Podia vs Thinkific

thinkific-vs-competition

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

The majority of courses back then were more niche-oriented, such as leadership seminars, wholesomeness and self-help classes. There were also classes and courses that covered normal topics.

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

People who were housebound due to multiple reasons (maybe childcare or health problems) could keep studying and learning despite not being able to go out. People who couldn’t attend regular school due to duties and scheduling conflicts could still finish courses due to the medium’s flexibility.

Then the pandemic happened, and everything else was forced to shut down. However, people still needed to learn, and online course platforms and other eLearning platforms made it possible for a lot to continue their studies.

The industry saw a 221% rise in course creators using one Course Platform during the initial stages of the pandemic. This growth is probably shared throughout multiple platforms online.

Everybody from Entrepreneurs and solopreneurs to human resource professionals and proper educational institutions has used a course platform or two 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. From the usual life coaching stuff about making your life better to tutorial classes of the usual academic subjects like Algebra. You can even learn how to make your courses more lucrative.

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. You can still read our article below to get a complete overview of Thinkific. It also compares it with some other competitors.

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

Thinkific Overview

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

One of the main reasons why Thinkific stands out is that you know they are doing this in a place of passion. It is clear that they are more concerned with providing the best learning experience possible to creators as well as their audience. They also understand that making money is important to maintain the business.

It’s impossible to not! It is one of few online courses platforms that offers a free full-service service. Yes, Thinkific has a free service that is as good as their paid lowest-tiered one.

The platform is ideal for beginners as it allows them to see how content and courses are built, as well the industry’s overall environment. The free plan lets users see what they’re about to do without making any investments.

The only limitation of this free plan is that it only allows you to create one course and one course, and in my opinion, that is generous enough.

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. That means that course makers and content creators can use their earnings directly, with no need to wait for a quote or a certain threshold to reach before being able to touch the money.

This is a testament to how Thinkfiic views its customers.

Thinkific Features

Let me start by saying that almost all online courses platforms have the same features. First, there is the course builder, then there is the website builder for your courses, and then the marketing features.

They are all the same except for how they work and some other unique features. These are the features that Thinkific is known for.

Thinkific’s main focus is their ability to create course curriculum. Most of their features are geared toward the creation bit, of course, creation. They make sure that online courses are as engaging as possible.

The user interface of Thinkific is easy to use. 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. Podia vs Thinkific

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

The dashboard shows you how you are doing in revenue and student accounts. You can also see student course enrollments and sign-ups.

We can make the interface look a bit more appealing if we have to.

Thinkific is primarily focused on course creation, as mentioned previously. The platform makes course creation easy. Even in the free plan, Thinkific allows you to try everything the course creator can do.

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.

Another highlight is the scheduling of course content and some automation in 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.

But that’s just about it. Compared to the competition, Thinkific’s market features are a bit lackluster. The most glaring aspect is that it doesn’t have a built-in sales funnel builder. Overall, checkout is quite clunky.

You can’t do much about it because it is so limited in customization.

Even email marketing features are behind the competition. 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. These third-party applications are not meant to be used as bandages. They can be used to address some of the problems in Thinkific’s marketing department.

Thinkific integrates five of most popular email marketing platforms, including Aweber and Drip with email marketing.

It makes sense considering the platform’s repeated promises to focus on course creation. It would be wiser to pour all resources into ensuring they got that part right and get third-party apps to tackle the marketing part.

Thinkific Price

Although I’ve already spoken highly of Thinkific’s Free Plan, it’s still a limited plan and far less than Thinkific’s paid plans. It isn’t like most 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. Podia vs Thinkific

As such, if you want to use a more affordable plan and have many content ideas you think will sell, Thinkific should be one of the best matches for you.

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$
  • Support via Chat Bot and Email
  • 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
  • 0% transaction fee
  • Includes all free features
  • Custom domains
  • Discounts and coupons
  • Assignments
  • Bundles and add-on packages
  • Payment plans and memberships
  • Live lessons
  • Affiliate selling
  • Advanced course – building options
  • Advanced Courses on 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
  • 0% transaction fee
  • Support by phone and email
  • Includes all Start Features
  • 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
  • Transaction fee 0%
  • 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.

It still dedicates itself to teaching, lecturing, and supporting 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. Lastly, you will also discuss with them the total cost of this upgrade.

