Dornubari Vizor April 14, 2022
A Comprehensive Thinkific review – (Must Read Before Buying)
The abrupt transition of many aspects of our lives to the Internet resulted in several changes. The eLearning industry, online store and online course business, in general, are inextricably linked to our daily lives. We stopped going to shopping malls or coaching schools and instead shifted to doing everything online.
One field that particularly enjoys great popularity is online teaching. In a short period of time, many online course platforms sprouted and delivered an unlimited amount of teaching options. In today’s article, we will take a closer look at one well-known online course platform – Thinkific.
What Is Thinkific
Thinkific is a one-of-a-kind online course platform that allows anyone to quickly create, deliver and own online courses on their own branded course site. Thinkific site makes it simple to educate your customers, target your courses to earn revenue, or simply grow your brand and engage your audience.
Thinkific was founded in 2012 by Greg and Matt Smith as a software platform for creating, marketing, delivering, and selling courses.
This online platform is preferred by over 50,000 course creators and over 100 million visitors who have viewed over 100 million courses.
Thinkific employs around 270 people and operates in over 15 countries.
Thinkific has been successful in changing the public’s perception of online education over the years.
With the Thinkific site, you can:
- Create and deliver courses on your own website
- Sell courses and earn revenue
- Engage your audience with quizzes, assignments, and discussions
- Build a community of students by offering private groups
- Get detailed insights on student progress and course performance.
By the end of this Thinkific review, you will know everything essential about this platform. We will cover:
- Who is the platform for?
- What are the best Thinkific features?
- Endless Thinkific integrations
- Thinkific pricing plans
- Is really Thinkific that good?
- Main competitors
Who Is the Target User of Thinkific
Thinkific is a robust platform that can be used by just about anyone who wants to create and deliver courses. Whether you’re a seasoned educator, a business owner looking to add an online component to your product offering, or simply someone with a great idea for a course, Thinkific can help you make it happen.
The platform is easy to use and packed with features that will enable you to create a high-quality course that meets the needs of your students. And because Thinkific is self-hosted, you’ll have complete control over your content and branding. So if you’re looking for a way to take your business or teaching career to the next level, think about giving Thinkific a try.
Thinkific is an excellent platform for those who:
- Are looking to create and deliver courses on their own website.
- Create courses and earn revenue.
- Engage their audience with quizzes, assignments, and discussions.
- Build a community of students by offering private groups.
What Are the Best Thinkific Features
One of the best features that Thinkific offers is its endless integrations. With this feature, you can connect your Thinkific account to over 500+ apps using Zapier. This allows you to automate tedious tasks and save a lot of time. For example, you can automatically send new Thinkific students to your Mailchimp list or Slack channel.
Thinkific is a powerful online education platform that provides users with everything they need to create and deliver successful online courses. One of the core features of Thinkific courses builder is its ease of use.
Anyone can create a course on the Thinkific platform without any prior coding or design experience. Thinkific also offers a wide range of features to help you create an engaging and interactive learning experience for your students.
These include video hosting, quiz creation, and email automation. Thinkific also has an open API that allows you to integrate it with other education platforms and tools.
This makes it easy to create a seamless learning experience for your students across multiple platforms. Whether you’re just created your first course or you’re a seasoned veteran, Thinkific has everything you need to develop and deliver successful online courses.
Thinkific’s email automation feature is a powerful tool that can help you increase sales and grow your business. With Thinkific, you can add an email opt-in to your sales page, which allows you to collect email addresses from potential customers. You can then use these email addresses to send automated marketing messages, follow-up emails, and special offers.
This can help you boost sales pages and grow your customer base. In addition, Thinkific’s email automation feature can also help you keep in touch with customers and build relationships. By sending timely emails, you can stay top of mind and build loyalty among your customer base. If you’re looking for a way to boost sales and grow your business, Thinkific’s email automation feature is a great option.
