Thinkific And Squarespace

thinkific-vs-competition

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

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

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

People who were housebound due to multiple reasons (maybe childcare or health problems) could keep studying and learning despite not being able to go out. Due to its flexibility, people who are unable to attend school regularly due to scheduling conflicts or duties could still complete courses.

Everything else had to be shut down when the pandemic struck. 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 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, “knowledge is wealth.” Online course platforms gave that maxim legs and provided people with an instrument to turn 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. 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. 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 Thinkific And Squarespace

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.

It’s impossible to 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.

This makes the platform perfect for newcomers as they get to experience what it’s like to build content and courses, as well as the overall flow and environment of the industry. 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 also does not take any cut for a transaction fee whenever a user makes a sale on the platform. All the profits go to the content owner.

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

This is a testament to how Thinkfiic views its customers.

Thinkific 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.

The only difference between them is how well they work, along with some bits and bobs that make the product unique. 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 make sure that online courses are as engaging as possible.

The user interface of Thinkific is easy to use. It’s intuitive and logical. It is easy to navigate. You can access all other features via a sidebar menu. They are properly classified to where they are, except for occasional hiccups. Thinkific And Squarespace

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.

As mentioned above, Thinkific’s main focus is on the creation side of course creation. As such, the platform ensures that the course creation mechanism is easy to get used to. 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 include content, quizzes, surveys, assignments, pdfs, and student discussion areas to allow peer-to-peer interaction.

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

The marketing features of Thinkific are where I fear the platforms will fall flat. Don’t get me wrong. It has everything that you need to promote and market 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 are behind the competition. 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.

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.

The Thinkific Price

While I have already mentioned Thinkific’s Free Plan and how great it is, that plan is still limited and is a far cry from what Thinkific’s paid plans are. It isn’t like most 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 line with their mission to be focused on the education part. Thinkific And Squarespace

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 with 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
  • Full 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
  • Discounts and coupons
  • Assignments
  • Bundles and add-on packages
  • Payment plans and memberships
  • Live lessons
  • Affiliate selling
  • Options for advanced course-building
  • Advanced Courses on 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
  • Take out the Thinkific brand
  • Bulk student emailer
  • Bulk enrollments
  • API access
-Optimize your workflow and create a premium experience with a platform designed to scale

 

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

Thinkific offers a more complex and customized plan, Thinkific plus. Thinkific Plus takes what you know of Thinkfiic and makes it a powerful, scalable, and easy-to-use learning platform.

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

You will need to contact the sales team of Thinkific Plus to request this upgrade. 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.

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

man-seriously-staring-at-laptop

> > Click Here to Start Your Free Trial < <

Thoughtific Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Thinkific’s free package is permanently free. 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.
  • Thinkific is flexible when it comes to payment options. They offer different payment options for different types and types of students.
  • Thinkific’s premium plans remove the restriction on the number of courses. Users can create unlimited courses and enroll unlimited students in these courses.
  • Thinkific’s interface is one of the most intuitive. With most options logically placed and easily located. Users just starting can easily understand how things work in this interface.
  • Speaking of easily getting the hang of, Thinkfic’s course builder is similarly easy to use. You can also choose from many course materials to make your course more engaging and exciting.
  • Thinkific gives you the option to offer incentives, such as leaderboards and awards, to motivate your students.

Cons

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

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. Using local third-party integrations can remedy any problems you have with the platform.

You’re searching for an online course creation tool that creates courses from scratch. You can never go wrong with Thinkific.

Thinkific Versus Kajabi

Kajabi Overview

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

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

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.

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

Kajabi is a rare product that can be described as an “all-in-one” platform. It’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. These plans are not unlimited. In the case of the lowest plan, you can only sell 3 products.

Aside from that, Kajabi is not as feature-rich, especially in the gamification and community engagement department. These issues might require third-party integrations.

Kajabi Features

Kajabi boasts about being one of the better platforms. Even more, they have one of the most expensive courses in the market. It is not surprising that customers have high expectations for the product. Thinkific And Squarespace

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’s minimalist, clean, and 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 also load faster. 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).

Kajabi offers blueprints that are similar to templates for a simpler building experience. These “skeletons” are pretty much presentation ready that if you want, you can just add your needed content and then you are good to go.

These courses could be properly structured too into categories, subcategories and posts. It would be easy to organize your content in a neat and organized manner. You can organize them depending on their types and content. 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 has robust and extensive marketing features.

