WordPress vs Thinkific

thinkific-review

We all know the expression “Knowledge is Power” which has its roots in Latin: scientiapotentia est. It still holds true today as it did all those years ago.

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

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. At the end of the day, the knowledge owner gets to decide what to do with it. And that is the beauty of it.

For years, the only way to “sell” knowledge has been to directly teach or tutor the buyer or indirectly teach them through writing books on the subject.

This ability to share what you have learned has been made possible by the internet. Anyone can share their knowledge, even those without a teaching license or who don’t know how to write books.

The kinds of things being taught around have also been busted wide open. 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.

Even formal education can have its niche platforms too. Online courses platforms are the answer.

thinkific-logo

For those of you who prefer a more visual experience, here is a video review from the YouTube channel SoftwarePundit. You can still read our article to get a complete overview of Thinkific.

Thinkific: an Online Course Platform WordPress vs Thinkific

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.

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

Thinkific is a great tool for creating online courses. This allows the users to focus on one thing and one thing only: content. 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 isn’t the only platform capable of creating decent courses. In fact, plenty of LMS and CMS do the job as well as Thinkific. We would be remiss if this were not mentioned.

What is it that makes thinkific such a great platform?

  • Thinkific doesn’t take transaction fees, unlike many other platforms. Thinkific instantly makes your funds available to withdraw whenever you make a sale. So when it comes to sales, Thinkific makes sure that whatever is yours is absolutely yours
  • Through the free plan, you can test Thinkific’s core features as well as get a feel of the environment. Although you are only limited to uploading 3 courses, you can have unlimited students enrolled in it as well as host most of the core content that Thinkific allows
  • 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 also allows multiple kinds of content, from video files, audio files, PDFs, quizzes, text, surveys, and more.
  • Thinkific also allows you to play with your course engagement by giving you various capabilities. The platform allows you to organize cohorts, schedule your content, and deliver them by drip-feed, locking them through prerequisite lessons and many others.
  • You can also engage with students via Thinkific’s multiple channels. You can email them their progressions, engage them in discussions, and give them awards. And even have them compete with the leaderboard.

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Thinkific Features

As for the features, Thinkific has more or less the same as that of the other course builders. The only exceptions are a few differences here and there. This is mostly how they handle some specific sections of the whole experience. These features include:

  • 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. As such, giving them the proper tools to do so easier is a godsend. Similar to Thinkific.

  • Promotion and marketing tools

Thinkific, a course builder, should also be able to offer coupons, as well as the necessary email and affiliate marketing tools.

  • Flexible payment options

All of those marketing features will be for naught if there are not many payment options available for customers. Having more than one payment option is also optimal, as it removes friction from wannabe customers, and more payment options can make it easier for your leads to paying you.

  • Reporting

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

Should they continue doing tutorial videos with direct samples, the best way to go about things, or just plain instructions would be better? One cannot decide the best course of action without properly tracking revenues, engagements, and business performance.

  • Student support and communities

Having a good community that consumes your content is a good way to build up returning customers. Besides that, it is also good for branding as well as engagements. Remember, good customer support and community greatly improve customer retention. These features are a great way to get it done at Thinkific.

  • Tools to train the trainer

While we are in the business of selling knowledge, it is not a bad thing to acquire our own in the meantime. Selling and course building are two different things. Many people who try Thinkific may be unfamiliar with the process and will stumble around until they feel at ease.

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

  • Thinkific App store

The Thinkific App store sells apps and programs that take your online courses to another level. What is great about this AppStore is that most of it is community-made. 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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The Thinkific Course Builder: Is it Good?

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

A course builder service will only be as good as its main builder. If they don’t have a well-functioning course building system, then what can we expect from them about secondary and additional features?

In the case of their course builder, Thinkific provides a handy “Get Started” checklist that guides you on what to do at your first foray into course building.

Create Your First Course

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

This file opens the first-course builder interface. The layout is easy to follow. The course content is divided into chapters and lessons.

You can create lessons by clicking the “add Lesson” button.

You can choose from the following content types:

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

You can upload any of these files as your lessons. You can upload multiple courses to the Bulk Importer. You can also copy old lessons from other courses using the “Copy Lessons From” button on Thinkific.

Pick the Course Type

You can choose the course that Thinkific is currently building. The service also provides pre-formatted, professional-looking templates which can be used to create the course content.

