Technology growth has allowed us to bring even our wildest imaginations into reality. Fortunately, we can put our expertise to use by teaching others in the most versatile and robust manner. That has brought about this Thinkific review, as the platform holds many possibilities.
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Last Updated: Sep 17, 2023
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Thinkific provides ease in creating and hosting online courses for experts and creators, thereby expanding their earning options. It has many features that ensure the smooth running of administration, course design, generating engagement, promotions, pricing, and online payments.
In the competitive online learning industry, it is coming out strong with innovations that help course creators get their knowledge out.
Thinkific caters to both creators and students and has many features for both sides of the divide. We will run an extensive exploration of the platform and, in the process, cover the following:
It will be a long read, but first, let us get the basics of the platform out of the way.
Current reports project the e-learning market to reach $457.8 billion by 2026, making it a fast-growing industry. That figure is staggering, and we can thank the need for a more open and flexible learning system.
Thinkific is an e-learning platform that supports online courses’ creation, delivery, and sales. It targets experts who wish to share their knowledge either as a side business or full-time.
The platform outshines its rivals by molding its features to give the creator maximum support. Even people with no coding skills can get their dedicated website up and running along with their courses. They can also monitor their sales effortlessly.
The platform gives complete control to the creators, as you will see further down in this Thinkific review.
You can make your quizzes, give assignments, and issue completion certificates to students who enroll in your course. Notwithstanding, it gets even better.
If you already share teaching media with students, you can import your data and seamlessly integrate it into Thinkific. Even third-party tools that help you interact with students will have no trouble integrating with the platform.
Thinkific has made things so simple that you do not need to be an IT expert. You can get your courses running in highly self-explanatory steps. If you need more versatility, there is a buffet of applications in the Thinkific store for you.
With that in mind, let us head to the next section of the Thinkific review, where we will explore the interface.
Thinkific features two interfaces for creators and students. That unclutters the platform, leaving a clean screen to work with whenever you are online.
The interfaces include the following:
When logged in as a creator, you will have a clean interface. All the controls, like settings, account, manage content, market & sell, etc., stay on the left-hand side of the screen.
The rest of the interface displays information like revenue, enrollments, new accounts, and an option to add a new course.
You will find the design satisfactory as it runs without lags or stutters. That gives you a fluid experience of surfing through different sections and commands. Furthermore, Thinkific supports over 30 languages, expanding its reach globally.
The interface for students is different from that of administrators. It has the features students need to navigate, enroll, and scale their courses. The functions include:
You can also load it seamlessly on your mobile device. It is even better when you need to take a quick run at a course.
The interface is crucial as it affects the user experience on the site. Nevertheless, the features that help creators and students succeed in their courses are more essential. That brings us to this section of this Thinkific review, course features.
If you have done it before, you will know that creating an online course is never easy.
It is a tedious and demanding process that can leave you exhausted. With such a demanding nature, platforms that ease the process tend to get higher patronage.
As mentioned earlier, Thinkific is a no-code platform, meaning you can quickly create a course. The features allow you to quickly design your bundle to your taste, add functionalities, and put it up.
At the core of Thinkific’s course features are templates. There are delivery packages, but the templates make the design process easy.
Pay close attention to this part of this Thinkific review, as it is the foundation. Everything else you will do is based on the templates.
Thinkific has several templates for course creation. Once you click “Add New Course,” it will prompt you to choose one template or design. They are as follows:
Instead of jumping to market a course you are unsure of, this template allows you to evaluate the demand. It involves creating a potential lesson and watching if students are willing to pay for the content. Think of it like a survey.
With the presell template, you can generate a waiting list for your course when it launches. It also benefits you to wait before joining a program until you have proven demand for it.
Using this template is more of a marketing strategy for your in-depth program. You can create a shorter version of the original course using the mini-course template.
This template can help you build an audience by attracting students to your more detailed course.
This template is where the big boys and the more established go for a new course upload. It provides the resources you need to create a full-on course on a particular niche. Before opting for the flagship course template, ensure you are an expert in the field.
Flagship courses often require extra resources, physical products, and shorter lessons. As a result, they are more expensive to create.
This template is handy if you have a pre-determined outline for your course. It gives you a blank slate to build your curriculum from the basics up.
You can use this template to replay recorded live webinars for your students. It is easier as there is no need to comb through the course outline looking for the webinar.
This template allows creators to embed helpful resources into their course bundles. It also helps to attract students, especially if you offer rich resources.
