When it comes to platforms that allow you to develop and sell your online courses, there are a number of options out there which are available to you.
And Thinkific, we believe, is one of the best ones out there.
However, that is 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 clash against some of the best on the market, 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 Pros and Cons
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 difficult, but we will try our best anyway.
Let’s start with who uses which platform! Although they both have a wide appeal that may cater to single individuals or companies and groups, there are preferences.
Because Thinkific’s most important objective 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 specific craft such as writing, or speakers and coaches — and businesses who wish to grow and develop their companies through education for their chosen 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 people who wish to start educating 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 student 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 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 in addition to a”communities” and”Groups” features.
Teachable is much easier to use from them both, and actually has more to offer when it comes to the sales and marketing features. Additionally, it 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 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 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 offers just the basics, but it is free. And that’s a big thing.
When it comes to the paid portion though, Thinkific has a more beginner-friendly rates, but it could actually end up getting more costly than Teachable, based 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 a bit 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 are gonna need to give the crown to someone, 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 lead you to which of the two platforms you need to 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’re two very different platforms with their own pros and cons. Thinkific Pros and Cons
With Thinkific, you really can design your website. Yeah, there are templates you can use, but if you choose so and are capable, you can take control of your site’s design and customize plenty of it. With Udemy, you don’t really get that option. You’re limited in your options for design. You can choose your course graphic, but otherwise things such as course layout and style can’t really be touched.
Udem does have a market feature however, which can be quite helpful. However, it’s a double edged sword. You own the course, 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, provide any kind of discounts and when it comes 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 to your course are set at 50% commission.
There is more freedom and flexibility with Thinkific, allowing 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 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 isn’t ideal if you want to grow beyond that. If you want to expand, to take control or to simply go larger, it’s not the perfect platform for you.
We highly advise you to go with Thinkific instead, if that’s true.
If you would like, 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 program 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 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 just a bit. Thinkific Pros and Cons
But even here you can see what they concentrate on, and who they’re for specifically. For one, from how it was structured and rolled out, it is possible to see that Kajabi was created for men and women that want to feature and sell individual pieces of content, instead of a more expansive and structured learning.
You go for Kajabi if you want to teach someone let’s say how to do Shakespeare really well. A masterclass in that specific topic.
Thinkific is for people who wish 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 rather saying that it really depends on your needs and what it is you want to sell and teach.
Do you only have to sell a class, or an entire expansive curriculum? It’s your decision, and either or is fine.
Looking at the features, that is 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 really 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 satisfies your needs. Kajabi has a 14 day trial and that is it. If you want 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 indeed have an edge concerning the promotion suite if offers — and we can not 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 program, which is what we assumed you need, hence you researching these choices, then Thinkific is the obvious option.
Thinkific is, at its heart, the answer to everything you need in the first place: A platform to 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 out there, 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 Pros and Cons
Give it a think and you’ll see what we mean.