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

These premade courses include:

  • Mini-course: These are course templates designed to create short and fast courses such as tasters and freebies.
  • Flagship Courses: These are the courses that make students and audiences take your courses or keep them always coming back. 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. WordPress vs Thinkific
  • Membership Resource Library: You can use this template to create an archive of resources for your subscribers. This will encourage your audience to remain on your website even when looking at resources
  • Webinar Replay: This is like the library template, except it is specially made for webinars and live lesson video recordings. This is perfect for your students who are late enrollees and for people who missed your seminars.

Your Students’ Course Design

Students will be able use your learning materials in the Course Player. As such, you can customize how this course player looks in the “Settings” tab on the “Courses” page. Options include changing color schemes, fonts, or adding logos.

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

This part also allows you to preview your lessons in the course player. This is convenient since you can see how your students view your lessons. As such, you can put yourself in their shoes and see the problem from their perspective.

Set Assignments and Check Progress

Assignments, quizzes, and surveys are super handy as an additional way to engage your students. Aside from that, you can use it as an added way to rate your students. WordPress vs Thinkific

Assignments are not available for PRO plans.

Overall, Thinkific’s course builder is very user-friendly. They will give you enough guidance, especially if you’re just starting out with your course.

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Building an Online Course Website

The course builder can be considered the core of Thinkific. However, it is the Site Builder that provides the foundation on which your courses can be built.

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

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

Start building your website by:

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.

All in all, these websites have good and professional designs.

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

After picking a theme, you can customize it as you like. You can make your desired edits to the site builder and create 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. Your website’s potential is limitless. Your creativity will only be your limit.

3. Make a Training website Entirely from Scratch.

Since we are already in the business of making courses, it would be a very good idea to proceed and build a training website to house your created courses. Thinkific offers a wide range of pages to help you choose from.

These pages are pre-designed and ready to be mapped into a complete course or training website. As such, we can take these pages and use them as the building blocks of your websites. These pages are worth mentioning:

  • Your website’s homepage is the face. Where most relevant things should be found
  • Course pages: These can swerve as landing pages for approaching courses. If you want, you can also make a course page that serves as a landing page for all the courses you offer in your “class”
  • Sign-up pages: This is where your potential customers and students enroll for individual courses or memberships WordPress vs Thinkific
  • Sign in Pages: This should be sued for subscribers of your website
  • Your student’s dashboard will be your starting point for signing in to your site. 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. WordPress vs Thinkific

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

4. Edit Individual Pages

To properly design a web page using Thinkific Site Builder, it helps to understand that the pages made with these site builders are made up of sections. These sections can be customized easily and moved around.

Pre-built pages come with suggestions sections that will help you choose the right ones for your page. Simply click on “Add Section” to add more sections.

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

  • Get involved.

This is an essential part, especially when you aim to sell. This will allow potential students and customers to know how to sign-up or purchase.

  • ‘Smart’ Product and Category

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

  • Checklists

This section can be used to highlight key messages, making it easy for the readers to scan information using bullet points.

  • Most Frequently Asked Questions

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

  • ‘Social Proof’

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

  • Upsell

These are sections that help promote other courses that you are selling. You can often find this section on the checkout page of one of your courses.

  • Instructor

This section is where you can put your instructor profiles in the courses. This section gives students information about the teachers.

  • Pricing Options

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

  • Video

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

We now come to the part that is often the most anticipated. What is the Thnkific business side? Is the service providing enough tools and resources to enable users to make a living from their hard work?

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

Yep, that’s right. Some course platforms focus more on selling and turning conversion than the creation side. While others are the opposite and mostly rely on integrations to carry forth the promotion and business side of things.

So on which side does Thinkific fall on? Let’s find out as we try the business, promotion, and marketing features of Thinkific.

Promote Your Courses

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

Among these tools include the ability for search engine optimization or SEO. Thinkific provides free plan users with the needed SEO options, which allows you to promote your lessons in the most basic ways by making your content capable of climbing up the top of the search engine results.

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 among the most efficient ways to show your audience what you are capable of. WordPress vs Thinkific

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

These promotional materials can be a great way to promote your products. In the right condition, they might even compete with some products that have been promoted to the extreme.

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. These include:

  • Coupons

Coupons don’t need introduction. They have been used in many transactions for a long time. So it is no surprise that they are also being used in online business and online marketing.

Thinkific’s coupons come from digital codes that are very easy to share. They are utilized very well in Thinkific’s ecosystem. You can use a coupon at Thinkific’s checkout to instantly redeem it.

