Geoff CuddThinkific is the course platform I recommend to most creators, and the reason is a number that almost nobody quotes.
Thinkific charges 0% platform fees on every paid plan. But if you connect your own Stripe account instead of using Thinkific's built-in TCommerce processor, it adds a surcharge: 5% on Basic, 2% on Start, 1% on Grow. On Basic, selling $1,000 a month, that surcharge costs you $50. Your plan costs $40. Use TCommerce and the fee disappears.
Get that one setting right and Thinkific is the cheapest serious platform here. Get it wrong and you pay more in fees than you do in subscription.
Note: Thinkific removed its free plan in 2025. Several older reviews still sell it as a key advantage. It no longer exists. Everything below reflects the current platform.
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Explore how easy it is to create, market, and sell your own online course.
Start Free TrialWe offer this website completely free to our visitors. To help pay the bills, we’ll often (but not always) set up affiliate relationships with the top providers after selecting our favorites. However, we do our best not to let this impact our choices. There are plenty of high-paying companies we’ve turned down because we didn’t like their product.
An added benefit of our relationships is that we always try to negotiate exclusive discounts for our visitors.
Thinkific Video Review
Thinkific Pricing
The prices below are Thinkific's annual rates, which is how it advertises them. Monthly billing runs about 25% higher.
- Basic ($40/mo billed annually). Unlimited courses, 1 community with 5 spaces, 1 admin, up to 10,000 students, custom domain, affiliate selling, email and live chat support.
- Start ($82/mo billed annually). Everything in Basic, plus completion certificates, memberships and payment plans, live lessons via Zoom, assignments, bundles, and 10 community spaces. The best value for most creators.
- Grow ($164/mo billed annually). Everything in Start, plus 3 communities, 20 spaces each, 2 admin accounts, branding removal, bulk student emailer, bulk enrollments, API access, and phone support.
- Plus. Custom enterprise pricing. Unlimited everything, dedicated success manager, SSO, enterprise API, and white-label environments. Used by Samsung, Intuit, and Hootsuite.
There is no free plan. Every account starts with a free trial, no credit card required, which runs 30 days through our link. A white-labeled mobile app is available as an add-on from Basic up, at $199/month.
For current promotions, check our Thinkific discount page.
See for yourself with a 30-day free trial
Explore how easy it is to create, market, and sell your own online course.
Start Free TrialWhat Thinkific Does Well
You can make it look like your own site
This is the clearest gap between Thinkific and Teachable. You can brand your courses and storefront to match your existing website, and technical users get full access to modify the HTML and CSS. Teachable applies branding at the school level only.
The course builder handles quizzes, surveys, student discussions, prerequisite lessons, and completion certificates from the Start plan up. Lessons take video, audio, PDFs, text, quizzes, and presentations, and there is a voice-over PowerPoint tool that makes video production easier if you are not filming yourself.
The App Store carries 80+ integrations including Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Infusionsoft, and Brillium Exams. Anything missing connects through Zapier.
It is the only major platform with phone support
Phone support comes with the Grow plan. Every other platform at this price limits you to chat and email, and Teachable has no phone support at any tier. If you would rather talk to someone than wait on a ticket, this is the reason to pick Thinkific.
Communities are built in
Course owners can run a forum under their own brand where students post to a shared board, comment, and share images, videos, and files. You can bundle it free with a course, sell it as a subscription, or charge once for lifetime access.
What you get scales with your plan: 1 community with 5 spaces on Basic, 1 with 10 spaces on Start, and 3 with 20 spaces on Grow.
Setup is faster than it used to be
Thinkific added an AI course outline generator and guided onboarding in 2024. Give it your topic and it structures the content for you, then walks you through setup step by step. For a first course, that removes most of the blank-page problem.
On the selling side you get coupons, discounts, affiliate selling, bundles and subscriptions, and a checkout with Apple Pay and Google Pay. Payment plans and subscriptions need the Start plan.
At the top end, Plus adds white-labeled environments for selling separate academies to different audiences, single sign-on via OpenID Connect, and an enterprise API. API access on its own starts at Grow. Thinkific is SOC2 compliant, and its Expert marketplace will connect you with people who build, design, or market courses for a fee.
Where Thinkific Falls Short
- No email marketing and no funnel builder. You will pay for Mailchimp or ConvertKit and something like ClickFunnels alongside it. If you want those bundled, Kajabi is the platform that does it.
- No free plan since 2025. The entry point is $40/month billed annually.
- The Stripe surcharge. Covered above, and worth repeating only because it is easy to trigger by accident during setup.
- Certificates need the Start plan. If you want students to finish with something to show, Basic will not do it.
- Standard plans cap at 10,000 students. Past that you are on Plus and negotiating a price.
