-course: These are course templates designed to create short and fast courses such as tasters and freebies.
  • Flagship Courses: These are the courses that make students and audiences take your courses or keep them always coming back. Each lesson is constructed in a way that is easy to progress and navigate for students.
  • Pre-sell course: Pre-sell courses help you sell your courses. These can be like testers and short courses. This allows you to advertise to potential customers what your courses entail. Thinkific vs Vimeo
  • This template can be used to create a membership resource library for your subscribers. This will encourage your audience to remain on your website even when looking at resources
  • Webinar Replay is a similar template to the library template but it is specifically designed for webinars or live lesson videos. This template is ideal for late enrollees or people who missed your seminars.

Customizing The Look of Course for your Students

Students will be able use your learning materials in the Course Player. You can change the appearance of the course player in the “Settings tab” on the “Courses” page. You can change the color scheme, fonts or add logos.

Here you can also add a description of the course and an image.

You can also preview your lessons in this section. This allows you to see the views of your students on your lessons. As such, you can put yourself in their shoes and see the problem from their perspective.

Set Assignments and Check Progress

Assignments, quizzes, and surveys are super handy as an additional way to engage your students. You can also use it to rate your students. Thinkific vs Vimeo

Assignments are not available for PRO plans.

Overall, Thinkific’s course builder is very user-friendly. They will give you enough guidance, especially if you’re just starting out with your course.

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How to build an online course website

While the course builder is what you can consider the core of Thinkific, It is the Site Builder that serves as the foundation with which you can prop your courses.

The Thinkific Site builder shares the same characteristics as the other landing page builders. This allows you to sell your courses from your website or even if you don’t have a website yet.

This website builder is also pretty easy to use. This website builder was created with non-techy people and newbies in mind.

To start building your website, you start with:

1. Choose a theme.

Picking a theme is the best place to start when building your website.

For this reason, Thinkific has three pre-built theme templates. Each theme has its own styles, color schemes, fonts, and tweaked layouts.

These websites all have professional and good designs.

2. You can customize your online course site using the Site Builder.

You can modify the theme you have chosen after you’ve selected it. You can make your desired edits to the site builder and create an entire website. If you want, you can dig in and craft individual pages.

Site builders use drag-and-drop tools that make it simple to create a website from scratch. Combining this with pre-built themes, users can make a professional-looking web page from scratch.

This is only the beginning. Your website’s potential is limitless. Your imagination is limitless.

3. Make a Training website Entirely from Scratch.

We are already in the course-making business so it makes sense to build a website for training. Thinkific offers a wide range of pages to help you choose from.

These pages are pre-designed and ready to be mapped into a complete course or training website. As such, we can take these pages and use them as the building blocks of your websites. These pages are worth mentioning:

  • Home Page: The face of your website. Where most relevant things should be found
  • These pages can be used as landing pages to help students approach courses. If you want, you can also make a course page that serves as a landing page for all the courses you offer in your “class”
  • Sign-up pages: This is where your potential customers and students enroll for individual courses or memberships Thinkific vs Vimeo
  • Sign in Pages: This should only be used for subscribers to your website
  • Your student’s dashboard will be your starting point for signing in to your site. A good student dashboard can be designed in a way that makes everything on your website accessible.
  • Checkout pages or payment page: This is where you place your payment options for subscribing or signing up for your class.
  • Coming Soon pages: These pages may look empty, but they can serve as teasers and previews for any upcoming pages, courses, offers, and even bundles you offer.

Of course, these types of pages are just some examples you can use with the website. These templates can also be used to quickly create a website. This skips the nitpicky part of choosing which to use on your website. Thinkific vs Vimeo

If you want something entirely different, you can create a custom page by simply clicking on the Custom page in the menus and then designing your page to suit your needs.

4. Edit individual pages

To properly design a web page using Thinkific Site Builder, it helps to understand that the pages made with these site builders are made up of sections. These sections can easily be modified and moved around.

The provided pre-built pages even come with suggested sections to easily allow you to pick which ones you need for your page. Simply click on “Add Section” to add more sections.

All in all, Thinkfic provides users with 23 pre-formatted page sections available. These pages are geared towards building high-converting pages. These pages are highly-converting and include but not limited to:

  • Call to Action.

This is an essential part, especially when you aim to sell. This will allow potential students and customers to know how to sign-up or purchase.

  • Smart Product and Category

This section contains information that will allow you to provide your customers with summaries of the products you offer.

  • Checklists

This section can be used to highlight key messages, making it easy for the readers to scan information using bullet points.

  • Most Frequently Asked Questions

Websites often feature Frequently Asked Question. These aim to answer all the commonly asked questions by the customer base. Thinkific vs Vimeo

  • ‘Social Proof’

These sections are akin to testimonials and show off client experiences, comments, and reviews. They make a statement to show off what they get in the lessons, which in turn entices other customers to avail of your product.

  • Upsell

These sections help you promote other courses. You can often find this section on the checkout page of one of your courses.

  • Instructor

This section is where you can put your instructor profiles in the courses. This section gives students information about the teachers.

  • Pricing Options

You can place your pricing options here. This tells your students the cost of your courses and where you can pay for them. If possible, this is also where you can describe your bundles, what you include in them, and how much they cost.

  • Video

You can add this section to your course promotion page to make a video advertisement.

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Earning Profit Through Your Content with the Use of Your Online Course Platform

We now come to the part that is often the most anticipated. What is the Thnkific business side? Does the service provide enough and proper tools to allow users to make money from their hard work?

It is a fact that all online course builders and platforms today offer tools to allow teachers and students to promote their courses. The only difference is in the focus of each platform.

Yep, that’s right. Some course platforms focus more on selling and turning conversion than the creation side. Others, on the other hand, focus more on the business and promotion side of things and rely heavily upon integrations.

Which side is Thinkific on? Let’s find out as we try the business, promotion, and marketing features of Thinkific.

Promote Your Courses

Thinkific comes with marketing tools to help you make money from your content. These features are available to all users, even those who use the free plan. However, they are very limited and only allow for the most basic functions.

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is one of these tools. Thinkific offers the necessary SEO options for free to plan users. This allows you promote your lessons in the simplest ways possible, making it capable of rising up the search engine results page.

