With a plethora of online course platforms such as Thinkific, Teachable, Udemy, Skillshare, Kajabi, Ruzuku, Podia, and Zippy Course, finding the right one can seem overwhelming.
However, we will help you with making the best choice in this Thinkific vs Teachable comparison. In this article, we will be reviewing two of the most prominent names in the industry. After reading the article, I guarantee that you will make the right choice.
What is Thinkific?
Thinkific was founded in 2012 by Greg Smith, Matt Payne, Matt Smith, and Miranda Lievers. Today the company has over 25,000+ course creators, 11.4 million students enrolled, $100 million+ earned on their platform, and over 160 countries using their platform. Thinkific is a platform that helps entrepreneurs and businesses to expand their business with online courses. With Thinkific you will easily be able to create and deliver extremely beautiful courses on your own branded website.
Click here to start Thinkific today!
What is Teachable?
Teachable was founded in 2013 by Ankur Nagpal and Conrad Wadowski. Today the company has well over 60,000 instructors who are using their platform to pour out their brain upon others. With Teachable there are over 15 million students learning, over 154,000 active courses, and close to $300 million earned by their instructions. Similar to Thinkific, Teachable formerly known as Fedora is an all-in-one solution that allows you to easily create and sell beautiful online courses.
Click here to start Teachable today!
Online courses pricing comparison
Teachable pricing
When it comes to pricing, Teachable is easily cheaper than Thinkific when it comes to their Basic plan. especially when you need more features in the future. I strongly recommend that your purchase annually which will help you to save more money in the future.
- Basic plan ($29) – This plan includes all basic features. This plan has a 5% transaction fee. All the other plans have no transaction fee. This plan will cost $39 per month if you choose month to month payments.
- Professional plan ($79) – This is the most popular Teachable plan and it comes with all the basic and plus features. This plan will cost $99 per month if you choose monthly payments.
- Business plan ($399) – This plan will include all the awesome features that Teachable has to offer. This plan will cost $499 per month if you choose monthly payments.
What Teachable plan do I recommend?
I strongly recommend the Professional plan because you will not have any transaction fees. You will receive graded quizzes, advanced theme customization, an unbranded website, and more which is awesome. For $79 per month you will receive far more to help you on your journey.
Thinkific pricing
Once again, I always recommend paying yearly because this will allow you to save 20% with the Thinkific platform. Thinkific does offer a free plan. However, this is just a test-drive. This is sort of like a free trial of what Thinkific has to offer and is in no way intended for entrepreneurs.
BASIC plan ($39) – This plan contains all free features plus. This Thinkific plan will cost $49 per month if you choose monthly payments.
PRO plan ($79) – This is the most popular plan and it has all the basic features plus. This plan will cost $99 per month if you choose monthly payments.
PREMIER plan ($399) – This plan offers all pro features plus. This plan will cost $499 per month if you choose monthly payments.
Growth (add-on) – There is a strong chance that you will choose this add-on because most likely you are going to want bulk emailing, white-labeling, groups, advanced segmentation, Zapier actions, Thinkific brand removal, etc. The Growth plan is added onto the Pro plan and costs $0.10 per active student after 100 active students. This can get expensive depending on the number of active students that you have. 1500 students can cost you an extra $150 a month.
What Thinkific plan do I recommend?
I recommend the Pro plan because you will be receiving the most features. With Thinkific you will receive unlimited courses & students, membership bundles, advanced course pricing options, certificates, and more.
Website customization comparison
Ease of use shouldn’t be an issue with either Thinkific or Teachable. Both platforms excel in this category and no coding is needed for either. Thinkific is awesome because you will easily be able to choose from a library of themes. Teachable is awesome in that you will be given powerful drag and drop functionality. Another plus is that you will be given features for free that you would have to pay for with Thinkific. This makes for a better, cheaper, and more efficient online course journey. Lastly, if you compare interfaces Teachable’s interface for the course is more visually appealing, which is great for your students. If you are a beginner and you need a platform that takes care of a lot of things for you, then Teachable is a slightly better option.
Course Delivery
It’s always good to have student engagement. I love Thinkific in this category. They have great survey and quiz functionality which your students will love. With that said, Teachable clearly beats out Thinkific with their course player and abundance of features.
Blogging
As I mentioned in the Teachable vs Kajabi comparison, Teachable allows you to blog on your website which can be extremely beneficial. Unfortunately, this is an area where Thinkific is lacking in. They currently do not have an inbuilt blog. For your blogging needs you are most likely going to have to blog on a separate blogging platform such as WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, Medium, Ghost, etc.