Each Thinkific Plus plan is unique, and as such, different Plus plans might more or less have different costs. This is one thing that is certain. Thinkific Plus will give you the features of the most expensive plan as well as these additional features:

  • Unlimited Products
  • Unlimited Administrators
  • 3+ Separate Thinkific sites
  • Service Level Agreement 99.9%
  • Build a 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

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Thoughtific Pros and Cons

Pros

  • The Thinkific free package is permanent free. This isn’t a glorified trial. You can only take as many courses as you like.
  • Thinkific doesn’t charge transaction fees for any sale. Content creators own all earnings. Creators can even claim and use these funds as soon as they arrive in their account.
  • When it comes to payment options, Thinkific can be flexible and has different payment options for different types of students and schools.
  • 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

  • Not everything in Thinkific’s tools are user friendly. Some would need guides and a bit of time to get used to.
  • It is difficult to recommend Thinkifiic for those who are more interested in promoting the platform’s marketing capabilities. You will need third-party integrations to get 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.
  • There is a distinct lack of customization options within the platform. As such, it is not impossible to find other websites that may look the same as yours. Podia vs Thinkific

The Thinkific Summary

Thinkific is one of the best online course platforms in the market today. I would easily recommend it to beginners and those looking for a more course-focused platform. It is still competitive with other “advanced” and more feature-rich platforms, despite its shortcomings.

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. Any problems with the platform can be fixed by integrating third-party services.

If you’re looking for the best online course creation software that builds courses from scratch. Thinkific is the best online course creation software.

Kajabi Versus Thinkific

Kajabi Overview

Kajabi is an open-source platform that allows you to run an online business. Its main focus is on productivity and sales. It provides tools that are geared towards simplifying your operations.

Kajabi’s top features include automations and pipelines, email marketing and a mobile application.

The platform allows you to sell a variety of products. Apart from courses, there are many other options. You can also sell memberships, communities and podcasts.

It is no wonder that Kajabi also has advanced marketing features, the most prominent of which include sales funnels (OVO pipelines), email marketing, and automations. These features give the Kajabi platform users an easier time selling their products.

As such, Kajabi is one of those rare products where the “all in one” platform fits. 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. The lowest plan is $149 per month. What’s more, is that these are not unlimited plans. The lowest plan allows you to sell only 3 products.

Kajabi’s features are not as rich, particularly in the community engagement and gamification departments. These issues might require third-party integrations.

Kajabi Features

Kajabi claims to be one of the best platforms. Even more, they have one of the most expensive courses in the market. As such, it is only to be expected that the audience will have high expectations of the product. Podia vs Thinkific

So let’s take a look at how good Kajabi features are starting from the interface.

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. The page also includes a search assistant that allows you to quickly locate the tools and features within the application.

Kajabi’s pages load quicker. It provides for a smoother experience and does not get in the way of your work.

In terms of Course Creation, Kajabi allows you to create various types. You can create mini-courses, online or drip courses, as well as creating your own. You can choose among these types for whichever suits your 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” can be used as templates, so you don’t have to worry about adding content.

These courses could be properly structured too into categories, subcategories and posts. As such, it would be very easy to organize your content neatly and properly. They can be arranged according to their content and types. You can have text and slideshows in one place, and audio and video in another.

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

Kajabi is a strong and comprehensive marketing tool.

It also offers the traditional stuff of offering coupons in a flexible way, which, as we have seen, is an old and proven 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. You can even have email templates ready for the different functions you want it to.

Another conversion tool they possess are their pipelines, which can help you convert more customers and increase your sales. These are easy to use, and the platform even provides templates that customers can easily access.

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

Kajabi’s lack of an integrated payment solution is the main problem. Instead users will have to rely on the integration form other payment gateways such as Stripe, Paypal, BitPay, Authorize.net and others.

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. These features can be used by anyone who is serious about starting an online business.

Potential users must be prepared to pay a high price for these tools.