Another feature available for free users is the ability to build free trial courses. It’s like giving your customers a free taste or sample. This is one of the best ways to show your audience who you are. Thinkific vs Vimeo

Customers and potential students can get a glimpse into your content by allowing them to see it. This will give customers and potential students a glimpse into the workings of your content before they pay for it.

While these promotional materials may seem lacking at first, in skillful hands, these can go a very long way as promotional materials. In the right condition, they might even compete with some products that have been promoted to the extreme.

Of course, we are only talking about the free stuff. You will unlock more marketing tools as you move up in the Thinkific pricing plans. These tools will help you promote your course material in the market. Some of these include:

  • Coupons

Coupons don’t need introduction. They’ve been in use for many transactions for a long period of time. It is not surprising that they are being used in online marketing and business.

Thinkific’s coupon codes are digital codes that can be shared easily. They are utilized very well in Thinkific’s ecosystem. You can use a coupon at Thinkific’s checkout to instantly redeem it.

From a marketing standpoint, coupons can be set up and used to promote your bundles and courses. You can encourage potential customers to visit your courses by including a discount.

As a side note, Thinkific allows you to customize your coupons. From setting the dollar or percentage amount for the coupon to setting an expiration date and setting the number of times, the coupon can be redeemed.

  • Sales Widgets

Sales widgets are a feature that allows you to post purchasing links to other websites and social media. These are extremely useful, given how much traffic you need to get your courses noticed in the first place. And let’s face it, you will need a lot of traffic.

It’s the truth, you can’t expect to have any traffic at all if you are just new to creating courses and if you do not have a built-in audience. Even if you have a built-in audience, you need a fast and convenient way to link your courses and classes from other websites.

That’s where social media comes in. It is a given that almost everybody uses social media. It is important to determine where the majority of internet traffic comes and redirect some traffic to your site.

The easiest way to do this is through sales widgets which generate HTML code that can easily be pasted on existing websites. This includes social media sites. If you wish to market this way, these codes can be sent as messages. Thinkific vs Vimeo

You can also customize the widget’s appearance. You can choose to display a button, a button with a product image, or include text that you want to go with it.

  • Email Marketing Tools

Email Marketing tools manage newsletters and send out targeted promotions to subscribers. In a way, this tool is used less to get new conversions and rather to retain them. After all, you can only send this to people you already have contact with.

Thinkific’s email marketing tools are limited to this ……… Unfortunately, only existing students can be emailed about your courses. You can also notify them about new products and courses.

You don’t have to like everything. However, if you need more features, there are other email marketing tools available such as Mailchimp or Mailerlite, AWeber and Constant Contact. ActiveCampaign is another option.

That said, it would have been miles better if Thinkific had a better local Email marketing tool for users to use.

  • Affiliate Marketing

You can choose to use affiliate marketing to get influencers and experts to promote your courses if you feel your marketing skills are not sufficient.

Thinkific allows the process to be easy and straightforward. You will need to add the associated person as a user, and make him an “Affiliate”. This information can be found under “User Roles” within the Process.

If you find some current users of Thinkfiic or your course, you can convert them into affiliates through the same process.

Thinkific tracks the sales of bundles or courses by affiliates to check their performance and status. It also records the revenue. Thinkific vs Vimeo

That said, paying the affiliates is done outside the system, so that’s a catch. The same applies to instructor revenue sharing.

Payment Options

All that marketing work will be for naught if you have no way of receiving payments or your courses. In this vein, Thinkific has Stripe as a card payment platform. Other ways include connecting PayPal for one-off payments.

Lastly, there is also an option to link your courses to a Shopify site. That way, you can get all the tools the eCommerce platform offers its users.

Thinkific’s payment options allow you to customize how you price your products. You can even charge customers with different payment plans. You can also sell courses for a one-off fee.

You can also offer membership subscriptions, and charge accordingly. If you want, you can sell your course in a bundle. However, this feature is not available to me at the moment as I only have a handful of courses created with their system.

One thing to note about Thinkific though is that they do not charge you any commission fee for any of your courses sold!

Analytics and reporting

A good website selling products should have a Reports and Analytics section. This will allow users to figure out which stuff they are doing well on and which ones they need to focus on and improve.

Thankfully, Thinkific has one, but it is a relatively new feature. It currently reports only on four areas, which are: Enrollments and Student Engagement, Revenue, Orders, Enrollments, and Student Engagement. This feature is currently in its infancy, and only the Start + Growth package has it.

For what it’s worth, it is a step in the right direction as having it is much better than having nothing at all.

How does it all work?

Thinkific’s reporting and analytics collect the necessary data how they wish. Filtering data can be done by date, product type, or course, as well as by recency of customers (whether new or old).

Of course, these different data can provide multiple insight as to how your courses are performing. Take for example, the data on Student engagement.

Having this data allows you to see things such as course enrolments as well as there completion rates. These metrics can be compared across all subjects. This will allow you to identify subjects with low completion rates.

From there you can find out the problems as to why such things are. It is up to you then to make the necessary adjustments. Thinkific vs Vimeo

Students might find it difficult to complete courses that have low completion rates. Still, it might be a problem with the way you are presenting the information or instructions. Once you have identified the problem, you will be able to find a solution that works without having to tear your hair out.

This data is then shown as a chart and graph that makes it a lot easier to read and understand.

Thinkific Pricing and Plans

Thinkific is a leading platform for course development and marketing. As such, you can expect to have a price that is appropriate for their standing.

Thinkfiic is a product that you pay for. With all its features, you won’t be ripped off.

Besides that, Thinkific has a free plan which you can use to test their products. If you are interested in learning more about Thinkific’s features or need to start your course-creating journey, you can always get a free plan.

No cost Start Grow Expand
$0 per month $74 per month $149 pero month $374 per month
-Create and launch your product with a website and checkout experience

 

  • 1 Course
  • 1 community
  • 1 admin
  • Unlimited students
  • Transaction fee of 0$
  • Email and Chat Bot Support
  • 100% Content Ownership
  • Drag and drop course builder
  • Easy to use website themes
  • Full integrated e-commerce
  • App Store
-Add products to your business and create a cohesive learning experience for your students

 

  • Unlimited Courses
  • 1 Community
  • 1 admin
  • Unlimited students
  • Transaction fee 0%
  • Includes all free features
  • Custom domains
  • Coupons and discounts
  • Assignments
  • Bundles and add-on packages
  • Payment plans and memberships
  • Live lessons
  • Affiliate selling
  • Advanced course – building options
  • Advanced Courses at Thinkific Academy
A complete set of tools is available to help you increase your sales.

