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Thinkific vs Teachable Comparison for 2023: What’s Best for You?

March 7, 2023
13 min
Comparison between Thinkific vs Teachable cover image.

Any new course creator looking for the best online course platform will eventually come up to compare Thinkific versus Teachable.

Both platforms serve a different kind of online instructor and come with pros & cons. This review of the platforms will help you decide which one is the right fit for you.

We will focus on a pricing review of Teachable and Thinkific, comparing their features for:

… and more

In addition, we will offer a third option that we believe is the best choice: LearnWorlds

*Price information represents monthly pricing and is retrieved from Thinkific, Teachable, and LearnWorlds on the 7th of March, 2023.

Teachable has increased their pricing on January 1st 2023 and is forcing all older clients to move to the new pricing structure by August 1st 2023.

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Comparing Thinkific vs Teachable

Thinkific vs Teachable

Choosing the right online learning platform for your course business seems daunting, but we are here to help.

Both Teachable and Thinkific are modern, user-friendly platforms suited for creating and selling online courses, but they come with different features in different plans.

While some might think that Thinkfiic is better than Teachable, there are many cases where Teachable is the better option, or it can substitute Thinkific.

Common Features

First, let’s compare Teachable and Thinkific to spot key similarities. These two platforms appear to have many features in common.

Here are some similar features:

Below, we are going to analyze both platforms. Just click on each link to skip to that section:

Our Choice: LearnWorlds

LearnWorlds is the top choice if you want to provide the best learning experience and ease of use for your users, more control over your brand, and better pricing across all plans.

With LearnWorlds, you get to build your whole website with beautiful templates and even change the colors and fonts in your school without writing a single line of code.

You also get to control how the course player looks, and you can fully customize the experience of your students.

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Thinkific Pricing Plan Overview

Thinkific is one of the top online course platforms used by course creators and online training companies. It is a versatile platform that works both for selling online courses and offering internal training to customers and employees.

With Thinkific, you can create a white-label online academy similar to any learning management software and create online courses, connect a payment gateway and build course landing pages to accept payments and a CRM-like function to manage your students.

In this article, we will review Thinkific’s plans, most popular features, advantages, and disadvantages compared to other platforms like Teachable and LearnWorlds.

Thinkific Subscription Plans Comparison

Thinkific offers 5 plans, which might seem complicated if you are unsure what you need. We will be explaining each one of Thinkific’s plans here:

thinkific's new pricing plans
*Thinkific’s pricing was retrieved from their website on March 7th, 2023, based on the monthly subscription option. Yearly accounts get a 25% discount.

In the next section, we’ll continue to break down the pricing comparison by reviewing each plan and who it’s best suited for:

Thinkific Free Plan

Instead of a free trial, Thinkific offers a free plan which limits admins to 1 course, including hosting videos, unlimited students, and only offers the basic features to create your first course and sell them.

The biggest drawback is that the free plan does not allow for connecting your website with your online school.

Core features:

Best For: The free plan is ideal for testing the platform before deciding to move on to a paid plan.

Thinkific Basic Plan

Thinkific’s Basic plan comes with everything a first-time course creator needs to start building their online courses, connect their website, and it comes with unlimited courses.

It also adds on the free plan with features like coupons, drip-feed courses, and one-to-one emails.

Core Features (including previous plan’s features):

Best For: First-time course creators and solopreneurs.

Thinkific Start Plan

On Thinkific’s Start plan, you unlock more options for your courses, such as private, hidden, subscriptions, more communities, live lessons, and a few more features to improve the learning experience, like completion certificates.

With the Start plan, you are also entitled to an additional course admin account, so you get 2 admin accounts instead of 1 and the opportunity to share revenue with 1 partner. Quite useful if you are working with a wider team.

Core Features (including previous plan’s features):

Best For: Small training businesses, membership sites, and established solopreneurs.