Kajabi price

Kajabi is undoubtedly the most expensive course creation service in the market. Their lowest plan starts at $149 per month and this plan doesn’t even include unlimited courses. Podia vs Thinkific

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
  • 1000 active customers
  • 1 website
  • 1 admin user
  • Kajabi University
  • 0% Transaction Fee
  • Webinars and events
  • Ready to Use Templates
  • Ready to Use Templates
  • Assessments (Quizzes and Surveys)
  • 1 Welcome Call with an Onboarding Specialist
  • Chat Support
  • Automations
  • 15 products
  • 15 funnels
  • Unlimited Landing pages
  • Unlimited marketing emails
  • Contacts: 25,000
  • 10,000 active customers
  • 1 website
  • 10 admin users
  • Kajabi University
  • Transaction fee 0%
  • Webinars & Events
  • Ready-to-use Templates
  • Assessments (quizzes and surveys)
  • 1 welcome call with an onboarding specialist
  • 1 check-in call with an onboarding specialist
  • 24/7 Chat support
  • Automated systems
  • Ability to remove Kajabi Branding
  • 100 products
  • 100 funnels
  • Unlimitless landing pages
  • Unlimited marketing emails
  • 100,000 contacts
  • 20,000 active customers
  • 3 Websites
  • 25 admin users
  • Kajabi University
  • 0% Transaction Fee
  • Webinars & Events
  • Ready to Use Templates
  • Assessments (quizzes and surveys)
  • 1 Call to an Onboarding Specialist
  • 1 Check-in call with an onboarding specialist
  • 24/7 chat support
  • Advanced Automations
  • Kajabi branding can be removed
  • Affiliate program
  • Code Editor

Kajabi Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Kajabi, as its name suggests, is an all-in-one content creation and marketing tool. You can create courses using various tools, such as a drip or mini-course. Then, you can combine them with marketing automations to make sure they sell.
  • Kajabi Provides templates and blueprints to get you started with your project.
  • Kajabi lets you sell digital products such as coaching, webinars and communities. This is also a great place to do this.
  • Kajabi also has a built-in assessment function that allows you to grade and observe your students’ performance. This is extremely good when combined with drip courses to provide courses that can only be accessed when the proper grades are reached
  • Kajabi’s mobile app makes it easy for students to access lessons and classes wherever and whenever they want. 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 has an automation feature that can automate offers purchase, course or membership post-completion, assessment completion, and much more. To be more precise, users can use conditional filters.
  • 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 among the best in the industry. There are many email templates that you can use in various situations. Kajabi also has the option to automate email sequences by using triggers and actions. Podia vs Thinkific
  • Kajabi’s pipeline feature makes it possible to have various OVO funnel templates. Pipeline features automate product sales and funnel customers to the places you want. This will result in higher conversion rates.

Cons

  • Kajabi’s pricing is not to be laughed at. It costs $149 per month, and you cannot create unlimited courses. It offers only 3 products and 3 pipelines.
  • Kajabi doesn’t offer certificate of completion for courses, which some users would like to have as proof that they took the class.
  • Kajabi has no page templates for designing landing pages, thank you pages, checkout pages, forms, and other pages. That means users must do everything from scratch when editing page templates through the page builder. It will be difficult for non-tech users and new users.
  • Kajabi does not offer a guaranteed badge on the checkout page. A guarantee badge is a great tool to increase conversions. Guarantees assure buyers of a product’s quality.
  • Kajabi has no local payment gateway. You must rely on Stripe and Paypal integrations to take payment from orders.
  • Kajabi has some great features but it still lacks some key features, particularly in the community section. There are no gamification or community engagement features.

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

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Kajabi Summary

Kajabi is undoubtedly a giant platform for 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. For one, it lacks features that help you connect with your students and customers. Features that allow for the creation of a great community. Podia vs Thinkific

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. If you’re looking for a platform to market your products, Kajabi is the right choice. Although it is a little expensive, Kajabi’s features are well worth the cost.

Podia Versus Thinkific

Podia Overview

Podia is another popular digital content-selling platform. Podia is a powerful platform with strong 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. It does take a portion of your profit when you sell. It might be their way of offsetting the price for its powerful features.

At the end of the day, Podia is an excellent tool and platform, especially for those who are more focused on the business side, such as marketers, promoters, and the like.

couple-looking-at-laptop-happily

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Podia Features

Podia offers a lot of features.

Podia’s interface is clean and minimalistic. It is designed to have all the other features accessible within 3 clicks. In fact, it is so simple that the learning curve for using Podia’s interface is almost non-existent.

This makes it very user-friendly. Accessing or reaching the information you desire or need is easy with no additional steps or terms. Podia can access almost all functions from its dashboard.