 

  • Unlimited courses
  • 3 Communities
  • 2 admin
  • Unlimited students
  • 0% transaction fee
  • Phone and priority email support
  • All Start Features Included
  • Remove Thinkific branding
  • Bulk emailer for students
  • Bulk enrollments
  • API access
With a platform that scales, optimize your workflow to create premium experiences.

 

  • Unlimited courses
  • 10 Communities
  • 5 admin
  • Unlimited students
  • 0% transaction fee
  • Priority phone support
  • All Grow features included
  • Custom SSL Certificates
  • Priority Support

The Free Plan

Is the first plan you should take if you are new to all this course building and course management stuff. This is the best way for you to get to know the service and test it out. You can do all the services offered by the free plan, but only in a limited capacity.

Only one course is allowed under the Free plan. Making more than that requires you to sign up. That said, this course has a lot of potential, allowing you to enroll an unlimited number of students you want.

The Start Plan

If you feel that Thinkific is something you would enjoy, you can take the next step. Upgrade to this plan and your limitations are gone. You can make unlimited courses.

Aside from that, Thinkific affords you a few more options in the type of courses you can make. You can even live-stream your lessons for as long as you have the time.

Furthermore, the Start plan opens up more marketing tools and gives you access to the Thinkific app store.

You also have the option of a custom domain to host your course website.

The Grow Plan

If you’re serious about making sales and selling courses, the Grow plan is right for you. The first benefit you get is removing the Thinkific branding. Although it may seem easy, it has a significant impact on branding, marketing, and professionalizing your courses.

This allows you to access bulk enrollments, making the enrollment process easier and quicker. You have priority email support and phone support. You can get faster solutions if you have different issues with your website. Thinkific vs Vimeo

The Expand Plan

The Expand plan is designed for larger businesses and institutions. It allows you to optimize your workflow and create a premium experience with a platform that is designed to scale.

This plan is especially good for huge institutions wanting to create an online presence. It provides the same features as the other Thinkific plans but also offers 10 Communities that make it easier for students to manage.

This plan provides five administrators who will help you manage your business.

Thinkific Plus

Some LMS services give clients and customers an option to create bespoke plans separate from the services’ basic plans. Most of the time, their prices are unlisted as the customization might change the cost, and that cost will depend on the customization.

This is Thinkific Plus. It’s a powerful, scalable and simple-to-use learning platform that is tailored to your students and team.

Contact the Thinkfic sales team to get Thinkific Plus. They can help you to understand the tools that you need in order to optimize your platform. They will provide you with education experts who can inspire and give you the confidence to grow beyond what you imagine.

Thinkific Plus offers all the Expand features, but also adds these additional features to the plan:

  • Unlimited Products
  • Unlimited Administrators
  • 3+ Separate Thinkific sites
  • Service Level Agreement 99.9%
  • Build a Customer Success Team
  • Multiple seats and Tiered pricing checkout
  • Email White-labeling
  • Only one sign on
  • Bulk Selling App
  • Enterprise API Access

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Thoughtific Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Thinkific does NOT charge transaction fees. When a sale occurs from your products, courses or memberships, funds are immediately available for withdrawal.
  • Thinkific offers a fully implemented free plan. It has all the core features available and acts like a paid plan. There are no restrictions, but if you’re serious enough you can sell courses through the service with no upfront investment. Thinkific vs Vimeo
  • Thinkkific’s drag and drop builder is easy to use by even non-tech-savvy users. You can upload multiple media types to create different and exciting lessons and courses.

Cons

  • There are some aspects of Thinkific that are not really that are not as user-friendly as expected. Some creators have acknowledged this.
  • There is a huge lack of marketing features in the service. Their email marketing capability is quite basic and is miles behind the competition.
  • Thinkific’s designs and customizations are quite limited, given that the service only provides a few themes to play with. With these options, it is hard to create a website that stands out among the rest.

Thinkific Verdict

Overall, Thinkific is a good choice for course creation as well as course promotion. Its price is entirely reasonable, and the features are as good and easy to use as most of its competitors.

The free startup plan is a godsend for those just starting, as it will give them a feel of how things are with the service. Thinkific vs Vimeo

In my opinion, providing a free startup plan is actually a mark of confidence on the side of the service. They believe their product is of use and are willing to let the public try it.

You can see that Thinkific’s free plan is bold and understandable. It is unlike the other “free plans” of the other products where they only masquerade as free, but there isn’t you can do with the service.

For the Course Builder, Thinkific is pretty easy and intuitive to use. With just a glance, you can easily know what to do and what functions as what. As for the more complex side of things, Thinkific provides enough prompts to guide you through the process.

This is a difficult side to balance, too, as giving too many prompts away can usually overwhelm the beginner user and may irritate those who already have a handle on things.

One thing to note, however, is that some experienced users might find Thinkific too simple for their taste. This is just my nitpicking. Thinkific’s course creator is responsive, fast, and easy to use, which is what most people want.

Thinkific’s Site Builder is also simple. It is not like a standalone platform. However, in keeping with their philosophy, it is simple to use and can easily be grasped by beginners.

It has impressive editing capabilities, making it ideal for creating tutorial and training websites. Aside from that, it is an excellent tool for adding training pages to existing websites.

There aren’t enough themes to suit all tastes and demographics.

Lastly, on the marketing side of things, this is where I feel Thinkific falls short. Just looking at the bare bones structure of their Email marketing can turn off marketers, and marketing Thinkific’s courses can be an uphill climb without resorting to third-party integrations.

It would be more convenient to have other payment options than Stripe or PayPal.

Not everything is bad. Thinkfic still has some clever tools that help you monetize your courses. You can sell products and courses with a little creativity. This requires more effort than normal, but it is possible.

Thinkific’s Frequently Asked Questions Thinkific vs Vimeo

Can You Build an Entire Website with Just Thinkfic?

Yes, you can!

Thinkfiic gives you the freedom to build your entire online education business. This means you can create both courses, websites, or your overall brand within one seamless platform. Thinkific has builders that are designed to facilitate building, marketing, and selling online courses.

How can I allow my students to access my course content while offline?

It is up to you.

