When it comes to platforms that allow you to develop and market your online courses, there are a number of options out there that are available to you.
And Thinkific, we believe, is among the best ones out there.
However, that’s not to say the 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 educated decision on which platform works best for you.
Everyone has different needs, expectations and capabilities.
> > Click here to try Thinkific for Free Now! < <
Thinkific VS Teachable Optimize Press Vs Thinkific
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 both 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 it makes choosing between the two of them a little bit more difficult, but we will 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 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 — usually masters of a particular craft such as writing, or speakers and coaches — and companies who want to grow and build their businesses through education for their preferred audience.
Teachable on the other hand honestly 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 individuals who wish to start teaching online and earning through it.
So which are you? Who they appeal 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 excellent 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 an iOS app for your pupil, Thinkific can give you advanced quizzing features, the ability to create surveys and assignments in addition to a”communities” and”Groups” features.
Teachable is easier to use from them both, and really has more to offer in regards to the sales and marketing features. It also helps that they have some fairly powerful 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 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, in terms of price, Thinkific kind of wins since they have a plan that’s absolutely free. Sure it offers just the basics, but it’s free. And that’s a big thing.
In regards to the paid portion though, Thinkific includes a more beginner-friendly prices, but it could actually end up becoming more expensive than Teachable, depending on needs and add-on features which 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 otherwise, if you do not need those extra bells and whistles, Thinkific is the less expensive option between the two.
If we’re gonna have to give the crown to someone, it would need to be Thinkific, with it barely beating out Teachable. It’s 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 should 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. Optimize Press Vs Thinkific
With Thinkific, you can really design your website. Yeah, there are templates you can use, but if you choose so and are capable, you can totally take control of your site’s design and customize plenty of it. With Udemy, you don’t really get that choice. You’re limited in your choices for design. You can pick your course graphic, but otherwise things such as course layout and style can’t really be touched.
Udem does have a marketplace feature however, which can be really 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, offer any type of discounts and in regards to Affiliate programs, you decide 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 is more freedom and flexibility with Thinkific, allowing 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 really have an audience yet, or If you don’t have experience in creating an internet course. It has the basics of what you need and the market is a fantastic starting point. Additionally, it helps that it is pretty inexpensive.
However, Udemy is not ideal if you would like to grow beyond that. If you want to expand, to take control or to simply go larger, it is not the ideal platform for you.
We highly advise you to go with Thinkific instead, if that is true.
If you want, you don’t even have 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 does not charge you a monthly fee if you join. First Hand experience is always one of the best ways to see if it works for you.
> > Click here to try Thinkific for Free Now! < <
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 a bit. Optimize Press Vs Thinkific
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 who want to sell and feature individual pieces of content, instead of 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 particular topic.
Thinkific is for people who wish to sell a whole 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 another in this regard, but instead saying that it really depends on your requirements and exactly what it is you want to sell and teach.
Do you only need to sell a class, or an entire expansive curriculum? 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 can provide certifications, while with Kajabi, you can’t. 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 requirements?
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’s another enormous consideration.
As we have mentioned before, Thinkific includes 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 wish to give both a spin to see 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 marketing 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 course, which is what we assumed you need, hence you researching these choices, then Thinkific is the clear option.
Thinkific is, at its core, the answer to what 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 on the market, Thinkific with its core focus on its class builder, great plan options that includes a basic free service, and it’s focus on making the experience of getting out there to create a strong online educational platform, clearly wins. Optimize Press Vs Thinkific
Give it a think and you’ll see what we mean.
