Thinkificvs
Teachable
Teachable: Comparable course creation platform with strong mobile experience and similar feature set for selling online courses.
Thinkific
Create and sell online courses your way
As of 30 August 2026, Thinkific starts at $36/month. Thinkific is a course creation platform that enables entrepreneurs, educators, and businesses to create, market, and sell online courses. Softwr lists it under LMS. Thinkific is made by Thinkific Labs Inc, launched in 2012, available on Web, iOS, Android.
Overview
What Thinkific does
Thinkific is a course creation platform that enables entrepreneurs, educators, and businesses to create, market, and sell online courses. With customizable templates, built-in marketing tools, and flexible pricing options, Thinkific provides everything creators need to build profitable education businesses without technical expertise.
What people use it for
- Course creation
- Membership sites
- Coaching programs
- Corporate training
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Thinkific.
- No free plan, 14-day trial only
- Transaction fees on third-party payment processors (5% on Basic tier)
- PayPal only available on Grow plan ($199/month), not on Basic or Start
- Limited customization on lower-tier plans
- Cannot embed courses in external domains or iframes
- Limited number of spaces per plan
- Less interactive community features compared to alternatives
- Features continuously moved to higher-priced tiers
- Payment processing delays reported (up to 90 days)
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Thinkific
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- ThinkificvsKajabi
Kajabi: All-in-one platform combining course creation with email marketing, sales funnels, and CRM tools.
- ThinkificvsPodia
Podia: Course and membership platform with integrated payment processing and digital product sales capabilities.
- ThinkificvsGhost
Ghost: Membership and newsletter platform with course capabilities and creator monetization features.
Pricing
What Thinkific costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Basic
$36 /mo
- 1 course
- Up to 500 students
- Thinkific Payments (0% fees)
- Third-party payment (5% fees)
- Basic customization
- Email delivery
Start
$74 /mo
- Up to 3 courses
- Up to 2,000 students
- Third-party payment (3% fees)
- Knowledge base
- Email templates
Grow
$149 /mo
- Unlimited courses
- Unlimited students
- Third-party payment (0% fees)
- PayPal support
- Advanced customization
- Priority support
Capabilities
Features
Course builder
Website builder
Quizzes
Certificates
Communities
Memberships
Marketing tools
Analytics
Zapier
Integration with Zapier
Mailchimp
Integration with Mailchimp
ConvertKit
Integration with ConvertKit
Stripe
Integration with Stripe
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Does Thinkific have a free plan?
No. Thinkific does not offer a free plan but provides a 14-day free trial. Paid plans start at $36/month (Basic tier).
SourceAre there transaction fees on Thinkific?
Thinkific charges no transaction fees when using their built-in Thinkific Payments. Third-party payment processors incur 5% fees (Basic) down to 0% (Plus), plus 3.6% for Stripe with subscriptions.
SourceWhat payment methods does Thinkific support?
PayPal is locked to Grow plan ($199/month). Basic and Start plans do not support PayPal, limiting payment options for international creators and potentially reducing conversions.
SourceBehind it
Who makes Thinkific
- Company
- Thinkific Labs Inc
- Based in
- Vancouver, Canada
- Founders
- Greg Smith, Charles Barrett Adams, Miranda Lievers, Matt Payne
Keep looking
Where to go from Thinkific
- Thinkific alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Thinkific pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Thinkific badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All LMS softwareThe full category
- Best LMS softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best LMS software for
Compare Thinkific with
- Teachable
- Kajabi
- LearnDash
- Podia
- Thought Industries
- LearnWorlds
- Whatfix
- Edpuzzle
- Canvas
- Moodle
- Schoology
- CYPHER Learning
- LearnUpon
- Nearpod
- Padlet
- Quizlet
- Sana
- Schoox
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Thinkific, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Thinkific
Thinkific alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Thinkific pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Thinkific
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Thinkific badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
Best LMS software alternatives
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