Greetings and welcome to our comprehensive Thinkific evaluation.
Thinkific stands as one of the leading online course platforms, but does it truly excel above the rest?
To answer this question, we embarked on a journey of exploration by signing up for Thinkific and thoroughly assessing its capabilities. The insights we’ve gained along this journey are compiled within this article for your benefit.
From this point forward, we will delve into Thinkific’s essential features, provide a firsthand look at its user interface, and present an unbiased assessment of its advantages and disadvantages.
Are you prepared? Let’s commence our exploration.
What is Thinkific?
Thinkific functions as both an online course builder and a comprehensive learning management system (LMS).
Its purpose is to provide knowledge entrepreneurs with an all-in-one solution for creating, marketing, and selling eLearning products seamlessly.
With Thinkific, you have the capacity to construct your entire website from scratch. This site can serve as a platform not only for selling the eLearning products you develop with Thinkific but also for hosting membership areas and communities.
While several online course platforms offer similar capabilities, Thinkific stands out in a few notable ways. For instance, it provides more advanced assessment options than many of its competitors and distinguishes itself by not imposing any transaction fees on any of its plans, including the free one.
Thinkific also excels in terms of flexibility, particularly with pricing options. You have the freedom to offer your course content for free, charge one-time fees, provide subscription/membership models, and establish monthly payment plans, among other possibilities.
Furthermore, Thinkific’s level of customization is exceptional. You can tailor virtually every aspect, including your website, course content, the course player itself, your mobile app, text snippets, completion messages, and more to suit your unique preferences and needs.
What features does Thinkific offer?
Thinkific offers a wealth of features to explore. While we can’t cover every feature in detail here, let’s highlight some key aspects that are essential to understand:
- Course Builder
- Community Builder
- Site Builder
- Marketing & sales tools
- Analytics
- Student management
- App store
Now, let’s delve into each of these tools and features to provide a deeper understanding of their functionality.
Course Builder
The Course Builder in Thinkific is a robust tool that empowers course creators to design, develop, and organize their online courses. This feature provides an intuitive and user-friendly interface for building course content, making it accessible to a wide range of users, regardless of their technical expertise.
Course creators can leverage the Course Builder to upload various types of multimedia content, such as videos, presentations, quizzes, assignments, and discussions, creating a dynamic and engaging learning experience for their students.
Thinkific’s Course Builder streamlines the process of structuring course materials, ensuring that content is organized, easy to navigate, and tailored to meet specific learning objectives. With this tool, creators can bring their educational vision to life and deliver impactful online courses.
Community Builder
Thinkific’s Community Builder is a valuable feature that enables course creators to foster a sense of community and interaction among their students. With this tool, course creators can establish discussion forums, message boards, or private groups where students can connect, share ideas, and collaborate on course-related topics.
The Community Builder enhances the overall learning experience by providing a platform for students to ask questions, seek clarification, and engage in meaningful discussions with both peers and instructors. This feature promotes a sense of belonging and encourages active participation, ultimately leading to a more enriching and collaborative learning environment within the Thinkific platform.
Site Builder
The Site Builder in Thinkific is a versatile tool that empowers course creators to design and customize their course websites. This feature offers a user-friendly interface with customization options, allowing creators to tailor the look and feel of their online learning environment to match their branding and preferences.
Course creators can personalize elements such as colors, fonts, logos, and other visual components, ensuring that their course website reflects their unique identity.
Thinkific’s Site Builder enables creators to create a professional and engaging online presence for their courses, making it easier to attract and retain students while providing a cohesive and branded experience.
Marketing & sales tools
Thinkific’s Marketing & Sales Tools offer a comprehensive suite of resources and capabilities to empower course creators in effectively marketing and selling their online courses. These tools include integrations with popular email marketing platforms, enabling creators to build and manage email lists, send targeted campaigns, and automate marketing efforts.
Customizable sales pages enable creators to present their courses attractively and persuasively, while the ability to offer discounts and promotions enhances the appeal of their offerings. Thinkific also supports affiliate marketing programs, enabling creators to partner with affiliates who promote their courses for commissions.
With conversion tracking, payment processing integrations, and landing page building capabilities, Thinkific equips creators with the necessary tools to drive course enrollments and revenue growth.
Analytics
Thinkific’s analytics feature is a powerful tool that offers in-depth insights for course creators. It allows creators to track individual student progress, enabling them to identify areas where students excel or face challenges within the course content.
Additionally, course performance metrics such as completion rates, quiz scores, and student engagement data provide valuable information to assess teaching materials’ effectiveness. The platform also offers sales and revenue reporting, helping creators monitor financial performance, sales conversions, and enrollment trends.
These analytics collectively empower course creators to make informed decisions, tailor their courses to meet students’ needs, and optimize their online teaching strategies.
Student management
Thinkific’s Student Management tools are designed to assist course creators in efficiently managing their online student base. This feature helps creators keep track of students’ progress, engagement, and interactions within the courses.
It provides a central hub for monitoring student activities, making communication with students more effective, and ensuring a smooth learning experience.
