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I’ve tried a lot of online course platforms, but Thinkific stands out for its ease of use and powerful features. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced course creator, it makes building and selling courses simple.
I love that it doesn’t require coding, and the drag-and-drop builder helps you to come up with new ideas. Plus, it offers great customization and student engagement tools.
But is it the best choice for you? In this Thinkific review, I’ll share my experience, its pros and cons, and whether it’s worth your time. Let’s get in!
Thinkific is a leading online course creation platform that allows individuals and businesses to design, market, and sell courses. It offers robust tools for content creation, student engagement, and monetization.
- User-friendly interface for course creation.
- Free plan available with basic features.
- Wide range of customizable course templates.
- No transaction fees on paid plans.
- Supports multimedia content like videos, quizzes, and PDFs.
- Built-in marketing and sales tools.
- Seamless integrations with email and payment platforms.
- Offers advanced analytics to track student progress.
- Limited features on the free plan.
- Advanced customization requires coding knowledge.
- Pricing can be high for small creators.
Price: $47/year
What is Thinkific?
Thinkific is a Canada-based online course platform founded by Greg Smith in 2012. It lets users create, sell, and manage online courses all in one place.
With Thinkific, you can share knowledge through secure content, live and on-demand lessons, and built-in course creation tools. It also includes quizzes, surveys, assignments, exams, and certificates to track student progress.
Beyond courses, Thinkific helps build communities where creators can connect, share ideas, and earn recurring income through memberships.
Some well-known brands using Thinkific include BRIT+CO, Samsung, HBO, Shopify, Intel, and Hootsuite.
My Honest Experience with Thinkific Platform
I started using Thinkific to create and sell online courses, and it’s been a good experience. The platform is easy to use, even if you’re new. It has simple tools to build courses, add videos, and create quizzes.
I really like that you can offer live, recorded, or mixed lessons. This gives me more options for teaching. The community feature helps me stay connected with my students, and giving certificates adds extra value to the courses.
The only downside is that some advanced features need technical skills or cost more. But whenever I had questions, Thinkific’s support team was very helpful.
Overall, I recommend Thinkific to anyone who wants a simple and reliable platform for online courses.
What Makes Thinkific Different?
With countless online course builders available, choosing the right one can be overwhelming. Thinkific simplifies this decision with standout features designed to make course creation easy, efficient, and impactful. Here's what sets Thinkific apart:
1. Thinkific App Store: Revolutionizing Course Creation
Thinkific’s newly launched App Store allows users to create courses on any device, making it more versatile than ever. With over a decade of innovation, Thinkific ensures users can access integrations and build online courses, websites, apps, and more—all from a single platform.
2. A Complete Platform for Every Course Creation Need
Thinkific offers an Omnichannel Approach, enabling course creators to manage everything in one place. From communication and promotion to distribution, you can leverage features like order tracking, email automation, membership sites, conversion tracking, retargeting pixels, and packaged course offerings for seamless course management.
3. Built-in Content Creation Tools for All Formats
Thinkific allows creators to design lessons with text, HTML, video, audio, presentations, quizzes, and surveys directly within the system. It integrates with tools like Typeform and Google Docs for additional functionality, helping you create live classes, webinars, videos, and more—all from one platform.
4. Drip Content Scheduling and Optimized Payments
With drip content, you can schedule course material to be released gradually, either based on individual signup dates or fixed cohorts. Thinkific also simplifies payments with Stripe integration (available in 165+ countries with over 130 currencies) and PayPal support for flexible and secure transactions.
Thinkific combines innovation, ease of use, and comprehensive features, making it a leading choice for course creators worldwide.
Key Features Of Thinkific
1. Simple and Powerful Course Creation Tools
Thinkific makes it easy to create and manage online courses with its simple drag-and-drop tools. You can upload videos, PDFs, quizzes, and assignments without any technical skills. Whether you want to offer live classes, recorded lessons, or a mix of both, Thinkific gives you full control over your content while keeping it secure.
2. Build a Strong Learning Community
Thinkific helps you create a space where students can connect, ask questions, and learn from each other. You can set up private or public groups to encourage discussions and engagement. This also allows you to offer memberships, giving you a way to earn recurring income while building a loyal audience.
3. Flexible Course Pricing and Easy Payments
With Thinkific, you can sell your courses in different ways—one-time payments, monthly subscriptions, or bundled packages. The platform supports multiple currencies and integrates with payment processors like Stripe and PayPal, making transactions smooth and hassle-free. You can also offer free trials or installment plans to attract more students.
4. Create and Customize Your Course Website
Thinkific provides a website builder that lets you design your own course site without any coding. You can choose from ready-made templates and customize them to match your brand’s look and feel. It also allows you to add landing pages, sales pages, and checkout pages to improve the student experience and increase conversions.
5. Marketing and Sales Tools to Boost Your Business
Thinkific includes built-in marketing features to help you sell more courses. You can create discount coupons, set up affiliate programs, and connect with social media platforms for easy promotion. The platform also helps track leads and sales performance, so you know what’s working and what needs improvement.
6. Built-in Email Features for Student Communication
Thinkific comes with basic email marketing tools to help you stay connected with your students. You can send automated reminders, course updates, and promotional emails directly from the platform. While it’s not as advanced as full email marketing software, it’s useful for keeping students engaged and informed.