Sales and marketing
Teachable easily gains the edge in the sales and marketing category. One of the reasons that Teachable is better is because you will have a one-click checkout. This is proven to increase conversion rates. Thinkific has a 2-step process which is proven to reduce sales. Most people are becoming less and less patient with the checkout process. You are given 1-click upsells with Teachable which is another bonus. Another benefit of Teachable is that they have beautiful landing pages. It is proven that Teachable’s landing pages convert higher than most platforms.
Click here to start Teachable!
Click here to start Thinkific!
Features comparison
Teachable features
- EU VAT Handling – Teachable handles EU Vat for you. Thinkific does not, which can be costly for your business.
- Multimedia lectures – You will easily be able to add videos, images, text, audio, and PDF files.
- Power Editor – Get under the hood for deeper customization.
- Discussion forums – Create conversation.
- Course completion certificates – Issue certificates
- Powerful drag and drop functionality
- Student list segmentation
- Unlimited Courses
- Zapier
- Student feedback
- Coupons and promotions
- Customizable sales pages
- Accept international payments
- Marketing integrations such as Aweber and Mailchimp
- Comprehensive dashboard
- Data ownership
- SSL certificate
- Instant upgrades
- And more
Thinkific features
- Pass/Fail Quizzes – Easily track student outcomes.
- Voice Over PowerPoint Presentation Tool – Awesome voice over slide tool.
- Free Trial courses – Instructors will be able to offer trials of their courses.
- Student Welcome & Completion Emails – You will be able to increase your relationship with your students with Thinkific’s customized and automated welcome and course completion emails.
- Bundles & Upsells
- Affiliate Reporting
- Coupons & Promotions
- Drip (Scheduled) Content
- Direct ActiveCampaign Integration
- Pay Multiple Instructors
- 99.99% Uptime & 24/7 Monitoring
- Javascript Tracking
- Onboarding Call
- Bulk Student Emailer
- Built-in SSL
- Private class creation.
- Webhooks
- And more
Payouts
Both Thinkific and Teachable use Stripe and PayPal as their payout solutions.
Popularity comparison
Although many people won’t admit to it if we’re honest we all care about popularity. We would rather purchase something if there is a greater demand for it. This is what the popularity comparison is all about. Although Thinkific is slightly older by a couple years, Teachable is the more popular platform. Popularity matters because it allows us to know what more people are gravitating towards. I have found more of the bigger named bloggers using the Teachable platform. Well-known bloggers such as Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income and Teela Cunningham from Every Tuesday are using the Teachable platform. This favors Teachable greatly. Also, I did a keyword research and more people are searching for Teachable.com over Thinkific.com.
Click here to start Teachable!
Mobile app comparison
Teachable has a wonderful app that you can take advantage of. You will be able to access all of your Teachable courses on the go.
Some features of their mobile app include:
- Streaming videos and viewing handouts.
- Jumping from lecture to lecture.
- Offline learning.
At this moment Thinkific does not have a mobile app.
Refund policy
As mentioned in section 8 Payment of Fees on their Terms of Service page, Thinkific does not provide you with a refund. However, you will be able to cancel at any time without a problem.
Teachable has a 30-day money-back guarantee for all of their instructors, which is an awesome advantage of using their platform.
Customer support comparison
Teachable
Teachable allows you to explore their large knowledge base if you need help with your online courses. You can easily learn how to get started, create and edit your course, customize your site, update your account and billing information, sell your course, manage your school, and more. You will also be able to create a support ticket. Their ticket support is available 7 days a week from 10 AM – 6 PM EST. Teachable customers can even receive support through Teachable’s various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Lastly, learn more on how you can have success using the Teachable platform by reading their regularly posted blog posts.
Thinkific
Thinkific offers various support options for their customers. These different support options include a huge help center. In their help center you will find training and resources to help you on your journey. Popular topics include migrating to Thinkific, The Perfect Launch Workbook, setting up multiple websites, course creation, and working with videos.
Similar to Teachable, Thinkific offers ticket support where you can get in touch with their representatives. Thinkific offers a training center, but it will cost you. Their guides range from free to $497 depending on what you need. One of the unique things about Thinkific is that you will be able to enjoy their community forum. You will easily be able to get answers to general questions, features, site design, course creation, sales/marketing, troubleshooting, and more.
Bottom line
Both platforms have various forms of support and they both offer Facebook groups to help you receive more answers in your time of need.
Which online course platform is better?
Both are awesome platforms that have their own style of uniqueness and perks. However, from the backend to overall pricing I believe that (Teachable) is a better platform to use. Thinkific should have some features that are built-in with Teachable. I love that Teachable handles EU VAT and that they have a 1-step checkout process. There is a reason that Teachable is the more popular platform and if you check YouTube, Reddit, forums, etc. you will see that there many success stories. I strongly recommend that you try Teachable today!