- No course marketplace. Every student comes from your own marketing.
- No live chat on Grow. You trade it for phone support, which is the better deal for most people, but worth knowing.
Is Thinkific Legit?
It is a publicly traded company on the Toronto Stock Exchange under THNC, founded in Vancouver in 2012, with $66.9 million in revenue in 2024.
Over 60,000 active creators use it, including Lewis Howes, John Lee Dumas, and Sunny Lenarduzzi, alongside Samsung, Hootsuite, Intuit, and AWeber. The platform has processed more than 100 million enrollments across 190 countries, and creators sold $459 million through it in 2024.
You keep 100% ownership of everything you publish. Courses are locked to enrolled students, and you can stop video downloads and block text copying inside lessons. Thinkific is SOC2 compliant.
How to Create a Thinkific Course
1. Create your account
Start your 30-day free trial. No credit card required.
In Settings, set your school name and custom URL, and connect your own domain if you are on a paid plan. Complete your instructor profile under Manage Learning Content, then set up payments under Market and Sell.
The four areas you will live in: Manage Learning Content for courses, instructors, and video library. Design Your Site for your storefront and themes. Market and Sell for coupons, orders, and payment integrations. Advanced Reporting for revenue, enrollments, and engagement.
Pick a theme, then set your homepage banner and build out pages and navigation before you create any courses.
2. Create your first course
Choose a template or start blank. Name the course, add chapters, then add lessons by uploading video, audio, PDFs, or text. The Bulk Importer takes multiple files at once.
Add a quiz through Add Lesson, then Quiz. You can build full question sets with several answer types. Set your price under Pricing: free, one-time, subscription, or installment plan. The last two need Start or above.
3. Build the landing page
This is what turns visitors into students. Click Build A Landing Page and use Add Section for each part: banner, course description, curriculum, instructor bio, FAQs, testimonials, and a clear call to action. Thinkific has pre-built templates for the bio, FAQ, testimonial, and CTA blocks, which makes this fast even if you cannot design.
4. Publish
Go to Manage Learning Content, select the course, and hit Publish. Then use preview mode and walk through it as a student before you share the link.
See for yourself with a 30-day free trial
Explore how easy it is to create, market, and sell your own online course.
Start Free TrialHow Thinkific Compares
| Platform | Starting Price | Transaction Fees | Free Plan | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thinkific | $40/mo (billed annually) | 0% (own Stripe adds 1-5%) | No (30-day trial via our link) | Focused course delivery |
| Kajabi | $179/mo ($143 annual) | 0% (Kajabi Payments) | No (30-day trial via our link) | All-in-one with email and funnels |
| Teachable | $39/mo ($29 annual) | 7.5% on Starter, 0% on Builder+ | No (7-day trial) | Simple course delivery |
| Podia | $42/mo | 5% on Mover, 0% on Shaker | No (30-day trial) | Digital products and downloads |
| Udemy | Free to publish | 37-63% revenue share | Yes (marketplace model) | Marketplace reach, no marketing |
Full reviews if you want to dig in: Teachable (head to head), Kajabi (head to head), Podia, LearnDash, and Udemy. We rank them all in our guide to the best online course platforms.
Tips for Selling Your First Course
The temptation with a good course idea is to disappear for three months and build the whole thing. Do a mini-course first instead.
Take one chapter of your planned course and use it as a proof of concept. Offer it free or cheap to your existing audience, your social followers, or through a small paid campaign. Put a survey at the end asking what to improve and what people want next, and collect email addresses while you are at it.
You end up building the full course around what students actually asked for, and you launch to a list that already wants it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Thinkific free?
No. Thinkific removed its free plan in 2025 and replaced it with a free trial, which runs 30 days through our link. The lowest paid plan is Basic at $40/month billed annually. If you want a genuinely free starting point with no time limit, Systeme.io still offers one covering courses and email up to 2,000 contacts.
Does Thinkific charge transaction fees?
No platform fee on any paid plan. The catch is that using your own Stripe account instead of TCommerce adds 5% on Basic, 2% on Start, and 1% on Grow. Standard Stripe or PayPal processing fees apply either way.
Is Thinkific an LMS?
Yes. Thinkific is a web-based learning management system used to deliver training courses and educational content in written, video, and interactive formats.
Is Thinkific easy to use?
Yes, relatively. The interface is clean, and the guided onboarding and AI course outline generator make setup faster than it used to be. Advanced features still take some learning, but the documentation is thorough.
Does Thinkific own your content?
No. You keep 100% ownership of everything you publish.
Where is Thinkific located?
Thinkific is headquartered at 369 Terminal Ave #400, Vancouver, BC, Canada, and trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange as THNC.
