Choosing the right course creation platform can be a difficult decision. While many compare these two platforms, knowing which one suits your specific needs is crucial.
I discovered these two platforms while creating my online course. During my course of use, I had several moments of dissatisfaction and many moments of satisfaction.
To save you time in juggling between the two, I have written this in-depth and personal comparison.
As your helpful assistant, I have identified the most important factors to consider when choosing a course platform and how Thinkific outperforms Teachable.
Contents
- Teachable vs Thinkific: Major Differences
- Thinkific Vs Teachable Features Comparison
- Thinkific Vs Teachable Integrations
- Thinkific vs Teachable: Course Creation
- Teachable vs Thinkific: Coaching & Community
- Thinkific vs Teachable: Languages Supported
- Teachable vs Thinkific: Pricing
- Thinkific vs Teachable: Customer Support
- Thinkific vs Teachable: Pros and Cons
- Verdict on Teachable vs Thinkific: Which One Wins?
Teachable vs Thinkific: Major Differences
People often compare Teachable to Thinkific, and I can see why.
Teachable and Thinkific have existed in the online course industry for quite some time.
Teachable creates tools and products that cater to the needs of online courses. However, it’s important to note some notable differences between the two platforms that you should consider before deciding which one to use.
Feature | Teachable | Thinkific |
---|---|---|
Ease of Use | ✅ | ✅ |
Course Creation & Engagement | ✅ | ✅ |
Site Design & Customization | ✅ | ✅ |
Sales & Marketing Tools | ✅ | ❌ |
Customer Support | ✅ | ✅ |
Pricing Options | ✅ | ✅ |
Advanced Quizzing Feature | ❌ | ✅ |
Support for Assignments and Surveys | ❌ | ✅ |
Course Compliance Features | ❌ | ✅ |
Supports Live Lesson Type | ❌ | ✅ |
Native Community Feature | ❌ | ✅ |
Powerful Site and Page Builder | ❌ | ✅ |
Ability to Bulk Sell Courses | ❌ | ✅ |
More Third-party Integrations | ❌ | ✅ |
Free Pricing Tier | ❌ | ✅ |
Course Builder Ease of Use | ✅ | ❌ |
Supports 1:1 Coaching Product | ✅ | ❌ |
Well-optimized 1-step Checkout Process | ✅ | ❌ |
Supports Apple Pay and Google Pay | ✅ | ❌ |
Handles EU Digital Goods VAT Tax | ✅ | ❌ |
Offers Automated Affiliate and Author Payouts | ✅ | ❌ |
Offers Live Chat Support | ✅ | ❌ |
Content Uploading & Course Structuring | ✅ | ✅ |
Content Delivery (Course Player) | ✅ | ✅ |
Coaching & Community | ✅ | ✅ |
Quizzes & Assignments | ✅ | ✅ |
Certificates of Completion | ✅ | ✅ |
Content Drip & Locking | ✅ | ✅ |
Course Reporting & Analytics | ✅ | ❌ |
Groups | ❌ | ✅ |
Thinkific Overview
Thinkific is an all-in-one online course-creation platform designed to help people unleash their skills by creating, marketing, selling, and delivering engaging courses.
All of this is on your very own customized and personalized website. Thinkific was founded when co-founder and CEO Greg Smith decided to make his LSAT course available to the public with the help of his brother and a few friends.
His online course took off quickly, and he began earning far more money than he did from his corporate law practice.
This was when people with similar interests and the desire to launch their courses approached Greg. They were astounded by the traffic and revenue Greg’s online course generated.
They wanted to sell personalized courses under their brand name and website to drive business and personal growth.
That is when Greg and his co-founders decided to create this one-stop online course creation platform for users worldwide. Thinkific’s level of control over its content, data, custom templates, website design, and business was highly beneficial.
Who is Thinkific for?
Thinkific suits you if you are comfortable with technology and okay with a learning curve while creating your course. It is best for consultants, experts, trainers, speakers, authors, professional associations, and authorities.
Teachable Overview
Teachable is a no-code platform for creators to experiment with creating visually appealing online courses, coaching, and digital downloads to build more impactful businesses.
It has a straightforward layout and user interface, allowing beginners to operate efficiently and scale their businesses to the next level.
Over 68,000 instructors have launched courses on Teachable and earned $338 million in revenue by selling their studies.’
Teachable is a Learning Management System (LMS) for bloggers, creators, artists, teachers, entrepreneurs, online educators, and anyone who wants to create meaningful courses for a large audience.
Teachable provides its instructors with everything they need: personal development, personal branding, creating a membership site for communicating with your students or reaching out to 7 million students via the platform.
Top educators, bloggers, creators such as Pat Flynn (Smart Passive), and many other well-known names in advertising and marketing recommend Teachable. Read my detailed Teachable Review to learn more about this platform.
