8 of the best options to Thinkific for creators on the web. (Features & pricing) |

Jul 11, 2024

Find the ideal alternative to Thinkific for the sale of digital products as well as online classes, and growing communities.

Are you looking for a platform to offer online classes? Maybe you've heard about the e-learning platform Thinkific.

With Thinkific the creator can provide both paid and free programs for unlimited students. You are able to upload as many of the course material as you like and also create a website to promote your offerings.

Thinkific is well-established within the field of course design, but it might not be the best fit for creators looking to explore other product types.

In this article, we'll cover the advantages and disadvantages of Thinkific along with eight Thinkific alternatives you can consider in the event that it's not suitable for your business.

    Note: The pricing is accurate as of the date of publication However, this may be subject to change over time.    

Consider the pros and cons

Thinkific pros

Plan for free: The greatest advantages of Thinkific is their no-cost plan. For no cost upfront, you can sell only a small number of courses to unlimited students. There's no transaction fee as well, and should you want more features, you can upgrade to a paid plan as soon as you're prepared.

Here's a peek at the entire Thinkific pricing breakdown:

Cost: Free (Limit 3 courses)

Basic: $49/month

Pro: $99/month

Premier: $499/month

Website builders: Creators can use the drag-and-drop builder from Thinkific to build a website or storefront site for their items. Additionally, there are templates for websites which you can utilize to kickstart your creative process.

Thinkific app store: In case you require additional functionality, the Thinkific app store comes with other integrations and functions. But be aware that some features are available at an extra cost.

Cons of the mind

It's not easy to sell digital products other than courses: Courses are Thinkific's mainstay, however today it's possible to find a variety of other ways to share your knowledge. If you intend to offer digital downloads, memberships, webcasts, streams, coaching courses, or any other services, Thinkific isn't the best fit since it's primarily optimized for online courses.

It is impossible to predict what direction your company's creator business could lead you. Only being able to offer one type of product could be an issue in the future as you develop.

Thinkific's Basic and Free plans lack key features: Thinkific has a zero-cost plan and a $49 per month Basic plan. However, these options are missing important tools that might make the plans unusable to some designers.

There are only three courses on the plan for free, but to gain access to a variety of essential options, you'll have to subscribe to the Thinkific's $99 monthly Pro plan or more.

Growth add-on: Creators need to spend more money for Thinkific's Growth Add-on in order to access premium tools. It is available as an addition to the pro plan that costs $99/month costing an additional $50 per month.

Advanced integrations, the capacity to eliminate Thinkific logos, Zapier actions, unlimited communities, student segmentation tools and student bulk messages are some features that are only available with the Growth Add-on.

The course choice you make is based on the specific requirements of your company. If you find that Thinkific is not right for you, then here are eight other options to try out instead.

8 Ideas for creative ideas

1. (Best all-in-one platform for online creators)

Are you looking to market on-line courses? With 's course builder, you can design visually pleasing, clear course for your students in just minutes. Additionally, you can offer a range of options for payment, communicate with students via our chat widget, or embed information from more than 1,900 third-party sites like SoundCloud, Typeform, and Github directly into your course.

Are you looking to make a sale of multiple PDFs and print file? Go for it! There are no product limits in the Mover and Shaker plans. So you can let your creativity soar.

However, the free plan does not end there. You can also set up your blog, design endless landing pages, create your mailing list and also sell a single digital download and one coaching item. There's also the option of creating rough courses, webinars as well as product bundles, which could be launched at any time you're ready for an upgrade to your plan.

Beyond the free plan,  the starter, Mover, Shaker and Starter plans come at a reasonable price and packed with all the equipment you require for running your business. Compared with Thinkific you'll get a wider range of resources for a lower price and with .

Bottom line: was built to evolve with you, no matter where your Creator travels take you.

    features:    

One-stop solution for Thinkific

Sell unlimited courses, digital downloads, webinars, communities, and coaching sessions on Mover and Shaker plans

Develop a fully SEO-friendly site for all your plans.

Integrations of payment systems with Stripe and PayPal

Instant payouts

Custom domains on plans that are paid

pricing:

Free plan: (10 percent fee for transactions)

Starting: $9/month, or $4/month when paid annually (8 percent transaction fee)

Mover: $39/month or $33/month when it is paid in a year (5% transaction fee)

Shaker: $89/month, or $75/month, if it is paid in a year.

Learn more about how compares to Thinkific .

Create a free account

Join over 150,000 creators using their creativity to build sites, market digital products as well as build online communities.            Sign up free

2. Teachable

    Teachable features:    

Offer coaching and sales courses.

Coupons, subscriptions, one-time payments, memberships, and bundles

Basic functionality for email

Teachable advantages:When you build courses that use Teachable, you can enable the course's completion certificate and include interactive elements like tests. There are helpful integrations you can connect with in case you require more functions. Alongside letting you offer unlimited coaching and course merchandise, Teachable handles behind-the-scenes financial processes like paying affiliates and you as well as other authors.