Bear in mind that your students will need help logging into your courses offline. You can make your courses downloadable. You can do this on content such as video files, audio files, and PDFs. These files can be downloaded to students’ devices so they can access them offline.

Who Owns the Content Published on Thinkific?

Any content built into the Thinkific Platform is the sole and exclusive property of the creators.

Thinkific does not, and will not, claim any intellectual property rights over materials made by the course creators and builders. Therefore, anything built and published on the platform is 100% to the creators.

Thinkific vs Vimeo

thinkific-vs-competition

They existed even before 2019, B.C. (where B.C. stands for Before COVID), Online Course Platforms were already a thing. They were created for the same purpose: to sell and create online courses.

The majority of courses back then were more niche-oriented, such as leadership seminars, wholesomeness and self-help classes. Of course, courses and classes focused on normal subjects were there too.

These classes were designed to bring education to the most convenient and comfortable places.

People who are housebound for multiple reasons (e.g., childcare or health issues) can still learn and study even if they cannot go out. Due to its flexibility, people who are unable to attend school regularly due to scheduling conflicts or duties could still complete courses.

Then the pandemic happened, and everything else was forced to shut down. People still needed to learn and online courses and other eLearning platforms made this possible.

In the early times of the pandemic, the industry saw a 221% increase in new course creators on one Course Platform. This growth is probably shared throughout multiple platforms online.

Everyone, from solopreneurs and entrepreneurs to professionals in human resources and educational institutions, has used at least one course platform during the pandemic.

These platforms can also be used to make extra profits, as the pandemic showed. They say that knowledge is wealth. Online courses platforms have given this maxim legs and allowed people to convert their knowledge into wealth.

There are many online courses that people can take. You can find everything from life coaching to make your life easier, to tutorial classes on the more academic subjects such as Algebra. Even to courses about making your courses more profitable.

Online courses are everywhere, and if you want to get in on the action, the next question is which platform you will use to share that treasure in your noggin.

thinkific-logo
For those of you who prefer a more visual experience, here is a video review from Ross Herosian on his YouTube channel Tricycle Creative. To get a comprehensive overview of Thinkific, you may still want to check out our article below, which compares it to some competitors.

Thinkific: Your Go-To Online Course Platform Thinkific vs Vimeo

The Thinkific Overview

Thinkific is one the most popular options for selling, hosting and building your courses.

Thinkific is unique because you can feel that they are passionate about what they do. You can feel that they are more focused on giving the best learning experience they can to both the creators and their audience and that earning money is needed to keep things afloat.

It’s impossible to not! After all, it is one of the few online course platforms that provide a full-on free service. Thinkific offers a free service that is just as good as the paid lower-tiered.

This makes the platform perfect for newcomers as they get to experience what it’s like to build content and courses, as well as the overall flow and environment of the industry. Using the free plan allows users to glimpse what they are about to partake in without any investment.

This free plan has one limitation. You can only create one course. I find that this is sufficient.

Thinkific does not take any transaction fees when a user sells on the platform. All the profits go to the content owner.

Thinkific even makes sure that all profits are directly available upon being sold. This means course creators and content producers can immediately use their earnings without needing to wait for a quote, or reach a certain threshold before they can touch the money.

This just proves how much Thinkfiic thinks of its customer base.

Thinkific Features

First, let me preface this by saying that most online course platforms share almost the same features. The course builder is first, followed by the website builder to create your courses and finally the marketing features.

The only difference between them is how well they work, along with some bits and bobs that make the product unique. These are the features that Thinkific is known for.

Thinkific’s main focus is their ability to create course curriculum. The creation part of Thinkific’s features is the most important. They make sure that online courses are as engaging as possible.

Thinkific’s user interface is very easy to get into. It is intuitive and logical. Users will have no problem navigating everything. You can access all other features via a sidebar menu. Except for occasional hiccups, they are correctly classified. Thinkific vs Vimeo

Users who love to check on analytics and performance will love this interface, as everything is placed and organized neatly on the dashboard.

From the dashboard, you can see how well you are doing in revenue, student accounts and sign-ups, student course enrollments, and much more.

If we are to nitpick something out of this, it would be that the aesthetics of the interface can be done a little bit better.

Thinkific is primarily focused on course creation, as mentioned previously. As such, the platform ensures that the course creation mechanism is easy to get used to. Thinkific lets you try all the features of the course creator even if it is a free plan.

You can also include many media types in this course builder. These media types include quizzes and surveys, assignments, pdfs, content, and student discussion areas that allow for peer-to-peer interaction.

Other highlights include scheduling of course content as well as some automation in terms of drip-feeding content.

As for the Marketing features of Thinkific, I’m afraid that is where the platforms fall pretty flat. Don’t get me wrong. It contains everything you need to market and promote your courses.

That’s not all. Compared to the competition, Thinkific’s market features are a bit lackluster. It doesn’t include a sales funnel builder. This is the most noticeable aspect. The overall checkout experience is pretty clunky.

What’s more is that there is really nothing you can do about this part since it has very limited customization.

Even email marketing features lag behind the competitor. It is very basic and you can only notify your students about new products or courses, send them progress reports and update them on their course status.

Thinkific can also integrate third-party apps. Rather than band-aids, you can consider these third-party apps as bandages to fix some of Thinkific’s deficiencies in the marketing department.

For email marketing alone, Thinkific directly integrates five of the most popular email marketing providers, including ConvertKit, Active Campaign, Aweber, Drip, and MailChimp.

I guess it makes sense, given the platform’s repeated promises of focusing on course creation. It would be smarter to invest all resources in ensuring that they get the course creation part right, and then to hire third-party apps for the marketing part.

Thinkific Price

While I have already mentioned Thinkific’s Free Plan and how great it is, that plan is still limited and is a far cry from what Thinkific’s paid plans are. It’s not like the rest of the competition.

Thinkific is a lower-cost option that allows you to create unlimited courses and enroll unlimited students. This is in line with their mission to be focused on the education part. Thinkific vs Vimeo

Thinkific is a great choice if you are looking for a cheaper plan with many content ideas that you believe will sell.

No cost Start Grow Expand
$0 per month $74 per month $149 per month $374 per month
Create and launch your product using a website and checkout experience

 

  • 1 Course
  • 1 community
  • 1 admin
  • Unlimited students
  • Transaction fee of 0$
  • Email and Chat Bot Support
  • 100% content ownership
  • Drag and drop course builder
  • Easy to use website themes
  • Fully integrated e-commerce
  • App Store
Add products to your company and create a cohesive learning experience.