Thinkific Features
Online School and Student Engagement
- Live Lessons & Cohorts
- Assessments & Course Completion Certificates
- Progress Tracking
- Communities & Membership sites
Online Course Builder and Digital Marketing
- Drag and drop website builder
- Ecommerce included
- Product flexibility
- Built-in email functionality
Online Course Content Management
- Website themes
- Advanced customizations
- Set your own domain
- Connect your tools
Community and Customer Support
- Industry-leading support
- Thinkific Academy
- A Community of Pros
- Comprehensive Help Center
Automation and Data Safety
- Trusted by the best
- Open API & Automations
- Secure Cloud Hosting
- Enterprise-ready
To sum it up, these are the main features that make Thinkific stand out:
Ease of use
When it comes to ease of use, Thinkific does not disappoint. The platform is exceptionally user-friendly and anyone can create a course on it without any prior coding or design experience. Course templates customization of your course landing page is especially simple and clear.
An open API
The Thinkific open API allows you to integrate it with other learning management systems and tools. This makes it easy to create a comfortable learning environment for your students across multiple platforms.
Powerful course creation tools
Thinkific changed the aspect of course design. It provides users with everything they need to create and deliver successful courses. The powerful course creator tools it offers make the entire process easier and more fun. Landing page builder, for example, is a great tool that allows you to create beautiful and conversion-optimized landing pages for your courses in minutes.
When It Comes to Integrations – the Sky’s the Limit
One significant advantage of Thinkific is that it integrates with many apps, making it easier to manage and create your online courses. For example, you can use Zapier to connect Thinkific with over 750 other apps or use the Thinkific App Store.
This integration makes it easier to automate tasks and manage your courses more efficiently. Another example of integration is PeerBoard. PeerBoard is an add-on that allows you to create a private community for your students within Thinkific.
The Thinkific App Store is a first in the online education industry. With the course creators’ toolkits, you can easily access and integrate all the tools to improve the functionality of your online product.
For example, Thinkific offers very basic quiz functionality and does not support time limits, so in case you want a more robust quiz software, you need to download an appropriate integration.
Thinkific Pricing Plans
There are four different Thinkific pricing plans to choose from, depending on your needs. There is a free plan perfect for those just getting started and those more advanced in the online business. The Basic plan starts at $49 per month and includes additional features like automatic payments and coupon codes.
The Pro plan starts at $99 per month and offers even more features, including priority support and the ability to provide private courses. Lastly, the Premier plan is designed for large businesses and starts at $499 per month. However, if paid annually, the price is much lower, also without any transaction fees.
Free Plan
Thinkific free pricing plan is the most basic of all the plans that Thinkific offers. As the name implies, it is free to use. This plan gives users access to various course features that Thinkific has to offer, except for a few things.
For example, users on the free plan cannot use their own domain name, cannot remove Thinkific course branding, and have limited customer support. The free plan on Thinkific is a great way to get started with online course design.
With no monthly fees, you can access all of the platform’s features and start building your courses. You’ll be able to use all of the same tools and resources as paid plans, including creating an unlimited number of courses, adding unlimited students, and using Thinkific’s branding and customize your site completely.
The free plan also includes access to Thinkific’s support team, so you can get help when you need it. And if you ever decide to upgrade to a paid plan, your courses will still be available – you’ll just have access to more advanced features. It’s a great option if you want to try to launch your first course.
Basic Plan
Thinkific’s basic pricing plan is a great option for those who are just getting started with online school. For just $49 per month, you get access to all of the platform’s essential features, including course builder and hosting, student management, and payment processing.
You also get a free domain name and hosting for your website, making it easy to get started with Thinkific. Plus, there are no transaction fees, so you can keep more of your revenue. With everything included in the basic plan, Thinkific makes it easy to start creating and selling courses.
