Thinkific review

When Covid-19 transferred the students from classrooms to in front of the computer, there was a myriad of challenges students faced. Whether you are a digital marketing guru or a scriptwriter wanting to share your knowledge with the world, selling online courses is the way to do it. 

If you are a course creator looking for an online course creation platform to start selling courses, there’s no way you wouldn’t have heard about the Thinkific free course platform. The all-in-one business-friendly and easy-to-use online course creation platform that allows people to create and fully customize the look of their online course selling business. 

This Thinkific review will unveil everything you want to know about the online creation platform. Let’s dig in. 

Thinkific Review — Overview & Highlights

What Is Thinkific?

Thinkific free course platform was founded by Greg Smith in 2012. The online course platform is designed for entrepreneurs to share their knowledge and scale their businesses. Thinkific is basically a technology company that offers people a platform to create online courses. Best part? These courses are sold under your name through your website. 

If you want to get into specifics, you’ll be surprised to know that people from 190 countries are using Thinkfiic, and more than 75 million courses have been taken on the platform. The statistics conclude that it is one of the best Website builders out there.

Who Is It Best For?

Thinkific is recommended to people who want to take full control over their online course design. The platform allows you to create a complete course funnel. It is great for both beginners and advanced-level course creators. 

How Big Is the Network?

At the start of 2020, Thinkific carried a team of 100 employees. However, things changed as soon as they entered 2020 as the staff quickly grew to 150. 

Covid-19 turned out to be a blessing for Thinkific in a way. When the pandemic hit, “it went from a big surfing wave to a legitimate tidal wave,” said Greg, the founder of Thinkific. Additionally, the online course creation platform supported 51,000 course creators in over 165 countries in 2020. 

Keep in mind that the current number of employees is unknown.

What Kind of Services Do They Provide?

From adding presentations, quizzes, exams, assignments, and surveys to your course to building courses with videos, rich text and images, and downloadable files, Thinkific allows people to do it all. 

Who Can Use Their Services?

From academies to consultants to coaches and entrepreneurs, the platform is great for every individual with knowledge to share with the masses. The online course platform is beginner-friendly and easy to use. 

Is It Available Worldwide/Us-Based?

Thinkific is available worldwide. 

Is Thinkific Worth It?

Thinkific has helped individuals launch courses for over 9 years now. So, it’s safe to say that the platform knows a thing or two about creating, launching, and managing your digital courses. It is one of the best eCommerce platforms out there that allows small to mid-sized businesses and individuals to share their knowledge and connect with their target audience. 

Considering the pricing and the fact that it also offers a free plan, we can happily conclude that Thinkific is 100% worth a try. There’s still a lot more to learn about the platform, so let’s dive deep into this Thinkific review. 

Ease of Use

The platform is extremely easy to use and set up. From creating courses to launching and managing, Thinkific makes connecting with online students extremely easy. Even the free version has several customization options, making it easier for beginners to kick off their online course-selling business. 

How Secure Is It?

The platform ensures that unauthorized users cannot access your courses. In other words, no one can gain access to your course without purchasing it. 

Does It Have a Mobile App?

According to the website, Thinkific doesn’t have a Thinkific Mobile App. However, the Thinkific Course Player is fully mobile responsive, so your students can watch your courses from any device. 

Customer Support

You can connect with the customer representatives through email or phone if you face any issues while creating, launching, and managing courses. You can email them at [email protected] or call at 1-888-832-2409. Thinkific also offers live chat support, but the facility is only available to paid plans users. 

Features

• Built-in Course Authoring 
• Asynchronous Learning 
• Audio Video Recording
• Course Publishing
• Data Import/Export
• eCommerce Management 
• eLearning Companies
• Instructor-Led Courses
• Certification & Licensing 
• Interactive Content
• Gamification
• Thinkific Mailchimp integration (makes sure that your Thinkific users are automatically added to your Mailchimp account)

Other Features

• 24/7 Support

Free plan users are only offered support through email and phone. In contrast, paid plans users can use the live chat support feature to get answers to every query they might have. 

• Role-Based Templates

With Thinkific templates, you can create courses in no time. 

How to Use Thinkific?

Thinkific is a great course builder that allows you to: 

• Create Your Course
• Grow Your Business
• Educate at Scale
• Create Stories

To get started on Thinkific, you have to first create your account by adding your name and email and setting up a password. When you log in, you’ll see a menu comprising the options of “Manage learning content,” “design your site,” “market your sell,” “advanced reporting,” and “support your students.”

The first thing you need to do to get started is select a theme from their theme library. After changing your banner under the Home Page tab, select the image you want to be the banner. After selecting a theme, you have to create pages. This you can do by Clicking on Site Builder, going to Pages, selecting Custom Page, giving your page a title, and selecting “Add.” 

After that, you’ll be ready to create your first course. Here, you can either choose a course template or choose “Blank” if you want to start from scratch. You then have to name your course and add chapters. If you have already created lessons using other programs, you can drag and drop the files here. 

After dropping the lessons, you can add links to other resources under the text description box and even create quizzes. You can also import PDFs, audio files, etc. You then have to customize your course landing page, which includes the following components:

• A banner
• Course description
• Curriculum display 
• Instructor bio section
• Frequently asked questions
• Testimonials (You can use reviews on your Thinkific sales page) 
• A Call to Action

When you are done customizing Thinkific landing pages, you’ll be ready to publish your course. It’s as easy as that. 

What Are the Benefits of Thinkific?