As seen in this section of the Thinkific review, templates are how you build your course. Once you decide which one, click it and upload your videos and content.
When you are through with creating your content, there are a few features that will boost your course delivery. These packages are functionalities the platform allows you to build into your content. Of course, that is different from things like themes.
The course delivery packages include:
This feature allows you to give an autoplay function to your course or use a completion percentage instead. The autoplay feature will automatically move students to the next lesson after completing the previous one.
On the other hand, the completion percentage option will move the students after completing a specified percentage. Both help the student track their progress on each lesson as they dive further into your course.
This section is another essential part of this Thinkific review. It allows you to set how visible your courses are to the public.
You can set your visibility to public, private, or hidden. Setting it to public means your course can appear on the website and in search options.
If you want a more controlled enrollment, you can opt for the private option, where the students need your approval to enroll.
The hidden option allows you to enroll students you only send links to. Your course will not appear on the website or anywhere else. Only a direct connection can get the students enrolled.
You can also optimize your course for search engines, especially with the high chances of having competition from other creators. Adding SEO titles, descriptions, and keywords will boost your visibility.
If you are concerned about copyrights, you can disable text copying on your courses. Now, we are getting to the fun part of this Thinkific review.
After you get your Thinkific login details and are ready to create your first course, we have a few tips to make things easier. They include:
This feature helps you simultaneously upload multiple videos, PDF files, and audio. Also, it supports up to 40 file formats, making your uploads easy and free of conversions. Once uploaded, you can sort through them and place them accordingly in your lessons.
Instead of waiting till your next course before uploading a video, you can store them in the library. That makes it easy to add resources to your subsequent lessons without uploading them from your computer.
Before we wrap up this Thinkific review section, let us look at Drip Scheduler, a handy feature to increase engagement. You can spread your lessons over different days and make them available at specific periods.
Doing this helps your students follow your schedule and watch your lessons progress. Otherwise, students can go through your course in no predetermined fashion, which might make assimilation difficult.
The Drip Schedule feature keeps engagement high and ensures progressive learning. Students can learn the foundational concepts before moving to a new lesson.
There has been an upward trend in online course engagements, especially post-pandemic.
More and more people are signing up for digital lessons to navigate the changing labor market. While that is good news, it presents another problem for creators.
You must package your lessons most attractively. Although we will discuss promotions and marketing later in this Thinkific review, your course structure is crucial.
With that in mind, let us explore the various lesson types available on Thinkific. Depending on your content and niche, you might need a few or most types to structure your lessons.
The lesson types on Thinkific include the following:
Of course, most of your content will be delivered through videos. This lesson type is the most common, and for a good reason.
Studies have shown that videos are the most engaging digital content, topping pictures and text. Thankfully, Thinkific supports their use in creating lessons.
This lesson type allows the students to assess their grasp of your content. It will also help you gauge your students’ performance and understanding of your course.
Thinkific offers many features when creating quizzes, from single answers to multi-choice questions. The platform also allows you to import an Excel file if you have already prepared your questions and answers.
One more thing you can do with quizzes is to add explanations for your answers. That way, the students can learn more after answering the questions.
Using this feature, you can embed images, text, and videos into a lesson. It is similar to the “Text & Media” option we will see later in this Thinkific review under website design.
This is your best bet if you want to embed resources, not on the Thinkfic platform, into your lessons. You can link to webinars, presentations, Google Docs, planners, and other tools that boost your content.
Assignments engage your students by allowing them to apply the knowledge gained and upload their work to the platform. You can use this feature as an indication that a lesson is complete.
However, you must review the students’ submissions before they can progress to the next lesson. Using assignments allows for crucial feedback on your content.
You can embed audio and PDF files into your lessons. Students can listen and view them directly on the Thinkific platform. Also, these lesson types are crucial as you progress through this Thinkific review.
This feature helps you gather feedback from your students. They will answer the questions you put to them while the platform collects the data for you.
You can reach your students in real-time through the live lesson feature.
You can host live sessions through integration with apps like Zoom in the app library, as seen further in this Thinkific review. However, you will need the Pro Plan to access the feature, and you can only take in 100 students.
You will need the Pro or Enterprise Plan to issue certificates to your students.
Completion certificates give authenticity to your courses and give you an edge over other creators who don’t offer them. Also, students are more inclined to enroll in courses with verifiable certificates.
