Thinkific vs Lms

thinkific-vs-competition

While they already existed before 2019 B.C. (where B.C. B.C. stands for Before COVID, Online Course Platforms were already in existence. They were created for the same purpose: to sell and create online courses.

Back then, most courses were much more focused on niched things like leadership seminars, wholesomeness, and self-help classes. There were also classes and courses that covered normal topics.

These classes focused on bringing education to where it is most convenient and comfortable.

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.

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.

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

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

Nowadays, there are countless online courses people can partake in. 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: You’re Go-To Online Course Business Platform Thinkific vs Lms

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.

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

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

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

Thinkific also does not take any cut for a transaction fee whenever a user makes a sale on the platform. All profits go to content owners.

Thinkific even makes sure that all profits are directly available upon being sold. That means that course makers and content creators can use their earnings directly, with no need to wait for a quote or a certain threshold to reach before being able to touch the money.

This is a testament to how Thinkfiic views its customers.

Thinkific Features

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.

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

Thinkific’s user interface is very easy to get into. It’s intuitive and logical. It is easy to navigate. You can access all other features via a sidebar menu. Except for occasional hiccups, they are correctly classified. Thinkific vs Lms

This interface is perfect for users who enjoy performing analytics and monitoring performance. Everything is neatly organized and placed on the dashboard.

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

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

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. Thinkific lets you try all the features of the course creator even if it is a free plan.

This course builder also allows you to include a multitude of media types. These include content, quizzes, surveys, assignments, pdfs, and student discussion areas to allow peer-to-peer interaction.

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

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

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

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

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

Thinkific can also integrate third-party apps. 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.

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

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’s not like the rest of the competition.

Thinkific is a lower-cost option that allows you to create unlimited courses and enroll unlimited students. This is in keeping with their mission to focus on education. Thinkific vs Lms

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

To get Thinkific plus, you need to contact the platform’s sales team and ask for this upgrade. They will help you to get the best out of your platform. You will also discuss the cost of this upgrade with them.

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

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

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Thinkific Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Thinkific’s free package is permanently free. It also is not just a glorified free trial. You can only take as many courses as you like.
  • Thinkific doesn’t charge transaction fees for any sale. Content creators own all earnings. These funds can be claimed and used by creators as soon as they are received in their accounts.
  • Thinkific is flexible when it comes to payment options. They offer different payment options for different types and types of students.
  • The limitation for the number of courses is removed in all instances of Thinkific’s premium plans. In fact, users can create an unlimited number of courses and enroll an unlimited number of students in these courses.
  • In terms of interface, Thinkific has one of the easiest to understand. The majority of options are logically placed and easy to find. This interface is easy to use for users just starting out.
  • Thinkfic’s course creator is also 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

  • Not everything in Thinkific’s tools are user friendly. You may need to take some time and read guides to learn how to use the tools.
  • It is difficult to recommend Thinkifiic for those who are more interested in promoting the platform’s marketing capabilities. You will need third-party integrations to get a better experience.
  • 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.
  • There is a distinct lack of customization options within the platform. It is possible to find websites similar to yours. Thinkific vs Lms

The Thinkific Summary

Thinkific is one the most popular online courses platforms on the market. I would easily recommend it to beginners and those looking for a more course-focused platform. 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. As for its weakness, Thinkfiic has already provided some kind of solution to it. Any problems with the platform can be fixed by integrating third-party services.

You’re searching for an online course creation tool that creates courses from scratch. Thinkific is the best online course creation software.

Kajabi Versus Thinkific

Kajabi Overview

Kajabi is a widely used platform for running an online course 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.

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

Kajabi has many marketing features. It’s no surprise that they have sales funnels, 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. It even has automation features that could help you focus more on marketing or creating than the menial tasks.

That said, not everything is good in Kajabi land. It has one of the most expensive platforms on the market. Their lowest plan starts at $149 per month. These plans are not unlimited. In the case of the lowest plan, you can only sell 3 products.

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

Kajabi Features

Kajabi claims to be one of the best platforms. They even have one of the more expensive plans in the course creation market. As such, it is only to be expected that the audience will have high expectations of the product. Thinkific vs Lms

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

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

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

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

Kajabi offers blueprints that are similar to templates for a simpler building experience. These “skeletons” can be used as templates, so you don’t have to worry about adding content.

These courses could also be organized into subcategories, posts, and categories. 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.

Kajabi offers cloud storage via Dropbox and Google Drive, so you don’t have to worry.

Kajabi is a strong and comprehensive marketing tool.

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.

