Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

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 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.

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.

It is great to share your knowledge and ideas free of charge, but it is also fine to sell it. After all, Knowledge is Power, and power can be money. At the end of the day, the knowledge owner gets to decide what to do with it. And that is the beauty of it.

The only way to “sell” knowledge for years was to either directly or indirectly tutor the buyer.

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.

It has also been revealed that there are many things being passed around. People can share their knowledge on a variety of platforms, such as Youtube and TikTok, to teach others how they make or do the most common or absurd things.

Online education is not the only option. 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. You can still read our article to get a complete overview of Thinkific.

Thinkific: an Online Course Platform Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

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

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.

Luckily, they were able to find an effective solution to their dilemma. 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 the users to focus on one thing and one thing only: content. Good content is what drives students and teachers to engage.

As such, Thinkific provides plenty of features to help facilitate that promise. We will examine these features later to see if the promises are true.

Enjoy the Thinkific Benefits

Thinkific isn’t the only platform capable of creating decent courses. Many LMS and CMS can do the same job as Thinkific. That said, we would be remiss if we gloss over Thinkific just because of this fact.

What is it that makes thinkific such a great platform?

  • Thinkific doesn’t take transaction fees, unlike many other platforms. 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
  • Through the free plan, you can test Thinkific’s core features as well as get a feel of the environment. 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
  • 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 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. You can organize groups, schedule content and send them via drip-feed. They also lock them with prerequisite lessons.
  • You can also engage with students via Thinkific’s multiple channels. You can email your students their progresses and engage them in discussions. You can even make them compete on the leaderboard.

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Thinkific 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 how they handle some specific sections of the whole experience. These features include:

  • User-friendly course builder

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

Like the course builder, drag-and-drop page builders are standard issues for these kinds 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.

  • Marketing and promotion tools

In the same vein as selling courses, course builders like Thinkific should have the proper built-in email and affiliate marketing tools, sales widgets, and the ability to offer coupons to make it easy for users to sell their products in the platform.

  • 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. How else can you find your approach without knowing your strengths and weaknesses? This feature is offered by Thinkific to help users decide the direction of their content.

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.

  • Student support and communities

Having a good community that consumes your content is a good way to build up returning customers. Besides that, it is also good for branding as well as engagements. Customer retention is greatly improved by having a strong community and customer support. It is good that Thinkific provides the avenue to do so with these features.

  • 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 who try Thinkific might be new to the process and will tend to stumble around until they feel comfortable.

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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Thinkific Course Builder: How Good Is It?

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.

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?

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

You will receive a draft of “Your First Course” when you start your course.

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.

You can choose from the following content types:

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

You can upload any of these files as your lessons. If you want, you can add multiple course content and upload them using the Bulk Importer. Also, Thinkific makes you duplicate old lessons from previous ones by using the “Copy Lessons From” button.

Choose the Course Type

You can choose the course that Thinkific is 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.

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-course: These are course templates designed to create short and fast courses such as tasters and freebies.
  • Flagship Courses are courses that attract students and keep them 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 will allow you to tell potential customers about your courses. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy
  • This template can be used to create a membership resource library 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.

Your Students’ Course Design

Students will be able use your learning materials 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 allows you to see the views of your students on your lessons. This allows you to see the problem through their eyes.

Set Assignments and Check Progress

As an extra way to engage students, assignments, quizzes and surveys can be very useful. You can also use it to rate your students. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

That said, assignments are only available for the PRO plan.

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.

Thinkific Site Builder shares many of the same features as other landing page builders. This allows you to sell courses directly from your website, even if your site isn’t yet online.

The website builder is easy to use. This website builder was created with non-techy people and newbies 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 comes with its own style, colors, fonts, layouts, and customized layouts.

These websites all have professional and good designs.

2. Use Site Builder to Customize Your Online Course Site.

You can modify the theme you have chosen after you’ve selected it. 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. Combining this with pre-built themes, users can make a professional-looking web page from scratch.

And that is just the beginning. The potential your website can take will be up to you. Your creativity will only be your limit.

3. Start a Training Website 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. These pages can be used as building blocks for your website. These pages are worth mentioning:

  • Home Page: The face of your website. The place where the most important things should be located
  • Course pages: These can swerve as landing pages for approaching courses. You can create a course page to serve as a landing page for all courses in your class.
  • Sign-up pages: This is where your potential customers and students enroll for individual courses or memberships Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy
  • Sign in Pages: This should only be used for subscribers to your website
  • Student Dashboard: This will serve as your student’s starting point when signing in to your website. 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. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

You can also create a customized page by clicking on the Custom Page link in the menus. This will allow you to design your page according to your requirements.