Pro Plan
The pro plan is the most popular plan amongst Thinkific pricing plans. It’s suitable for businesses of all sizes and offers a wide range of features. The pro plan includes everything in the basic plan, plus:
- Advanced branding and customization options
- Priority support
- Memberships and courses bundled together
- Drip content release for courses
- Payment plans for courses
- Integrations with Zapier (for live lessons), Google Analytics, and more
The pro plan is priced at $99 per month, with discounts available for annual billing. There is also a free trial available so you can try out the pro features before you commit to a paid plan.
If you’re looking to take your courses to the next level, the Thinkific pro plan is a great option. With this plan, you’ll get access to a number of features that will help you create and deliver high-quality courses. For starters, you’ll be able to include up to 10 instructors in your courses. This is ideal if you’re looking to create a course with multiple experts.
You’ll also get access to advanced Thinkific course analytics (with Google Analytics), which allows you to monitor student performance. It’s giving valuable insight into your existing students’ progress. Moreover, you have the ability to offer private courses and group discounts. As mentioned, there are no transaction fees from course sales.
Premier Plan
The Thinkific Premier plan includes all of the features that Basic and Plus plans have (and a few more). With the Premier plan, you get unlimited courses, students, and course content. You also get access to exclusive features, like Premium Themes, CourseCompletions for Students, and Certificate of Completion. And, with the newest feature, the Progress Bar for Students, your students can see their progress as they work through your course.
The Premier plan is perfect for businesses and organizations who want to offer their employees or members an online learning solution that is customizable and has all the features they need to deliver a high-quality learning experience.
The premier plan is our most comprehensive and feature-rich offering. For a monthly fee of $499, you’ll get access to all of our features, including:
- Priority customer support
- Unlimited courses and students
- Course import and export
- Advanced branding options
- Coupon codes and discounts
- Drip content delivery
- Video hosting and transcoding
- Quiz builder
- Course completion certificates
- Student groups
- Saved payment methods
- Advanced analytics
If you’re serious about building an online learning business, the premier plan is the way to go. With everything you need to create, market, and sell your courses, it’s our most popular option for online course creators.
Is Thinkific That Good
The main advantage of Thinkific is its affordability and there is no transaction fee. If you’re just starting out, you can use the free plan to explore the platform and see if it’s a good fit for you. If you’re ready to start selling courses, the Basic plan is only $49/month.
Another benefit is its integrations. With Thinkific, you can connect your account to over 500+ apps using Zapier. This allows you to automate tedious tasks and save a lot of time. What is more, Thinkific allows you to create a private community for your students within the platform using PeerBoard.
Where Thinkific does not disappoint is definitely its user-friendly features. It offers a wide range of add-ons to help you create an engaging and interactive learning experience for your students. These include video hosting, quiz creation, email automation and a simple drag and drop builder that can save you a few hours of work.
What we can read in a Thinkific review, is that Thinkific users love the amazing support team and the simplicity of creating a Thinkific course and its consistent and impressive LMS. One Thinkific review states that it is an absolutely beautiful platform with a very nice course creation experience.
The big negative point of Thinkific is that it doesn’t have a built-in community feature. However, there is an add-on called PeerBoard that allows you to create a private community for your students within Thinkific.
Another drawback of Thinkific is that it doesn’t have a live chat support feature. There are also no live office hours or workshops this week. However, the customer support is very responsive and you can usually get a response within 24 hours.
Unfortunately, when it comes to a Thinkific trial, you won’t be able to test out every aspect of the website before committing because the Free plan has limited capabilities.
Additionally, there is no app in the App Store, Google Play, or any other platform at all.
Main Competitors
Thinkific is a great platform with a lot of features and no course fees to offer. However, it is not the only online course platform out there. There are several other platforms you can find during the market research that offer similar features, such as GroupApp, Kajabi and Teachable.
GroupApp is a social learning platform that helps you create and manage courses online. Kajabi is an all-in-one platform that allows you to create, market, and sell your courses. Teachable is an easy-to-use platform that will enable you to design and market courses.
GroupApp
GroupApp is a social learning platform that helps you create and manage online courses. With GroupApp, you can easily create and deliver courses on your own website. You can also sell courses and earn revenue.