The steps to add a certificate to your course are easy and are as follows:
If you want more versatility in this aspect, you are better off using Accredible integration for your completion certificates. This third-party platform helps users create and manage credentials.
Looking back, we have progressed in this Thinkific review. The platform is beginning to open up and look less complicated than you might have thought.
Primarily, Thinkific aims to help anyone create an online course. Its features and layout buttress that fact.
Nevertheless, we will look at designing your course website. You will learn the features and tools you need to put up a design that conveys your brand in the best possible way.
Don’t worry. There is no need for coding or for having pro-level design skills. All you need is the ability to drag and drop tiles on the frame to build your site.
Thinkific Site Builder has all you need to build a stunning website to host your content. Also, remember that the visuals on your website are also marketing elements. They help in drawing and retaining attention.
For that reason, you want to put in the effort to get the best design. Thankfully, the process is relatively easy.
Every design begins with a theme that covers your site’s aesthetics and user experience. You want your page to be attractive enough to boost user engagement.
Thinkific offers up to 13 themes and styles for your design and branding. The platform allows users to import themes from third parties if they don’t appeal to them. That offers more flexibility and extends your reach when designing the spot-on site.
You can also switch to a new theme after your site is live. The more we explore, the more this Thinkific review gets interesting. That is because of the customizations the platform allows.
The site pages represent where your students will interact with your content. You can add new pages, edit current ones, and even customize a page for your prospective students. That is a handy feature that can prove helpful.
When creating your first course, Thinkific will design two essential pages for you; the course and the home page. Then, you can add more pages for interaction, like the product, contact, and other pages.
The Site Builder will help you customize your pages. However, let us discuss the pages you can add before we get there.
This tool contains drag-and-drop elements you will use in customizing your pages. You can also add as many sections as your courses require.
The Site Builder allows for FAQs, logos, student reviews, pricing for your courses, and brief info about the instructor. There is so much customization you can do with this tool.
You will learn more about the Site Builder as you use it in your creation.
Administration is a crucial aspect of this Thinkific review and one section you should read carefully. We will outline the features you can use on the platform to manage your account and courses.
You will be disadvantaged if you do not understand and know how to use these tools. When in play, they can boost your productivity and ease your workload on the site.
The administrative features on Thinkific include:
An advanced reporting feature is a powerful tool that helps you analyze the financial aspects of your portfolio.
With it, you can monitor which courses are more profitable and which lessons get the highest engagement. It also allows you to see how fast students move through your classes.
There is so much information you can get with this feature. These insights will guide you on which courses to pour in more investments and the ones that need improvement.
You can relax because you will not be doing any tedious data analysis. The tool will take care of that while you use the results for decision-making.
The Advanced Reporting feature covers the following aspects:
With Orders Report, you can accumulate emails and know which payment methods students used most for your courses.
The revenue report will include product name, type, payment method, and affiliate link.
As you will soon learn in this Thinkific review, one good thing about this platform is room for expansion. When you started, chances are you were the only one running the operations.
You created the courses, uploaded them, monitored engagements, and performed other duties.
Combining all those roles becomes exhausting when you expand your course portfolio. Then, it becomes difficult to execute your content and track progress efficiently and perfectly.
The Thinkific User feature allows you to add more people and expand your team. You can add new admins, instructors, and team members who will update your portfolio and monitor progress reports.
Doing that will ease the work on your hands while offering growth opportunities. We know the Thinkific review is lengthy, but you must know all these features.
The platform is growth-centric, and it provides the tools for that. Regarding user roles, Thinkific allows creators to assign up to eight and customize their access and responsibilities.
The roles are as follows:
The previous section of this Thinkific review discussed the roles you can assign as a site owner. However, your subscription plan determines the number of functions you can grant.
Now, let us look at Thinkific pricing options for your courses. The different pricing plans give you flexibility in generating revenue from your lessons.
Also, you decide which plan to use for your courses. With that in mind, the Thinkific pricing options include the following:
You should note this section of this Thinkific review as it relates to your revenue. The right payment plan will attract students. Nevertheless, it is better to set up multiple plans to allow flexibility in accessing your courses.
It is one thing to create a course and another to get it out there. The difference between being an expert and making money off your expertise is getting people to pay for it.
Sure, you could develop different marketing strategies for your Thinkific course. Maybe even go into digital and social media marketing. Doing those things will help boost your publicity and draw people in for enrollment.