For its Course creator, Podia supports various files that can serve as the building block for your lessons. You can include text, embeds, quizzes, coaching, and files in a course. You can make interesting lessons from the platform provided.

That said, This course creator can be lacking in some parts. Unlike most other platforms, Podia only supports very few lesson types. It does not provide a way to monitor student performance. Podia vs Thinkific

It also supports multiple platforms thanks to its powerful embed tool. These websites include:

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

Podia recently added the ability to issue certificates. This certificate feature can be viewed as an incentive/prize to complete 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.

Nevertheless, not all things are perfect. Podia’s weak point is its email marketing. It only offers the basics. Although it allows you to send email broadcasts and campaigns, some of its features are missing such as split testing or personalization fields.

People looking for automation features may also have lost their chance since Podia’s isn’t as advanced as theirs.

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

Your audience can use their credit cards at checkout. They usually take less than 2 days to process and are credited to your PayPal or bank account. Podia vs Thinkific

Podia Price

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

Free Mover Shaker Earthquaker
$0 per Month $33 per month $75 per month $166 per month
  • Transaction fees of 8%
  • Full Website
  • Email Marketing
  • Chat Support
  • Community
  • 1 Download
  • 1 Coaching Product
  • Draft Courses
  • Draft webinars
  • There are no transaction fees
  • Full website
  • Email marketing
  • Chat support
  • Community
  • Unlimited Downloads
  • Unlimited coaching
  • Unlimited Courses
  • Draft webinars
  • There are no transaction fees
  • Full website
  • Email marketing
  • Chat support
  • Community
  • Unlimited downloads
  • Unlimited coaching
  • Unlimited courses
  • Unlimited webinars
  • affiliates
  • There are no transaction fees
  • 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. Users of all edges and tech levels will find it intuitive to set it up.
  • Podia can serve many purposes and be a one-stop shop to meet all your needs. Digital products can include memberships, webinars and bundles.
  • Podia also offers a free plan that allows you to sell unlimited products and courses. That means as long as you have the energy and the idea, you can create as many pages for your courses and products as you want.
  • Podia also allows you to upload as many videos as possible 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.
  • Despite providing only the most basic functions, the built-in email marketing tools are enough to support broadcasts and campaigns.
  • Podia supports a prelaunch mode as one of its marketing features. It will generate buzz about your products and encourage early conversions of email customers. Podia vs Thinkific
  • 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. Especially in its email composer, which lacks personalization fields. Aside from that, the tool lacks templates, drag and drop editor, and other features
  • The platform lacks course compliance features.
  • Podia also does not have many customization features. Podia does not support custom CSS/HTMl customizations. Expect to have generic-looking websites when using Podia.
  • 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.
  • There are no course blueprints available in Podia.
  • 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. This includes order bumps, downsells, cart abandonment, and others.
  • 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. Podia vs Thinkific

Podia Summary

Overall, Podia is a decent platform to host your content. This is pretty true especially given the price point it is offered.

Many might think that with Podia, you get what you pay for. Well, it is not entirely true. Podia offers a lot more with what you pay for it. You can make impressive courses with enough creativity and great ideas and sell them for a fair price.

It is still an all-in one platform, despite its limitations. 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 different product from the others listed above. Scratch that, Kartra is entirely different from the other products listed in this review.

We offer a platform that allows you to sell your products, instead of creating courses. Yep, it is a platform that goes all in on the marketing side.

In this vein, Kartra should not be treated as a separate website or your product’s website.

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

Kartra is properly fitted to create and sell both 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

Kartra is an entirely different beast, so we may focus on features that aren’t found in most course-building sites. Kartra might not have a course-building website.

Katra lets you sell multiple products, as we mentioned previously. Each account can sell an unlimited number of them and offer them at any price point.

To maximize the profits of its users, Kartra focuses on marketing and lead conversion. One of their key features is funnel construction.

Funnels literally mean a “funnel” for sellers to direct potential customers to buy their products. While Kartra does not refer to funnels as campaigns, They function similarly. Podia vs Thinkific

Kartra makes funnel building relatively easy. You can build one from scratch if you already have experience in this field. You can also have Katra build it for you with their plug-and play campaigns, which are from industry leaders.

You can share your personally-built campaigns 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 has powerful page-building capabilities. These features allow users to create product pages, checkout pages and opt-in pages. You can even use professionally designed templates to speed up or start the process.

