When it comes to platforms that allow you to develop and market your online courses, there are quite a few options out there which are available to you.
And Thinkific, we believe, is one of the best ones on the market.
However, that is not to say others aren’t as great. They all have their advantages and disadvantages, as does Thinkific. So today, we’re going to have Thinkific battle against a few of the best out there, so you can make an informed decision on which platform works best for you.
Everybody has different needs, capabilities and expectations.
> > Click here to try Thinkific for Free Now! < <
Thinkific VS Teachable Thinkific and Convertkit
First thing’s first, let us get one of the bigger, and harder, 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 that it makes choosing between the two of them a little bit more difficult, but we’ll try our best anyway.
Let’s start with who uses which platform! Though they both have a wide appeal that can cater to single individuals or companies and groups, there are preferences.
Because Thinkific’s most important goal is to empower educators more, to help those who really care about their students’ 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 develop their companies through education for their preferred audience.
Teachable on the other hand truly imbibes their mantra of “Everything is Teachable.” Their target audience is still quite wide actually even crossing over to a few of those that Thinkific targets, but they also cover people who wish to start teaching online and earning through it.
So which are you? Who they appeal to can be quite revealing for what they stand for and what they can do.
Moving on to course creation and pupil engagement, both Teachable and Thinkific are really good 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 provides you more flexibility with its course builder, extensive course reporting tools and even an iOS app for your pupil, Thinkific can give you advanced quizzing features, the ability to create assignments and surveys in addition to a”communities” and”Groups” features.
Teachable is much easier to use from the two, and actually has more to offer when it comes to the sales and marketing features. It also helps that they have some pretty strong course reporting programs, 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 somewhat more, with a greater focus on students. You can see that in its more powerful quizzing capability, how its built to support missions. Create communities and manage your students.
Additionally, it wins out a little 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, in terms of cost, Thinkific kind of wins since they have a plan that’s absolutely free. Sure it provides just the basics, but it is free. And that’s a significant thing.
In regards to the paid portion though, Thinkific has a more beginner-friendly rates, but it can actually end up becoming more expensive than Teachable, depending on needs and add-on features which may not be available on certain plans. Teachable however offers everything right off the bat, based upon your plan.
Thinkific can be a bit sneaky that way. But if you don’t need those additional bells and whistles, Thinkific is the less expensive choice between the two.
If we are gonna have to provide the crown to someone, it would need to be Thinkific, with it barely beating out Teachable. It is so close that, at the end of the day, it is really more of a personal preference and contextualized need that will lead you to which of the two platforms you need to work with.
> > Click here to try Thinkific for Free Now! < <
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 very different platforms with their own pros and cons. Thinkific and Convertkit
With Thinkific, you can really design your site. Yeah, there are templates you can use, but if you decide so and are capable, it is possible to totally take control of your website’s design and customize plenty of it. With Udemy, you do not really get that choice. You are limited in your options 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 market feature though, which can be quite useful. However, it’s a double edged sword. You own the course, but you can’t take it out of Udemy’s marketplace, while with Thinkific, you can do whatever you want with your courses.
You can price your course however way you see fit, provide any type of discounts and in regards to Affiliate programs, you determine how much the commission percentage is onThinkific. But with Udemy, you need to follow their pricing , coupon system and all Affiliate Programs for your class are set at 50% commission.
There’s more freedom and flexibility with Thinkific, enabling it to stand above the competition.
And that’s 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 really have an audience yet, or If you don’t have experience in creating an internet course. It’s the basics of what you need and the market is a fantastic starting point. It also helps that it is pretty inexpensive.
However, Udemy isn’t ideal if you would like to grow beyond that. If you wish to expand, to take control or to simply go bigger, it’s not the perfect platform for you.
We highly advise you to go with Thinkific instead, if that is true.
If you would like, you don’t 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 does not charge you a monthly fee if you combine. First Hand experience is always among 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 observed 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 a bit. Thinkific and Convertkit
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 made for men and women that want to sell and feature individual pieces of content, rather than 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 particular topic.
Thinkific is for those who wish to sell an entire structured course on acting, from its history, to its own techniques, to the different kinds and styles there are out there in the world. We’re by no means saying one is far better than another in this regard, but instead saying that it actually depends on your requirements and exactly what it is you want to sell and teach.
Do you just need to sell a class, or an entire grand program? It’s your decision, 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 provide 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, trying to do too much and not really attaining it. And it does that while being more expensive that Thinkific, so that is another enormous consideration.
As we have mentioned before, Thinkific has a free plan you can avail of and not just test, but use indefinitely if it suits your needs. Kajabi includes a 14 day trial and that is it. If you wish to give both a spin to find out if it works for you, go ahead, but for this specific item, Thinkific clearly wins.
‘At the end of the day, Kajabi does really have an edge concerning the promotion suite if offers — and we can’t stress enough how important marketing is! Doesn’t matter how good a course is if your”classroom” is empty. However, if you need to construct a program, which is what we assumed you need, hence you exploring these options, then Thinkific is the obvious option.
Thinkific is, at its core, the answer to everything you need in the first place: A platform to help you educate.
> > Click here to try Thinkific for Free Now! < <
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 class builder, great plan options that even includes a basic free service, and it’s focus on making the experience of getting out there to make a powerful online educational platform, clearly wins. Thinkific and Convertkit
Give it a think and you’ll see what we mean.