7. Track Student Progress with Detailed Analytics
Understanding your students’ learning habits is important, and Thinkific provides detailed insights into their progress. You can see who is completing lessons, where they might be struggling, and how engaged they are. These reports help you improve your content and create a better learning experience.
8. Engage and Motivate Students with Rewards
Thinkific includes features to keep students interested and motivated. You can add quizzes, assignments, and discussion forums to encourage participation. Plus, students receive certificates upon course completion, giving them a sense of achievement and recognition for their efforts.
9. Connect with Other Apps for More Functionality
Thinkific’s App Store allows you to integrate with third-party tools like email marketing platforms, automation software, and CRM systems. These integrations help you expand the platform’s capabilities and make managing your online business much easier.
10. Sell Digital Products Alongside Your Courses
In addition to courses, Thinkific lets you sell digital products like eBooks, templates, workbooks, and other downloadable resources. This is a great way to offer more value to your students while generating additional income. You can bundle these with courses or sell them separately.
Thinkific Pricing & Free Trial
Thinkific provides three paid plans that are billed monthly and yearly according to the needs of the business and the user. It also offers a free plan, the one we’ve used to showcase all the features. This plan consists of the core features with limited courses and unlimited students.
Thinkific offers a range of pricing plans to accommodate the various needs of course creators. Here's an overview of their current plans:
1. Free Trial
- Cost: $0 per month
Features:
- Create and publish one course
- Unlimited students
- Full access to the course builder
- Quizzes and surveys
- Content hosting (videos, PDFs, etc.)
- Instant access to funds
- No transaction fees
2. Basic Plan
- Cost: $49 per month (or $36 per month when billed annually)
Features:
- All Free Plan features
- Unlimited courses
- 1 community with 5 spaces
- 5 digital downloads
- 5 coaching and webinar sessions
- 1 administrator account
- Custom domain
- Email and live chat support
- Coupons and discounts
- Affiliate selling
- Drip (scheduled) content
- Email integrations
3. Start Plan
- Cost: $99 per month (or $74 per month when billed annually)
Features:
- All Basic Plan features
- 1 community with 10 spaces
- Unlimited digital downloads
- Unlimited coaching and webinar sessions
- Live lessons and webinars
- Memberships and payment plans
- Advanced course pricing options
- Assignments
- Advanced website and course-building options
- Priority support
4. Grow Plan
- Cost: $199 per month (or $149 per month when billed annually)
Features:
- All Start Plan features
- Bulk enrollments
- API Access
- Quiz question bank and exam integration
- White-label mobile application
- Advanced analytics and reporting
- Priority support
5. Plus Plan
- Cost: Custom Pricing
Features:
- Best for large organizations or enterprises.
- Includes all Grow Plan features, plus:
- Unlimited admin accounts.
- Advanced customization and integrations.
- Dedicated customer success manager.
- Personalized onboarding and support.
Ease of use
Using Thinkific has been a smooth and hassle-free experience. The platform is well-designed, with a clean and simple layout that makes navigation easy. Even as a beginner, I had no trouble setting up my courses, uploading content, and customizing my site without needing technical skills.
The drag-and-drop builder makes course creation effortless, and everything is well-organized, from lessons to student management. The dashboard is intuitive, and I can easily track student progress and sales.
Thinkific Customer Support
Thinkific’s customer support has been reliable and helpful. Whenever I had questions or needed assistance, their team was quick to respond through email and chat. They provide clear answers and useful resources, making it easy to solve issues on my own.
For higher-tier plans, they offer priority support, including phone assistance, which is great for faster help. I also found their help center and community forums useful for common questions.
Overall, my experience with Thinkific’s support has been positive. While response times can vary, they do their best to assist and ensure everything runs smoothly.
Final Thoughts: Thinkific Review 2025
To Conclude, Thinkific is a simple yet powerful platform for creating online courses. It helps coaches and educators organize their content in a structured way.
Beyond courses, you can also build sales and landing pages to grow your business and boost conversions. Thinkific makes it easy to manage students, track enrollments, and monitor community activity with clear reports and insights.
Overall, it’s a great choice for online teachers and course creators looking for an affordable and easy-to-use platform.
Quick links:
- GoToMeeting Review : Is It Right for Your Business?
- Podia Review : An All-in-One Online Course Platform?
- Teachable Review : Make Unlimited Courses Now
FAQs
Q1. Is Thinkific's Free Plan a trial?
No. You can use this plan for unlimited students and for as long as you want before upgrading to a paid plan; however, the courses are limited.
Q2. Is it possible to set up a membership site on Thinkific?
Yes, Thinkific provides a platform to create communities and membership sites with customizable and structured content creation.
Q4. Does Thinkific take a percentage of sales?
Payment processors charge around 2.9% + $0.30 for every successful transaction made from the site, but this may vary from country to country.
Q5. Is Thinkific better than Teachable?
Thinkific provides many more additional features than Teachable, especially in the site designs, course templates, one-click multimedia, and more, which makes it stand out and more beneficial for the business and users.
Q6. Can I move to Thinkific from another platform?
Of course! Moving to Thinkific from another platform is as easy as switching tabs on the internet. Thinkific provides integrations with 50+ platforms that can help you connect with your websites and tools easily, and it also offers built-in content creation tools, so you don't have to use external platforms or tools.
Q7. Is there a money-back guarantee?
No. Thinkific requests that you use a valid credit card for live payments. You’ll be billed for 30 days and have 2 weeks to fulfill the checkout, but it does not provide refunds or promise a money-back guarantee.