We have spent much of this Thinkific review on the course creation and administrative features. Now, it is time to talk about the promotion and marketing functionalities available on the platform.
They include the following:
Thinkific allows you to set the exact amount or percentage for the coupon. It could be a few dollars, depending on how much discount you want to give. However, be sure to put an expiration date on it.
Although you pay your affiliates outside the system, Thinkific will track their sales and revenue for you.
You can visit the Thinkific app library and check out the Promos Kit if you want better promotions. We will talk more about the applications shortly.
After all the talk of pricing plans and marketing tools, we all have to get money into the system. Payment methods often offer versatility or limitations. As a result, learning platforms strive to support fast and easily accessible payment services.
A vast platform like Thinkific is better off with payment methods that are accepted globally. Although based in Canada, it must reach students on a global scale.
Reports from the World Economic Forum on the countries with the largest online students point to the USA and India.
With that in mind, you can see why Thinkific needs to ace its payment methods. Thankfully, the platform scores high in this regard. It supports two payment options that are available globally.
The payment options on Thinkfic fall into two categories:
You can connect your bank account to the platform, process payments, refunds, and even manage course orders. That makes it relatively easy to bank on Thinkfic directly from your local bank.
One limitation of Thinkific’s integrated payment system is that it is only available in Canada and the United States. You will use third-party options if you are a creator or student outside these countries.
Regarding third-party payment methods, Thinkific supports Stripe and PayPal. These systems are widely available worldwide, and you can set up an account within minutes.
If you already have an account, simply add it to your Thinkific profile and manage your transactions easily.
You can add a few applications from the library to help with your payments. One of them is CheckoutJoy, which helps process payments from third-party providers.
Before we wrap up this section of our Thinkific review, you should know a few things. First, you cannot use multiple currencies on the platform. It automatically picks your currency when you select your country during registration.
Second, there will be tax deductions on your payments. You can pick Quaderno from the library to assist with your taxes, including EU VAT taxes.
Nothing makes work more manageable than having dedicated tools. Instead of typing and sending emails to all your students, you can get a tool to do that.
The Thinkific App Library is another crucial aspect of this Thinkific review. They may not make sense now, but you will be better off down the line if you learn about them. We will mention a few of them in this section.
Building an app collection for its creators is a brilliant move from Thinkific. That offers seamless integration for third-party applications.
Also, they are not so different from what you get on your regular smartphone (the app store and play store).
All the applications on Thinkific’s app library have different uses. The platform has something from when you start making courses till you are ready for expansion. Furthermore, you have unrestricted access to them once you create your account.
It will take a while to get used to them, but they will take the stress away from you. In doing that, the apps fall into the following categories:
Indeed, you will find an application for all aspects of your creative journey. There are even a few tools to help you design your website and administer it. Now, let us mention a few of them.
Stripe, PayPal, and Quaderno are payment applications you can integrate into your account. They are entirely free, along with a few others.
Moving further, you can add Zapier and InfusionSoft for automation. The former helps connect other platforms, while the latter helps with your posts, supporting up to 10,000 posts a month.
A few email marketing tools include MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, and ConvertKit.
Every learning management system (LMS) must have customer support to address complaints and inquiries. It is a crucial aspect of any platform.
Thankfully, Thinkific offers efficient customer support for its users. It extends from the website to social media to make the process more flexible. Hence, you don’t need to log into your account to reach the support team.
The customer service begins with its resource library and extensive “Frequently Asked Questions” section. You can access this rich self-help knowledge base through their Help Center.
If there is no information on your complaint or inquiry, there is a direct message service on the platform.
With the Direct Message Service, you can send messages and attach files. However, the response time will not be immediate, as the team must first process your request.
The live chat option is faster, but it is only available for paid plans. Even at that, you can only chat with a customer representative from Monday to Friday, 6 a.m. to 5 p.m.
If you are a beginner, you can check out the Training Centre for in-depth knowledge on creating and promoting your courses.
As we near the end of this extensive Thinkific review, it will not be complete without the subscription plans. The platform does an excellent job of making its plans flexible for all levels of creators.
There is a subscription for beginners, intermediates, and professional creators. Even if you want to operate as an enterprise, there is a plan for you.
Although few, the Thinkific pricing plans are versatile, and you can start earning at the primary level. With that in mind, the table below shows the different plans and their price tags:
| Thinkific Pricing Plans | Monthly | Annually (per month charge) |
| Free | $0 | $0 |
| Start | $99 | $75 |
| Grow | $199 | $149 |
| Expand | $499 | $374 |
The Start plan adds a few functionalities, including coupons, live lessons, advanced course-building options, and affiliate selling. Go for the Grow plan and get API access, bulk enrollments, and bulk emailers.