Kajabi’s lack of an integrated payment solution is the main problem. 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

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. Thinkific vs Lms

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

Basic Growth Pro
$119 per month billed annually $159 per month, payable annually 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
  • 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
  • 25,000 contacts
  • 10,000 customers currently active
  • 1 website
  • 10 admin users
  • Kajabi University
  • Transaction fee 0%
  • Webinars and 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
  • Advanced automations
  • Ability to remove Kajabi Branding
  • 100 products
  • 100 funnels
  • Unlimited 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
  • Ready to Use Templates
  • Assessments (quizzes & surveys)
  • 1 Welcome Call with an Onboarding Specialist
  • 1 Check-in Call with an onboarding specialist
  • 24/7 chat support
  • Advanced Automation
  • Kajabi branding can be removed
  • Affiliate Program
  • Code Editor

Kajabi Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Kajabi, as its name suggests, is an all-in-one content creation and marketing tool. You can create courses using various tools, such as a drip or mini-course. Then, you can combine them with marketing automations to make sure they sell.
  • Kajabi provides blueprints and templates to help you get started on your project.
  • Kajabi allows you to sell other digital products like coaching, webinars, communities, podcasts, etc. This is also a great place to do this.
  • Kajabi also 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’s automation feature can automate the purchase of offers, post-completion of courses or memberships, assessment completion, as well as other tasks. To be more precise, users can use conditional filters.
  • Kajabi’s marketing strategy is one of the most powerful among all the course-building and content platforms currently available.
  • Kajabi’s Email marketing is one of the best in the business. It includes various email templates that can be used in different situations. Kajabi has the ability to automate email sequences using triggers or actions. Thinkific vs Lms
  • Kajabi’s pipeline feature allows various OVO funnel templates to be available. The pipeline features automate the selling of the products and “funneling” your customers to where you want for better conversion rates.

Cons

  • Kajabi’s price point is nothing to laugh at. It starts at $149 per month and does not even offer unlimited course creation. It only offers 3 products as well as 3 pipelines
  • Kajabi 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. This means that users will have to create all pages from scratch using the page builder. As such, it will be very difficult for new and non-tech users.
  • Kajabi doesn’t offer a guarantee badge on its checkout page. 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.
  • 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. Users would love to have their pipeline and automation features if they want to convert at a high rate.

Kajabi has its faults, however. For one, it lacks features that help you connect with your students and customers. Features that allow for the creation of a great community. Thinkific vs Lms

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

Overall, Kajabi is a good creation platform with advanced marketing features. It is perfect if you are looking for a platform for its marketing features. It might be a bit expensive, but Kajabi’s features can be worth it.

Podia Versus Thinkific

Podia Overview

Podia is another popular digital content-selling platform. It is also an all-in-one platform that has powerful 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. It might be their way of offsetting the price for its powerful features.

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

couple-looking-at-laptop-happily

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Podia Features

In terms of features, Podia has loads of them.

From looking at the interface, Podia has it clean and minimal. The interface is easy to use and allows you to access all other features in just 3 clicks. In fact, it is so simple that the learning curve for using Podia’s interface is almost non-existent.

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.

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

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

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 such as speaker deck, presentation and google slides.
  • Social media sites such as Twitter, TikTok and Pinterest.
  • Form Builder websites like 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’s feature can be seen as a perfect incentive/prize for completing your courses. Podia currently only offers one type of certificate. They cannot still customize and design your certificates.

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

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

That said, not everything is perfect. 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. For a simpler solution, you can also integrate with Stripe and PayPal.

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

Podia Price

It is also one of the most affordable on the market in terms of pricing. The platform recently added a free plan. While this free plan does not offer much, it is still a good way to figure out how Podia works.

Free Mover Shaker Earthquake
$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
  • No transaction fees
  • Visit the full website
  • Email marketing
  • Chat support
  • Community
  • Unlimited Downloads
  • Unlimited coaching
  • Unlimited Courses
  • Draft webinars
  • No transaction Fees
  • Full website
  • Email marketing
  • Chat support
  • Community
  • Unlimited downloads
  • Unlimited coaching
  • Unlimited courses
  • Unlimited webinars
  • Affiliates
  • There are no transaction fees
  • Full website
  • Email marketing
  • Chat support
  • Community
  • Unlimited downloads
  • Unlimited Coaching
  • Unlimited courses
  • Unlimited webinars
  • Affiliates
  • Priority Support
  • Onboarding calls