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

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

Their pipelines are another conversion tool that they have. They can help you convert more customers to increase sales. These are easy to use, and the platform even provides templates that customers can easily access.

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

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

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

Overall, while its not perfect, Kajabi offers a lot of features that are both geared towards marketing as well as course creation. As such, it is easy to see that these features are good for almost everybody who are serious about making an online business.

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

Kajabi Price

Kajabi is undoubtedly the most expensive course creation service in the market. The cheapest plan is $149 per month, and it doesn’t include unlimited courses. Thinkific And Squarespace

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 billed annually Monthly payment of $319
  • 3 products
  • 3 funnels
  • Unlimited landing pages
  • Unlimited Marketing emails
  • 10,000 contacts
  • 1,000 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 & 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
  • Kajabi branding can be removed
  • 100 products
  • 100 funnels
  • Unlimitless landing pages
  • Unlimited marketing emails
  • 100,000 contacts
  • 20,000 active customers
  • 3 Websites
  • 25 admin users
  • Kajabi University
  • Transaction fee 0%
  • Webinars and Events
  • Templates Ready for Use
  • Assessments (quizzes & surveys)
  • 1 Call to 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 & Cons

Pros

  • Kajabi, as its name suggests, is an all-in-one content creation 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 templates and blueprints to get you started with 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 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 accessibility is pretty good thanks to its mobile app, which students can use to access classes and lessons whenever and wherever they are. You can even set up notifications to receive alerts.
  • Kajabi has a membership option that allows users create and sell membership options for 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 one of the best in the business. 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. Thinkific And Squarespace
  • 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 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 does not have page templates to design landing pages, thank-you pages, checkout pages, forms or 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 doesn’t offer a guarantee badge on its checkout page. Guarantee badges are a good tool for increasing conversions. Buyers are assured of the product’s quality by obtaining a guarantee.
  • Kajabi does not have a local payment gateway. To receive payment from orders, you will need to rely on Stripe or Paypal integrations.
  • Despite having some advanced features, there are still some features that Kajabi lacks, especially in the community department. It does not have community engagement or gamification features.

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

> > Click Here to Start Your Free Trial < <

Kajabi Summary

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

They provide the best marketing experience. 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.

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. Thinkific And Squarespace

Kajabi is also pretty 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. 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.

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.

Podia is also one of the most affordable digital content-selling platforms on the market. It might even be one of the most affordable. It does take a portion of your profit when you sell. This might be their way to offset the high price of its powerful features.

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

couple-looking-at-laptop-happily

> > Click Here to Start Your Free Trial < <

Podia Features

In terms of features, Podia has loads of them.

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. 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.

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. Podia supports only a few lesson types, which is a major difference to other platforms. Furthermore, it does not have a proper assessment feature to help you monitor student performance. Thinkific And Squarespace

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

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

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. Podia currently only offers one type of certificate. Podia cannot customize or design your certificates.

In terms of marketing, Podia is focused on the bag. It has a lot of excellent features to enhance the effectiveness of your marketing. Tools like Pre-launch, upsells, and coupons make great strategies to promote your products.

This marks Podia as an excellent choice for marketers who want to sell their products on a smaller website.

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

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.

Checkout is possible for your audience using their credit cards. These usually are processed within 2 days and will be credited to your bank or PayPal account. Thinkific And Squarespace

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
  • Transaction fees of 8%
  • Full website
  • Email Marketing
  • Chat Support
  • Community
  • 1 Download
  • 1 Coaching Product
  • Create 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
  • Visit the full website
  • Email marketing
  • Chat support
  • Community
  • Unlimited downloads
  • Unlimited Coaching
  • Unlimited courses
  • Unlimited webinars
  • Affiliates
  • Priority Support
  • Onboarding calls

Podia Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Podia’s strong point is its clear and simple UI/UX. It’s very user-friendly and doesn’t require any training. It is easy to set up for users of all tech levels.
  • Podia has many functions and can become a one-stop shop for all your needs. Digital products can include memberships, webinars and bundles.
  • Other than the free plan, Podia allows you to sell unlimited courses and products. 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. 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 offers an affiliate program that you can use to reach your audience. This is only available for Shaker or 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. Thinkific And Squarespace
  • 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. Even the community area can be used to create memberships.