Through Thinkific’s Student Management tools, course creators can effectively address student inquiries, provide support, and track each student’s journey through the course materials, ultimately enhancing the overall educational experience.
App store
Thinkific’s App Store is a valuable resource that offers course creators access to a wide range of third-party integrations and add-ons. These integrations expand the functionality of the Thinkific platform, allowing creators to enhance their courses and streamline their operations.
From marketing tools and analytics platforms to payment gateways and communication apps, the Thinkific App Store provides creators with the flexibility to customize their online course ecosystem to meet their specific needs.
By seamlessly integrating with these third-party applications, course creators can optimize their teaching methods, marketing strategies, and student management processes, ultimately delivering a more effective and efficient online learning experience.
How much does Thinkific cost?
Thinkific offers four pricing plans: Free, Basic, Growth, and Pro.
- Free Plan: This plan is free to use and allows you to create and publish up to three courses with up to 100 students. You also get access to Thinkific’s basic features, such as content creation tools, marketing tools, and sales tools.
- Basic Plan: This plan costs $49 per month and removes the limits on the number of courses and students you can have. You also get access to additional features, such as drip scheduling, discounts and coupons, and 24/7 customer support.
- Growth Plan: This plan costs $99 per month and includes all the features of the Basic Plan, plus live streaming, certificate of completion, and a branded mobile app.
- Pro Plan: This plan costs $299 per month and includes all the features of the Growth Plan, plus single sign-on (SSO), bulk selling, and priority customer support.
You can also get a discount on Thinkific’s pricing plans if you pay annually.
Here is a table summarizing the features and prices of Thinkific’s different pricing plans:
Thinkific pros and cons
Thinkific is a popular online learning platform that offers a wide range of features to help you create, market, and sell your online courses. Here are some of the pros and cons of Thinkific:
Pros:
- Easy to use: Thinkific is a very user-friendly platform that doesn’t require any coding knowledge. You can create and publish your courses quickly and easily.
- Wide range of features: Thinkific offers a wide range of features to help you create, market, and sell your online courses. This includes content creation tools, marketing tools, sales tools, analytics, and more.
- Affordable: Thinkific offers a free plan and affordable paid plans. This makes it a good option for creators of all budgets.
- Good customer support: Thinkific offers good customer support. You can get help from their team via email, live chat, or phone.
Cons:
- Some features are limited on the free plan: The free plan of Thinkific is limited to 3 courses and 100 students. If you want to create more courses or have more students, you will need to upgrade to a paid plan.
- The mobile app is not as fully-featured as the web app: The Thinkific mobile app is not as fully-featured as the web app. This can be a drawback if you want to create or manage your courses on the go.
- The pricing can be higher than some other platforms: The pricing of Thinkific can be higher than some other online learning platforms. This is especially true for the Pro plan.
Thinkific alternatives
Unsure if Thinkific is the ideal platform for your needs? Explore these alternative options that could better suit your requirements:
Teachable: Teachable is a popular online learning platform that offers a wide range of features, including content creation tools, marketing tools, sales tools, and analytics. It is similar to Thinkific in terms of pricing and features.
Kajabi: Kajabi is an all-in-one platform that offers a wide range of features for creating, marketing, and selling online courses. It is more expensive than Thinkific, but it offers more features, such as a built-in CRM and marketing automation tools.
Udemy: Udemy is a marketplace for online courses. It is a good option if you want to reach a wider audience. However, you will have less control over your course’s branding and marketing.
Skillshare: Skillshare is a subscription-based platform that offers a variety of online courses. It is a good option if you want to learn new skills from experts. However, you will not be able to sell your own courses on Skillshare.
Podia: Podia is a platform that allows you to sell digital products, including online courses, eBooks, and memberships. It is a good option if you want to sell multiple types of digital products.
LearnWorlds: LearnWorlds is an online learning platform that offers a wide range of features, including content creation tools, marketing tools, sales tools, and analytics. It is similar to Thinkific in terms of pricing and features, but it offers more customization options.
Mighty Networks: Mighty Networks is a platform that allows you to create and manage a community around your online course. It is a good option if you want to build a community of learners and interact with them on a regular basis.
Wrapping up
That concludes our review of Thinkific.
In summary, we have a strong affinity for Thinkific, so much so that it claimed the top spot in our list of the best online course platforms for the year.
The course builder it offers is truly remarkable: exceptionally user-friendly and adaptable enough to accommodate virtually any course format imaginable.
Thinkific’s Communities tool is a game-changer, enabling the creation of free virtual spaces for your learning community to interact, thereby boosting engagement and enriching the overall student experience. Moreover, you can monetize these communities by offering access as an add-on to your course or as a standalone product, creating an additional revenue stream.
We are also impressed by Thinkific’s feature-rich nature. It encompasses a comprehensive array of tools, including a site builder, marketing resources, sales utilities, analytics, and more. These features empower you to efficiently manage your eLearning venture at a fraction of the cost compared to some competitors.
It’s worth noting that Thinkific stands out as one of the few platforms that provide unlimited video hosting and impose zero transaction fees across all plans. That’s a compelling offering.
If you’re interested in exploring it for yourself, you can click the button below to sign up for a free plan—no credit card required.