Podia Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Podia’s strong point is its clear and simple UI/UX. It’s very user-friendly and doesn’t require any training. Users of all edges and tech levels will find it intuitive to set it up.
  • Podia can serve many purposes and be a one-stop shop to meet all your needs. Digital products can include memberships, webinars and bundles.
  • 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 also allows you to upload as many videos as possible for your content. The platform provides unlimited storage and bandwidth, which is why this feature is possible. You don’t have to use Vimeo and Wistia.
  • Podia has a built-in affiliate program for your audience that is only available for Shaker and Earthquaker plans.
  • Despite providing only the most basic functions, the built-in email marketing tools are enough to support broadcasts and campaigns.
  • Podia has supported a pre-launch mode among its marketing features. It can create buzz around your products and get early email customer conversions. Thinkific vs Lms
  • Podia does not charge any transaction fees for sales, except the free plan.
  • Podia has a new feature that allows content creators to give certificates, community, and quizzes. You can even create memberships in the community area.

Cons

  • Their email marketing provides only the most basic functions. Especially in its email composer, which lacks personalization fields. Aside from that, the tool lacks templates, drag and drop editor, and other features
  • There is a noticeable lack of course-compliance features in the platform
  • Podia also does not have many customization features. Podia does not support custom CSS/HTMl customizations. Expect to have generic-looking websites when using Podia.
  • Podia also has no landing page builders or funnels, which are important tools when considering Podia’s focus on marketing.
  • Its free plan is severely lacking and will only allow you to host 1 product. There is also an 8% transaction charge.
  • Podia does not have any course blueprints.
  • Podia supports only a handful of 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. This includes order bumps, downsells, cart abandonment, and others.
  • Podia doesn’t have a mobile app. This could limit its user base and access given how dependent the world is on tablets and smartphones. Thinkific vs Lms

Summary of Podia

Overall, Podia is a decent platform to host your content. Podia is a decent platform, especially considering the price.

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. You can make impressive courses with enough creativity and great ideas and sell them for a fair price.

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

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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.

We offer a platform that allows you to sell your products, instead of creating courses. 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. You can sell unlimited quantities of these products and many different types of products. In fact, it also offers multiple pricing options for more flexible pricing on your part.

Kartra Features

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

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

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

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

Kartra makes funnel building relatively easy. You can build one from scratch if you already have experience in this field. Otherwise, you can have Katra do it for you through their plug-and-play campaigns that are from top industry experts.

You can share your personally-built campaigns with other Kartra members. You can even market and sell your campaigns and make money from them.

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

Kartra also has page-building capabilities, and it is surprisingly powerful. Users can create product pages, checkout pages, and opt-in forms with these features. You can even use professionally designed templates to speed up or start the process.

These pages can be optimized for mobile devices, tablets, and desktops. 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. This will require integration with all available SMS gateways.

Kartra can also use automation 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.

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

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

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

Kartra Pros and Con

Pros

  • External marketing integrations are not required. Kartra offers everything: integrated email marketing, sequence builder, automation, and all other features necessary to market your products perfectly
  • Kartra has an automatic translation for its checkout pages. It is based on the user’s geographical location. It also supports other currencies.
  • Kartar also allows you to drip content and vary access to different levels if you have a membership site.
  • 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 allows you to manage different websites in just a single dashboard.

Cons

  • Some people might think Kartra’s price point is pretty expensive for what they are offering
  • There are not unlimited integrations available with any of the plans.
  • Kartra’s interface is quite slow and might get frustrating to use at times. Thinkific vs Lms
  • Even Kartra’s pages may load slowly
  • For beginners, it can be difficult to understand the many features.

Kartra Summary

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

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

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

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

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Overall, Verdict Thinkific vs Lms

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

As with most markets and industries, there will be a lot of platforms that will offer the service that you need. 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. They will have very few differences. 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. And find the platform that is best aligned with that. You will likely find their features most helpful to you.

Thinkific vs Lms

thinkific-review

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

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

Sure, that example might be overly dramatic, but you get the idea. The human race has won our place in the food chain due to our sheer knowledge and ingenuity.

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. 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. Knowledge is power, and money can also be power. The knowledge owner has the final say in what happens to 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. Even those who have no teaching license or do not know how to write books now have the ability to share their knowledge.

The kinds of things being taught around have also been busted wide open. 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. This is where online course platforms come in.

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 Thinkific vs Lms

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 started in 2012 when a group of entrepreneurs sought to create a platform to provide a rich and easily accessible teaching and learning environment for instructors and students.

Luckily, they were able to find an effective solution to their dilemma. 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. Students and teachers are motivated to engage when they have good content.

Thinkific offers many features to fulfill that promise. Later, we will look at these features and see if they really live up to the hype.