Cons

  • Their email marketing provides only the most basic functions. Especially in its email composer, which lacks personalization fields. Other features that the tool does not have include templates, drag-and-drop editor and other features.
  • The platform lacks course compliance features.
  • Podia also does not have many customization features. 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.
  • The free plan does not allow you to host more than one product. There is also an 8% transaction charge.
  • Podia does not have any course blueprints.
  • Podia supports only a handful of lesson types. It lacks support for some types like Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, and HTML 5 Content, among others.
  • 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. Thinkific And Squarespace

Podia Summary

Overall, Podia is an acceptable platform for hosting 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. Well, it is not entirely 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.

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

happy-man-using-laptop-on-the-road

> > Click Here to Start Your Free Trial < <

Thinkific Versus Kartra

Kartra Overview

Kartra is a completely different product to the ones listed above. Scratch that, Kartra is entirely different from the other products listed in this review.

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

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

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

Kartra 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. 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. In fact, there might not be a course-building site for Kartra.

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

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

Kartra makes funnel construction simple. 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 manages all of the billing and payment processes so that you can concentrate on improving your funnels as you gain more 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. These pages can be hosted on your domain, or on Katra.

That said, they are still limited in capacity and features to be considered a proper website. Even Kartra feels it themselves, as they wouldn’t allow you to host those pages in your domain otherwise.

The marketing features are to be considered as Kartra’s shining jewel. It has all that is needed for email marketing.

It can send broadcast messages by SMS or email. This will require integration with all available SMS gateways.

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

Another one that is unique to the platform is its behavior-based automation. This powerful tool allows 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 pricing is high for a platform that focuses on lead conversions and marketing. However, depending on your needs, the price of Kartra’s plans may be worth it. Thinkific And Squarespace

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

Starter Silver Gold Platinum
$79 per Month when you pay annually $149 per Month when you pay annually $229 per month when billed 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 100 pages
  • Host 50 videos
  • Create 2 membership websites
  • Add 1 additional team member
  • Connect 1 helpdesk
  • Up to 12,500 leads
  • 3 custom domains
  • Unlimited emails
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • Unlimited pages
  • Unlimited videos
  • Unlimitted products
  • Unlimited membership sites
  • Unlimitless team members
  • Unlimited helpdesk
  • Kartra agency
  • Up to 25,000 leads
  • 5 custom domains
  • Unlimited emails
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • Unlimited pages
  • Unlimited videos
  • Unlimitted 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
  • Unlimited videos
  • Unlimited products
  • Unlimited Membership Sites
  • Unlimited help team members
  • Unlimited Helpdesk
  • Kartra Agency

Kartra Pros and Cons

Pros

  • You don’t need any external marketing integrations. Kartra has it all: built-in email marketing, automation, sequence builder, and other essential features needed to perfectly market your products
  • 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 also allows you to drip content and vary access to different levels if you have a membership site.
  • You can use A/B testing to refine your automated email responses as you set them up.
  • Kartra includes an agency feature that can hold multiple client accounts. This feature allows you to manage multiple websites from one dashboard.

Cons

  • Some people might think Kartra’s price point is pretty expensive for what they are offering
  • There are not unlimited integrations available with any of the plans.
  • Kartra’s interface can be slow and frustrating at times. Thinkific And Squarespace
  • 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.

That said, it isn’t a course builder and definitely not a website builder. 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.

editing-a-picture-on-laptop

> > Click Here to Start Your Free Trial < <

Overall, Verdict Thinkific And Squarespace

When you are interested in joining the industry, course builder websites can be very useful.

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

In a market-like course building, these platforms will offer almost identical services. Their differences will be minimal at best. Of course, some might excel in one aspect or another.

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. Chances are, you will find that their features will be most useful to you.

Thinkific And Squarespace

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. 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. Because of our knowledge and ingenuity, the human race has risen to the top in food chain.

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

That said, while it is ideal for sharing your knowledge and ideas for free, there is nothing wrong with selling it. Knowledge is power, and money can also be power. At the end of the day, the knowledge owner gets to decide what to do with it. And 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.

The advent of the internet has only democratized this ability to distribute what you learned to the public. Even those who have no teaching license or do not know how to write books now have the ability to share their knowledge.

It has also been revealed that there are many things being passed around. 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

Here is a video review by SoftwarePundit for those who like a visual experience. You can still read our article to get a complete overview of Thinkific.