Who is Teachable best for?
Teachable is ideal for beginners and creative individuals seeking a user-friendly platform for online course creation. It’s well-suited for entrepreneurs, small business owners, bloggers, content creators, and marketers looking to monetize their expertise.
Thinkific Vs Teachable Features Comparison
Teachable | Thinkific | |
Coupons | Yes | Yes |
Upsells | Yes | Yes |
Bundles | Yes | Yes |
Order bumps | Yes | Yes |
Set up free trials for students | Yes | No |
Affiliate marketing | Yes | Yes |
Affiliate payout management | Yes | Unfortunately, while you can monitor affiliate commissions, the payout process is not automated. |
Student referral program | Yes | Thinkific does not have a built-in feature; they use a third-party integration. |
Thinkific Features
The following features are available on Thinkific’s main page to help you get started with your online course creation process:
- Grow your brand by building a good audience.
- Immediate selling options
- Curate attractive and engaging content.
- A platform that grows with you
- Custom-designed course templates
- Business Scaling
Teachable Features
Teachable also comes with tons of features for course creation, marketing, and promotion. Let’s see these features:
- You can create courses on many topics.
- Teachers help you sell what you make.
- It works with PayPal and other ways to get money.
- Teachable offers a mobile app for Android.
- You can chat and help your students online.
- Teachable also offers tracking and analytics to give insights into student interaction.
- It also offers an SSL certificate and encryption for payments.
Thinkific Vs Teachable Integrations
Teachable | Thinkific | |
Public API | Yes | Yes |
Connecting with any business tool you need (Email, CRM, Analytics, etc.) | Yes, with the public API | Yes, with its API |
Thinkific Integration
Thinkific offers integration with various marketing tools such as CRM, CMS, payment processors and others.
- Zapier
- Word Press
- Sumo
- Stripe
- Segment
- Stunning
- Paypal
- SamCart
- MailChimp
- MiniOrange
- Keap
- Intercom
- Google Analytics
- Facebook pixel
- ConvertKit
- EarlyParrot
- AWeber
- Constant Contact
- Brillium
- Active Campaign
- Accredible
Teachable Integration:
Teachable also offers integration with a similar set of tools but has the upper hand in terms of more integration.
- Google Analytics
- SumoMe
- Zapier
- MailChimp
- Segment
- ConvertKit
- Several webhooks
- Few other Third-Party Tools
- Instamojo
- ActiveCampaign
- FreshBooks
Thinkific vs Teachable: Course Creation
Both offer a range of features to help you create and manage your course, but each has unique advantages.
Teachable | Thinkific | |
Drip feature-release course content at specific times | Yes | Yes |
Mobile app for students to watch courses anywhere | Yes | No |
Course completion certificates | Yes | Yes |
Limit the number of students per course (enrollment caps) | Yes | No |
Thinkific
Thinkific is a powerful platform for creating courses with custom branding, marketing automation, detailed analytics, and more. It also provides users with an easy-to-use course editor to quickly create videos, quizzes, and other interactive elements.
Thinkific also offers a variety of features for creating sales pages, discount codes, and even affiliate programs.
Thinkific allows instructors to create their custom certificates for their course completion. Instructors can choose from a selection of templates and add their branding and logo. The certificate can be printed or downloaded electronically as a PDF file.
Teachable
Teachable is another popular course creation platform. It’s more focused on helping you monetize your course than Thinkific, and it offers a range of features for setting up payment plans, creating custom landing pages, and tracking user engagement.
Teachable also allows you to create coupons and discount codes easily.
Teachable also provides certificates for course completion, but they are much more limited in terms of customization options.
Instead of allowing instructors to design their custom certificates, Teachable offers pre-made certificates that have the same basic design across all courses. The instructor can add their logo, business name, and website URL to the certificate but can’t change the design or layout.
Teachable is best suited for slightly more creative and less tech-savvy people.
Teachable vs Thinkific: Coaching & Community
Teachable
Teachable recognize the significance of coaching and community in achieving success. Their platform simplifies finding coaches who can provide personalized guidance on your journey.
It provides a lively online community where members can share their expertise, network with each other, and celebrate their accomplishments.
With a diverse range of coaches to choose from, you can easily find the perfect fit for your specific needs. Our coaches boast a wealth of knowledge and experience, ranging from seasoned professionals to successful entrepreneurs. In addition to one-on-one sessions, they also offer the chance to participate in group coaching sessions, allowing members to learn from one another in a virtual setting.
In addition to individual coaching services, Teachable’s community provides members with a safe space to share their stories and get support from other members.
The community is moderated by experienced coaches who can give advice and encouragement on any issue you may have. You can also search for specific topics or keywords to find answers to your questions.