 

  • Unlimited Courses
  • 1 Community
  • 1 admin
  • Unlimited students
  • 0% transaction fee
  • All features included in the price
  • Custom domains
  • Coupons and discounts
  • Assignments
  • Bundles and add on packages
  • Memberships and payment plans
  • Live lessons
  • Affiliate selling
  • Options for advanced course-building
  • Advanced Courses at Thinkific Academy
-Build a successful business with a complete suite of tools to help you sell more

 

  • Unlimited courses
  • 3 Communities
  • 2 admin
  • Unlimited students
  • Transaction fee 0%
  • Support by phone and email
  • All Start Features Included
  • Remove Thinkific branding
  • Bulk student emailer
  • Bulk enrollments
  • API access
-Optimize your workflow and create a premium experience with a platform designed to scale

 

  • Unlimited courses
  • 10 Communities
  • 5 admin
  • Unlimited students
  • 0% transaction fee
  • Priority phone support
  • Includes all Grow features
  • Custom SSL Certificates
  • Priority Support

Aside from these plans, Thinkific also has a more advanced and bespoke plan called Thinkific plus. Thinkific Plus takes the best of Thinkfiic, makes it powerful, scalable and simple-to-use, and then adds more.

Of course, it still maintains its dedication to course building, teachers, and students.

You will need to contact the sales team of Thinkific Plus to request this upgrade. You will discuss with them the tools you need to make the most of your platform. You will also discuss the cost of this upgrade with them.

Every Thinkific Plus plan has its own unique cost, so different Plus plans may have slightly different prices. One this is sure, though. Thinkific Plus will give you the features of the most expensive plan as well as these additional features:

  • Unlimited Products
  • Unlimited Administrators
  • Three+ separate Thinkific sites
  • Service Level Agreement 99.9%
  • Dedicate Customer Success Team
  • Check out multiple seats or a tiered pricing option
  • Email white-labeling
  • Single Sign on
  • Bulk Selling App
  • Enterprise API Access

man-seriously-staring-at-laptop

> > Click Here to Start Your Free Trial < <

Thoughtific Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Thinkific’s free package is permanently free. It also is not just a glorified free trial. You can only take as many courses as you like.
  • Thinkific doesn’t charge transaction fees for any sale. All earnings by content creators are theirs. These funds can be claimed and used by creators as soon as they are received in their accounts.
  • Thinkific is flexible when it comes to payment options. They offer different payment options for different types and types of students.
  • Thinkific’s premium plans remove the restriction on the number of courses. In fact, users can create an unlimited number of courses and enroll an unlimited number of students in these courses.
  • In terms of interface, Thinkific has one of the easiest to understand. With most options logically placed and easily located. This interface is easy to use for users just starting out.
  • Thinkfic’s course creator is also easy to use. It also allows for many course materials, making it possible to have your course as exciting and engaging as possible.
  • In the name of engagement, Thinkific also gives you the ability to put incentives such as leaderboards, awards, and scores to motivate your students.

Cons

  • Some of the tools in Thinkific are not user-friendly. You may need to take some time and read guides to learn how to use the tools.
  • The marketing features of Thinkifiic make it hard to recommend for people who are more focused on propping up businesses on the platform. Their email marketing capability is quite basic, and you will need to depend on third-party integrations to have a better experience.
  • Despite Thinkific having one of the most intuitive user interfaces, it looks outdated, and there are times when the experience can be clunkier than expected.
  • The platform lacks many customization options. It is possible to find websites similar to yours. Thinkific vs Vimeo

The Thinkific Summary

Thinkific is one the most popular online courses platforms on the market. It is a great platform for beginners as well as those who are looking for more course-focused platforms. Despite its limitations, it still competes with other more “advanced and feature-rich” platforms.

In my opinion, its strongest suit would be its focus on providing the best course experience and free plan. Thinkfiic already has a solution for this problem. Using local third-party integrations can remedy any problems you have with the platform.

If you’re looking for the best online course creation software that builds courses from scratch. You can never go wrong with Thinkific.

Thinkific Versus Kajabi

Kajabi Overview

Kajabi is an open-source platform that allows you to run an online business. It is primarily focused on productivity and selling. It provides tools that are geared towards simplifying your operations.

Some of Kajabi’s highlights include automations, pipelines, email marketing, and a mobile app.

As for products, there is a lot you can sell through the platform. Apart from courses, there are many other options. You can also sell memberships, communities and podcasts.

Kajabi has many marketing features. It’s no surprise that they have sales funnels, email marketing, and automations. This allows Kajabi users to sell their products more easily.

Kajabi is a rare product that can be described as an “all-in-one” platform. It is a course creation platform with more than decent marketing features. It even has automation features that could help you focus more on marketing or creating than the menial tasks.

Kajabi land is not perfect. For starters, it has one of the more expensive platforms available in the market. Their lowest plan starts at $149 per month. What’s more, is that these are not unlimited plans. In the case of the lowest plan, you can only sell 3 products.

Kajabi’s features are not as rich, particularly in the community engagement and gamification departments. So you might need some third-party integrations to address these issues.

Kajabi Features

Kajabi claims to be one of the best platforms. They even have one of the more expensive plans in the course creation market. It is not surprising that customers have high expectations for the product. Thinkific vs Vimeo

Let’s now take a look at the Kajabi interface and see how great they are.

Kajabi’s interface looks very normal at first glance. It is neat, minimal, and feels very modern. Most of the available features can be accessed through 3 to 4 clicks. For easier accessibility, the page has a search assistant to quickly find the features and the tools inside the application.

Kajabi’s pages load quicker. It makes it easier to work and provides a smoother experience.

In terms of Course Creation, Kajabi allows you to create various types. Some samples include mini-courses, online courses, drip courses, or create one from scratch. These types can be customized to suit your specific needs. (i.e. long courses for long content, mini-courses for product launches).

For easier building experience, Kajabi provides blueprints which are akin to templates. These “skeletons” are pretty much presentation ready that if you want, you can just add your needed content and then you are good to go.