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.

Pre-built pages come with suggestions sections that will help you choose the right ones 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. Most of these pre-formatted pages are focused on building high conversions. 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 lets your would-be students and customers know how to sign up or buy.

  • Smart Product and Category

This section provides a list of information that can provide your customers with automatically listed summaries of available products you sell.

  • Checklists

This section can be used for key messages and makes it easy to scan information with 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. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

  • ‘Social Proof’

These sections can be compared to testimonials. They show client reviews, comments, and experiences. 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 are sections that help promote other courses that you are selling. You can often find this section on the checkout page of one of your courses.

  • Instructor

This is where your instructors profiles can be added to the courses. This section gives students information about the teachers.

  • Pricing Options

You can place your pricing options here. This will inform your students about the cost of your courses as well as where they can be paid. This is where you can also describe your bundles and what they include, as well as how much each one costs.

  • Video

If you want to promote your courses with a video advertisement, you can add the section here.

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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. 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. They only differ on how much that platform focuses on.

Yep, that’s right. Some platforms are more focused on the conversion side of selling courses and creating content. Others, on the other hand, focus more on the business and promotion side of things and rely heavily upon integrations.

So on which side does Thinkific fall 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. 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 provides free plan users with the needed SEO options, which allows you to promote your lessons in the most basic ways by making your content capable of climbing up the top of the search engine results.

Free users also have the option to create free trial courses. Think of it as giving your potential customers a free sample or a taste test. This is among the most efficient ways to show your audience what you are capable of. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

By allowing customers and potential students a taste of your content, you will allow them a peek into the curtains and how classes are done. 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’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 coupons come from digital codes that are very easy to share. They are utilized very well in Thinkific’s ecosystem. You can use a coupon at Thinkific’s checkout to instantly redeem it.

Coupons can be used to promote bundles or courses from a marketing perspective. You can encourage potential customers to visit your courses by including a discount.

Thinkific also allows you to personalize your coupons. The coupon can be customized by setting the dollar amount or percentage, as well as the expiration date and the number of times it can be used.

  • 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.

This is where social media comes into play. It’s a fact that social media is used by almost everyone. 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. Of course, this includes social media sites. If you wish to market this way, these codes can be sent as messages. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

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 allow you to manage your newsletters and send targeted messages to subscribers. This tool is not used to convert new subscribers but to keep 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, only existing students can be emailed about your courses. Notifying them about new products or courses is another option.

Not everything is bad, though, as if you want more features, you can use other email marketing tools such as Mailchimp, Mailerlite, AWeber, Constant Contact, ActiveCampaign, or ConvertKit.

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. The steps include adding the affiliated person as a user and making him an “Affiliate” which you can find under “User Roles” in the Process.

You can also convert Thinkfiic users into affiliates by finding them 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. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

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. This allows you to access all of the eCommerce platform’s tools.

Thinkific’s payment options let you customize the price of your products. You can even charge customers with different payment plans. For example, you can sell courses for a one off fee.

You can even make membership subscriptions and charge accordingly. If you want, you can sell your course in a bundle. But right now, I haven’t tried that feature as I have only a few courses made 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 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.

It is a good step in the right direction. Having it is better than nothing.

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.

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.

You can then identify the reasons for these problems. Then it will be up to you to adjust accordingly. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

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 have identified the problem, you will be able to find a solution that works without having to tear your hair out.

The data is displayed as a graph and chart, which makes it much easier to understand and read.

Prices and plans that are thought-provoking

Thinkific is one of the leading platforms on course building, 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.

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
  • 0$ transaction fee
  • Chat Bot and Email Support
  • 100% content ownership
  • Drag and drop course builder
  • Simple 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 on 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
  • 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
  • Transaction fee 0%
  • 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. To make more courses, you will need 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. 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.

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. The first benefit you get is removing 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. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

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 especially good for huge institutions wanting to create an online presence. Aside from providing the usual features of the other Thinkific plans, it provides unprecedented 10 Communities to keep students easier to manage.

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

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.

