While they already existed 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. There were also classes and courses that covered normal topics.

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

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

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

In the early times of the pandemic, the industry saw a 221% increase in new course creators on one Course Platform. This growth 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.

Not only that, but the pandemic also showed the potential of these platforms as a way to earn extra profit. 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. 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.

Ross Herosian has posted a video review on his YouTube channel Tricycle Creative. For those who like a visual experience, To get a comprehensive overview of Thinkific, you may still want to check out our article below, which compares it to some competitors.

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

Thinkific Overview

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

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

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

The platform is ideal for beginners as it allows them to see how content and courses are built, as well the industry’s overall environment. Using the free plan allows users to glimpse what they are about to partake in without any investment.

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

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

Thinkific ensures that all profits are immediately available after they have been sold. That means that course makers and content creators can use their earnings directly, with no need to wait for a quote or a certain threshold to reach before being able to touch the money.

This is a testament to how Thinkfiic views its customers.

Useful Features

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

They are all the same except for how they work and some other unique features. 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. The creation part of Thinkific’s features is the most important. 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. All other features can be accessed through a sidebar menu. Except for occasional hiccups, they are correctly classified. Thinkific vs Podia

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

But that’s just about it. 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 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.

However, not everything is bad, as Thinkific can integrate multiple third-party applications. These third-party applications are not meant to be used as bandages. They can be used to address some of the problems in Thinkific’s marketing department.

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

I guess it makes sense, given the platform’s repeated promises of focusing on course creation. It would be wiser to pour all resources into ensuring they got that part right and get third-party apps to tackle the marketing part.

Thinkific Price

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.

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 Podia

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.

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.

It still dedicates itself to teaching, lecturing, and supporting students.

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

Every Thinkific Plus plan has its own unique cost, so different Plus plans may have slightly different prices. One this is sure, though. Thinkific Plus will offer you all the benefits of the most expensive plan, plus these extra features.

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

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Thoughtific Pros and Cons

Pros

• Thinkific’s free package is permanently free. This isn’t a glorified trial. It is a free account, with the only limitation being the number of courses you can take.

• Thinkific does not ask for transaction fees whenever a sale is made. 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.

• In terms of interface, Thinkific has one of the easiest to understand. With most options logically placed and easily located. This interface is easy to use for users just starting out.

• Thinkfic’s course creator is also easy to use. 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. You will need third-party integrations to get a better experience.

• Despite Thinkific having one of the most intuitive user interfaces, it looks outdated, and there are times when the experience can be clunkier than expected.

• There is a distinct lack of customization options within the platform. As such, it is not impossible to find other websites that may look the same as yours. Thinkific vs Podia

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. 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.

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 offers tools that simplify 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. Apart from courses, there are many other options. You can also sell memberships, communities and podcasts.

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

As such, Kajabi is one of those rare products where the “all in one” platform fits. It’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.

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

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

Kajabi Features

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

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

At first glance, Kajabi’s interface is pretty normal. 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 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. 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” 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. As such, it would be very easy to organize your content neatly and properly. You can organize them depending on their types and content. So you can text and slideshows in one area, audio and video to different areas.

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

Kajabi has robust and extensive marketing features.

It also offers the traditional stuff of offering coupons in a flexible way, which, as we have seen, is an old and proven marketing strategy.

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

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

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

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

Although it is not perfect, Kajabi has a lot to offer that can be used for both marketing and course creation. These features can be used by anyone who is serious about starting an online business.

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

Kajabi Price

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

If you feel that Kajabi’s high price and more advanced features such as automation are something you really need, then you can choose to purchase it.

Kajabi Pros and Cons

Pros

• True to its name, Kajabi is an all in one content making and marketing tool. You can create courses using various tools, such as a drip or mini-course. Then, you can combine them with marketing automations to make sure they sell.

• Kajabi Provides templates and blueprints to get you started with your project.

• Kajabi lets you sell digital products such as coaching, webinars and communities. 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. It even includes a notification feature that can help with alerts.

• Kajabi also has a membership feature that allows users to create and sell membership options to their customers. This can be used to provide users with a way to sell extra and exclusive course content.

• Kajabi has an automation feature that can automate offers purchase, course or membership post-completion, assessment completion, and much more. To be more precise, users can use conditional filters.

• Kajabi’s marketing strategy is one of the most powerful among all the course-building and content platforms currently available.

• Kajabi’s Email marketing is one of the best in the business. There are many email templates that you can use in various situations. Kajabi has the ability to automate email sequences using triggers or actions. Thinkific vs Podia

• Kajabi’s pipeline feature makes it possible to have various OVO funnel templates. 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 does not offer course completion certificates, something that some users want to receive as proof of going through 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. It will be difficult for non-tech users and new users.

• Kajabi does not offer a guaranteed badge on the checkout page. A guarantee badge is a great tool to increase conversions. Buyers are assured of the product’s quality by obtaining a guarantee.

• Kajabi has no local payment gateway. You must rely on Stripe and Paypal integrations to take payment from orders.