    Teachable pricing:    

Free plan: ($1 + 10% from each transaction fee on products that are paid for)

The basic rate is $39 per month (5 5 percent transaction cost)

Pro: $119/month

Business: $299/month

3. Kajabi

    Kajabi Features:    

Sell downloads, courses, coaching, memberships, podcasts, and communities

Templates, templates and website builders

For podcasters: Sell members-only podcasts and manage the podcast's subscribers

Design advanced sales funnels

Kajabi advantages:Like , Kajabi is an all-in-one solution to Thinkific that means you'll be able to access a robust suite of tools with a monthly fee of just one. There's no transaction costs with any plan. Kajabi has a mobile app to allow students to access their classes on the go.

Kajabi downsides:Kajabi comes at a higher cost than other software in this area. Apart from the expense, Kajabi limits the number of options you have to make with all plans, as well as the amount of members who are active within your program.

Here are the restrictions regarding Kajabi plans:

Kickstarter: one pipeline with one product, 50 current customers

The basics: three pipelines 3 products, 1000 active members

Growth: 15 pipelines, 15 products, 10,000 active members

Pro: 100 pipelines, 100 products, 20,000 active members

The survey we conducted of more than 900 creative entrepreneurs found that creative entrepreneurs are averaging 10.95 items, which could mean many have to use the costly Growth program.

    Kajabi pricing:    

Kickstarter: $69/month

Basic: $149/month

Growth: $199/month

Pro: $399/month

4. Teachers

Teachery makes course building simple. It was created by course creators for course creators, and offers everything you need without extra bells and whistles.

Through Teachery's white label course platform that lets you publish your course content in two stylish layouts, make endless lessons and store helpful resources for your students all in one location. In selling your courses you're free to make unlimited payment pages and charge a one-time fee, a recurring rate, or nothing at all.

    Teachery features:    

Unlimited courses, lessons, and students

Straightforward course builder that comes with two templates

Sell memberships and bundle products

Integrations with Mailchimp, ConvertKit, and Zapier

Affiliate program

Benefits of Teachery:Teachery offers two payment plans, monthly and annual. Both plans include everything you need, which means that you do not have to upgrade your plan or buy additional accessories as you grow.

Teachery is also equipped with a Zapier integration that allows users to link the program with other software within your stack of technology.

Teachery disadvantages:Teachery is primarily used for selling courses, and it's not optimized for selling digital downloads or services like coaching. The community features aren't available or plan that includes audio or video hosting. In order to do this, you'll need work with a third-party tool including Wistia, Vimeo, or YouTube.

    Price for teacher:    

Monthly plan Monthly plan: $49/month

Annual plan: $470/year

5. LearnDash

It is possible to list your courses as subscriptions, memberships single-time payment, or as product bundles. In terms of design, LearnDash provides customization options and works alongside most WordPress templates and page builders such as Elementor.

    LearnDash features:    

Create courses and sell them on your website

Drag and drop course builder

Single-time payment, subscriptions and memberships, and bulk licenses

Games, tests, certificates as well as leaderboards, badges and assessments

Prerequisites, drip feeds, and the required video to increase your course's completion rate

LearnDash advantages:The LearnDash online course platform can be used to integrate with nearly every WordPress theme. People who are passionate about using WordPress are able to add course features to existing websites with only a few clicks. To use the LearnDash software for your site, simply have to pay a set amount each year based on how many site licenses you need. There aren't any transaction charges.

LearnDash downsides:On the feature front, LearnDash doesn't have a webinar tool or a way to instruct live. It's only able to send basic messages to students via email and teachers, which means you'll have connect to another software for advanced email marketing features.

Although this can be fine for creators who already have WordPress expertise, novices may face a steep learning curve. You may need to hire an expert developer to make the most advanced modifications and functionality. It's your responsibility to connect, maintaining, and paying for add-on tools to make your site function exactly how you'd like.

    Pricing of LearnDash:    

Basic: $199/year

Plus: $229/year

Pro: $369/year

In addition, there are costs involved in starting and running a WordPress site:

Webhosting

Themes

WordPress plugins

Domain registration

6. LearnWorlds

Similar to Thinkific, LearnWorlds puts online courses at the cutting edge of development. Creators are able offer unlimited courses using a variety of methods of payment and boost their course content using LearnWorlds' unique interactive video features. LearnWorlds lets you generate subtitles, automated transcripts as well as eye-catching overlays to the videos you teach. Tools for annotation of content are offered for your students to engage deeply with your materials.

    LearnWorlds has the following features:    

Sell courses, memberships or subscriptions. You can also create your personal mobile learning application

Builder of sales and website pages

Pop up builders

Manage affiliates

Create an online community

Interactive video and course content Tools

LearnWorlds benefits:LearnWorlds offers various interactive components of courses such as tests, quizzes, questions banks and course completion certificates. It is possible to edit the videos as well as generate transcripts right on LearnWorlds. LearnWorlds platform.

