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LMS · head to head

Sana vs Thought Industries

Sana logo

Sana

LMS

AI-native learning and knowledge assistant, acquired by Workday in 2025

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Thought Industries logo

Thought Industries

LMS

External learning platform for companies that sell training to customers and partners as a product

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Sana workday completed its acquisition on 4 November 2025, so Sana is now an HCM vendor's capability; if you do not run Workday, the roadmap will be shaped around a platform you do not use and standalone availability is not guaranteed long term.; Thought Industries the annual floor is an enterprise number, so organisations with modest training revenue pay more in platform fees than a revenue share would have cost them.
  • They diverge on capability: Sana covers Sana Agents, Thought Industries covers Commerce engine.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Sana and Thought Industries actually diverge.

Attributes where Sana and Thought Industries differ
AttributeSanaThought Industries

Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), platforms (Web, iOS, Android), user rating (Not yet rated), category (LMS).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Sana

  • Sana Agents
  • Sana Learn
  • Enterprise search
  • Live collaborative sessions
  • Content generation
  • Permission-aware retrieval
  • Analytics
  • Workday integration

Only in Thought Industries

  • Commerce engine
  • Licence and seat management
  • Multi-tenant panorama delivery
  • Certification programmes
  • Learning path personalisation
  • Analytics on revenue and consumption

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Sana

  • An organisation whose employees repeatedly ask the same policy and process questions in Slack and where the answer already exists in a document nobody findsnot Thought Industries
  • A Workday customer wanting learning and an internal assistant on the same employee record rather than a separate LMS contractnot Thought Industries
  • Onboarding at a fast-growing company where content goes stale faster than the training team can rewrite coursesnot Thought Industries
  • Sales enablement where reps need an answer about a product or a contract term during a call, not a course to complete next weeknot Thought Industries

Thought Industries

  • A software company whose customer certification programme has grown past what a creator platform can administernot Sana
  • Professional bodies selling continuing education with certification renewal cyclesnot Sana
  • Manufacturers training distributor and dealer networks who each need their own branded environmentnot Sana
  • Any training business where a percentage of revenue model has become more expensive than a flat platform feenot Sana

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Sana

  • Workday completed its acquisition on 4 November 2025, so Sana is now an HCM vendor's capability; if you do not run Workday, the roadmap will be shaped around a platform you do not use and standalone availability is not guaranteed long term.
  • Answer quality depends entirely on the state of your internal content, so an organisation with contradictory or outdated documents gets a confident assistant citing the wrong version, which is worse than not having one.
  • Permission-aware retrieval across many source systems is difficult to get exactly right, and a misconfigured connector can surface content to employees who should not see it, which makes the security review substantial.
  • Compliance-heavy training needs, such as certification tracking, regulator-mandated evidence and SCORM-based external content, are handled less thoroughly than in traditional learning management systems built for that purpose.
  • Pricing is unpublished and now negotiated in the context of a Workday relationship, which reduces a non-Workday buyer's leverage and makes a like-for-like comparison against a standalone LMS difficult.

Thought Industries

  • The annual floor is an enterprise number, so organisations with modest training revenue pay more in platform fees than a revenue share would have cost them.
  • Implementation is measured in months and needs an internal owner, so the platform sits unused and paid for during a slow rollout.
  • It is designed for external audiences, so using it for internal employee compliance training means paying for commerce and multi-tenancy capability that internal training does not need.
  • Configuration depth for commerce and tenancy means the administrator role is a real job, and organisations that assign it as a fraction of someone else's role underuse the system.
  • Content authoring is not the strength, so most customers pair it with a separate authoring tool and manage two vendors and two content workflows.

Pricing, plan by plan

Sana

On request
  • Sana$undefined/year
    • Per-employee annual subscription
    • Agents and Learn licensed together or separately depending on the agreement
    • Connector scope affects pricing

Thought Industries

On request
  • Thought Industries$undefined/year
    • Annual platform fee, quoted
    • No percentage taken of course revenue
    • Implementation and success services quoted separately

Which should you pick?

Choose Sana if

  • You need sana agents.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want sana learn.
Sana review

Choose Thought Industries if

  • You need commerce engine.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want licence and seat management.
Thought Industries review

Questions people ask

Is Sana or Thought Industries better?
Neither clearly leads. Sana starts at On request and Thought Industries at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Sana or Thought Industries?
Sana starts at On request and Thought Industries at On request.
Does Sana or Thought Industries run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, iOS, Android, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
What is Sana best used for?
Sana is most often used for an organisation whose employees repeatedly ask the same policy and process questions in slack and where the answer already exists in a document nobody finds, a workday customer wanting learning and an internal assistant on the same employee record rather than a separate lms contract, onboarding at a fast-growing company where content goes stale faster than the training team can rewrite courses, sales enablement where reps need an answer about a product or a contract term during a call, not a course to complete next week. Of those, an organisation whose employees repeatedly ask the same policy and process questions in slack and where the answer already exists in a document nobody finds and a workday customer wanting learning and an internal assistant on the same employee record rather than a separate lms contract are not what Thought Industries is typically brought in for.
What can Sana do that Thought Industries cannot?
Sana covers Sana Agents, Sana Learn, Enterprise search, Live collaborative sessions. Thought Industries covers Commerce engine, Licence and seat management, Multi-tenant panorama delivery, Certification programmes.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Sana: Is Sana still an independent company?

No. Workday completed its acquisition on 4 November 2025 for approximately $1.1bn; the integrated experience begins rolling out in 2026.

Thought Industries: Does Thought Industries take a percentage of course sales?

No. It charges an annual platform fee. That is more expensive than a revenue share at low volume and considerably cheaper once training revenue grows.

Sana: Is it an LMS or a search tool?

Both, but the emphasis is on answering questions from your existing content. Traditional course delivery and completion tracking are secondary.

Thought Industries: Can one platform serve several corporate customers separately?

Yes. Multi-tenant delivery gives each business customer its own branded environment and administrator while content stays centrally managed.

Sana: Does it work if we are not a Workday customer?

Currently yes, but the product direction now serves Workday's platform strategy, so weigh that in a multi-year commitment.

Thought Industries: Is it suitable for internal employee training?

It can do it, but you would be paying for commerce and tenancy features that internal compliance training does not use. A corporate learning platform is usually the better fit.

Sana: How is it priced?

Per employee per year, unpublished, and increasingly negotiated as part of a Workday agreement.

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