Enjoy the Thinkific Benefits

Thinkific is not the only platform that is a decent course maker. In fact, plenty of LMS and CMS do the job as well as Thinkific. We would be remiss if this were not mentioned.

So what is it about thinkific that makes us prefer it as a platform overall?

  • 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. Thinkific ensures that your sales are 100% yours.
  • Through the free plan, you can test Thinkific’s core features as well as get a feel of the environment. While you are limited to 3 courses upload, you can host unlimited core content and have unlimited students.
  • As a commitment to their promise of letting content creators focus on the content, Thinkific makes it easy to build an online course through its drag and drop builder. Thinkific supports multiple types of content such as audio, video, PDFs and quizzes.
  • Thinkific also allows you to play with your course engagement by giving you various 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 them their progressions, engage them in discussions, and give them awards. 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 because they focus on certain sections of the entire experience. These features include:

  • Easy to use course creator

To be honest, this is not really a unique feature as most online course builders will already have this feature. A course builder who doesn’t have a user-friendly one will find it very difficult to compete in the market.

  • Drag-and-drop web page builder

Drag-and-drop page builders, like the course builder are common issues for these types of services. Course makers need to market their courses. It is essential that they have the tools and resources to market their courses. 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? Thinkific offers this feature to its users to make it easy for their users as to the direction their content should go.

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

  • Student support and communities

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

  • 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.

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

  • Thinkific App Store

Apps and programs can be purchased at the Thinkific App Store. The best thing about the AppStore is its community-made nature. As such, it is an excellent place where fellow content and course creators get together and discuss things along with Thinkific developers.

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Thinkific Course Builder: How Good Is It?

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

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

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

Build Your First Course

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

Opening this file brings you to the first-course builder interface, wherein the layout is very easy to follow. 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
  • Webinars and live zoom lessons.

Any of these files can be uploaded 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.

Pick the Course Type

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

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

Some of these premade course types include:

  • Mini-courses: These course templates are designed to make short, fast courses like tasters or freebies.
  • Flagship Courses: These are the courses that make students and audiences take your courses or keep them always coming back. 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 courses can serve as short tests or as a way to get your course noticed. This allows you to advertise to potential customers what your courses entail. Thinkific vs Lms
  • Membership Resource Library: You can use this template to create an archive of resources for your subscribers. This will encourage your audience stay on your site even when they are looking at resources.
  • Webinar Replay is a similar template to the library template but it is specifically designed for webinars or live lesson videos. This is perfect for your students who are late enrollees and for people who missed your seminars.

Your Students’ Course Design

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

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

You can also preview your lessons in this section. This is convenient since you can see how your students view your lessons. As such, you can put yourself in their shoes and see the problem from their perspective.

Set Assignments and Check Progress

As an extra way to engage students, assignments, quizzes and surveys can be very useful. Aside from that, you can use it as an added way to rate your students. Thinkific vs Lms

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

All in all, Thinkific’s Course Builder is easy to use. Especially when you are just starting, they will provide you with enough guidance on approaching your course.

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How to build an online course website

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

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

The website builder is easy to use. It was designed with newbies and non-tech people 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. You can customize your online course site using the Site Builder.

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 creativity will only be your limit.

3. Make a Training website Entirely from Scratch.

We are already in the course-making business so it makes sense to build a website for training. For this matter, Thinkific provides a great selection of pages for your perusal.

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. Some pages of note include:

  • 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. 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 Thinkific vs Lms
  • Sign in Pages: This should be sued for subscribers of 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.
  • You can find payment pages, or checkout pages: Here you can place your payment options to subscribe or sign 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.

These pages can be used with your website in many ways. These templates are also a good utility for making a website and needing it fast. This skips the nitpicky part of choosing which to use on your website. Thinkific vs Lms

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 be customized easily and moved around.

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

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 high-converting pages include, but are not limited to:

  • Call to Action.

This is a crucial part of selling. This will allow potential students and customers to know how to sign-up or purchase.

  • ‘Smart’ Product and Category

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

  • Checklists

This section can be used for key messages and makes it easy to scan information with bullet points.

  • Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions are a common scene on most websites. These aim to answer all the commonly asked questions by the customer base. Thinkific vs Lms

  • ‘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 sections help you promote other courses. 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. If possible, this is also where you can describe your bundles, what you include in them, and how much they cost.

  • Video

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

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

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

It is a fact that all online course builders and platforms today offer tools to allow teachers and students to promote their courses. 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.

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

Promote Your Courses

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

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is one of these tools. Thinkific 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.

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

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. This will give customers and potential students a glimpse into the workings of your content before they pay for it.

