When it comes to platforms that allow you to develop and market your online courses, there are quite a few options out there that 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 good. 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 out there, so that you can make an informed decision on which platform works best for you.
Everyone has different needs, capabilities and expectations.
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Thinkific VS Teachable Thinkific and Scorm
First thing’s first, let’s get one of the bigger, and harder, comparisons out of the way. Thinkific and Teachable are equally 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’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 wide appeal that may cater to single individuals or companies and groups, there are preferences.
Because Thinkific’s main goal is to empower educators more, to assist those who really care about their students’ experience, their customers are more often that not entrepreneurs — typically masters of a particular craft such as writing, or speakers and coaches — and companies who wish to grow and develop their companies 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 want to start educating 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 pupil engagement, both Teachable and Thinkific are really good at what they do. It’s really hard 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 as well as a”communities” and”Groups” features.
Teachable is easier to use from them both, and actually has more to offer when it comes to the sales and marketing features. It also helps that they have some fairly strong 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 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 big consideration if you don’t have an existing site already as it is.
Finally, concerning price, Thinkific kind of wins because they have a plan that’s absolutely free. Sure it provides just the basics, but it is free. And that’s a significant thing.
When it comes to the paid portion though, Thinkific has a more beginner-friendly prices, but it could actually end up getting more expensive than Teachable, depending on needs and add-on features that 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 otherwise, if you do not need those additional bells and whistles, Thinkific is the less expensive option between the two.
If we are gonna need to give the crown to somebody, it would have 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 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, due to the fact that they are two quite different platforms with their own pros and cons. Thinkific and Scorm
With Thinkific, you can really design your website. Yeah, there are templates you can use, but if you choose so and are capable, it is possible to take control of your site’s design and customize a lot of it. With Udemy, you do not really get that option. You are limited in your options for design. You can choose your course graphic, but otherwise things like course layout and style can’t really be touched.
Udem does have a market 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 courses.
You can price your course however way you see fit, provide any kind of discounts and when it comes to Affiliate programs, you determine how much the commission percentage is onThinkific. However, with Udemy, you have to follow their pricing options, 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 is why Thinkific kind of stands head and shoulders over Udemy for us.
Udemy is great to get started 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’s the basics of what you need and the marketplace is a wonderful starting point. Additionally, it helps that it’s pretty inexpensive.
However, Udemy is not ideal if you want to grow beyond that. If you wish to expand, to take control or to simply go bigger, it’s not the ideal platform for you.
We highly suggest you go with Thinkific instead, if that’s the case.
If you would like, you don’t even have to take our word for it. 1 good thing you can do is try it out yourself actually. Thinkific has their free program 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 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 Scorm
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, it is possible to 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 want to teach someone let us say how to do Shakespeare really well. A masterclass in that specific topic.
Thinkific is for people who wish to sell a whole structured course on acting, from its history, to its techniques, to the different kinds and styles you will find out there in the world. We’re by no means saying one is far better than the other in this respect, but instead saying that it really depends upon your needs and what it is you want to sell and teach.
Do you just have to sell a course, or an entire grand program? It’s up to you, 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 can provide certifications, while with Kajabi, you can not. Kajabi comes with 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 actually attaining it. And it does that while being more expensive that Thinkific, so that is another huge consideration.
As we have mentioned before, Thinkific has a free plan you can avail of and not just test, but use indefinitely if it satisfies 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 indeed have an edge concerning the marketing suite if offers — and we can’t stress enough how important marketing is! Doesn’t matter how great a class is if your”classroom” is empty. However, if you need to build a course, which is what we assumed you want, hence you exploring these options, then Thinkific is your obvious choice.
Thinkific is, at its core, 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 class 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 Scorm
Give it a think and you’ll see what we mean.