These courses could be properly structured too into categories, subcategories and posts. It would be easy to organize your content in a neat and organized manner. You can organize them depending on their types and content. So you can text and slideshows in one area, audio and video to different areas.

As for storage, Kajabi allows for cloud uploading from Dropbox and Google Drive so there is little to worry about.

Kajabi has robust and extensive marketing features.

Of course, it has the usual stuff of providing coupons in a flexible manner, which as we have established, is an old, tried and tested marketing strategy.

If you want to market through email, Kajabi has a powerful email marketing solution that is already built in the platform which has plenty of features in and of itself. Email templates can be created for different functions.

Their pipelines are another conversion tool that they have. They can help you convert more customers to increase sales. They are not that hard to use and even the platform has provided various templates that can easily be used by their customers.

Kajabi also has a dedicated affiliate program for users of a higher plan than the basic one. This feature makes the entire process extremely simple and easy. It also organizes affiliate links as well as affiliates into its own category which it makes easier to find and track down.

I would say that the biggest problem for Kajabi is its lack of integrated payment solution. Instead, users will need to rely on integration from other payment gateways like Stripe, Paypal and BitPay.

This is a huge disappointment considering how poor their marketing tools and how adept their checkout at upsells, bumps offers, downsells is.

Although it is not perfect, Kajabi has a lot to offer that can be used for both marketing and course creation. As such, it is easy to see that these features are good for almost everybody who are serious about making an online business.

Of course, potential users should be willing to pay for the steep price point to use these tools.

Kajabi price

It is undeniable that Kajabi is among the most expensive service when it comes to the course creation market. The cheapest plan is $149 per month, and it doesn’t include unlimited courses. Thinkific vs Vimeo

However, if you think that Kajabi’s steep price as well as its more advanced features like automation is something you really need, then of course, it is the customer’s choice at the end of the day.

Basic Growth Pro
$119 per month billed annually $159 per month, payable annually $319 per month billed annually
  • 3 products
  • 3 funnels
  • Unlimited Landing Pages
  • Unlimited Marketing emails
  • 10,000 contacts
  • 1,000 active customers
  • 1 website
  • 1 admin user
  • Kajabi University
  • Transaction fee 0%
  • Webinars and events
  • Ready-to-use Templates
  • Ready to Use Templates
  • Assessments (Quizzes and Surveys)
  • 1 Call to an Onboarding Specialist
  • Chat Support
  • Automatizations
  • 15 products
  • 15 funnels
  • Unlimited landing pages
  • Unlimited marketing emails
  • 25,000 contacts
  • 10,000 active customers
  • 1 website
  • 10 admin users
  • Kajabi University
  • 0% Transaction Fee
  • Webinars and Events
  • Ready-to-use Templates
  • Assessments (quizzes & surveys)
  • 1 Welcome Call with an Onboarding Specialist
  • 1 Check-in Call with an Onboarding Specialist
  • 24/7 Chat Support
  • Advanced automations
  • Kajabi branding can be removed
  • 100 products
  • 100 funnels
  • Unlimitless landing pages
  • Unlimited marketing emails
  • 100,000 contacts
  • 200.000 active customers
  • 3 websites
  • 25 admin users
  • Kajabi University
  • Transaction fee 0%
  • Webinars & Events
  • Templates Ready for Use
  • Assessments (quizzes & surveys)
  • 1 Call to an Onboarding Specialist
  • 1 Check-in Call with an onboarding specialist
  • Chat support available 24/7
  • Advanced Automation
  • Ability to remove Kajabi branding
  • Affiliate program
  • Code Editor

Kajabi Pros and Cons

Pros

  • True to its name, Kajabi is an all in one content making and marketing tool. It provides various tools to create courses, like a drip course or a mini-course, and combine them with different marketing automations to ensure they sell.
  • Kajabi provides blueprints and templates to help you get started on your project.
  • Kajabi allows you to sell other digital products like coaching, webinars, communities, podcasts, etc. This is also a great place to do this.
  • Kajabi also includes an assessment function that allows students to grade their performance and monitor them. This feature is especially useful when used in conjunction with drip courses. Drip courses allow you to offer courses that are only accessible when the correct grades have been achieved.
  • Kajabi’s accessibility is pretty good thanks to its mobile app, which students can use to access classes and lessons whenever and wherever they are. It even includes a notification feature that can help with alerts.
  • Kajabi also has a membership feature that allows users to create and sell membership options to their customers. This can be used to provide users with a way to sell extra and exclusive course content.
  • Kajabi’s automation feature can automate the purchase of offers, post-completion of courses or memberships, assessment completion, as well as other tasks. Users can also use more advanced options with conditional filters to be precise in the automation process.
  • Kajabi’s marketing strategy is one of the most powerful among all the course-building and content platforms currently available.
  • Kajabi’s Email marketing is one of the best in the business. It includes various email templates that can be used in different situations. Kajabi also has the option to automate email sequences by using triggers and actions. Thinkific vs Vimeo
  • Kajabi’s pipeline feature allows various OVO funnel templates to be available. Pipeline features automate product sales and funnel customers to the places you want. This will result in higher conversion rates.

Cons

  • Kajabi’s price point is nothing to laugh at. It starts at $149 per month and does not even offer unlimited course creation. It only offers 3 products as well as 3 pipelines
  • Kajabi does not offer course completion certificates, something that some users want to receive as proof of going through the class
  • Kajabi does not have page templates to design landing pages, thank-you pages, checkout pages, forms or other pages. This means that users will have to create all pages from scratch using the page builder. As such, it will be very difficult for new and non-tech users.
  • Kajabi doesn’t offer a guarantee badge on its checkout page. A guarantee badge is a great tool to increase conversions. Buyers are assured of the product’s quality by obtaining a guarantee.
  • Kajabi does not have a local payment gateway. You must rely on Stripe and Paypal integrations to take payment from orders.
  • Despite having some advanced features, there are still some features that Kajabi lacks, especially in the community department. There are no gamification or community engagement features.

people-having-online-meeting-while-wearing-mask

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Kajabi Summary

It is undeniable that Kajabi is a juggernaut of a platform regarding course creation and marketing. Their marketing tools are unparalleled.

They provide the best marketing experience. Users would love to have their pipeline and automation features if they want to convert at a high rate.