Thinkific
The Thinkific platform offers a range of coaching and community services designed to help entrepreneurs build and grow their online businesses. A suite of easy-to-use tools allows users to launch courses, manage marketing activities, create content libraries, and connect with students.
The platform also facilitates peer-to-peer learning by allowing users to build and join online groups, give feedback, and engage in discussions. Thinkific also provides industry-leading analytics that gives entrepreneurs insight into student engagement, course performance, marketing effectiveness, and more.
With Thinkific, entrepreneurs can create and promote successful online learning experiences that will engage their students and help them reach their goals.
Thinkific vs Teachable: Languages Supported
Thinkific and Teachable offer a multi-lingual interface and support over 30 languages. Let’s see this:
Thinkific:
Thinkific supports multiple user languages and offers the best user experience. It is accessible to people from all over the world because it is available in almost every language.
Some of the languages that are supported are listed below:
- Afrikaans
- Azerbaijani
- Croatian
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch
- English
- Estonian
- Finnish
- French
- Georgian
- German
- Greek
- Hindi
- Hungarian
- Icelandic
- Indonesian
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Latvian
- Lithuanian
- Mandarin (Simplified)
- Mandarin (Traditional) and many more.
However, they do not support right-to-left languages such as Arabic and Hebrew.
Teachable
Teachable and Thinkific both offer nearly the same number of languages. You need to find out which one provides more user languages.
Both have excelled at providing a wide range of Languages.
Teachable vs Thinkific: Pricing
Teachable | Thinkific | |
Free | Yes | Yes |
Starting price for paid plans | $39 per month (billed annually) | $36 per month (billed annually) |
Unlimited courses | Yes (Pro and Business paid plans only) | Yes (paid plans only) |
Unlimited 1:1 coaching | Yes (paid plans only) | There is no standalone coaching product available. |
Unlimited students | Yes | Yes |
Unlimited digital downloads | Yes, all paid plans have unlimited digital downloads, and it’s a built-in feature. | Unfortunately, Thinkific does not come equipped with a feature for digital downloads. |
Live course and coaching sessions | Yes | Yes, with a Zoom integration |
Thinkific Pricing
Thinkific offers a free plan and three paid plans.
- Thinkific free ($0/month),
- Basic Thinkific ($49/month),
- Thinkific Pro (Most Popular) ($99/month), and
- Premier Thinkific ($199/month).
They also provide access to the free plan without requiring credit card information. Thinkific offers the Growth Package and Thinkific Plus with additional features and plans for individuals or businesses seeking increased growth and revenue.
Teachable Pricing
Teachable also offers a free plan and three paid plans:
- Basic plan is $59 per month with a 5% transaction fee,
- Pro plan is $159 per month with no transaction fee,
- Pro+ plan is $249 per month with no transaction fee.
These are the annual plan costs; the monthly plan costs are slightly higher for all three when paid monthly. Below are the annual plans of Teachable:
Basic: $39 per month | Pro: $119 per month | Business: $199 per month |
A members-only community | Priority product support | Manual student imports |
Instant payouts | You can grade quizzes | You can register 5 admins |
You can register two admins | Advanced reports | Bulk student enrollments |
Email support | An unbranded website | You can set custom user roles |
Course creator training | You can issue course completion certificates | Advanced theme customization through developer access |
You can use your own custom domain | Course compliance. | You can host group coaching calls. |
You can create coupon codes for customers to use | An integrated affiliate marketing platform. | – |
You can drip-feed course content. | You can register five admins. | – |
Thinkific vs Teachable: Customer Support
Teachable | Thinkific | |
Creator Community | A private community that meets weekly and coaches creators | A Facebook group |
Customer support | Email and live chat | They offer live chat support and the option to write in 7 days a week. However, an additional cost may be involved if you require an onboarding specialist’s assistance. |
Onboarding support | Pro users receive the services of an onboarding specialist and a customer success manager without additional charges. | No. Only the highest tier, Premier ($499/month) includes a 30-minute onboarding call. |
Thinkific
Thinkific user feedback indicates that they provide excellent 24/7 support and clarify all customer needs via emails and live chat if necessary.
They can, however, improve significantly to handle more queries in a given time frame.
Teachable
Teachable support team is always available, they provide 24/7 customer service, and their customers are delighted with their team.
However, there is no option for live chat support, and customers must instead send emails. They can improve their customer service.
Verdict on Teachable vs Thinkific: Which One Wins?
After checking out the main features of Teachable and Thinkific, I can say they both are really good. They let you make courses, sell them, share knowledge, and connect with students.
If I had to choose one, I would go with Thinkific.
I hope this guide made it easier for you to understand both platforms and what they offer. If you have any questions or if you’re still wondering which one to choose, write a comment below. I’ll make sure to answer it quickly!
If you are looking for other comparisons, give these ones a try: