Teachable vs Thinkific 2024: An In-Depth Comparison for Online Course Creators

Looking to start selling online courses but can‘t decide between Teachable and Thinkific? You‘ve come to the right place!

After using both platforms extensively, I‘ve written this complete 2024 updated comparison of Teachable and Thinkific to help you determine the best course platform for your needs.

We‘ll cover:

• Key differences between Teachable and Thinkific
• Course creation features
• Marketing and selling capabilities
• Pricing and transaction fees
• Highlights and downsides of each platform

And plenty more to help you decide whether Teachable or Thinkific (or neither!) is the best fit for you.

Let‘s start with an introduction to each platform…

What is Teachable?

Founded in 2014, Teachable is one of the most popular online course platforms used by over 50,000 course creators.

It‘s an all-in-one platform that allows you to:

• Create, host and sell online courses
• Build a website/blog
• Send email campaigns
• Process payments
• Access student analytics

Essentially, Teachable gives you everything you need to sell online courses in one place.

All plans offer unlimited students and courses. Revenue shares range from 5-10% depending on the plan.

Some notable Teachable users include Neil Patel and Ryan Hildreth.

What is Thinkific?

Established a year before Teachable in 2013, Thinkific powers over 100,000+ courses for students worldwide.

Similar to Teachable, Thinkific offers an end-to-end online course solution including:

• Course creation tools
• Website hosting
• Marketing features
• Secure online payment processing
• Detailed analytics

Thinkific also provides unlimited students and courses no matter which pricing plan you choose.

Plus, there are zero transaction fees on all plans.

Well-known Thinkific users include Pat Flynn and Amy Porterfield.

Now that you know the basics of Teachable and Thinkific, let‘s compare the key features…

Teachable vs Thinkific: Course Creation Features

When it comes to building your online course, Teachable and Thinkific have similar core functionality but also some distinct differences.

Uploading Course Content

Both platforms make it easy to upload multimedia content like:

• Video files
• Audio files
• PDFs
• Images
• Text documents
• Links to third party resources

You‘re also able to bulk upload content to both platforms:

Teachable lets you bulk upload files from:

• Google Drive
• Dropbox
• OneDrive

Whereas Thinkific only supports bulk uploads from your computer.

Overall, Teachable provides more flexibility for importing existing course content.

Structuring Your Course

Once your content is uploaded, you can organize it into a course structure consisting of:

Teachable:

• Sections
• Lectures

Thinkific:

• Lessons
• Modules

Both platforms offer drag and drop builders, making it easy to put your content in a logical order.

Thinkific also provides helpful course templates to give you ideas for structuring different types of online courses.

So in terms of course builder, Thinkific has a slight edge.

Custom Branding Course Platform

Want your course platform to match your brand?

With both Teachable and Thinkific you can customize elements like:

✅ Fonts
✅ Colors
✅ Logos

So your students receive a cohesive, branded learning experience.

Delivering Content With the Course Player

An online course lives and dies by the quality of its Course Player.

Thankfully, Teachable and Thinkific both provide an excellent viewing experience for students:

Key features include:

✅ Progress tracking

✅ Search lessons

✅ Table of contents

✅ Responsive design

In addition, Thinkific offers a full screen mode so students can hide the sidebar and focus solely on your content.

So for Course Players, it‘s very close between the two.

Quizzes

Quick knowledge checks in the form of quizzes reinforce what your students learn.

Both Teachable and Thinkific provide quiz functionality, but Thinkific offers more advanced options like:

🔎 Randomized question banks – randomly pull quiz questions from a master list to discourage cheating

✅ Multiple attempts – let students retake quizzes

💯 Graded quizzes – automatically grade quiz performance

📊 Quiz analytics – track class performance

So when it comes to assessments, Thinkific is the winner.

Assignments

Assignments allow you to provide feedback as students apply what they‘ve learned.

Unfortunately, Teachable does not offer assignment functionality.

With Thinkific however, you can:

• Create text and file based assignments
• Set due dates
• Review and grade work
• Give feedback

So if student assignments are important for your course, go with Thinkific.

