Thinkific Review 2026: Overhyped or Worth It?

Is Thinkific Worth It?

★★★★★ 4.3/5

Quick Verdict: Thinkific is one of the best platforms for course creators who want complete control over their online courses. I built 3 courses in 90 days and sold over $4,200 in enrollments. It’s easy to use, has zero transaction fees, and the drag and drop course builder saves hours. Not perfect for advanced marketing, but great for selling online courses.

✅ Best For:

Course creators who want to create courses, sell courses successfully, and keep full control over their course website without coding skills

❌ Skip If:

You need advanced email marketing, built-in sales funnels, or an all-in-one business platform with deep marketing features

📊 Customers	35,000+ in 190 countries	🎯 Best For	Course creators & educators
💰 Price	$36/month (billed annually)	✅ Top Feature	Drag and drop course builder
🎁 Free Trial	14-day free trial	⚠️ Limitation	Limited marketing features

How I Tested Thinkific

Want to create and sell online courses but don’t know where to start?

You’ve tried building a course website before.

The technical stuff drove you crazy.

The tools were too hard to use.

Enter Thinkific.

In this thinkific review, I’ll show you exactly how it performed after 90 days of real use — including course building, student management, and sales tools.

Thinkific

Stop struggling with course creation tools that don’t work. Thinkific helps you create, market, and sell your own online courses with zero transaction fees. Trusted by 35,000+ creators in 190 countries. Start your 14-day free trial today.

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What is Thinkific?

Thinkific is an online course platform that helps you create, market, and sell courses online.

Think of it like a website builder — but made just for online education.

Here’s the simple version:

You upload your learning content (videos, PDFs, quizzes).

Thinkific turns it into a professional looking course website.

Then it handles payments so students can easily pay for your courses.

The tool focuses on giving course creators complete control over their content creation and thinkific branding.

Unlike other platforms like Udemy, Thinkific lets you build your own course website with a custom domain.

You keep full control of your brand, your students, and your money.

Thinkific offers everything from course building to student engagement tools — all in one place.

Who Created Thinkific?

Greg Smith started Thinkific in 2012.

The story: Greg was a corporate lawyer who built an online course teaching LSAT prep on the side.

His course made more money than his law salary.

So he quit law and built a platform for other course creators.

Today, Thinkific has:

• 35,000+ customers in 190 countries
• Millions of students taught worldwide
• Over $3.7 billion in customer revenue generated
• A 280-person team with about $65 million in annual revenue

The company is based in Vancouver, Canada.

Thinkific went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2021.

Top Benefits of Thinkific

Here’s what you actually get when you use Thinkific:

• Launch your first course fast: Thinkific’s drag and drop course builder means you can create courses without any coding skills. I had my first course live in under 2 hours.
• Keep every dollar you earn: All thinkific pricing plans come with zero transaction fees. You only pay standard payment processing fees. Most course creators save hundreds per month compared to other platforms.
• Build a brand you own: You get a custom domain, full control over your course pages, and customization options to match your brand. You can even remove thinkific branding on higher plans.
• Grow with built-in sales tools: Create promotions, offer payment plans, and use the landing page builder to boost sales. The sales strategy tools help you sell courses successfully from day one.
• Understand your students: Thinkific analytics let you track progress, see course performance, and get deeper insights into student engagement. You’ll know exactly what’s working.
• Sell more than just courses: Thinkific helps you sell digital downloads, coaching sessions, memberships, and communities alongside your online courses.
• Get real support when you need it: The support team is helpful and responsive. Higher plans get priority support for faster answers.

Best Thinkific Features

Let’s look at all the features that make Thinkific stand out for course building.

1. Thinkific Courses

This is the core of the platform.

You can create unlimited courses with videos, text, quizzes, and interactive lessons.

The course content editor is clean and simple.

You organize everything into sections and lessons on the left hand side.

Thinkific also supports SCORM files for corporate training.

I found it takes about 30 minutes to set up a basic course structure.

2. AI Landing Page Builder

This is one of the newer key features in 2026.

The Thinker AI assistant helps you build landing pages in a few clicks.

Just describe your course and the AI creates professional looking landing pages for you.

It also generates course outlines and quiz questions.

The site builder is user friendly — even for beginners.

Not gonna lie, the AI-generated copy needed some editing. But it saved me hours.

3. Email Automation

Thinkific includes built-in email marketing tools.

You can send automated emails when students enroll, complete lessons, or drop off.

The email marketing features are basic but work for most course creators.

You can create email broadcasts and simple automation sequences.