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

To get Thinkific Plus, you must contact the Thinkfic sales team. They can help you to understand the tools that you need in order 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 will give you all the features from the Expand plans while also adding in these features:

  • Unlimitted Products
  • Unlimited Administrators
  • 3+ Separate Thinkific sites
  • Service Level Agreement 99.9%
  • Dedicate Customer Success Team
  • Check out multiple seats or a tiered pricing option
  • Email white-labeling
  • Only one sign on
  • Bulk Selling App
  • Enterprise API Access

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Thinkific Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Thinkific does not take any transaction fees. Funds are immediately available for withdrawal whenever a sale is made from your products, courses, or memberships.
  • 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. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy
  • Thinkkific’s drag-and-drop builder is super easy to use, and even non-tech-savvy people can use it. You can upload multiple media types to create different and exciting lessons and courses.

Cons

  • Some aspects of Thinkific aren’t as user-friendly than expected. Some creators have acknowledged this.
  • The service lacks many marketing features. Their email marketing capabilities are very basic and far behind those of the competition.
  • Thinkific’s designs and customizations are quite limited, given that the service only provides a few themes to play with. It is difficult to make a website that stands out from the competition with these options.

Thinkific Verdict

Thinkific is an excellent choice for course promotion and course creation. 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. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

In my opinion, providing a free startup plan is actually a mark of confidence on the side of the service. They are confident in their product and willing to allow the public to 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.

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. 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. But that is just 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. 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. Marketers can feel disillusioned by the Email marketing structure. Marketing Thinkific’s courses are difficult to market without 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 offers some useful tools to help you make money from 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 Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

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.

I Want to Allow my Students Access to my Course Content while Offline; How Do I Do that?

It is up to you.

Remember that students may need assistance logging in to your courses offline. You can make your courses downloadable. This can be done for content such as audio files, video files, and PDFs. Your students can download these to their devices and access them even 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 has no intellectual property rights and will not claim them. Everything published and built on the platform belongs to its creators.

Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

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 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.

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

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. 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 all the rage. The next question is how you plan to share the treasure you find in your head with the world.

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 Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

The Thinkific Overview

Thinkific is one of the most fashionable options available now for building, hosting, and selling your courses.

One of the main reasons why Thinkific stands out is that you know they are doing this in a place of passion. 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.

How could you not? After all, it is one of the few online course platforms that provide a full-on free 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 profits go to content owners.

Thinkific ensures that all profits are immediately available after they have been 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.

Useful Features

First, let me preface this by saying that most online course platforms share almost 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. As such, we will be focusing on these aspects of Thinkific’s features.

For Thinkific, the main focus would be their course curriculum creation capabilities. Most of their features are geared toward the creation bit, of course, creation. They ensure that online courses are as interactive 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. They are properly classified to where they are, except for occasional hiccups. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

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.

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.

This course builder also allows you to include a multitude of media types. 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. The overall checkout experience is pretty clunky.

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

Even email marketing features lag behind the competitor. Most of it is quite basic, and at most, you can notify your students of new courses or products, as well as send them their course progress and notify them about their course progress as well as updates.

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.

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

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’s not like the rest of the competition.

At a cheaper price point, Thinkific allows users to make an unlimited number of courses and enroll an unlimited number of students in these courses. This is in keeping with their mission to focus on education. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

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
  • 0$ transaction fee
  • Support via Chat Bot and Email
  • 100% content ownership
  • Drag and Drop Course Builder
  • Simple 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
  • Transaction fee 0%
  • All features included in the price
  • 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 at Thinkific Academy
A complete set of tools is available to help you increase your sales.

 

  • Unlimited courses
  • 3 Communities
  • 2 admin
  • Unlimited students
  • Transaction fee 0%
  • Support by phone and email
  • Includes all Start Features
  • 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
  • Transaction fee 0%
  • Priority phone support
  • All Grow features included
  • SSL Certificates Customized
  • Priority Support

Thinkific offers a more complex and customized plan, 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. They will help you to get the best out 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 offer you all the benefits of the most expensive plan, plus these extra features.

  • 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

man-seriously-staring-at-laptop

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Thoughtific Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Thinkific’s free package is permanently free. This isn’t a glorified trial. You can only take as many courses as you like.
  • Thinkific does not ask for transaction fees whenever a sale is made. Content creators own all earnings. These funds can be claimed and used by creators as soon as they are received in their accounts.
  • When it comes to payment options, Thinkific can be flexible and has different payment options for different types of students and schools.
  • The limitation for the number of courses is removed in all instances of Thinkific’s premium plans. Users can create unlimited courses and enroll unlimited students in these courses.
  • In terms of interface, Thinkific has one of the easiest to understand. The majority of options are logically placed and easy to find. Users just starting can easily understand how things work in this interface.
  • 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.
  • Thinkific gives you the option to offer incentives, such as leaderboards and awards, 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.
  • 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.
  • 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. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

The Thinkific Summary

Thinkific is one of the best online course platforms in the market today. 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. 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.