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.

First, it can send broadcast messages either by email or SMS. This will require integration with all available SMS gateways.

Kartra can also use automation 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 price is steep for a platform focused on marketing and lead conversions. That said, depending on what you need, the platform’s price point on its plans might be worth it. Podia vs Thinkific

After all, Kartra has some advanced features that are not found in others.

Starter Silver Gold Platinum
$79 per month when billed annually $149 per month when billed annually $229 per month when billed annually, Monthly payment of $379 when you pay annually
  • Up to 2,500 leads
  • 1 custom domain
  • 15,000 emails per month
  • 50GB bandwidth
  • Host 100 pages
  • Host 50 Videos
  • Create 2 membership websites
  • Add 1 more member to your team
  • Connect 1 helpdesk
  • Up to 12,500 leads
  • 3 custom domains
  • Unlimited emails
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • Unlimited pages
  • Unlimitted videos
  • Unlimitted products
  • Unlimited membership sites
  • Unlimitless team members
  • Unlimited helpdesk
  • Kartra agency
  • Get 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
  • Unlimitted videos
  • Unlimited products
  • Unlimited Membership Sites
  • Unlimited help team members
  • Unlimited Helpdesk
  • Kartra Agency

Kartra Pros and Cons

Pros

  • External marketing integrations are not required. 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 is based on the user’s geographical location. It also supports other currencies.
  • Kartar also allows you to drip content and vary access to different levels if you have a membership site.
  • There is A/B testing for your email content which can help you refine your automated email replies as you set them up.
  • Kartra has an agency feature that allows you to hold multiple client accounts. This feature allows you to manage multiple websites from one dashboard.

Cons

  • Some might feel that Kartra’s pricing is too high for the quality of what they offer
  • There are not unlimited integrations available with any of the plans.
  • Kartra’s interface can be slow and frustrating at times. Podia vs Thinkific
  • Even Kartra’s pages can load slow
  • For beginners, it can be difficult to understand the many features.

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.

That said, it isn’t a course builder and definitely not a website builder. Kartra should be used in conjunction with a professional 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 Podia vs Thinkific

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.

These platforms will almost offer identical services in a market-like setting. Their differences will be minimal at best. Some might be better than others in certain areas.

The key to finding which product you should use is to decide on the direction of what you want to do. And find the platform that is best aligned with that. You will likely find their features most helpful to you.

Podia vs Thinkific

thinkific-review

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 makes us superior to the other more powerful creatures in the world. Eagles and other sharp-eyed creatures might have better eyesight than humans, but we have learned to see further than them by understanding how the world works.

Although the example is a bit extreme, you get the point. The human race has won our place in the food chain due to our sheer knowledge and ingenuity.

It is therefore beneficial to share the knowledge we have with others, so that this knowledge does not become a burden on our minds and make us forget. Knowledge must be shared and developed in order to grow and develop.

That said, while it is ideal for sharing your knowledge and ideas for free, there is nothing wrong with selling it. Knowledge is power, and money can also be power. 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 Podia vs Thinkific

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 was a great solution to creating, managing and marketing online courses. Thinkific was easy to use, so even people with no technical knowledge could use it.

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. Later, we will look at these features and see if they really live up to the hype.

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. Thinkific instantly makes your funds available to withdraw whenever you make a sale. Thinkific ensures that your sales are 100% yours.
  • You can try Thinkific’s core features and have a feel for the environment through its free plan. While you are limited to 3 courses upload, you can host unlimited core content and have unlimited students.
  • Thinkific’s drag-and-drop builder makes it simple to create an online course. This is in keeping with their commitment to letting content creators concentrate on the content. Thinkific supports multiple types of content such as audio, video, PDFs and quizzes.
  • 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 your students their progresses and engage them in discussions. And even have them compete with the leaderboard.

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Useful Features

As for the features, Thinkific has more or less the same as that of the 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:

  • Easy to use course creator

This isn’t a new feature, as many online course builders already offer it. It will be very difficult for a course builder to compete on the market if they don’t offer a user-friendly option.

  • Drag-and-drop web page builder

Drag-and-drop page builders, like the course builder are common issues for these types of services. Course makers need to market their courses. As such, giving them the proper tools to do so easier is a godsend. Just like with Thinkific.