Thinkific Grow Plan

Thinkific’s Grow plan comes with much more features than the Start plan and allows instructors to create up to 3 communities, add 2 site admin accounts and 5-course admin accounts, and share revenue with up to 3 partners.
On top of that, this plan offers the ability to add up to 3 group analyst accounts giving greater admin flexibility. As far as it concerns course creation, the Grow plan ticks all the boxes in Thinkific’s list of features, with a randomized quiz question bank and a Brillium exams integration.

Core Features (including previous plan’s features):

Best For: Ideal for course creators and small to medium-sized businesses that want to scale their efforts. It is the most popular choice, as Thinkific states.

Thinkific Expand Plan

Thinkific’s premier plan is the powerhouse of Thinkific and is priced accordingly. At $499 per month, it’s one of the most expensive prices for course platforms but comes with advanced features like white-labeling and API access.

It also allows bigger teams to have 5 site admins, 15 course admins, up to 15 group analysts accounts, share revenue with 10 partners, and get unlimited communities.

Core Features (including previous plan’s features):

Best For: Suitable for course creators with a big audience, SMBs, and Training Businesses that require white-labeling, APIs, or additional administrators to run their academies.

Thinkific Plus

Thinkific Plus is a choice for big corporations and enterprises looking to build their academy. It comes with all the previous features and adds advanced functionalities like SSO & Advanced API, as well as essential features like course duplication, SLAs, and specialized onboarding.

Core Features (including previous plan’s features):

Best For: Corporate & Enterprise

Thinkific Pros

Thinkific offers a complete solution for online course businesses and the marketing tools you will need, including some email marketing capabilities. Although Thinkific may lack features, it makes up with popular integrations.

The Thinkific app store adds to any course creator’s specific needs. And, if you do a complete Thinkific review, one of their unique features would be an integration with Brillium.

Thinkific Cons

While Thinkific offers an almost complete marketing toolset to sell and upsell courses, its learning experience features and site-building capabilities are lacking.

The platform is easy to use for an admin, but user experience and learning features could be improved, as it lacks the following:

Thinkific explicitly states that it does not support SCORM. There is a drawback to this that could limit your ability to add external content to your online school. With a lack of features to meet European standards, it may not be great for international schools.

Another serious oversight from Thinkific is the mobile learning app. While its websites are mobile-friendly, it does not offer its own app, unlike all of its biggest competitors, like LearnWorlds, Teachable, and Kajabi.

Thinkific Alternatives

There are several Thinkific alternatives in the market. Some free alternatives to Thinkific, like Moodle or Udemy, come with pitfalls, such as high development costs or fees.

The best option for an online course platform or learning management system is LearnWorlds. It is the best choice if you are as concerned about the learning experience as you are about sales. You can get a 30-day free trial with LearnWorlds from here.

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Compare Thinkific with LearnWorlds

Thinkific Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Does Thinkific have transaction fees?

Thinkific used to have transaction fees, but it currently does not apply any. If you are using Thinkific, you might still get fees from the payment gateway you are using, e.g., Stripe or Paypal.

Does Thinkific have a free plan?

Yes, Thinkific offers a free plan which is pretty limited in capability. The main limitation is the number of courses you can create.

Does Thinkific have a free trial?

Yes, a free trial is available on all plans, and you can try the Thinkific Pro plan using a credit card for one month.

Does Thinkific have a money-back guarantee?

Thinkific does not provide refunds. It states very clearly in the terms of service that it does not offer any money-back guarantee or refunds for payments of its services.

Do I own my course content with Thinkific?

Student data and content belongs to you, and you can export your data at all times. Thinkific does not claim your intellectual property when uploading your material in its software.

Teachable Pricing Plan Overview

Teachable is another cloud-based learning platform that caters primarily to creators and online coaches that want to monetize their content.

It comes with many similarities with Thinkific and LearnWorlds but is more of the go-to platform for entrepreneurs who are new to online course creation and focus on coaching.

Teachable offers four pricing plans: Free, Basic, Pro, and Advanced, with no enterprise solution.

You can purchase Teachable and pay a monthly subscription or an annual payment that comes 25% cheaper.