Nevertheless, there is a plan that is higher than the Expand subscription. That is the Thinkific Plus Plan, and it offers features at an enterprise level. To get it, you must send an email to the LMS.
The following are the pros and cons of using Thinkific:
Pros
Cons
Before we give our final thoughts on this Thinkific review, let us compare it with other learning management systems. With fierce competition erupting in the sector, it is prudent that you know how the platform stands.
Although both platforms start with a free subscription, Teachable has more affordable pricing down the line. Its monthly plan for annual billing is $29 compared to Thinkific’s $99.
Teachable offers efficient marketing tools that can help boost your sales.
It is a reliable alternative if you do not mind the higher transaction fees and fewer third-party integrations. In comparing Thinkific vs Teachable, Thinkific is the clear winner.
LearnWorlds follows closely on the heels of Thinkific, outclassing it in several areas. The platform offers more e-learning capabilities, including SCORM support and interactive videos. You will also get enhanced course creation tools and a native mobile app.
LearnWorlds brings many modern features to the course creation process. Although it charges less than Thinkific, it does not offer a free plan for creators. It also requires a steeper learning curve because of the complexities.
If you are looking for a platform to upload many courses without paying a penny, Udemy is your best bet. The LMS allows new users to upload as many classes as they want for free.
Udemy is quite popular and currently has a student base of 35 million. That shows the platform’s efficiency, and it has a mobile app for more versatility.
While uploading courses on Udemy is free, the platform charges a 50% commission on all sales. That is way ahead of Thinkific.
LearnDash beats most of the competition with its WordPress plugin capabilities. As a result, you get an easy integration if you already have a WordPress website. That is, if you have the technical knowledge to set up the plugins.
LearnDash is a more affordable LMS but does not offer standalone solutions. You must be tech-savvy to maintain your content and integrate more functions, like payments.
Kajabi offers more features and automation capabilities than Thinkific, making it ideal for solopreneurs and SMEs. It integrates creation, sales, membership, and email marketing seamlessly. You can also use its Android and iOS apps for more flexibility.
Kajabi is more expensive than Thinkific, even at the primary level. Also, there is no free subscription, and the number of courses caps at 100.
The extensive Thinkific review above shows that the platform is very robust. The course-building tools offer many customizations, from themes to integrations. You can also create many pages to make the user experience unique.
The app library offers over 100 third-party applications you can easily integrate into your website. Bringing them in pushes the versatility further and ultimately helps in boosting sales.
While Thinkific offers a free subscription, most of its capabilities require the Grow Plan subscription. It costs more than most competitors but does not charge transaction fees.
Ultimately, Thinkific is an unbeatable platform if you want to create courses. It has self-explanatory tools and a robust system.
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Currently, the Thinkific free subscription does not have a validity period, and you can use it as long as you want. However, the features and capabilities are limited, hampering your reach if you want to be profitable.
You can upload unlimited courses if you subscribe to the Start Plan on the platform. Nevertheless, you will only get one community and one administrator, which limits your flexibility and reach.
You can get up to a hundred third-party integrations from the native app library, which expands your capabilities. Areas you will find third-party apps include e-commerce, automation, analytics, email management, etc.
The most expensive is the Plus Plan, and it comes with more features than the Expand Plan, which is pretty solid. Notwithstanding, you can only purchase the plan by emailing the customer representative.
Thinkific does not charge any transaction fee for all payments, which is one of its significant advantages. However, third-party applications like PayPal will take their share while processing payments.
This learning management system does not have a native Android or iOS application for its service. Nevertheless, you will find the mobile site robust enough to care for most of your needs.
Thinkific allows creators to offer coupons and discounts on their cases. However, you cannot get that functionality on the free plan. You can only get them from the Start Plan upwards.
You can import live videos or webinars from streaming platforms like YouTube into your classes. Notwithstanding, that capability comes with the Start Plan and other subscription plans, not free ones.
Thinkific does not own any content or claim ownership of any bundle, but only hosts the courses and classes. You can even integrate it into your websites and other platforms seamlessly.
Thinkific does not operate on a commission business model, unlike some competitors. Instead, it profits from the subscriptions creators pay to host their content on its platform.
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