Kajabi has its faults, however. It lacks features that allow you to connect with students and customers. These features allow you to create a great community. Thinkific vs Vimeo

Kajabi can also be quite expensive. People might find it difficult to justify buying a plan which can only host 3 products when there are cheaper alternatives that offer unlimited products.

Overall, Kajabi has advanced marketing features and is a great creation platform. It is perfect if you are looking for a platform for its marketing features. Although it is a little expensive, Kajabi’s features are well worth the cost.

Thinkific Versus Podia

Podia Overview

Another big name digital online content-selling platform is Podia. It is also an all-in-one platform that has powerful marketing features. Online courses, coaching, webinars and community are just a few of the many products that you can sell through this platform.

Furthermore, Podia is one of the cheaper digital content-selling platforms in the market. In fact, it might be among the lowest prices. However, it takes a percentage of the profit whenever you sell. This might be their way to offset the high price of its powerful features.

Podia is an excellent platform and tool, especially for business-oriented people like marketers and promoters.

couple-looking-at-laptop-happily

> > Click Here to Start Your Free Trial < <

Podia Features

In terms of features, Podia has loads of them.

From looking at the interface, Podia has it clean and minimal. It is designed to have all the other features accessible within 3 clicks. It is so easy that almost no learning curve is required to use Podia’s interface.

This makes it very user-friendly. Accessing or reaching the information you desire or need is easy with no additional steps or terms. In fact, almost all of Podia’s functions can be accessed straight from the dashboard.

Podia allows you to upload files that will be used as building blocks for your lessons. A course can contain text, embeds and quizzes as well as coaching and files. With some imagination, you can create interesting lessons with the platform that is given to you.

That said, This course creator can be lacking in some parts. Unlike most other platforms, Podia only supports very few lesson types. Furthermore, it does not have a proper assessment feature to help you monitor student performance. Thinkific vs Vimeo

That said, it has a very powerful embed tool that supports several platforms. Some of these websites include:

  • Youtube, Vimeo and Dailymotion are video hosts.
  • Podcast and music platforms like s Spotify, soundcloud and podbean
  • Slideshow platforms like speaker deck, presentation, google slides, and slide share
  • Social media sites such as Twitter, TikTok and Pinterest.
  • Form Builder websites like Google Forms, Typeform and Paper Form
  • Github and Codepen are two examples of coding websites.

One of the more recent additions to Podia’s courses is the ability to give certificates. This certificate’s feature can be seen as a perfect incentive/prize for completing your courses. Podia currently only offers one type of certificate. Podia cannot customize or design your certificates.

Podia’s marketing focus is on the bag. You can use it to increase the effectiveness of your marketing. You can promote your products using tools like coupons, upsells, or pre-launch.

This makes Podia an excellent choice for marketers looking to sell products on a smaller site.

That said, not everything is perfect. Podia’s weak point is its email marketing. It only offers the basics. It allows you to send broadcasts and email campaigns but lacks some features, such as split testing and personalization fields.

Also, those looking for automation features have lost their luck since Podia’s is not as advanced as some of theirs.

For payment processors, Podia has a local payment gateway. That said, you will need to connect your bank account or PayPal account to payment processors. For a simpler solution, you can also integrate with Stripe and PayPal.

Checkout is possible for your audience using their credit cards. They usually take less than 2 days to process and are credited to your PayPal or bank account. Thinkific vs Vimeo

Podia Price

It is also one of the most affordable on the market in terms of pricing. What’s more, is that the platform has recently added its own free plan. Although it doesn’t offer much, this plan is a great way to learn more about Podia.

Free Mover Shaker Earthquake
$0 per Month $33 per month $75 per month $166 per month
  • 8% transaction fees
  • Full Website
  • Email Marketing
  • Chat Support
  • Community
  • 1 Download
  • 1 Coaching Product
  • Draft Courses
  • Draft Webinars
  • There are no transaction fees
  • Visit the full website
  • Email marketing
  • Chat support
  • Community
  • Unlimited Downloads
  • Unlimited coaching
  • Unlimited Courses
  • Draft webinars
  • No transaction Fees
  • Full website
  • Email marketing
  • Chat support
  • Community
  • Unlimited downloads
  • Unlimited coaching
  • Unlimited courses
  • Unlimited webinars
  • Affiliates
  • There are no transaction fees
  • Visit the full website
  • Email marketing
  • Chat support
  • Community
  • Unlimited downloads
  • Unlimited Coaching
  • Unlimited courses
  • Unlimited webinars
  • Affiliates
  • Priority Support
  • Onboarding calls

Podia Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Podia’s strong point is its clear and simple UI/UX. It’s very user-friendly and doesn’t require any training. It is easy to set up for users of all tech levels.
  • Podia has many functions and can become a one-stop shop for all your needs. Digital products can include memberships, webinars and bundles.
  • Other than the free plan, Podia allows you to sell unlimited courses and products. This means that you can make as many pages as you like for your products and courses as long as there is energy.
  • Podia allows you to upload unlimited videos for your content. The platform provides unlimited storage and bandwidth, which is why this feature is possible. You don’t have to use Vimeo and Wistia.
  • Podia has a built-in affiliate program for your audience that is only available for Shaker and Earthquaker plans.
  • Although it only provides the basic functions, the email marketing tools built-in are sufficient to support campaigns and broadcasts.
  • Podia has supported a pre-launch mode among its marketing features. It will generate buzz about your products and encourage early conversions of email customers. Thinkific vs Vimeo
  • Podia does not charge any transaction fees for sales, except the free plan.
  • Podia has a new feature that allows content creators to give certificates, community, and quizzes. You can even create memberships in the community area.

Cons

  • Their email marketing provides only the most basic functions. It lacks personalization fields, especially in the email composer. Aside from that, the tool lacks templates, drag and drop editor, and other features
  • The platform lacks course compliance features.
  • Podia does not offer many customization options. It lacks custom CSS/HTMl customizations. Podia will result in generic websites.
  • Podia also has no landing page builders or funnels, which are important tools when considering Podia’s focus on marketing.
  • The free plan does not allow you to host more than one product. There is also an 8% transaction charge.
  • Podia does not have any course blueprints.
  • Podia only supports a few lesson types. Podia does not support certain types of lesson, such as Adobe Captivate and Articulate Storyline.
  • It has some good marketing features but it is still lacking others. These include cart abandonment, downsells and order bumps.
  • Podia doesn’t have a mobile app. This could limit its user base and access given how dependent the world is on tablets and smartphones. Thinkific vs Vimeo

Podia Summary

Overall, Podia is an acceptable platform for hosting your content. Podia is a decent platform, especially considering the price.