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

Thinkific also allows you to personalize your coupons. From setting the dollar or percentage amount for the coupon to setting an expiration date and setting the number of times, the coupon can be redeemed.

  • Sales Widgets

Sales widgets are a feature that allows you to post purchasing links to other websites and social media. These widgets are very useful given the amount of traffic required to get your course noticed. And let’s face it, you will need a lot of traffic.

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

That’s where social media comes in. It’s a fact that social media is used by almost everyone. It is important to determine where the majority of internet traffic comes and redirect some traffic to your site.

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

You can also customize the widget’s appearance. You can choose to display a button, a button with a product image, or include text that you want to go with it.

  • Email Marketing Tools

Email marketing tools allow you to manage your newsletters and send targeted messages to subscribers. In a way, this tool is used less to get new conversions and rather to retain them. After all, you can only send this to people you already have contact with.

Thinkific’s email marketing tools are limited to this ……… Unfortunately, only existing students can be emailed about 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.

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

You can also convert Thinkfiic users into affiliates by finding them through the same process.

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

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. You can also connect PayPal to make one-off payments.

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

Thinkific’s payment options let you customize the price of your products. 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. But right now, I haven’t tried that feature as I have only a few courses made with their system.

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

Reporting and Analytics

A good website selling products should have a Reports and Analytics section. 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. It currently reports only on four areas, which are: Enrollments and Student Engagement, Revenue, Orders, Enrollments, and Student Engagement. This feature is currently in its infancy, and only the Start + Growth package has it.

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

So how does it work?

Thinkific’s reporting and analytics collect the necessary data how they wish. Some selections include filtering data by date, course or product type, by recency of customers (whether they are new or existing), and more.

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

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. WordPress vs Thinkific

Students might find it difficult to complete courses that have low completion rates. It could be an issue with how you present the information. Once you find the problem, you can then find an applicable solution without tearing your hair out.

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

Prices and plans that are thought-provoking

Thinkific is one of the leading platforms on course building, and marketing. As such, you can expect to have a price that is appropriate for their standing.

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

Free Start Grow Expand
$0 per month $74 per month $149 pero month $374 per month
Create and launch your product using a website and checkout experience

 

  • 1 Course
  • 1 community
  • 1 admin
  • Unlimited students
  • 0$ transaction fee
  • Chat Bot and Email Support
  • 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
  • Discounts and coupons
  • Assignments
  • Bundles and add on packages
  • Payment plans and memberships
  • Live lessons
  • Affiliate selling
  • Advanced course – building options
  • Advanced Courses on Thinkific Academy
-Build successful business with a complete suite of tools to help you sell more

 

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

 

  • Unlimited courses
  • 10 Communities
  • 5 admin
  • Unlimited students
  • Transaction fee 0%
  • Priority phone support
  • All Grow features included
  • Custom SSL Certificates
  • Priority Support

The Free Plan

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

The Free plan is only good for making one course. 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. The main benefit of upgrading to this plan is your limiters are removed, and you are free to make unlimited courses.

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

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

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

The Grow Plan

The Grow plan is for you if you are serious about selling and making courses. 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 allows you to access bulk enrollments, making the enrollment process easier and quicker. In terms of support, you are given priority email and phone support. You can get faster solutions if you have different issues with your website. WordPress vs Thinkific

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 ideal for large institutions that want to establish an online presence. It provides the same features as the other Thinkific plans but also offers 10 Communities that make it easier for students to manage.

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

Thinkific Plus

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

Contact the Thinkfic sales team to get Thinkific Plus. They can help you to understand the tools that you need in order to optimize your platform. They can connect you with education experts who will inspire you and give you the confidence you need to achieve more than you could ever imagine.

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

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

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Thinkific Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Thinkific does NOT charge 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 has all the core features available and acts like a paid plan. Although there are no limitations, if you are serious enough, you can start selling courses through the services with no upfront monetary investment. WordPress vs Thinkific
  • Thinkkific’s drag and drop builder is easy to use by even non-tech-savvy users. You can upload multiple media types to create different and exciting lessons and courses.

Cons

  • There are some aspects of Thinkific that are not really that are not as user-friendly as expected. This is something that some creators of the service have expressed.
  • The service lacks many marketing features. Their email marketing capabilities are very basic and far behind those of the competition.
  • Thinkific’s designs and customizations are quite limited, given that the service only provides a few themes to play with. 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.

