When it comes to platforms that allow you to develop and market your online courses, there are a number of options out there which are available to you.
And Thinkific, we think, is among the best ones on the market.
However, that’s not to say others aren’t as great. They all have their pros and cons, as does Thinkific. So today, we are going to have Thinkific battle against a few of the best on the market, so that you can make an informed decision on which platform works best for you.
Everybody has different needs, expectations and capabilities.
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Thinkific VS Teachable Thinkific and WordPress
First thing’s first, let’s get one of the bigger, and more difficult, comparisons out of the way. Thinkific and Teachable are both great. They offer the essentials you’ll need, easy to use whether you have experience or not, are fairly priced and are just really great solutions. They are quite similar so it makes choosing between the two of them a little bit more complicated, but we will try our best anyway.
Let’s start with who uses which platform! Though they both have a wide appeal that may cater to single individuals or businesses and groups, there are preferences.
Because Thinkific’s main goal is to empower educators more, to assist those who really care about their pupils’ experience, their customers are more often that not entrepreneurs — usually masters of a particular craft such as writing, or coaches and speakers — and businesses who wish to grow and build their businesses through education for their chosen audience.
Teachable on the other hand truly imbibes their mantra of “Everything is Teachable.” Their target market is still quite wide actually even crossing over to a few of those that Thinkific targets, but they also cover people who wish to begin educating online and earning through it.
So which are you? Who they cater to can be quite revealing for what they stand for and what they can do.
Moving on to course creation and student engagement, both Teachable and Thinkific are excellent at what they do. It’s really tough to go wrong with one or the other. There are of course differences between the two.
While Teachable offers you more flexibility with its course builder, extensive course reporting tools and even an iOS app for your student, Thinkific can give you advanced quizzing features, the ability to create surveys and assignments in addition to a”communities” and”Groups” features.
Teachable is much easier to use from the two, and really has more to offer when it comes to the sales and marketing features. Additionally, it helps that they have some fairly strong course reporting tools, and their checkout process is optimized — complete with 1-click upsells, support for Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc..
Thinkific really hones in on the educational side a bit more, with a greater focus on students. You can see that in its stronger quizzing capability, how its built to support assignments. Create communities and manage your students.
It also wins out a bit more in terms of its site builder, which is a major consideration if you don’t have an existing website already as it is.
Finally, concerning price, Thinkific kind of wins because they have a plan that’s absolutely free. Sure it offers just the basics, but it is free. And that’s a big thing.
In regards to the paid portion though, Thinkific includes a more beginner-friendly rates, but it can actually end up getting more expensive than Teachable, based on needs and add-on features that might not be available on certain plans. Teachable however provides everything right off the bat, depending upon your plan.
Thinkific can be somewhat sneaky that way. But if you don’t need those additional bells and whistles, Thinkific is the more affordable option between the two.
If we’re gonna need to provide the crown to somebody, it would have to be Thinkific, with it barely beating out Teachable. It’s so close that, at the end of the day, it’s really more of a personal preference and contextualized need that will guide you to which of the two platforms you should work with.
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Thinkific VS Udemy
Thinkific and Udemy will be a tiny bit easier to compare than our previous match up, because of the fact that they’re two quite different platforms with their own pros and cons. Thinkific and WordPress
With Thinkific, you can really design your site. Yeah, there are templates you can use, but if you decide so and are competent, you can take control of your website’s design and customize plenty of it. With Udemy, you do not really get that option. You’re limited in your choices for design. You can pick your course graphic, but otherwise things such as course layout and style can not really be touched.
Udem does have a marketplace feature though, which can be quite helpful. However, it’s a double edged sword. You own the program, but you can not removeit from Udemy’s marketplace, while with Thinkific, you can do anything you want with your own courses.
You can price your course however way you see fit, provide any kind of discounts and in regards to Affiliate programs, you determine how much the commission percentage is onThinkific. But with Udemy, you have to follow their pricing , coupon system and all Affiliate Programs for your course are set at 50% commission.
There’s more freedom and flexibility with Thinkific, enabling it to stand above the competition.
And that is why Thinkific kind of stands head and shoulders over Udemy for us.
Udemy is great to begin with from scratch, especially if you don’t actually have an audience yet, or in case you don’t have experience in creating an internet course. It has the basics of what you need and the market is a wonderful starting point. It also helps that it’s pretty inexpensive.
However, Udemy is not ideal if you would like to grow beyond that. If you wish to expand, to take control or to just go larger, it is not the perfect platform for you.
We highly advise you to go with Thinkific instead, if that is the case.
If you want, you do not even need to take our word for it. One good thing you can do is try it out yourself actually. Thinkific has their free plan including all the basics, while Udemy doesn’t charge you a monthly fee if you combine. First Hand experience is always one of the best ways to determine if it works for you.
> > Click here to try Thinkific for Free Now! < <
Thinkific vs Kajabi
The difference between Thinkific and Kajabi can be seen in their messaging.
Thinkific’s homepage says “Easily Create, market and sell your online course. You get complete control and great support.”
Kajabi’s says,”Sell Your Knowledge. Get Set up in minutes. Everything under one roof”
Kind of similar, yeah? Yes and no. We’ll get to it in just a bit. Thinkific and WordPress
But even here you can see what they concentrate on, and who they are for specifically. For one, from the way it was structured and rolled out, you can see that Kajabi was created for people that wish to feature and sell individual pieces of content, instead of a more expansive and structured learning.
You go for Kajabi if you wish to teach someone let’s say how to perform Shakespeare really well. A masterclass in that specific topic.
Thinkific is for people who want to sell an entire structured course on acting, from its history, to its techniques, to the different kinds and styles there are out there in the world. We’re by no means saying one is better than the other in this regard, but instead saying that it actually depends upon your requirements and exactly what it is you want to sell and teach.
Do you only have to sell a class, or an entire expansive curriculum? It’s up to you, and either or is fine.
Looking at the features, that’s also reflected. Thinkific offers a great pure course builder, while Kajabi is more of a marketing platform with sales automation tagging features. With Thinkific, you can offer certifications, while with Kajabi, you can not. Kajabi is accompanied by an email-builder and a landing page builder, while Thinkific doesn’t. Kajabi is the way to go if sales funnels are what you need with your software. That being said, Thinkific has a cool blog post about increasing sales for your online course here.
Again: What are your needs?
Kajabi s a fantastic all-in-one marketing solution, however it has a tendency to overextend its offerings, attempting to do too much and not actually attaining it. And it does that while being more expensive that Thinkific, so that is another enormous consideration.
As we’ve mentioned before, Thinkific has a free plan you can avail of and not just test, but use indefinitely if it suits your needs. Kajabi has a 14 day trial and that’s it. If you want to give both a spin to find out if it works for you, go ahead, but for this particular item, Thinkific clearly wins.
‘At the end of the day, Kajabi does really have an edge in terms of the promotion suite if offers — and we can’t stress enough how important marketing is! Doesn’t matter how great a course is if your”classroom” is empty. However, if you will need to build a program, which is what we assumed you want, hence you exploring these options, then Thinkific is your obvious choice.
Thinkific is, at its heart, the answer to what you need in the first place: A platform that will help you educate.
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And The Winner is?
We had to take our time deciding who is the best here, especially since its quite an important decision which tool you’re going to outsource to. Picking the right software is no small matter.
After going three rounds with some of the heavy hitters out there, Thinkific with its core focus on its course builder, great plan options that includes a basic free service, and it’s focus on making the experience of getting out there to make a strong online educational platform, clearly wins. Thinkific and WordPress
Give it a think and you’ll see what we mean.