Thinkific Versus Kajabi

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 offers tools that simplify 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. Aside from courses, you can sell coaching, memberships, communities, podcasts, and other digital content.

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.

Kajabi is a rare product that can be described as an “all-in-one” platform. It’s a course-creation platform that offers more than just decent marketing features. You can even use automation features to help you spend more time marketing and creating than on the mundane 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.

Aside from that, Kajabi is not as feature-rich, especially in the gamification and community engagement department. So you might need some third-party integrations to address these issues.

Kajabi Features

Kajabi boasts about being one of the better platforms. They even have one of the more expensive plans in the course creation market. As such, it is only to be expected that the audience will have high expectations of the product. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

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. For easier accessibility, the page has a search assistant to quickly find the features and the tools inside the application.

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

Kajabi offers a variety of course creation options. Some samples include mini-courses, online courses, drip courses, or create one from scratch. You can choose among these types for whichever suits your needs. (i.e. For long courses with long content, short 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. As such, it would be very easy to organize your content neatly and properly. 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 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.

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 organizes both affiliate links and affiliates in its own category, making it easier to track down and find them.

I would say that the biggest problem for Kajabi is its lack of integrated payment solution. Instead users will have to rely on the integration form other payment gateways such as Stripe, Paypal, BitPay, Authorize.net and others.

This is entirely disappointing given how robus their marketing tools are as well as how good their checkout is at doing things like upsells, bump offers, and downsells.

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

It is undeniable that Kajabi is among the most expensive service when it comes to the course creation market. Their lowest plan starts at $149 per month and this plan doesn’t even include unlimited courses. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

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 monthly billed annually $159 per month, payable annually Monthly payment of $319
  • 3 products
  • 3 funnels
  • Unlimited landing pages
  • Unlimited marketing emails
  • 10,000 contacts
  • 1000 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 & Surveys)
  • 1 Call to an Onboarding Specialist
  • Chat Support
  • Automatizations
  • 15 products
  • 15 funnels
  • Unlimited Landing pages
  • Unlimited marketing emails
  • Contacts: 25,000
  • 10,000 customers currently active
  • 1 website
  • 10 admin users
  • Kajabi University
  • 0% Transaction Fee
  • Webinars & 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
  • Automated systems
  • Ability to remove Kajabi Branding
  • 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 and Events
  • Templates Ready for Use
  • Assessments (quizzes and surveys)
  • 1 Welcome Call with an Onboarding Specialist
  • 1 Check-in Call with an onboarding specialist
  • 24/7 chat support
  • 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. It is also one of the best places to do so.
  • Kajabi also includes an assessment function that allows students to grade their performance and monitor them. 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 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 feature can be used by users to offer additional and exclusive 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 has one of the strongest marketing features among the content and course-building platforms available right now.
  • Kajabi’s Email Marketing is among the best in the industry. There are many email templates that you can use in various situations. Kajabi has the ability to automate email sequences using triggers or actions. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy
  • 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 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. As such, it will be very difficult for new and non-tech users.
  • Kajabi does not offer a guaranteed badge on the checkout page. Guarantee badges are a good tool for increasing conversions. Guarantees assure buyers of a product’s quality.
  • Kajabi does not have a 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. It does not have community engagement or gamification 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 have the tools that provide a great marketing experience. Their pipeline and automation features can be the envy of other platforms and something users would want to have if they want the best rate of conversions.

That said, Kajabi is not without its flaws. For one, it lacks features that help you connect with your students and customers. Features that allow for the creation of a great community. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

Kajabi can also be quite expensive. It might be difficult for people to justify purchasing a plan that can only hold 3 products, when there are cheaper options that allow them unlimited access.

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

Podia is another popular digital content-selling platform. Podia is a powerful platform with strong marketing features. Among the products you can sell on this platform are online courses, coaching, webinars, community, and many more.

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.

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

> > Click Here to Start Your Free Trial < <

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. It is so easy that almost no learning curve is required to use Podia’s interface.

This makes the platform very beginner friendly. There are no more complicated terms and actions needed just to reach or access something that you need or want. 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. You can include text, embeds, quizzes, coaching, and files in a course. 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. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

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.
  • Music and podcast platforms such as 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 such as 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 feature can be viewed as an incentive/prize to complete your courses. However, Podia only has one type of certificate for now. They cannot still customize and design your certificates.