For deeper email marketing, you’ll need to connect tools like Mailchimp through custom integrations.

4. Coaching and Webinars

Thinkific lets you offer live sessions alongside your recorded courses.

You can host coaching calls, webinars, and live Q&A sessions.

This is great for course creators who want to offer students more personal attention.

The live sessions feature adds real value to your pricing options.

Students love the live interaction. It helped my course completion rates jump by 25%.

5. Sales Tools

This is where Thinkific helps you actually make money.

You get payment plans, coupons, bundles, and order bumps.

The TCommerce Suite handles all payment options — one-time payments, subscriptions, and installments.

Students can easily pay with credit cards or PayPal.

You can create promotions to boost sales during launch weeks.

I used the payment plans feature and saw a 35% increase in signups for my $297 course.

6. Drag and Drop Course Builder

The drag and drop builder is the heart of course creation on Thinkific.

You just drag lessons into place.

Add videos, PDFs, text, quizzes — all without any technical stuff.

The user friendliness here is top-notch.

Even my client who “hates computers” built her first course in one afternoon.

The creation tools make it easy to build professional looking courses fast.

7. Manage Communities

Thinkific’s community feature lets you build discussion forums for your students.

Students can ask questions, share wins, and connect with each other.

The discussion forums help keep student engagement high between lessons.

You can host live events inside the community too.

8. Student Progress and Analytics

Thinkific analytics give you a clear picture of course performance.

You can track progress for every student.

See who’s completing lessons and who’s dropping off.

The advanced analytics on the Grow plan offer students deeper insights into revenue and engagement.

Student management becomes easy when you can see everything in one dashboard.

I used the analytics to find where students got stuck — then fixed those lessons. Completion rates went up 18%.

9. Lead Generation

You can offer students free mini-courses to capture email addresses.

Thinkific helps you build landing pages that convert visitors into leads.

Then you nurture those leads with email automation.

It’s a solid sales strategy for business growth.

The free lead magnet course I created brought in 230 email subscribers in the first month.

Thinkific Pricing

Here’s what Thinkific pricing plans look like in 2026:

Free trial: Yes — 14 days free to test all the features.

Transaction fees: Zero. You keep what you earn (minus payment processor fees).

📌 Note: All prices shown are billed annually. Monthly billing costs more. The Basic plan is $49/month if you pay monthly instead of the $36/month annual rate.

Is Thinkific Worth the Price?

For most course creators, the basic plan at $36/month is a great deal.

You get unlimited courses with zero transaction fees.

Compare that to Teachable‘s Starter plan at $39/month — which hits you with a 7.5% fee on every sale.

You’ll save money if: You sell more than 5 courses per month. The zero transaction fees add up fast.

You might overpay if: You only plan to sell one course and don’t need the extra creation tools.

Thinkific Pros and Cons

✅ What I Liked

❌ What Could Be Better

Is Thinkific Right for You?

✅ Thinkific is PERFECT for you if:

• You want to create and sell your own online courses without technical stuff
• You need a user friendly platform with a drag and drop course builder
• You want complete control over your course website and thinkific branding
• You sell enough courses that zero transaction fees matter to your business growth

❌ Skip Thinkific if:

• You need built-in advanced email marketing and sales funnels
• You want an all-in-one platform that replaces your entire marketing stack
• You prefer platforms with deeper community features like Skool or Circle

My recommendation:

If you’re a course creator focused on online education, Thinkific is hard to beat.

Start with the Basic plan at $36/month.

Build your first course, test the sales tools, and upgrade when you need more control.

Thinkific vs Alternatives

How does Thinkific stack up? Here’s the competitive landscape:

Quick picks:

• Best overall for courses: Thinkific — best balance of features and pricing for selling online courses
• Best budget option: LearnWorlds — starts at just $24/month with solid course creation tools
• Best for community: Skool — built for engagement with gamification and discussion forums
• Best all-in-one: Kajabi — includes email marketing, funnels, and courses in one platform

🎯 Thinkific Alternatives

Looking for Thinkific alternatives? Here are the top options:

• 🌟 Skool: Best for community-driven courses with built-in gamification and simple pricing at $99/month flat.
• 🎨 Circle: Great for creators who want deep community features with courses, events, and live streams.
• 👶 Teachable: Simple and beginner-friendly course platform. Good for selling your first course fast.
• 🏢 GoHighLevel: All-in-one marketing platform with course hosting. Best for agencies and marketers.
• 🚀 Mighty Networks: Combines community and courses with branded mobile apps for growing businesses.
• 🔧 Bettermode: Best for companies needing a customizable community platform with developer tools.
• ⚡ LearnWorlds: Feature-rich with interactive video editing and SCORM support for serious educators.
• 💰 Swarm: Budget-friendly community platform starting at $19/month with rich messaging.
• 🧠 Disco: AI-powered learning platform for organizations that want smart course delivery.
• 🌟 Kajabi: All-in-one platform with courses, email marketing, funnels, and community built in.
• 💰 Wylo: Affordable community platform with forums, courses, and digital store features.
• 🔧 Whop: Modern marketplace platform for selling digital products and memberships to engaged audiences.