Many might think that with Podia, you get what you pay for. It isn’t true. Podia is more than what you pay. You can make impressive courses with enough creativity and great ideas and sell them for a fair price.

Despite some of its limited capacity, it is still an all-in-one platform. It is perfect for a lot of people. Content creators, teachers, marketers, and people who target marketers. If they have any questions, Podia can help.

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Thinkific Versus Kartra

Kartra Overview

Kartra is a completely different product to the ones listed above. Kartra is completely different to the other products in this review.

Instead of a course creator, we have an all-in-one platform that sells your products. It is also a marketing platform.

Kartra should not be considered a website in its own right or your product’s.

Rather, you should focus on its strengths and use them to sell products, services, and membership for your proper sites.

Kartra can be used to create and sell digital and physical products. You can sell unlimited quantities of these products and many different types of products. In fact, it also offers multiple pricing options for more flexible pricing on your part.

Kartra Features

Since Kartra is a different beast altogether, we might focus on features not found in most course-building websites. In fact, there might not be a course-building site for Kartra.

As for the features, we already mentioned that Katra allows you to sell many products. Each account can sell an unlimited number of them and offer them at any price point.

Kartra’s focus is on lead conversion and marketing to maximize its users’ profits. One of their key features is funnel construction.

Funnels literally mean a “funnel” for sellers to direct potential customers to buy their products. Although funnels are not considered campaigns by Kartra, they function in a similar way. Thinkific vs Vimeo

Kartra makes funnel building relatively easy. If you have previous experience in the field, you can create one yourself. You can also have Katra build it for you with their plug-and play campaigns, which are from industry leaders.

For personally built campaigns, you can also choose to share them with other Kartra members. You can even market and sell your campaigns and make money from them.

Kartra handles all the payment and billing processes needed, so you can focus on better funnels as you gain experience.

Kartra also has page-building capabilities, and it is surprisingly powerful. These features allow users to create product pages, checkout pages and opt-in pages. It even provides you with professionally designed templates to help you speed up the process or just start it out.

These pages can be optimized for mobile devices, tablets, and desktops. These pages can be hosted on your domain, or on Katra.

They are not yet able to host the full functionality and features required for a website. Kartra believes it, and they won’t let you host these pages on your domain.

Kartra’s marketing features should be considered the crown jewel. It has all that is needed for email marketing.

It can send broadcast messages by SMS or email. However, this will require you to integrate with any available SMS gateways.

Aside from that, Kartra also has automation which it can use to create email sequences. Drag-and-drop visual sequence builders make it easy to create them. Once you’re done, the program can run on autopilot.

Another one that is unique to the platform is its behavior-based automation. This powerful tool allows to send emails based upon the behavior of recipients. As such, when you are done setting up the hard work, you can just sit back and relax.

Kartra Price

Kartra’s pricing is high for a platform that focuses on lead conversions and marketing. That said, depending on what you need, the platform’s price point on its plans might be worth it. Thinkific vs Vimeo

Kartra offers advanced features that aren’t available in other products.

Starter Silver Gold Platinum
$79 per Month when you pay annually $149 per Month when you pay annually $229 per month when billed annually, $379 per month when billed annually
  • You can get up to 2,500 leads
  • 1 custom domain
  • 15,000 emails per month
  • 50GB bandwidth
  • Host up to 100 pages
  • Host 50 Videos
  • Build 2 membership sites
  • Add 1 additional team member
  • Connect 1 helpdesk
  • Up to 12,500 leads
  • 3 Custom domains
  • Unlimited emails
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • Unlimited pages
  • Unlimitted videos
  • Unlimited products
  • Unlimited membership sites
  • Unlimited team members
  • Unlimited helpdesk
  • Kartra agency
  • Up to 25,000 leads
  • 5 custom domains
  • Unlimited emails
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • Unlimited pages
  • Unlimited videos
  • Unlimited products
  • Unlimited membership sites
  • Unlimitless team members
  • Unlimited helpdesk
  • Kartra agency
  • Get up to 50,000 leads
  • 10 Custom domains
  • Unlimited emails
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • Unlimited pages
  • Unlimited videos
  • Unlimited products
  • Unlimited Membership Sites
  • Unlimited help for team members
  • Unlimited Helpdesk
  • Kartra Agency

Kartra Pros and Cons

Pros

  • You don’t need any external marketing integrations. Kartra offers everything: integrated email marketing, sequence builder, automation, and all other features necessary to market your products perfectly
  • Kartra has an automatic translation for its checkout pages. It works based on the user’s geographic location. In this vein, it also supports different currencies.
  • Kartar allows you to drip content or vary access to different levels, if you have an existing membership site.
  • You can use A/B testing to refine your automated email responses as you set them up.
  • Kartra has an agency feature that allows you to hold multiple client accounts. This allows you to manage different websites in just a single dashboard.

Cons

  • Some people might think Kartra’s price point is pretty expensive for what they are offering
  • There are no plans that offer unlimited integrations
  • Kartra’s interface can be slow and frustrating at times. Thinkific vs Vimeo
  • Even Kartra’s pages can load slow
  • The number of features can be very difficult for beginners to get used to.

Kartra Summary

Kartra is an all-in-one marketing and sales platform that’s powerful.

There are many tools and features available that will allow you to create engaging and compelling promotions and products.

It is not a course builder, and certainly not a website creator. As such, If you use Kartra, ensure that you are doing so in conjunction with a proper website page maker. This could be pretty difficult to swallow, as Kartra’s price point is pretty expensive for what it does.

But, it’s possible to get more for your money if you decide to take the plunge.

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Overall, Verdict Thinkific vs Vimeo

Course builder websites are pretty useful when joining the industry.

There will be many platforms available to provide the service you require, just as there are for most industries and markets. In the case of course building and selling, we have Thinkific, Podia, Kajabi ( and a little bit of Kartra), among others.

In a market-like course building, these platforms will offer almost identical services. They will have very few differences. Of course, some might excel in one aspect or another.

To find the right product for you, you must decide what direction you want to go. And find the platform that is best aligned with that. Chances are, you will find that their features will be most useful to you.

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