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

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

Looking at Thinkific’s free plan, too, you can say that it is very bold, and the limitations are pretty understandable. 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. As for the more complex side of things, Thinkific provides enough prompts to guide you through the process.

This can be a tricky side. Too many prompts can overwhelm novice users and cause frustration for those who are already proficient.

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

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 has impressive editing capabilities, making it ideal for creating tutorial and training websites. Aside from that, it is an excellent tool for adding training pages to existing websites.

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

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

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

However, not everything is grim-looking though. Thinkfic still offers some useful tools to help you make money from your courses. With a little creative touch, you can sell your products and courses. It does require more effort than usual, however.

Thinkific Frequently Asked Questions WordPress vs Thinkific

Can You Build an Entire Website with Just Thinkfic?

Yes, you can!

Thinkfiic gives you the freedom to build your entire online education business. This means you can create both courses, websites, or your overall brand within one seamless platform. Thinkific has builders that are designed to facilitate building, marketing, and selling online courses.

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

It will be at your discretion.

Remember that students may need assistance logging in to your courses offline. You can make your courses downloadable. This can be done for content such as audio files, video files, and PDFs. Your students can download these to their devices and access them even offline.

Who owns the content published on Thinkific?

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

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

WordPress vs Thinkific

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. Even then, they were made for the same purpose, to create and sell 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. People who couldn’t attend regular school due to duties and scheduling conflicts could still finish courses due to the medium’s flexibility.

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

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

Everybody from Entrepreneurs and solopreneurs to human resource professionals and proper educational institutions has used a course platform or two during the pandemic.

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. From the usual life coaching stuff about making your life better to tutorial classes of the usual academic subjects like Algebra. Even to courses about making your courses more profitable.

Online courses are everywhere, and if you want to get in on the action, the next question is which platform you will use to share that treasure in your noggin.

thinkific-logo
For those of you who prefer a more visual experience, here is a video review from Ross Herosian on his YouTube channel Tricycle Creative. 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 WordPress vs Thinkific

Thinkific Overview

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

One of the main reasons why Thinkific stands out is that you know they are doing this in a place of passion. You can feel that they are more focused on giving the best learning experience they can to both the creators and their audience and that earning money is needed to keep things afloat.

How could you not? It is one of few online courses platforms that offers a free full-service service. Yes, Thinkific has a free service that is as good as their paid lowest-tiered one.

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

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 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.

Thinkific Features

First, let me preface this by saying that most online course platforms share almost the same features. The course builder is first, followed by the website builder to create your courses and finally the marketing features.

The only difference between them is how well they work, along with some bits and bobs that make the product unique. These are the features that Thinkific is known for.

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

The user interface of Thinkific is easy to use. It is intuitive and logical. Users will have no problem navigating everything. You can access all other features via a sidebar menu. Except for occasional hiccups, they are correctly classified. WordPress vs Thinkific

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

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

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

Thinkific is primarily focused on course creation, as mentioned previously. 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.

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

The marketing features of Thinkific are where I fear the platforms will fall flat. Don’t get me wrong. It 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. The most glaring aspect is that it doesn’t have a built-in sales funnel builder. 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.

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.

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

The Thinkific Price

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

Thinkific is a lower-cost option that allows you to create unlimited courses and enroll unlimited students. This is in line with their mission to be focused on the education part. WordPress vs Thinkific

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 with 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
  • Simple to use website themes
  • Full integrated e-commerce
  • App Store
-Add products to your business and create a cohesive learning experience for your students

 

  • Unlimited Courses
  • 1 Community
  • 1 admin
  • Unlimited students
  • 0% transaction fee
  • All features included in the price
  • Custom domains
  • Coupons and discounts
  • Assignments
  • Bundles and add on packages
  • Payment plans and memberships
  • Live lessons
  • Affiliate selling
  • Options for advanced course-building
  • Advanced Courses 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
  • Support by phone and email
  • All Start Features Included
  • Take out the Thinkific brand
  • Bulk emailer for students
  • Bulk enrollments
  • API access
-Optimize your workflow and create a premium experience with a platform designed to scale

 

