When it comes to platforms that allow you to develop and market your online classes, there are quite a few options out there that are available to you.
And Thinkific, we believe, is among the best ones out there.
However, that is not to say the others aren’t as good. They all have their advantages and disadvantages, as does Thinkific. So today, we’re going to have Thinkific clash against some of the best out there, so you can make an educated decision on which platform works best for you.
Everybody has different needs, expectations and capabilities.
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Thinkific VS Teachable Thinkific and Paypal
First thing’s first, let us get one of the bigger, and harder, comparisons out of the way. Thinkific and Teachable are equally great. They both offer the essentials that you’ll need, easy to use whether you have experience or not, are fairly priced and are just really great solutions. They’re quite similar so that it makes choosing between the two of them a little bit more complicated, but we’ll try our best anyway.
Let’s start with who uses which platform! Though they both have a broad appeal that may cater to single individuals or businesses and groups, there are preferences.
Because Thinkific’s main goal is to empower teachers more, to assist those who really care about their students’ experience, their clients are more often that not entrepreneurs — usually masters of a particular craft such as writing, or speakers and coaches — and companies who wish to grow and build their businesses 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 some of those that Thinkific targets, but they also cover people who want to begin teaching online and earning through it.
So which are you? Who they cater to can be very 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 provides you more flexibility with its course builder, extensive course reporting tools and even an iOS app for your pupil, Thinkific can provide you advanced quizzing features, the ability to create surveys and assignments as well as a”communities” and”Groups” features.
Teachable is much easier to use from the two, and actually has more to offer in regards to the sales and marketing features. Additionally, it helps that they have some fairly powerful course reporting tools, and their checkout procedure is optimized — complete with 1-click upsells, support for Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc..
Thinkific really hones in on the side a bit more, with a greater focus on students. You can see that in its stronger quizzing capability, the way its built to support assignments. Create communities and manage your students.
It also wins out a little more in terms of its site builder, which is a big consideration if you don’t have an existing site already as it is.
Finally, concerning cost, Thinkific kind of wins since they have a plan that’s absolutely free. Sure it provides just the basics, but it’s free. And that’s a significant thing.
When it comes to the paid portion though, Thinkific includes a more beginner-friendly rates, but it could actually end up getting 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, depending on your plan.
Thinkific can be somewhat sneaky that way. But if you don’t need those extra 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 need 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 little bit easier to compare than our previous match up, due to the fact that they are two very different platforms with their own pros and cons. Thinkific and Paypal
With Thinkific, you really can 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 don’t really get that choice. You’re limited in your options for design. You can choose your course graphic, but otherwise things like course layout and style can not really be touched.
Udem does have a market feature however, which can be really useful. However, it’s a double edged sword. You own the program, but you can not take it out of Udemy’s marketplace, while with Thinkific, you can do anything you want with your courses.
You can price your course however way you see fit, offer any type of discounts and when it comes to Affiliate programs, you decide how much the commission percentage is onThinkific. However, with Udemy, you have to follow their pricing , coupon system and all Affiliate Programs for your class are set at 50% commission.
There is 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 actually have an audience yet, or in case you don’t have experience in creating an online 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 just go bigger, it is not the perfect platform for you.
We highly suggest you go with Thinkific instead, if that’s 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 with all the basics, while Udemy doesn’t charge you a monthly fee if you combine. First Hand experience is always among the best ways to see if it works for you.
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Thinkific vs Kajabi
The gap 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 Paypal
But even here you can see what they focus 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 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 do Shakespeare really well. A masterclass in that specific 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 you will find out there in the world. We’re by no means saying one is better than the other in this respect, but instead saying that it really depends upon your requirements and what it is you want to sell and teach.
Do you just need to sell a course, or an entire grand program? It’s your decision, and either or is fine.
Taking a look 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 are able to provide certifications, while with Kajabi, you can’t. Kajabi comes with an email-builder and a landing page builder, while Thinkific does not. 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 requirements?
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’s another huge 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 includes a 14 day trial and that’s it. If you wish 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 indeed have an edge concerning the marketing suite if offers — and we can not stress enough how important marketing is! Doesn’t matter how good a course is if your”classroom” is empty. However, if you will need to construct a course, which is exactly what we assumed you want, hence you researching these choices, 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 a few of the heavy hitters on the market, Thinkific with its core focus on its course builder, terrific plan options that includes a basic free service, and it’s focus on making the experience of getting out there to create a powerful online educational platform, clearly wins. Thinkific and Paypal
Give it a think and you’ll see what we mean.