  • Promotion and marketing 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

Without multiple payment options, all of your marketing tools will be useless. 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.

Do they need to continue making tutorial videos that include direct examples? Or should they just give instructions? One cannot decide the best course of action without properly tracking revenues, engagements, and business performance.

  • 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. These features are a great way to get it done at Thinkific.

  • Tools to train the trainer

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

Thinkific gives these newbies and even veterans a chance to learn from what is tried and tested. This allows them to speed up the creation of courses and makes it easier for new users to use the app.

  • 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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Thinkific Course Builder: How Good Is It?

The only way to determine the quality of a course builder’s service is to actually test it.

The main course builder will determine how good a course builder service is. After all, what are we supposed to expect about their secondary and additional features if they can’t be bothered having a good and well-functioning course builder?

Thinkific offers a “Get Started” checklist to help you get started with 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. The 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.

Content types can be either of the following:

  • Video
  • Audio
  • Text
  • Download PDF documents
  • Slideshow presentations
  • Webinars and live zoom lessons.

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. The service also provides pre-formatted, professional-looking templates which can be used to create the course content.

Although you can still be flexible by using a template blank, they can be very helpful when you need to do your job quickly or are just starting to create courses.

These premade courses include:

  • Mini-courses: These course templates are designed to make short, fast courses like tasters or freebies.
  • Flagship Courses: These are the courses that make students and audiences take your courses or keep them always coming back. Every lesson is designed to be easy for students to follow and is simple to learn.
  • 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. Podia vs Thinkific
  • Membership Resource Library: You can use this template to create an archive of resources for your subscribers. This will encourage your audience stay on your site even when they are 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 is perfect for your students who are late enrollees and for people who missed your seminars.

Customizing The Look of Course for your Students

Your students will be able to consume your learning resources in the Course Player. As such, you can customize how this course player looks in the “Settings” tab on the “Courses” page. You can change the color scheme, fonts or add logos.

You can even add a course description and image in the settings here.

This part also allows you to preview your lessons in the course player. This is convenient since you can see how your students view your lessons. This allows you to see the problem through their eyes.

You can assign assignments and track 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. Podia vs Thinkific

Assignments are not available for PRO plans.

All in all, Thinkific’s Course Builder is easy to use. 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. It was designed with newbies and non-tech people in mind.

Start building your website by:

1. Pick a Theme.

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

Thinkific offers three pre-designed themes 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.

After picking a theme, you can customize it as you like. Through the site builder, you can do your preferred edits and make out an entire website. If you want, you can dig in and craft individual pages.

The Site builder uses drag-and-drop tools, making it easy for users to build your website from scratch. This tool can be combined with pre-made themes to create a professional-looking website.

And that is just the beginning. Your website’s potential is limitless. Your creativity will only be your limit.

3. Make a Training website Entirely from Scratch.

Since we are already in the business of making courses, it would be a very good idea to proceed and build a training website to house your created courses. 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:

  • Your website’s homepage is the face. Where most relevant things should be found
  • Course pages: These can swerve as landing pages for approaching 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 Podia vs Thinkific
  • Sign in Pages: This should be sued for subscribers of your website
  • Your student’s dashboard will be your starting point for signing in to your site. It is possible to design a student dashboard that makes it easy for students to access all the content on your website.
  • Checkout pages or payment page: This is where you place your payment options for subscribing or signing up for your class.
  • Pages Coming Soon: Although they may not appear to be full, these pages can be used as teasers or previews of any pages, courses, offers, or bundles that you might offer.

These pages can be used with your website in many ways. These templates are also a good utility for making a website and needing it fast. These templates are a great way to skip the tedious part of selecting which template you want for your website. Podia vs Thinkific

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 be customized easily 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.

Thinkfic offers 23 pre-formatted pages sections. Most of these pre-formatted pages are focused on building high conversions. These high-converting pages include, but are not limited to:

  • Call to Action.

This is a crucial part of selling. 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.

  • Frequently Asked Questions

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

  • ‘Social Proof’

These sections are akin to testimonials and show off client experiences, comments, and reviews. These sections are like testimonials and show what the clients get from the lessons. This in turn encourages others to use your product.

  • Upsell

These are sections that help promote other courses that you are selling. This section is often found on the checkout page for one of your courses.