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

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

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

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. 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 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%
  • Dedicate Customer Success Team
  • Multiple seats and Tiered pricing checkout
  • Email white-labeling
  • Only one sign on
  • Bulk Selling App
  • Enterprise API Access

man-seriously-staring-at-laptop

> > Click Here to Start Your Free Trial < <

Thinkific Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Thinkific’s free package is permanently free. This isn’t a glorified trial. You can only take as many courses as you like.
  • Thinkific doesn’t charge transaction fees for any sale. All earnings by content creators are theirs. 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.
  • The limitation for the number of courses is removed in all instances of Thinkific’s premium plans. Users can create unlimited courses and enroll unlimited students in these courses.
  • Thinkific’s interface is one of the most intuitive. The majority of options are logically placed and easy to find. This interface is easy to use for users just starting out.
  • Speaking of easily getting the hang of, Thinkfic’s course builder is similarly easy to use. It also allows for many course materials, making it possible to have your course as exciting and engaging as possible.
  • In the name of engagement, Thinkific also gives you the ability to put incentives such as leaderboards, awards, and scores to motivate your students.

Cons

  • Not everything in Thinkific’s tools are user friendly. 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. It is possible to find websites similar to yours. WordPress vs Thinkific

The Thinkific Summary

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

My opinion is that its greatest strength would be its commitment to providing the best course experience possible and a 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.

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. This allows Kajabi users to sell their products more easily.

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. 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. For starters, it has one of the more expensive platforms available in the market. Their lowest plan starts at $149 per month. These plans are not unlimited. The lowest plan allows you to sell only 3 products.

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

Kajabi Features

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

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

Kajabi’s interface looks very normal at first glance. It’s minimalist, clean, and modern. The majority of features are accessible in just 3-4 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 provides for a smoother experience and does not get in the way of your work.

In terms of Course Creation, Kajabi allows you to create various types. Some samples include mini-courses, online courses, drip courses, or create one from scratch. You can choose among these types for whichever suits your needs. (i.e. long courses for long content, mini-courses for product launches).

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

These courses could be properly structured too into categories, subcategories and posts. It would be easy to organize your content in a neat and organized manner. They can be arranged according to their content and types. You can have text and slideshows in one place, and audio and video in another.

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

Kajabi has robust and extensive marketing features.

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

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

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

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

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

This is 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.

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.

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. WordPress vs Thinkific

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.

Basic Growth Pro
$119 monthly billed annually $159 per month, payable annually Monthly payment of $319
  • 3 products
  • 3 funnels
  • Unlimited landing pages
  • Unlimited marketing emails
  • 10,000 contacts
  • 1000 active customers
  • 1 website
  • 1 admin user
  • Kajabi University
  • 0% Transaction Fee
  • Webinars and events
  • Ready-to-use Templates
  • Ready-to-use Templates
  • Assessments (Quizzes & Surveys)
  • 1 Call to an Onboarding Specialist
  • Chat Support
  • Automations
  • 15 products
  • 15 funnels
  • Unlimited landing pages
  • Unlimited marketing emails
  • Contacts: 25,000
  • 10,000 customers currently active
  • 1 website
  • 10 admin users
  • Kajabi University
  • 0% Transaction Fee
  • Webinars & Events
  • Ready-to-use Templates
  • Assessments (quizzes & surveys)
  • 1 Welcome Call with an Onboarding Specialist
  • 1 Check-in Call with an Onboarding Specialist
  • 24/7 Chat support
  • Advanced automations
  • Kajabi branding can be removed
  • 100 products
  • 100 funnels
  • Unlimited landing pages
  • Unlimited marketing emails
  • 100,000 contacts
  • 200.000 active customers
  • 3 Websites
  • 25 admin users
  • Kajabi University
  • 0% Transaction Fee
  • Webinars and Events
  • Templates Ready for Use
  • Assessments (quizzes & surveys)
  • 1 Call to an Onboarding Specialist
  • 1 Check-in Call with an onboarding specialist
  • Chat support available 24/7
  • Advanced Automations
  • Kajabi branding can be removed
  • Affiliate program
  • Code Editor