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

We are not talking about the stuff that is free. You will unlock more marketing tools as you move up in the Thinkific pricing plans. These tools will help you promote your course material in the market. Some of these include:

  • Coupons

Coupons need no introduction. They’ve been in use for many transactions for a long period of 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. Using a coupon on Thinkific’s checkout will automatically use it with little to no hassle.

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. 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

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. You will need lots of traffic, let’s face the facts.

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

That’s where social media comes in. 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. This includes social media sites. Aside from that, these codes can also be sent as messages if you want to market that way. Thinkific vs Lms

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 allow you to manage your newsletters and send targeted messages to subscribers. In a way, this tool is used less to get new conversions and rather to retain them. This tool can only be sent to those you already know.

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.

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

If you think your own marketing skills are insufficient, then you can opt to go the Affiliate marketing route and get experts and influencers to promote your courses.

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

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. Thinkific vs Lms

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.

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. You can also sell courses for a one-off fee.

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

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

Analytics and reporting

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.

Thankfully, Thinkific has one, but it is a relatively new feature. Currently it only reports on four ares which include: Orders, Enrollments, Student Engagement, and Revenue. 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.

So how does it work?

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

These data can give you multiple insights into how your courses perform. Take for example, the data on Student engagement.

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

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

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.

Prices and plans that are thought-provoking

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

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

Thinkific also offers a free plan that you can use to try 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 using a website and checkout experience

 

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

 

  • Unlimited Courses
  • 1 Community
  • 1 admin
  • Unlimited students
  • 0% transaction fee
  • All features included in the price
  • Custom domains
  • Coupons and discounts
  • Assignments
  • Bundles and add-on packages
  • Memberships and payment plans
  • Live lessons
  • Affiliate selling
  • Options for advanced course-building
  • Advanced Courses on 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
  • Take out the Thinkific brand
  • Bulk emailer for students
  • Bulk enrollments
  • API access
With a platform that scales, optimize your workflow to create premium experiences.

 

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

The Free Plan

If you’re new to course management and course building, this is the plan that you should start with. 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.

The Free plan is only good for making one course. Making more than that requires you to sign up. This course is full of potential and you can enroll as many students as you wish.

The Start Plan

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

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

The Start plan also opens up additional marketing tools and grants 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. First, you will be able to remove the Thinkific branding. Although it may seem easy, it has a significant impact on branding, marketing, and professionalizing your courses.

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 vs Lms

The Expand Plan

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

This plan is especially good for huge institutions wanting to create an online presence. 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

LMS services offer clients and customers the option to create custom plans that are separate from their basic plans. Their prices are not listed because customization may change the cost. The customization will affect the price.

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

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:

  • Unlimited 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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Thoughtific 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 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 vs Lms
  • Thinkkific’s drag-and-drop builder is super easy to use, and even non-tech-savvy people can use it. It even allows you to upload multiple types of media content to create varied and interesting courses and lessons.

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.
  • There is a huge lack of marketing features in the service. Their email marketing capability is quite basic and is miles behind the competition.
  • Thinkific’s designs and customizations are quite limited, given that the service only provides a few themes to play with. With these options, it is hard to create a website that stands out among the rest.

Thinkific Verdict

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

For those who are just starting out, the free startup plan will be a great help. It will allow them to get a feel for how things work. Thinkific vs Lms

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

Looking at Thinkific’s free plan, too, you can say that it is very bold, and the limitations are pretty understandable. This is not like other free plans of other products. However, there are still things you can do with it.

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

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

One thing to note, however, is that some experienced users might find Thinkific too simple for their taste. 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’s not a standalone platform. It is easy to use, and it fits their philosophy.

It does offer impressive editing options, which makes it ideal for creating training and tutorial websites. It is also a great tool to add training pages to existing websites.

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

Finally, I believe Thinkific is lacking in the marketing department. Just looking at the bare bones structure of their Email marketing can turn off marketers, and marketing Thinkific’s courses can be an uphill climb without resorting to third-party integrations.

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

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

Thinkific’s Frequently Asked Questions Thinkific vs Lms

Is it possible to create a complete website with just Thinkfic?

Yes, you can!

Thinkfiic allows you to create your entire online education company. You can easily create courses, websites, and your entire brand on one platform. Thinkific offers builders that can be used to build, market, and sell online courses.

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

It will be at your discretion.

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

Who Owns the Content Published on Thinkific?

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

Thinkific does not, and will not, claim any intellectual property rights over materials made by the course creators and builders. Everything published and built on the platform belongs to its creators.

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