  • Instructor

This section is where you can put your instructor profiles in the courses. This gives students information as to the people who are teaching them.

  • 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

Now we come to what is known as among the most anticipated parts of the review. How does the business side of Thnkific work? 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. While others are the opposite and mostly rely on integrations to carry forth the promotion and business side of things.

Which side is Thinkific on? Let’s see how Thinkific handles promotion and business.

Promote Your Courses

Thinkific comes with marketing tools to help you make money from your content. Even users who are utilizing the free plan can try these features, albeit they only have access to the most basic of functions and are pretty limited in their scope.

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. Podia vs Thinkific

Customers and potential students can get a glimpse into your content by allowing them to see it. That way, once they dive into your paid content, they already have at least a small idea of how things work out.

While these promotional materials may seem lacking at first, in skillful hands, these can go a very long way as promotional materials. They can even be used to compete with products that have been promoted too much.

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. These include:

  • Coupons

Coupons need no introduction. They have been used in many transactions for a long time. So it is no surprise that they are also being used in online business and online marketing.

Thinkific’s coupon codes are digital codes that can be shared easily. These codes can be used in Thinkific’s ecosystem very well. Using a coupon on Thinkific’s checkout will automatically use it with little to no hassle.

From a marketing standpoint, coupons can be set up and used to promote your bundles and courses. This will entice potential customers to check out your courses, especially if a discount is included.

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

You can use sales widgets to link to other websites or social media to share your purchase links. 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.

You can’t expect traffic if your courses are new and you don’t have an audience. Even if your audience is already established, you still need a quick and easy way to link your courses with classes on other websites.

This is where social media comes into play. It is a given that almost everybody uses social media. You should find where most of the internet traffic comes from and try to divert some of those traffic to your website.

The easiest way to do this is through sales widgets which generate HTML code that can easily be pasted on existing websites. Of course, this includes social media sites. Aside from that, these codes can also be sent as messages if you want to market that way. Podia vs Thinkific

Another customization you can do with this widget is how it looks. 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. This tool can only be sent to those you already know.

In the case of Thinkific, their email marketing tools do just this…….. And not much more. Unfortunately, you can only email existing students enrolled in 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.

The process is simple and straightforward with Thinkific. 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.

As for checking the status and performance of your affiliates, Thinkific will track the courses or bundles your affiliate sells and record the corresponding revenue. Podia vs Thinkific

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. Thinkific offers Stripe as a payment platform for cards. You can also connect PayPal to make one-off payments.

Lastly, there is also an option to link your courses to a Shopify site. This allows you to access all of the eCommerce platform’s tools.

Thinkific’s payment options let you customize the price of your products. Customers can be charged with different payment options. You can also sell courses for a one-off fee.

You can even make membership subscriptions and charge accordingly. You can also sell your course as a bundle if you wish. 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

Any good website that is selling something should include a Reports and Analytics feature. This feature will help users identify which areas they excel at and which ones they should focus on to 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 still in its infancy and is only available on the Start + Growth add-on package.

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. Some selections include filtering data by date, course or product type, by recency of customers (whether they are new or existing), and more.

These data can give you multiple insights into how your courses perform. Let’s take, for instance, data about student engagement.

This data will allow you to view things like course enrollments and completion rates. You can then compare these metrics across the board. This will allow you to identify subjects with low completion rates.

You can then identify the reasons for these problems. It is up to you then to make the necessary adjustments. Podia vs Thinkific

For example, for courses with low completion rates, students might find the course extremely hard. Still, it might be a problem with the way you are presenting the information or instructions. Once you find the problem, you can then find an applicable solution without tearing your hair out.

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

Prices and plans that are thought-provoking

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.

However, what you pay is what you get with Thinkfiic, with all the features it provides, you will hardly find yourself being ripped off by the product.

Besides that, Thinkific has a free plan which you can use to test their products. You can always start your course-creating journey for free before moving to a paid plan if you need it or want more of Thinkific’s features.

Free Start Grow Expand
$0 per month $74 per month $149 pero 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 business and create a cohesive learning experience for your students

 

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

 

  • Unlimited courses
  • 3 communities
  • 2 admin
  • Unlimited students
  • 0% transaction fee
  • Support by phone and email
  • Includes all Start Features
  • Remove Thinkific branding
  • Bulk student emailer
  • 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
  • Includes all Grow features
  • 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. It is the best way to get a feel of the service and to test drive what it is capable of. The free plan allows you to do everything the service offers, albeit at a limited capacity.