Kajabi Pros & Cons

Pros

  • True to its name, Kajabi is an all in one content making and marketing tool. It provides various tools to create courses, like a drip course or a mini-course, and combine them with different marketing automations to ensure they sell.
  • Kajabi provides blueprints and templates to help you get started on your project.
  • Kajabi allows you to sell other digital products like coaching, webinars, communities, podcasts, etc. It is also one of the best places to do so.
  • Kajabi also has a built-in assessment function that allows you to grade and observe your students’ performance. This feature is especially useful when used in conjunction with drip courses. Drip courses allow you to offer courses that are only accessible when the correct grades have been achieved.
  • Kajabi’s mobile app makes it easy for students to access lessons and classes wherever and whenever they want. It even includes a notification feature that can help with alerts.
  • Kajabi has a membership option that allows users create and sell membership options for their customers. This can be used to provide users with a way to sell extra and exclusive course content.
  • Kajabi’s automation feature can automate the purchase of offers, post-completion of courses or memberships, assessment completion, as well as other tasks. Users can also use more advanced options with conditional filters to be precise in the automation process.
  • 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 also has the option to automate email sequences by using triggers and actions. WordPress vs Thinkific
  • Kajabi’s pipeline feature allows various OVO funnel templates to be available. Pipeline features automate product sales and funnel customers to the places you want. This will result in higher conversion rates.

Cons

  • Kajabi’s pricing is not to be laughed at. It costs $149 per month, and you cannot create unlimited courses. It offers only 3 products and 3 pipelines.
  • Kajabi 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 does not have a 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.

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

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Kajabi Summary

Kajabi is undoubtedly a giant platform for course creation and marketing. Their marketing tools are unparalleled.

They 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. These features allow you to create a great community. WordPress vs Thinkific

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

Overall, Kajabi 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.

Thinkific Versus Podia

Podia Overview

Another big name digital online content-selling platform is Podia. It is also an all-in-one platform that has powerful marketing features. Online courses, coaching, webinars and community are just a few of the many products that you can sell through this platform.

Podia is also one of the most affordable digital content-selling platforms on the market. In fact, it might be among the lowest prices. It does take a portion of your profit when you sell. It might be their way of offsetting the price for its powerful features.

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

couple-looking-at-laptop-happily

> > Click Here to Start Your Free Trial < <

Podia Features

Podia offers a lot of features.

From looking at the interface, Podia has it clean and minimal. 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 it very user-friendly. Accessing or reaching the information you desire or need is easy with no additional steps or terms. In fact, almost all of Podia’s functions can be accessed straight from the dashboard.

For its Course creator, Podia supports various files that can serve as the building block for your lessons. You can include text, embeds, quizzes, coaching, and files in a course. 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. WordPress vs Thinkific

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

  • Youtube, Vimeo and Dailymotion are video hosts.
  • Podcast and music platforms like s Spotify, soundcloud and podbean
  • Slideshow platforms such as speaker deck, presentation and google slides.
  • Social media sites like Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, and Behance
  • Form Builder websites such as 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. 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 marks Podia as an excellent choice for marketers who want to sell their products on a smaller website.

That said, not everything is perfect. In this case, Podia’s weakness is its email marketing, which only provides the basics. It allows you to send broadcasts and email campaigns but lacks some features, such as split testing and personalization fields.

Also, those looking for automation features have lost their luck since Podia’s is not as advanced as some of theirs.

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

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

Podia Price

It is also one of the most affordable on the market in terms of pricing. The platform recently added a free plan. 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
  • 8% transaction fees
  • Full Website
  • Email Marketing
  • Chat Support
  • Community
  • 1 Download
  • 1 Coaching Product
  • Create Courses
  • Draft webinars
  • There are no transaction fees
  • Full website
  • Email marketing
  • Chat support
  • Community
  • Unlimited Downloads
  • Unlimited coaching
  • Unlimited Courses
  • Draft webinars
  • There are no transaction fees
  • Full website
  • Email marketing
  • Chat support
  • Community
  • Unlimited downloads
  • Unlimited coaching
  • Unlimited courses
  • Unlimited webinars
  • affiliates
  • There are no transaction fees
  • Full website
  • Email marketing
  • Chat support
  • Community
  • Unlimited downloads
  • Unlimited Coaching
  • Unlimited courses
  • Unlimited webinars
  • Affiliates
  • Priority Support
  • Onboarding calls

Podia Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Podia’s strong point is its clear and simple UI/UX. It’s very user-friendly and doesn’t require any training. It is easy to set up for users of all tech levels.
  • Podia has many functions and can become a one-stop shop for all your needs. You can sell various digital products such as courses, memberships, webinars, bundles, community, and other digital downloads.
  • Other than the free plan, Podia allows you to sell unlimited courses and products. This means that you can make as many pages as you like for your products and courses as long as there is energy.
  • Podia also allows you to upload as many videos as possible for your content. This is thanks to the unlimited storage and bandwidth that the platform offers its users. You don’t have to use Vimeo and Wistia.
  • Podia has a built-in affiliate program for your audience that is only available for Shaker and Earthquaker plans.
  • Despite providing only the most basic functions, the built-in email marketing tools are enough to support broadcasts and campaigns.
  • Podia supports a prelaunch mode as one of its marketing features. It can create buzz around your products and get early email customer conversions. WordPress vs Thinkific
  • 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. You can even create memberships in the community area.