GroupApp allows you to engage your audience with quizzes, assignments, and discussions. What is more, GroupApp has a built-in community feature that allows you to connect with your students and create a private community.
GroupApp includes all of the tools you’ll need to create a high-quality online course.
It has everything you’ll need to connect with and impress your target audience.
GroupApp can be used to create and distribute courses directly within your online community. You can combine your online community and your online class for better community support and a better learning experience.
You can also manage your community through an admin dashboard, where you can manage members, control course content, and track engagement and subscription statistics.
It acts as an LMS (Learning Management System), tracking, automating, reporting, and documenting your online course delivery.
One of GroupApp’s advantages is its accessibility. GroupApp is available on all platforms and is mobile-friendly, allowing you and your students to interact with the community from anywhere.
It works with all devices and platforms and is available on both iOS and Android. You can also use GroupApp to connect to other media, which will help you optimize and automate your workflow.
You also get plenty of bonus features, such as:
- Members Profile
- Activity Feed
- Posting Types
- Notifications
- Invite members
- Privacy Settings
- Paid channels
- Export Data
- Custom Domain
Pricing plans for GroupApp
We offer three pricing options, with prices starting as low as $29 per month. You have a choice between:
Starter
It is primarily intended for personal projects and hobbies and costs $29 per month. You can build a community with up to 1000 members and manage up to ten community channels.
Pro
It is a more expensive pricing plan that costs $59 per month and is designed for growing businesses and creators. This option allows you to foster 10,000 members across 30 different community channels.
Premium
Premium pricing is designed for brands and large organizations and costs 189$ per month. On 100 community channels, you can reach a much larger audience – even 100 000 people.
As you can see, GroupApp provides the highest quality platform for creating online courses.
Kajabi
Kajabi is an all-in-one platform that allows you to create, market, and sell your courses. Kajabi provides everything you need to launch and grow your business.
With Kajabi, you can easily create beautiful courses, landing pages, and marketing emails. You can also sell courses and earn revenue. Additionally, Kajabi allows you to connect with your students and create a private community.
However, this platform comes with many limitations. Kajabi is not a cheap course builder, and it is one of the most expensive membership sites. There are few options in the marketplace, and there is no student-specific search tool. People searching for classes can only use a category filter. You’ll need a third-party platform to generate completion certificates when finishing the course. You may need to know how to code if you want to make changes to a site post. What is more, assessment customization is limited.
Teachable
Teachable is an easy-to-use course creator site that allows you to create and sell online courses. Teachable provides everything you need to launch and grow your course page. With Teachable, you can easily create beautiful courses, landing pages, and marketing emails.
You can also sell courses and earn revenue. Additionally, Teachable allows you to connect with your students and create a private community. However, Teachable has many downsides, such as its high price, lack of features, and poor customer support.
As you can see, there are many Thinkific alternatives out there that offer similar features. If you’re looking for an alternative to Thinkific, be sure to check out GroupApp, Kajabi, and Teachable.
In spite of its many advantages, Teachable has some clear drawbacks. First, it is a very expensive platform. In order to use teachable to its full potential, users must purchase the most expensive subscription plan. This plan costs almost $200 per year, which is a significant investment for many people.
Second, Teachable does not offer an unlimited storage space like some other platforms. This means that users will have to carefully manage their course content in order to avoid exceeding their storage limit. Finally, teachable does not provide 24/7 customer support. This can be frustrating for users who encounter problems with the platform outside of normal business hours. Despite these drawbacks, teachable remains a popular choice for many online instructors.
Final Thoughts
Thinkific is a great online course platform with a lot of features to offer. It is affordable and easy to use. Additionally, it has a wide range of integrations that allow you to automate tedious tasks. However, Thinkific doesn’t have a live chat support feature and the customer support is not always responsive. Overall, we think Thinkific is a great platform.
However, if you want a truly all-in-one platform, you should definitely sign up for GroupApp. With GroupApp, both course creation and community management are as easy as it gets.
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