When it comes to platforms that allow you to develop and market your online classes, there are a number of options out there which are available to you.
And Thinkific, we believe, is one of the best ones on the market.
However, that’s not to say the others aren’t as good. They all have their pros and cons, as does Thinkific. So today, we are going to have Thinkific battle against a few of the best out there, so that you can make an educated decision on which platform works best for you.
Everyone has different needs, capabilities and expectations.
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Thinkific VS Teachable Thinkific and Mailchimp
First thing’s first, let’s get one of the bigger, and harder, comparisons out of the way. Thinkific and Teachable are equally great. They both offer the essentials that 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 that it makes choosing between the two of them a little bit more complicated, but we will try our best anyway.
Let’s start with who uses which platform! Though they both have a wide appeal that can cater to single individuals or businesses and groups, there are preferences.
Because Thinkific’s main objective is to empower teachers more, to assist those who really care about their pupils’ experience, their customers are more often that not entrepreneurs — typically masters of a particular craft such as writing, or coaches and speakers — and companies who wish to grow and develop their businesses 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 some of those that Thinkific targets, but they also cover people who wish to begin educating online and earning through it.
So which are you? Who they cater to can be very revealing for what they stand for and what they can do.
Moving on to course creation and pupil 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 an iOS app for your pupil, Thinkific can give you advanced quizzing features, the ability to create surveys and assignments as well as 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. It also 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 educational side a bit more, with a greater focus on students. You can see that in its stronger quizzing capability, how its built to support assignments. Create communities and manage your students.
It also wins out a little more in terms of its site builder, which is a big consideration if you don’t have an existing site already as it is.
Finally, in terms of cost, Thinkific kind of wins since they have a plan that’s absolutely free. Sure it provides 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 prices, but it can actually end up becoming more costly than Teachable, depending on needs and add-on features that might not be available on certain plans. Teachable however offers everything right off the bat, depending upon your plan.
Thinkific can be a bit sneaky that way. But otherwise, if you do not need those extra bells and whistles, Thinkific is the less expensive choice between the two.
If we’re gonna need to give the crown to someone, it would have to be Thinkific, with it barely beating out Teachable. It is so close that, at the end of the day, it’s really more of a personal preference and contextualized need that will guide you to which of the two platforms you need to work with.
> > Click here to try Thinkific for Free Now! < <
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 are two very different platforms with their own pros and cons. Thinkific and Mailchimp
With Thinkific, you can really design your site. Yeah, there are templates you can use, but if you decide so and are capable, it is possible to totally take control of your site’s design and customize plenty of it. With Udemy, you don’t really get that choice. You’re limited in your options for design. You can choose your course graphic, but otherwise things like course layout and style can’t really be touched.
Udem does have a marketplace feature however, which can be quite useful. However, it’s a double edged sword. You own the program, but you can not take it out of Udemy’s marketplace, while with Thinkific, you can do whatever you want with your courses.
You can price your course however way you see fit, offer any kind of discounts and when it comes to Affiliate programs, you decide how much the commission percentage is onThinkific. However, with Udemy, you need to follow their pricing , coupon system and all Affiliate Programs for your course are set at 50% commission.
There’s more freedom and flexibility with Thinkific, allowing it to stand above the competition.
And that is 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 actually have an audience yet, or If you don’t have experience in creating an online course. It has the basics of what you need and the marketplace is a fantastic starting point. Additionally, it helps that it is pretty inexpensive.
However, Udemy is not ideal if you would like to grow beyond that. If you want to expand, to take control or to just go bigger, 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 plan with all the basics, while Udemy does not charge you a monthly fee if you combine. First Hand experience is always among the best ways to see if it works for you.
> > Click here to try Thinkific for Free Now! < <
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 a bit. Thinkific and Mailchimp
However, even here you can see what they concentrate on, and who they are for specifically. For one, from how it was structured and rolled out, you can see that Kajabi was made 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 wish to teach someone let us say how to do Shakespeare really well. A masterclass in that specific topic.
Thinkific is for those who wish to sell a whole structured course on acting, from its history, to its own techniques, to the different kinds and styles you will find out there in the world. We are by no means saying one is far better than the other in this regard, but rather saying that it actually depends on your needs and exactly what it is you want to sell and teach.
Do you only have to sell a course, or an entire grand program? It’s your decision, and either or is fine.
Taking a look 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 are able to provide certifications, while with Kajabi, you can’t. Kajabi comes with an email-builder and a landing page builder, while Thinkific does not. 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, attempting to do too much and not actually attaining it. And it does that while being more expensive that Thinkific, so that is another huge consideration.
As we’ve mentioned before, Thinkific has a free plan you can avail of and not just test, but use indefinitely if it suits your needs. Kajabi has a 14 day trial and that’s it. If you wish to give both a spin to see 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 in terms of the marketing suite if offers — and we can not stress enough how important marketing is! Doesn’t matter how good a class is if your”classroom” is empty. However, if you need to construct a program, which is exactly what we assumed you want, hence you exploring all 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 that will 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 on the market, Thinkific with its core focus on its course builder, terrific plan options that even includes a basic free service, and it’s focus on making the experience of getting out there to make a strong online educational platform, clearly wins. Thinkific and Mailchimp
Give it a think and you’ll see what we mean.