LearnWorlds offers you the ability to create a white-label mobile learning app that includes notifications as well as in-app purchases at a cost of an additional fee.

LearnWorlds disadvantagesSince LearnWorlds focus is in selling courses, it's not suitable for those who create digital downloads, coaching, forums, and other services. There's not a free plan available, and the $29/month Basic plan isn't without its limitations. You can't offer free courses at this level, and you'll pay the $5 cost for every course sale you make and this could be a lot fast.

Also, the Starter plan comes with a three-page website. The website must be built in the Pro Trainer plan to build your website fully and provide free courses, memberships or subscriptions, as well as webinars.

    LearnWorlds pricing:    

Starter: $29/month (+$5 fee per course sale)

Pro Trainer: $99/month

Learning Center The Learning Center

Corporate: Custom pricing

7. Mighty Networks

Mighty Networks is designed for creating free and paid online communities. Although creators can offer classes on the Business plan but the community component is definitely the highlight of the event. Customers love the elegant community interface as well as the top-quality features, such as unlimited members and notifications as well as live streaming, events and API integrations that work with Zapier.

If you upgrade to unlock the course creation tools, you can drip content, add additional instructors, and build a community space to accommodate course attendees.

Need a mobile app for your company's brand? Larger companies and businesses could sign up to Mighty Pro to design their own white-label mobile application.

    Mighty Networks features:    

You can run a free or paid community that has unlimited members and moderators

Features for communication with community members like group chats and messaging

Create a membership site to house high-quality content

Business plan participants can create either live or group courses

Mighty Networks benefits:On Mighty Networks' Business plan, you have the ability to design courses with designated community areas. Communities offer advanced features like virtual and in-person events, extensive profiles of members, as well as an Discovery page that allows members to search for the latest information.

Mighty Networks downsides:Mighty Networks is not optimal for selling services and coaching. The platform is primarily designed for those who wish their communities to be at the forefront, which may mean greater work-in-progress rather than traditional self-paced courses.

It is only possible to sell courses with the Business plan as well Mighty Networks charges transaction fees across every plan. There are no email marketing features and a website builder, but you can make a landing page to promote your group.

    Mighty Networks pricing:    

Trial for free: (5% transaction fee)

Community plan: $39/month (3% transaction fee)

Business plan 119$/month (2 per cent transaction cost)

Mighty Pro: Customized pricing

8. Udemy

Given their significant audience of over 40 million students around the world This is an excellent choice for instructors who prefer to take a hands-off approach in selling courses.Udemy pays out via a revenue sharing model.Udemy's revenue sharing plan is:

Instructors earn 97% when students enroll using their referral codes.

Instructors are only allowed to keep 37% of students who enroll with no referral code.

Simply put, Udemy can be a suitable option if you prefer to not play around with the online marketing. You'll get a lot more profit if invite students to join your courses using your referral code.

    Udemy Features:    

It has around 185,000 video online courses that are available

A simple Course builder

Revenue sharing plan

Students can leave course reviews

Udemy downsides:With Udemy it is possible to have less control over your course format and pricing. Udemy can basically control the experience of learning, but you can't make drip courses, cohorts and real-time courses.

There are limits on how you are able to price your course and the course could also be offered at a fraction of usual price if you choose to take part in deals across the site. Udemy must approve video lessons with a set of standards for quality and length. While a hands-off platform might sound appealing however, it could cost you less than when you utilize the creator platform which allows you the ability to control your course's sales and audience.

Finally, Udemy doesn't include a web site, sales pages and email tools. It also doesn't have the ability to sell diverse product types like memberships, coaching and digital downloads.

    Udemy price:    

For instructors, it is free.

What alternative to Thinkific is the best for your company?

    Best free alternative to Thinkific:    

Teachable and Teachable offer free plans

Udemy is forever free

    A more affordable alternative to Thinkific:    

The cost for a paid plan starts at $4/month with an 8% transaction fee

LearnWorlds: Plans start at just $29/month.

Teachers: The plan for the year is about $39/month without transaction charges

Start with LearnDash plans starting at $199/year

Mighty Networks: Plans start at $39/month.

    Alternatives to HTML0 that integrate WordPress: WordPress:    

The LearnDash LMS software: WordPress LMS software

A great all-in-one replacement for Thinkific:

Through, you are able to make sales of webinars, classes or coaching sessions, as well as digital downloads, with no limits on Mover and Shaker plans. For a way to reach out to your target audience You can build an engaging free or premium online community that can be used as an independent offering or a complement to your course.

Because is an all-in-one tool It also grants access to email, affiliates as well as a web-based website builder and customer messaging. is the ideal option for those who wish to manage all their online businesses on one platform, and without the expense of a large price.

Get your free account

Join over 150,000 creators that use their talents to design web pages, offer digital goods, and build online communities.            Sign up free