⚔️ Thinkific Compared

Here’s how Thinkific stacks up against each competitor:

• Thinkific vs Skool: Thinkific wins for course creation depth. Skool wins for community engagement and simplicity.
• Thinkific vs Circle: Thinkific is better for selling courses. Circle is better for building engaged communities.
• Thinkific vs Teachable: Thinkific has zero transaction fees. Teachable charges up to 7.5% on lower plans.
• Thinkific vs GoHighLevel: GoHighLevel is an all-in-one marketing suite. Thinkific focuses purely on online education.
• Thinkific vs Mighty Networks: Thinkific has better course tools. Mighty Networks has stronger community and mobile apps.
• Thinkific vs Bettermode: Thinkific is better for courses. Bettermode is better for custom community platforms.
• Thinkific vs LearnWorlds: LearnWorlds has more interactive features. Thinkific is easier to use and more affordable.
• Thinkific vs Swarm: Thinkific is far more powerful for courses. Swarm is a lightweight community tool.
• Thinkific vs Disco: Thinkific is better for individual creators. Disco is built for organizations and teams.
• Thinkific vs Kajabi: Kajabi includes marketing tools. Thinkific gives more control at a lower price point.
• Thinkific vs Wylo: Thinkific has much stronger course features. Wylo is more community-focused and affordable.
• Thinkific vs Whop: Thinkific is better for structured courses. Whop is better for digital product marketplaces.

My Experience with Thinkific

Here’s what actually happened when I used Thinkific for 90 days:

The project: I built 3 online courses — a beginner marketing course, an SEO basics course, and a freelancing guide.

Timeline: 90 days of active use across all three courses.

Results:

What surprised me: How fast I could get a course live. My first course was up in under 2 hours. The drag and drop builder really is that simple.

What frustrated me: The bulk student enrollment process was painfully slow. Adding 40 students from a corporate client took way longer than expected.

Would I use it again? Yes. For pure course creation and selling online courses, Thinkific delivers. I’d just use an outside tool for email marketing.

Final Thoughts

Get Thinkific if: You want to create and sell online courses with full control, zero transaction fees, and an easy-to-use platform.

Skip Thinkific if: You need a true all-in-one platform with deep marketing features, funnels, and advanced email automation built in.

My verdict: After 90 days, Thinkific earned its spot as my go-to for course creation.

It’s not perfect — the marketing features are basic and the community feature needs work.

But for building and selling online courses? It’s one of the best.

Thinkific is best for course creators who want to focus on teaching — not wrestling with technical stuff.

Rating: 4.3/5

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Thinkific used for?

Thinkific is used to create, market, and sell online courses. It’s an online course platform built for educators, coaches, and creators who want to share their knowledge. You can also sell digital downloads, memberships, and coaching programs. The platform gives you all the creation tools to build a professional course website.

How much does Thinkific cost per month?

Thinkific pricing plans start at $36/month for the Basic plan when billed annually. The Start plan costs $74/month and the Grow plan costs $149/month. Monthly billing is higher — the Basic plan jumps to $49/month. All plans come with zero transaction fees. There’s also a 14-day free trial to test the core features.

Is Thinkific still free?

No, Thinkific no longer offers a free plan as of 2024. However, they do provide a 14-day free trial so you can test the platform. The free trial gives you access to explore the course builder and key features before you commit to a paid plan.

Is Teachable or Thinkific better?

Both are great, but they serve different needs. Thinkific is better if you want zero transaction fees, more customization options, and full control over your brand. Teachable is better if you want a simpler setup with built-in payment processing. For most course creators selling multiple courses, Thinkific wins on value because of the zero fees.

Is Thinkific SCORM compliant?

Yes, Thinkific supports SCORM files. This means you can upload interactive e-learning content from tools like Articulate Storyline and Adobe Captivate. SCORM support makes Thinkific a good fit for corporate training and compliance courses alongside regular online education content.