There are several benefits of using the Thinkific training platform. Some of the benefits include: 

• Expert-Led Training Courses
• Swipe Copy & Templates
• Workshop Replays 

Thinkific Pricing

What Are the Plans Available?

• Free Plan – $0/month
• Basic Plan – $49/month ($39/mo paid annually)
• Pro Plan – $99/month ($79/mo paid annually)
• Premier Plan – $499/month ($399/mo paid annually)

Any Subscriptions?

Thinkific also allows users to create a Thinkific membership site. A membership site is where you can publish your online courses and create your own community. The platform also allows you to create a subscription price for your courses or bundles. 

Any Free Trial/ Free Version?

Yes, Thinkific does offer a free version that includes support through email and phone, Thinkific free courses, 1 site admin account, easy drag and drop course builder, and easy-to-use templates. 

Are Any Coupons/Deals Available?

The platform offers various plans that you can choose from. By paying annually, you can save a huge chunk of money. Thinkific payments are accepted through Stripe, PayPal, and debit and credit cards. 

Does It Provide Any Affiliate Programs?

Yes, it does. With Thinkific’s affiliate program, you can earn up to $1,700 per referrel, every year. 

Pros 

• Easy to set up and beginner-friendly
• Offers a free plan 
• Supports multimedia like video, text, presentations, quizzes, worksheets, surveys, assignments, etc. 
• Offers an array of course templates to choose from
• People who don’t have a coding background can easily create courses 
• Supports multiple payment options for various types of students and schools
• Offers users complete ownership over their courses 
• Carries hosting features, as well as course marketing, course management, student engagement, and payment handling capabilities
• Doesn’t charge any sort of fees on the payments made by learners to access courses  
• Doesn’t take a cut from your profits 

Cons   

• Doesn’t have a mobile application 
• Doesn’t offer live support 
• Requires third-party integrations to build your email list 

Customer Ratings and Reviews

• When I was researching all the different software for course hosting, I liked that this had a place to upload documents in the discussions. That might be really important for people teaching code or other products. Then I’m glad I choose this one because others take a % of income AND you have to wait longer for money (Pamela through Software Advice)
• I was a little limited with the amount and layout of content on the course sales pages. Wish options here were more flexible. Also, the reporting at my subscription level is a little time-consuming requiring exports to Excel to confirm actual totals each time. It’s easy enough to work around, however, and I have found customer support to be exceptional at helping me with some of my more creative workarounds (Karen C. through GetApp)
• When I was researching all the different software for course hosting, I liked that this had a place to upload documents in the discussions. That might be really important for people teaching code or other products. Then I’m glad I choose this one because others take a % of income AND you have to wait longer for money (Lucas M. through GetApp)

Ratings

Alternatives

Thinkific vs. Kajabi

One of the best Thinkific competitors is Kajabi. Both Thinkific and Kajabi are big names in the online course creation industry. While Thinkific offers great features, Kajabi stands out due to the availability of a mobile application. Both Kajabi and Thinkific are easy to use and beginner-friendly. Thinkific outshines with course templates, whereas Kajabi carries superior course creating services. Another difference between the two is that Thinkific is more of a course builder, whereas Kajabi is a complete marketing platform. 

The primary reason people choose Thinkific over Kajabi is that it offers a free plan. In contrast, Kajabi does offer a free trial, but not exactly a free plan. With that being said, if you are on the lookout for a great alternative to Thinkific, Kajabi should be on the top of your list due to its sales automation tagging features, certifications, pricing, etc. 

Thinkific vs. Teachable

Another great alternative to Thinkific is Teachable. Where Thinkific offers an easy setup and allows you to take complete control over your content and customer data, Teachable offers various tools to help you calculate your ROI. 

Thinkific offers better course compliance features than Teachable. On the other hand, Teachable offers services like automated affiliate and author payouts. If you want to use advanced marketing and sales pages to help you after launch, Teachable will be the right platform for you. 

If we talk about similarities, both Thinkific and Teachable include unlimited hosting to allow you to upload a varied variety of multimedia, including audio, video, PDFs, text, and quizzes. Unlike Thinkific, Teachable does have a mobile app, but it’s only available to Apple users.

Thinkific vs. Podia

Podia is one of the best online course platforms out there. In comparison to Thinkific, Podia is easier to use. What gives Thinkific an edge over Podia is its ability to support advanced customization and technical integrations. 

Thinkific offers a free plan, whereas Podia doesn’t. The latter also allows users to bulk email at lower pricing tiers. The primary reason people choose Thinkific over Podia is that it supports 135+ currencies, whereas the latter only supports 35. 

Podia is a newer course-building platform but has managed to take the E-Learning world by storm. The builder is extremely user-friendly and secure. Similar to Thinkific, it doesn’t charge any transaction fees. Podia’s email marketing features are what give the platform an edge over Thinkific. With Podia, you can send one-off newsletters to your whole email list, which isn’t quite possible with Thinkific. 

Conclusion

We hope that this Thinkific review taught helped you learn more about the Thinkific free course platform.  

According to Forbes, the online course industry’s total revenue was $46 Billion in 2018 online grew and is expected to climb to $325 Billion By 2025. Online courses allow you to share your knowledge with the world. 

Whether you are an experienced salesperson, mathematician, or creative director wanting to educate people on the skill you have mastered, with Thinkific, you can easily create, launch, and manage your online courses.

Thinkific offers users a bunch of features to customize their courses. The best part of using Thinkific is that it gives you 100% access to all functionality available on the account. 

The platform doesn’t claim any intellectual property rights over your materials, so all the courses are published under your name, and you have complete ownership over the content you build on the platform.