If you’re considering selling or creating an online course, you’ve likely heard about Thinkific. This platform is often recommended by people who have already tried it, and for good reason. It has many great features that make it easy to get up and running with your own online course without any prior experience or technical knowledge.
But how does it compare to other platforms? What makes Thinkific stand out from the crowd?
We’ll look at what differentiates Thinkific from its competitors and its strengths and weaknesses, so you can decide whether this is the right platform for your needs.
The Short Answer
If you’re on a tight budget, Thinkific offers a free plan. I don’t believe there’s another platform that provides this fantastic deal to course creators! Also, with its easy-to-use interface, you can’t go wrong with Thinkific.
Thinkific Review
Thinkific allows you to create courses with video lectures and quizzes and provide students with interactive elements like polls, live chat rooms, and more. Thinkific also has a built-in payment processor that allows you to accept payments directly into your bank account.
As an online course platform, you can enjoy a free plan that’s ideal for only one course. The top-of-the-range plan offers its users a premium experience with priority support.
In my opinion, Thinkific is truly the best online course platform available!
Pros of Thinkific
· No transaction fees on all plans, including the free plan.
· The only course platform that has a free plan option.
· Excellent customer support, with priority phone support on the higher plans.
· You can have a custom domain so that your course looks like part of your website. However, Thinkific will host your course.
· Your courses can be customized to suit your company or website’s brand.
· You can give students payment options like a monthly payment plan for more expensive courses.
· Video production is made simple with the voice-over PowerPoint presentation tool.
· Through a membership approach, you can provide a monthly recurring subscription for continued access to a course.
· Thinkific offers many resources and support to its course creators, including articles, videos, an academy, and a help center.
Negatives of Thinkific
· The free plan only offers one course.
· Phone support is only available on higher-paid plans.
· No online marketplace for selling courses.
· Although there is no integrated email marketing, it is still easy to link to 3rd party email services like Aweber and MailChimp.
· Although there isn’t an inbuilt sales funnel builder, you can still easily link to external sales funnel builders like LeadPages and Clickfunnels.
Is Thinkific Easy to Use?
Yes! Thinkific has a drag-and-drop feature, making it easy for users to create a course that fits their brand and image. The steps are easy to follow, and if you experience any issues, you can contact support for assistance. There is also plenty of resources online to help you customize your online course exactly how you want it to look.
How Much Does Thinkific Cost?
There are four pricing options available:
· Free: Thinkific offers a free plan to allow course creators to sell one course with unlimited students. You have email and chatbot support, 1 community, and 1 administrator.
· Start: At $74/month, the Start plan includes everything in the Free plan, with additional features such as unlimited courses, email, and live chat support. In addition, you have custom domains, coupons and discounts, and live lessons.
· Grow: The Grow plan costs $149/month and includes all Start plan features. In addition, you have 3 communities, 2 administrators, phone and priority email support, and API access.
· Expand: The Expand plan includes all Grow plan features and costs $374/month. Additional features include 10 communities, 5 administrators, priority phone support, and custom SSL certificates.
The paid plans are available on a 30-day free trial, so you can test its features before committing to the monthly payments.
In addition to these options, there is also Thinkific Plus, with the price available on request. It’s more suited to course creators that want an expert team to assist them in scaling their business for growth.
Thinkific Alternatives
Although Thinkific is my tip choice for creating an online course, there are other alternatives you can consider.
· Teachable: As the most popular platform for creating and selling online courses and membership sites, Teachable will give you the tools you need to design and market your course. Unfortunately, they no longer have a free plan available to their users.
· Udemy: As one of the largest online course platforms available, Udemy offers its course creators an extensive prospective student reach. However, as a course creator, you will receive poor financial incentives. This makes Udemy my least favorite alternative.
How to use Thinkific
Thinkific is easy to use and is ideal for beginners and experienced course creators. To start, you can sign up for their free plan and upgrade later once you’re comfortable with the platform and want more features.
The process of creating a course is as follows:
· Set up an account: Start by choosing and registering for the plan best suited to you, your needs, and your budget.
· Select a theme from one of the many available on offer.
· Add pages by going to “Site Builder” and following the instructions.
· Next, select a template for your course.
· You can now start adding chapters and lesson content to each one. If you have lesson content and videos saved elsewhere on your computer, you can drag and drop these files to save time and effort.
· You will then need to customize your landing page to attract potential students.
· Once you’ve completed the steps, you can publish your course!
It’s important you remember to click “save” every time you make any change as you create your course.
The brains behind Thinkific
The company was founded by CEO Greg Smith and his brother Matt Smith. The idea for Thinkific was born when Greg Smith wanted to take his LSAT course online with his brother’s help to reach more students. Their main aim was to reach students globally while generating income.
Over time, they reached students across the globe, sparking interest from other companies and individual entrepreneurs looking for a way to sell courses online. Thinkific has since grown with a team of 400 employees.
Since its inception, Thinkific has more than 50,000 creators selling courses using its platform!
The Conclusion of my Thinkific Review
The Thinkific course builder will undoubtedly prove to be an effective tool if you wish to have a lucrative career in developing online courses.
Try Thinkific for 30 days on a free trial. If you love it – which I know you will – you can upgrade to one of their paid plans.