Teachable Subscription Plans Comparison

teachable new pricing plans
*Teachable’s pricing plans were retrieved from their website on March 7th, 2023, based on the monthly subscription option. Yearly accounts get a 25% discount.

Teachable and Thinkific have both increased their pricing for all plans, while LearnWorlds’ pricing remains the same. This makes LearnWorlds more cost-efficient and an even more value-for-money option for course creators who want a solution that is both affordable and scalable.

We’ll see this in more detail while reviewing each plan’s characteristics and deciding for whom it’s better suited:

Teachable Free Plan

Teachable’s free plan allows you to have unlimited students and hosting but only offers 1 course or coaching service and basic quizzes.

You can also upload and host your video tutorials (up to 10) and accept payments.

As a whole, it offers the basic features you need to build and sell an online course, with the downside of additional fees per sale and additional fees even when using PayPal.

The good news is that it does not charge you any fees for free courses.

Teachable new pricing plans

Core features:

Best For: New course creators with simple educational material

Teachable Basic Plan

The next tier is Teachable’s basic plan. In the first level of paid plans, the fees are reduced to 5% per transaction, you get 2 admin-level users, 5 courses, and you can connect your website with your online courses.

Additionally to that, you get access to basic marketing features such as coupons, drip course content, community features, and integrations.

Core features:

Best For: Course creators or online coaches with a small audience

Teachable Pro Plan

Moving to Teachable’s Pro plan, you unlock access to the first really interesting features, including the affiliate program, course completion certificates, graded quizzes, course compliance, unlimited courses, 5 admin users, an unbranded website, and public API. This plan has no transaction fees on sales.

*Important note here: Teachable does not offer a white-label solution. Every plan of Teachable requires your students to have a Teachable account. Also, there is no white-labeling email at any level. Read our comparison of white-labeled course platforms.

Another disadvantage of the Pro plan is that it’s the most expensive among competitors. Teachable offers the Pro plan at $159 compared to LearnWorlds and Thinkific, which comes at $99. That’s $1200 more in a year.

Core features:

Best For: Established creators and coaches with more complex courses that include graded quizzes or certificates.

Teachable Advanced Plan

Moving on to the Teachable Advanced plan, it offers all of the features Teachable comes with advanced reporting and customization, unlimited courses, custom user roles, priority support, and focuses on bigger accounts requiring better management and design. Just like the Pro plan, the Advanced plan doesn’t have any transaction fees on sales.

You will need this plan if you have a team and need more than 5 administrators or instructors, bulk imports, and customizable themes (pages).

Core features:

Best For: Elearning or coaching businesses with a large team and established customer base.

Teachable Pros

Teachable is great for new creators and coaches, it is the simple solution for people who are just getting into online courses and want just to upload their material as an online course.

While it offers an Advanced plan for bigger businesses, Teachable is more suited to small businesses (less than 10 employees) and solo creators.

Another strong point is the Teachable Payments solution, which makes it easier than handling an account on Stripe or PayPal, but it is limited to specific countries.

Teachable Cons

On the other hand, Teachable comes with some big downsides. Notably, it does not allow white labeling. Your students will always need to create a Teachable account, and your email notifications will feature Teachable’s address.

Also, Teachable locks you in high fees, especially on the Free Plan with 10%. And you can only accept payments in its own payment gateway or with PayPal. This can be very limiting for bigger creators with a higher sales volume.

The other major disadvantage is the limited page builder for your site design. It is only suited for simple sales pages, without many customization options. Especially if you compare it with higher-end platforms like LearnWorlds.

Lastly, Teachable lacks learning features. Some of the things you will find in other course platforms are not available here, like:

Teachable Discover Marketplace

A unique feature for a course platform is Teachable’s Discover marketplace. It is a place to sell your courses and find an audience for you, similar to what Udemy offers.

It also comes with its own mobile app for iOS only.

Having a marketplace and an app is a big advantage and helps creators find an audience if they already don’t have one.

On the other hand, Teachable gets a 30% revenue share of sales for your work.