Cons

  • Their email marketing provides only the most basic functions. It lacks personalization fields, especially in the email composer. Aside from that, the tool lacks templates, drag and drop editor, and other features
  • The platform lacks course compliance features.
  • Podia also does not have many customization features. It lacks custom CSS/HTMl customizations. Expect to have generic-looking websites when using Podia.
  • Podia also has no landing page builders or funnels, which are important tools when considering Podia’s focus on marketing.
  • The free plan does not allow you to host more than one product. It also charges an 8% transaction fee.
  • There are no course blueprints available in Podia.
  • Podia only supports a few lesson types. It lacks support for some types like Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, and HTML 5 Content, among others.
  • It has some good marketing features but it is still lacking others. These include cart abandonment, downsells and order bumps.
  • Podia doesn’t have a mobile app. This could limit its user base and access given how dependent the world is on tablets and smartphones. WordPress vs Thinkific

Podia Summary

Overall, Podia is an acceptable platform for hosting your content. This is pretty true especially given the price point it is offered.

Many might think that with Podia, you get what you pay for. Well, it is not entirely 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. If they have any questions, Podia can help.

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Thinkific Versus Kartra

Kartra Overview

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

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.

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

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

Kartra 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.

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

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

Funnels are a way for sellers to get their customers to buy their products. While Kartra does not refer to funnels as campaigns, They function similarly. WordPress vs Thinkific

Kartra makes funnel building relatively easy. If you have previous experience in the field, you can create one yourself. 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 manages all of the billing and payment processes so that you can concentrate on improving your funnels as you gain more experience.

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

These pages can be optimized for mobile devices, tablets, and desktops. These pages can be hosted on your domain, or on Katra.

That said, they are still limited in capacity and features to be considered a proper website. Kartra believes it, and they won’t let you host these pages on your domain.

Kartra’s marketing features should be considered the crown jewel. It has all that is needed for email marketing.

First, it can send broadcast messages either by email or SMS. However, this will require you to integrate with any available SMS gateways.

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. This allows you to relax after all the work has been done.

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. WordPress vs Thinkific

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

Starter Silver Gold Platinum
$79 per month when billed annually $149 per month when billed annually $229 per month when billed annually, Monthly payment of $379 when you pay annually
  • Up to 2,500 leads
  • 1 custom domain
  • 15,000 emails per month
  • 50 GB bandwidth
  • Host 100 pages
  • Host 50 videos
  • Build 2 membership sites
  • Add 1 additional team member
  • Connect 1 Helpdesk
  • You can get up to 12,500 leads
  • 3 custom domains
  • Unlimited emails
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • Unlimited pages
  • Unlimited videos
  • Unlimitted products
  • Unlimited membership sites
  • Unlimitless team members
  • Unlimited helpdesk
  • Kartra agency
  • Get up to 25,000 leads
  • 5 custom domains
  • Unlimited emails
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • Unlimited pages
  • Unlimited videos
  • Unlimited products
  • Unlimited membership sites
  • Unlimited team members
  • Unlimited helpdesk
  • Kartra agency
  • Get up to 50,000 leads
  • 10 Custom domains
  • Unlimited emails
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • Unlimited pages
  • Unlimitted videos
  • Unlimitted products
  • Unlimited Membership Sites
  • Unlimited help team members
  • Unlimited Helpdesk
  • Kartra Agency

Kartra Pros and Cons

Pros

  • You don’t need any external marketing integrations. Kartra offers everything: integrated email marketing, sequence builder, automation, and all other features necessary to market your products perfectly
  • Kartra has an automatic translation for its checkout pages. It is based on the user’s geographical location. In this vein, it also supports different currencies.
  • Kartar allows you to drip content or vary access to different levels, if you have an existing 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 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 can be slow and frustrating at times. WordPress vs Thinkific
  • 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.

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

However, if you take the plunge, you might just get your money’s worth and more.

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Overall, Verdict WordPress vs Thinkific

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. 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. They will have very few differences. Some might be better than others in certain areas.

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

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