Podia’s marketing focus is on the bag. It has a lot of excellent features to enhance 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. In this case, Podia’s weakness is its email marketing, which only provides 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. That said, you will need to connect your bank account or PayPal account to payment processors. You can integrate with Stripe or PayPal for a simpler solution.

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. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

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.

No cost Mover Shaker Earthquaker
$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
  • Full website
  • Email marketing
  • Chat support
  • Community
  • Unlimited Downloads
  • Unlimited coaching
  • Unlimited Courses
  • Create webinars
  • No transaction Fees
  • Visit the 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 strongest point is its clean and crisp UI/UX. It is very easy to use and has a non-existent learning curve. 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. You can sell various digital products such as courses, memberships, webinars, bundles, community, and other digital downloads.
  • 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. This is thanks to the unlimited storage and bandwidth that the platform offers its users. This way, you don’t need to use Vimeo or 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 supports a prelaunch mode as one of its marketing features. It will generate buzz about your products and encourage early conversions of email customers. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy
  • Except for the free plan, Podia charges no transaction fee on sales.
  • 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 only provides the 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
  • There is a noticeable lack of course-compliance features in the platform
  • Podia does not offer many customization options. It lacks custom CSS/HTMl customizations. Expect to have generic-looking websites when using Podia.
  • Podia does not have landing page builders and funnels. These are essential tools considering Podia’s focus in marketing.
  • Its free plan is severely lacking and will only allow you to host 1 product. It also charges an 8% transaction fee.
  • 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.
  • While it has pretty good marketing features, it still lacks some. 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. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

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 people might believe that Podia is a value-for-money company. It isn’t true. Podia offers a lot more with what you pay for it. With enough creativity and good ideas, you can create impressive courses and sell them at a good price.

It is still an all-in one platform, despite its limitations. It’s perfect for many people. Content creators, teachers, marketers, and people who target marketers. If they have any questions, Podia can help.

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Kartra Versus Thinkific

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.

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

Instead, focus on the strengths of your site and sell products, memberships, and services.

Kartra is properly fitted to create and sell both digital and physical products. It allows you to sell an unlimited number of them and different kinds of products. It also allows you to choose from multiple pricing options, which will allow you to set a more flexible price.

Kartra Features

Kartra is an entirely different beast, so we may focus on features that aren’t found in most course-building sites. In fact, there might not be a course-building site for Kartra.

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. As such, one of their main features is funnel building.

Funnels are a way for sellers to get their customers to buy their products. Although funnels are not considered campaigns by Kartra, they function in a similar way. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

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.

You can share your personally-built campaigns with other Kartra members. Your campaigns can be marketed and sold to make money.

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. Users can create product pages, checkout pages, and opt-in forms with these features. It even provides you with professionally designed templates to help you speed up the process or just start it out.

These pages can also be optimized for desktops, tablets, and mobile devices. You can host these pages on your domain or on Katra itself.

That said, they are still limited in capacity and features to be considered a proper 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. 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. You can do this through its drag-and-drop visual sequence builder, and once done, and you can let it run on autopilot.

Behavior-based automation is another feature that makes the platform unique. This powerful tool allows you to send emails based on the recipient’s behavior. 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. However, depending on your needs, the price of Kartra’s plans may be worth it. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

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 billed annually $229 per Month when you pay annually Monthly payment of $379 when you pay 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
  • Unlimited team members
  • Unlimited helpdesk
  • Kartra agency
  • Get up to 50,000 leads
  • 10 Custom domains
  • Unlimited emails
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • Unlimited pages
  • Unlimitted videos
  • Unlimitted products
  • Unlimited Membership Sites
  • Unlimited help for team members
  • Unlimited Helpdesk
  • Kartra Agency

Kartra Pros and Con

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 offers an automatic translation feature for its checkout pages. It is based on the user’s geographical location. It also supports other currencies.
  • Kartar allows you to drip content or vary access to different levels, if you have an existing 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 includes an agency feature that can hold multiple client accounts. This allows you to manage different websites in just a single 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 is quite slow and might get frustrating to use at times. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy
  • Even Kartra’s pages can load slow
  • For beginners, it can be difficult to understand the many features.

Kartra Summary

Overall, Kartra is a powerful all-in-one platform for sales and marketing.

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. Kartra is quite expensive for the features it offers. This can be difficult to swallow.

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

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Overall, Verdict Teachable vs Thinkific vs Zippy

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. For course building and selling, there are Thinkific, Podia and Kajabi (and a bit of Kartra), as well as other platforms.

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.

To find the right product for you, you must decide what direction you want to go. Find the platform that aligns with your goals. You will likely find their features most helpful to you.

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