While it’s great for getting upfront a new audience, the 30% cut is a big deal. Getting your course shown side-by-side with your competitors entails the risk of decreasing your sales.

Teachable Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Does Teachable have fees?

Yes, Teachable has fees starting from 10% on the free plan and 5% on the basic plan. There are also fees for Teachable’s Discover marketplace and additional payment processing fees.

Does Teachable have a free plan?

Yes, Teachable has a free plan where you are charged based on 10%+$1 per sale. Free courses do not have fees.

Does Teachable have an app?

Teachable only has an iOS (Apple) app, not an Android one.

Which is better, Teachable Vs Thinkific

With the latest increase in pricing, Teachable is a more expensive alternative to Thinkific. However, Teachable has a mobile app, whereas Thinkific doesn’t. Teachable is a good option for small businesses while larger companies may find Thinkific can meet their needs better.

Does Teachable integrate with my Website / Shopify / Wix / WordPress?

You can connect Teachable to a subdomain of your website, Wix, Shopify, or WordPress site. Unfortunately, it does not integrate with any of those systems, but you can set up Zapier to connect and transfer sales from them to Teachable.

Are you looking for a system that really offers a great learning experience, a customizable website, white labeling, and integrations?

Then, LearnWorlds is the best choice for you. You can get a 30-day free trial and test it out.

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Compare Teachable with LearnWorlds.

Which will you choose: LearnWorlds, Teachable, or Thinkific?

Choosing the right LMS is not always about features, it’s a personal choice of what works for you, your online business, and your audience.

Thinkific Vs Teachable: Pricing

Teachable has more expensive pricing plans than Thinkific, and some features like affiliate marketing, advanced website customization, and live chat are available only with their Pro plan ($119/mo) and above.

Thinkific Vs Teachable: Course Creation & Engagement

Thinkific features certificates, drip-feed content, progress tracking, and live sessions. But, it falls short in community features and learner assessment options. It doesn’t support interactive videos or SCORM files, and it doesn’t offer a mobile app either.

Creating a course with Teachable is a simple process. Teachable has very limited community features, and learners can interact only via comments. There’s no drip-feeding option or support for SCORM files.

Thinkific Vs Teachable: Site Design & Customization

Thinkific features an intuitive drag-and-drop website builder and a beautiful but rather limited collection of templates. It also supports white labeling. A downside is that you can’t customize the CSS.

Teachable’s website builder is user-friendly but lacks advanced customization. Also, while it supports white labeling, you can’t remove the Teachable logo from the login page.

Thinkific Vs Teachable: Sales & Marketing

Thinkific has nice marketing and sales options. You can sell separate courses or bundles, memberships, and customers can pay one-off or in installments. Thinkific also offers preset emails and email broadcasts.

Teachable also has rich marketing options, including affiliates, memberships and subscriptions, bundles, and order bumps at checkout. Plus, creators can sell their courses via the Spotlight Marketplace to sell your course and build their own mobile app.

The Verdict?

As we compare Thinkific and Teachable, we notice many similarities. Comparing these two platforms against LearnWorlds, it’s easy to see that their focus strays from education and lies more on marketing. The key difference between Thinkific and Teachable is their price, with the latter being a significantly more affordable option.

That said, looking strictly at the features without tying them to your goals may not be enough to choose the right LMS. It’s a personal choice of what works for you, your online business, and your audience.

You can only understand if the platform is easy-to-use and intuitive after trying it, and after your learners take a peek inside your courses for the first time. You can also consider testimonials from peer online course creators on social media or from credible review sites like G2 and Capterra.

All platforms come with slightly different pricing options that offer different features. Our take is that LearnWorlds will end up being the best platform that will offer the highest quality and learning experience to your students while offering the customization options to create a beautiful learning website.

Try LearnWorlds today with a 30-day free trial, and you will not regret it.

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Nick Malekos is a Senior Digital Marketer in LearnWorlds. He is a results based and well-rounded Digital Marketer with years of experience in the education industry, writer and digital literacy trainer.

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