• Despite having some advanced features, there are still some features that Kajabi lacks, especially in the community department. There are no gamification or community engagement features.

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Kajabi Summary

Kajabi is undoubtedly a giant platform for course creation and marketing. They have the most advanced tools for marketing alone.

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.

That said, Kajabi is not without its flaws. For one, it lacks features that help you connect with your students and customers. These features allow you to create a great community. Thinkific vs Podia

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

Furthermore, Podia is one of the cheaper digital content-selling platforms in the market. In fact, it might be among the lowest prices. 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.

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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. There are no more complicated terms and actions needed just to reach or access something that you need or want. In fact, almost all of Podia’s functions can be accessed straight from the dashboard.

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

Nevertheless, there are some areas where the course creator is lacking. 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 Podia

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

• Video hosts such as Youtube, Vimeo, and Dailymotion
• 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

Podia recently added the ability to issue certificates. This certificate’s feature can be seen as a perfect incentive/prize for completing your courses. However, Podia only has one type of certificate for now. Podia cannot customize or design your certificates.

In terms of marketing, Podia is focused on the bag. You can use it to increase the effectiveness of your marketing. Tools like Pre-launch, upsells, and coupons make great strategies to promote your products.

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.

Podia offers a local payment gateway for payment processors. 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.

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

Podia Price

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

Podia Pros and Cons

Pros

• Podia’s strongest point is its clean and crisp 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. You can sell various digital products such as courses, memberships, webinars, bundles, community, and other digital downloads.

• Podia also offers a free plan that allows you to sell unlimited products and courses. That means as long as you have the energy and the idea, you can create as many pages for your courses and products as you want.

• Podia also allows you to upload as many videos as possible for your content. The platform provides unlimited storage and bandwidth, which is why this feature is possible. You don’t have to use Vimeo and Wistia.

• Podia has a built-in affiliate program for your audience that is only available for Shaker and Earthquaker plans.

• Although it only provides the basic functions, the email marketing tools built-in are sufficient to support campaigns and broadcasts.

• Podia has supported a pre-launch mode among its marketing features. It can create buzz around your products and get early email customer conversions. Thinkific vs Podia

• Podia does not charge any transaction fees for sales, except the free plan.

• Podia now offers a new feature that allows content creators the ability to give certificates, community, or quizzes. Even the community area can be used to create memberships.

Cons

• Their email marketing only provides the 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.
• There is a noticeable lack of course-compliance features in the platform
• Podia also does not have many customization features. It lacks custom CSS/HTMl customizations. Podia will result in generic websites.
• Podia does not have landing page builders and funnels. These are essential tools considering Podia’s focus in marketing.
• Its free plan is severely lacking and will only allow you to host 1 product. It also charges an 8% transaction fee.
• There are no course blueprints available in Podia.
• Podia only supports a few lesson types. Podia does not support certain types of lesson, such as Adobe Captivate and Articulate Storyline.
• While it has pretty good marketing features, it still lacks some. These include cart abandonment, downsells and order bumps.
• Podia does not have a mobile app, which can limit its user base or access, given how much the world has depended on smartphones and tablets. Thinkific vs Podia

Summary of Podia

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

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

It is still an all-in one platform, despite its limitations. It is perfect for a lot of people. It is ideal for content creators, marketers, teachers, and other people who target marketers. Podia will be able to serve their needs if they need to.

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Thinkific Versus Kartra

Kartra Overview

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

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

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

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

Kartra can be used to create and sell digital and physical products. You can sell unlimited quantities of these products and many different types of products. It also allows you to choose from multiple pricing options, which will allow you to set a more flexible price.

Kartra Features

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

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

Kartra’s focus is on lead conversion and marketing to maximize its users’ profits. As such, one of their main features is funnel building.

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

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

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

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

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

These pages can be optimized for mobile devices, tablets, and desktops. 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.

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. However, this will require you to integrate with any available SMS gateways.

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

Behavior-based automation is another feature that makes the platform unique. This powerful tool allows you to send emails based on the recipient’s behavior. As such, when you are done setting up the hard work, you can just sit back and relax.

Kartra Price

Kartra’s 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 vs Podia

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

Kartra Pros and Con

Pros

• External marketing integrations are not required. Kartra has it all: built-in email marketing, automation, sequence builder, and other essential features needed to perfectly market your products
• Kartra has an automatic translation for its checkout pages. It works based on the user’s geographic 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 has an agency feature that allows you to hold multiple client accounts. This feature allows you to manage multiple websites from one dashboard.

Cons

• Some 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 Podia
• Even Kartra’s pages can load slow
• For beginners, it can be difficult to understand the many features.

Kartra Summary

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

It has a lot of tools and features that provide you with the opportunity for interesting and engaging promotions and products.

It is not a course builder, and certainly not a website creator. Kartra should be used in conjunction with a professional website page maker. This could be pretty difficult to swallow, as Kartra’s price point is pretty expensive for what it does.

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

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Overall, Verdict Thinkific vs Podia

Course builder websites are pretty useful when joining the industry.

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

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

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