Thinkific: An Online Course Platform Thinkific And Squarespace

Thinkific is a top choice for hosting your online 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 the users to focus on one thing and one thing only: 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 isn’t the only platform capable of creating decent courses. In fact, plenty of LMS and CMS do the job as well 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?

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

online-meeting

> > Click Here to Start Your Free Trial < <

Useful Features

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

  • User-friendly course builder

This isn’t a new feature, as many online course builders already offer it. 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. It is essential that they have the tools and resources to market their courses. Similar to 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. Analytics is the only way to discover your approach and your weaknesses. Thinkific offers this feature to its users to make it easy for their users as to the direction their content should go.

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

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

  • Training tools

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.

Thinkific gives these newbies and even veterans a chance to learn from what is tried and tested. 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.

red-nails-on-laptop

> > Click Here to Start Your Free Trial < <

The Thinkific Course Builder: Is it Good?

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. If they don’t have a well-functioning course building system, then what can we expect from them about secondary and additional features?

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

Create 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.

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: 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. Thinkific And Squarespace
  • Membership Resource Library: You can use this template to create an archive of resources for your subscribers. This will encourage your audience to remain on your website even when looking at resources
  • Webinar Replay is a similar template to the library template but it is specifically designed for webinars or live lesson videos. This 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. Options include changing color schemes, fonts, or adding logos.

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

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

Set Assignments and Check Progress

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

Assignments are not available for PRO plans.

Overall, Thinkific’s course builder is very user-friendly. Especially when you are just starting, they will provide you with enough guidance on approaching your course.

typing-on-laptop

> > Click Here to Start Your Free Trial < <

How to build an online course website

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

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

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

To start building your website, you start with:

1. Pick a Theme.

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

For this reason, Thinkific has three pre-built theme templates. Each theme 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. You can also create individual pages if you wish.

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

And that is just the beginning. The potential your website can take will be up to you. Your imagination is limitless.

3. Start a Training Website 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 can be easily mapped to create a 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. The place where the most important things should be located
  • These pages can be used as landing pages to help students approach courses. If you want, you can also make a course page that serves as a landing page for all the courses you offer in your “class”
  • Sign-up pages are where students and potential customers enroll in individual courses or join a membership Thinkific And Squarespace
  • 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. A good student dashboard can be designed in a way that makes everything on your website accessible.
  • You can find payment pages, or checkout pages: Here you can place your payment options to subscribe or sign 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.

Of course, these types of pages are just some examples you can use with the website. These templates are also a good utility for making a website and needing it fast. This skips the nitpicky part of choosing which to use on your website. Thinkific And Squarespace

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

It is important to understand the structure of Thinkific Site Builder pages in order to properly design them. These sections can easily be modified and moved around.

The provided pre-built pages even come with suggested sections to easily allow you to pick which ones you need for your page. Adding more sections is just as simple as clicking on the “Add Section”

Thinkfic offers 23 pre-formatted pages sections. 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 will allow potential students and customers to know how to sign-up or purchase.

  • 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.

  • Frequently Asked Questions

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

  • ‘Social Proof’

These sections can be compared to testimonials. They show client reviews, comments, and experiences. 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

Here you can submit your pricing options. 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.

exercising-while-looking-at-laptop

> > Click Here to Start Your Free Trial < <

You can earn profit through your content by using your online course platform

Now we come to what is known as among the most anticipated parts of the review. What is the Thnkific business side? Does the service provide enough and proper tools to allow users to make money from their hard work?

It is a fact that all online course builders and platforms today offer tools to allow teachers and students to promote their courses. They only differ on how much that platform focuses on.

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.

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

By default, Thinkific has marketing tools that help you sell your content for cash. These features are available to all users, even those who use the free plan. However, they are very limited and only allow for the most basic functions.

Among these tools include the ability for search engine optimization or SEO. 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 one of the best ways to show your audience who you are. Thinkific And Squarespace

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

These promotional materials can be a great way to promote your products. 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. As you go up through Thinkific’s pricing plans, more marketing tools are unlocked for you. These tools will help you promote your course material in the market. These include:

  • Coupons

Coupons don’t need 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 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.

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.

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

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

This is possible by using sales widgets that generate HTML code which can be easily pasted onto existing websites. Of course, this includes social media sites. If you wish to market this way, these codes can be sent as messages. Thinkific And Squarespace

Another customization you can do with this widget is how it looks. You have the option to show a button or a button with a product picture. Or you can add text to match it.