Only one course is allowed under the Free plan. Making more than that requires you to sign up. This course is full of potential and you can enroll as many students as you wish.

The Start Plan

If you think you like using Thinkific and would like to proceed with the next big step in the right direction. The main benefit of upgrading to this plan is your limiters are removed, and you are free to make unlimited courses.

Aside from that, Thinkific affords you a few more options in the type of courses you can make. For example, you can begin to live-stream your lessons as long as time permits it.

The Start plan also opens up additional marketing tools and grants you access to the Thinkific App Store.

Lastly, you also have the option to have a custom domain for your course website.

The Grow Plan

The Grow plan is for you if you are serious about selling and making courses. First, you will be able to remove the Thinkific branding. It might seem simple, but it does a lot in terms of branding, marketing, and making your courses look more professional.

This gives you access to bulk enrollments so that the enrollment process can be done easier and faster. You have priority email support and phone support. So you can have faster solutions given to you should different problems arise for your website. Podia vs Thinkific

The Expand Plan

The Expand plan is designed for larger businesses and institutions. This plan allows you to streamline your workflow and provide a premium experience using a platform that can scale.

This plan is ideal for large institutions that want to establish 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.

Speaking of management, this plan also provides 5 administrators to help with running things.

Thinkific Plus

LMS services offer clients and customers the option to create custom plans that are separate from their 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.

For Thinkific, this is called 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 will help you understand the tools you need to optimize your platform. They can connect you with education experts who will inspire you and give you the confidence you need to achieve more than you could ever imagine.

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

  • Unlimitted Products
  • Unlimited Administrators
  • 3+ Separate Thinkific sites
  • Service Level Agreement 99.9%
  • Dedicate Customer Success Team
  • Multiple seats and Tiered pricing checkout
  • Email white-labeling
  • Single 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 has a fully realized free plan. It includes all core features and functions like a paid plan. Although there are no limitations, if you are serious enough, you can start selling courses through the services with no upfront monetary investment. Podia vs Thinkific
  • Thinkkific’s drag and drop builder is easy to use by even non-tech-savvy users. It even allows you to upload multiple types of media content to create varied and interesting courses and lessons.

Cons

  • Some aspects of Thinkific aren’t as user-friendly than 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.
  • The customization options and designs available through Thinkific are very limited. There are only a handful of themes that you can choose from. It is difficult to make a website that stands out from the competition with these options.

The Thinkific Verdict

Overall, Thinkific is a good choice for course creation as well as course promotion. It is affordable and features are just as easy as those of its rivals.

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. Podia vs Thinkific

I believe that offering a free startup plan to a service is a sign of confidence. They believe their product is of use and are willing to let the public try it.

Looking at Thinkific’s free plan, too, you can say that it is very bold, and the limitations are pretty 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.

Thinkific’s Course Builder is very intuitive and easy to use. With just a glance, you can easily know what to do and what functions as what. Thinkific has enough prompts to help you navigate the more complicated aspects of the world.

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.

For their Site Builder, Thinkific also chooses to keep it simple. It is not like a standalone platform. It is easy to use, and it fits their philosophy.

It has impressive editing capabilities, making it ideal for creating tutorial and training websites. It is also a great tool to add training pages to existing websites.

The only thing lacking is more themes to cater to more people and their different tastes.

Finally, I believe Thinkific is lacking in the marketing department. 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.

As for their payment options, it would be better to have more options other than Stripe and PayPal.

However, not everything is grim-looking though. Thinkfic still has some clever tools that help you monetize your courses. You can sell products and courses with a little creativity. It does require more effort than usual, however.

Thinkific’s Frequently Asked Questions Podia vs Thinkific

Can You Build an Entire Website with Just Thinkfic?

Yes, you can!

Thinkfiic allows you to create your entire online education company. You can easily create courses, websites, and your entire brand on one 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 will be at your discretion.

Remember that students may need assistance logging in to your courses offline. That said, you can offer your courses to be downloadable. This can be done for content such as audio files, video files, and PDFs. These files can be downloaded to students’ devices so they can access them offline.

Who owns the content published on Thinkific?

The creators are the complete and sole owners of any content that is built into the Thinkific Platform.

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.

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