  • Email Marketing Tools

Email Marketing tools manage newsletters and send out targeted promotions to subscribers. This tool is not used to convert new subscribers but to keep them. After all, you can only send this to people you already have contact with.

Thinkific’s email marketing tools are limited to this ……… Unfortunately, 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.

However, it would have been a lot better if Thinkific had an even better local Email marketing tool available for its users.

  • Affiliate Marketing

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

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

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

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. Thinkific And Squarespace

However, affiliates are not paid within the system. It’s the same with instructor revenue sharing.

Payment Options

If you don’t have a way to receive payments or enroll in your courses, all that marketing effort will go sour. In this vein, Thinkific has Stripe as a card payment platform. Other ways include connecting PayPal for one-off payments.

You can also link your courses with a Shopify website. 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 also offer membership subscriptions, and charge accordingly. You can also sell your course as a bundle if you wish. But right now, I haven’t tried that feature as I have only a few courses made with their system.

Thinkific is unique in that you don’t have to pay a commission for any courses they sell.

Reporting and Analytics

Any good website that is selling something should include a Reports and Analytics feature. This will allow users to figure out which stuff they are doing well on and which ones they need to focus on and improve.

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

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

How does it all work?

Thinkific’s analytics and reporting collect the data they need. 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.

This data will allow you to view things like course enrollments and completion rates. These metrics can be compared across all subjects. This allows you to see which subjects are having low completion rates.

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

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.

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

Thinkific Pricing and Plans

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

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.

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

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

 

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

 

  • Unlimited Courses
  • 1 Community
  • 1 admin
  • Unlimited students
  • Transaction fee 0%
  • 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
  • Advanced course – building options
  • Advanced Courses at Thinkific Academy
A complete set of tools is available to help you increase your sales.

 

  • Unlimited courses
  • 3 communities
  • 2 admin
  • Unlimited students
  • 0% transaction fee
  • Phone and priority email support
  • All Start Features Included
  • Remove Thinkific branding
  • Bulk 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
  • Transaction fee 0%
  • Priority phone support
  • All Grow features included
  • Custom SSL Certificates
  • Priority Support

The Free Plan

Is the first plan you should take if you are new to all this course building and course management stuff. This is the best way for you to get to know the service and test it out. The free plan allows you to do everything the service offers, albeit at a limited capacity.

The Free plan is only good for making one course. 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 feel that Thinkific is something you would enjoy, you can take the next step. Upgrade to this plan and your limitations are gone. You can make unlimited courses.

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

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

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

The Grow Plan

If you’re serious about making sales and selling courses, the Grow plan is right for you. The first benefit you get is removing the Thinkific branding. 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. You can get faster solutions if you have different issues with your website. Thinkific And Squarespace

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. Aside from providing the usual features of the other Thinkific plans, it provides unprecedented 10 Communities to keep students easier to manage.

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

Thinkific Plus

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

For Thinkific, this is called Thinkific Plus. It is a powerful, scalable, and easy-to-use learning platform geared toward your team and students.

To get Thinkific Plus, you must contact the Thinkfic sales team. 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 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

working-outdoors

> > Click Here to Start Your Free Trial < <

Thoughtific Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Thinkific does not take any 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. There are no restrictions, but if you’re serious enough you can sell courses through the service with no upfront investment. Thinkific And Squarespace
  • 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

  • There are some aspects of Thinkific that are not really that are not as user-friendly as expected. This is something that some creators of the service have expressed.
  • 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.

The Thinkific Verdict

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

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

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.

For the Course Builder, Thinkific is pretty easy and intuitive to use. You can quickly see what you need to do and which functions are 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.

However, it is important to remember that Thinkific might be too easy for some users. But that is just nitpicking. Thinkific’s course creator is responsive, fast, and easy to use, which is what most people want.

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

It does offer impressive editing options, which makes it ideal for creating training and tutorial websites. Aside from that, it is an excellent tool for adding training pages to existing websites.

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

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

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

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

Thinkific Frequently Asked Questions Thinkific And Squarespace

Can You Build an Entire Website with Just Thinkfic?

Yes, you can!

Thinkfiic gives you the freedom to build your entire online education business. 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 is up to you.

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

Who owns the content published on Thinkific?

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

Thinkific has no intellectual property rights and will not claim them. Therefore, anything built and published on the platform is 100% to the creators.

error: Content is protected !!