Certificates

Completing an online course is an achievement worth celebrating!

Both Teachable and Thinkific enable you to provide professional completion certificates.

Teachable offers built-in certificate templates you can customize.

Thinkific generates certificates through integration with Accredible.

Either way, you can easily grant certificates to students finishing your course.

Teachable vs Thinkific: Marketing and Selling Features

Driving traffic and making sales is vital for any online course creator.

So let‘s explore how Teachable and Thinkific compare when it comes to marketing and selling your online course.

Website Hosting

Do you already have a website? Or are you starting from scratch?

Both Teachable and Thinkific provide free website hosting so you can easily set up a site to market your course.

Each platform offers starter sites featuring:

✅ Free custom domains

✅ 100% uptime

✅ One-click SSL

✅ Speed optimization

✅ Responsive design

So whether you want to build your site from scratch or use your domain, Teachable and Thinkific have you covered.

Now let‘s compare how flexible each website builder is…

Website Themes

Want an amazing looking site without design skills?

Website themes to the rescue!

Here‘s how Teachable and Thinkific compare:

Teachable offers a single, professional theme. But customization is limited.

Thinkific provides both free and paid themes you can deeply customize with just a few clicks.

So if you want serious design flexibility, go with Thinkific.

Page Builder

Even with different themes, you‘ll still want control over individual pages.

That‘s where page builders come in…

Both platform‘s page builders feature simple drag and drop interfaces. However there is a clear winner when it comes to customization power.

Teachable offers basic building blocks like images, text sections, and videos.

Thinkific provides more advanced modules allowing greater layout flexibility:

🔹 Expandables
🔹 Media grids
🔹 Comparison tables
🔹 Countdown timers

As a bonus, elements animate on scroll to capture attention as visitors navigate your site.

So if you want a polished, professional site without a web designer, Thinkific is the way to go.

Email Marketing

Email marketing helps nurture leads, drive sales through promotions, and build relationships with customers.

Luckily, both platforms provide email marketing tools allowing you to:

✅ Collect email leads from your website

✅ Create email sequences based on user actions

✅ Send broadcasts to your lists

The main difference is how emails are handled behind the scenes.

With Teachable, you‘re limited to Teachable‘s proprietary system. But it handles basics well.

Thinkific offers native emails, but also seamlessly integrates with popular providers like MailChimp giving you more flexibility.

So Thinkific provides more email marketing options overall.

Affiliate Marketing

Want to grow your course faster? Start an affiliate program!

Affiliates promote your course to their audiences in exchange for a commission on each sale.

Both Teachable and Thinkific offer excellent support for affiliate marketing out of the box. Useful features include:

🔗 Custom affiliate links

💰 Set commission percentages or fixed dollar amounts

📈 Track visits, leads, and sales

It‘s a tie when it comes to affiliate management.

Free Trials and Coupons

Free trials and coupons help overcome objections during the sales process.

Teachable and Thinkific both provide easy options to:

✅ Offer free trials of paid courses

✅ Create single-use or ongoing coupon codes

So for promotions, Teachable and Thinkific are on par with each other.

Checkout Pages

When it‘s time to pay, an optimized checkout page closes more sales.

Teachable and Thinkific take differing approaches:

Teachable uses a 1-step checkout asking the user to enter payment details first. An account is only created after successful payment.

Conversely, Thinkific uses a 2-step checkout where users create an account initially and then checkout.

Teachable argues more friction means more users will abandon at checkout.

However Thinkific counters with the benefit of capturing leads through email before payment.

So in the end, it comes down to your sales preference.

Teachable vs Thinkific: Pricing

Pricing plays a major role when determining the best online course platform for your business.

Let‘s look at what Teachable vs Thinkific offer across their paid plans…

Teachable Pricing

Teachable provides 3 core pricing plans:

• Basic
• Professional
• Business

Transaction fees range from 5-10% depending on volume.

A 14-day Pro free trial is offered (no credit card required).

Thinkific Pricing

Thinkific also provides 3 main paid plans:

• Basic
• Pro
• Premium

Plus, there‘s a forever free plan for your first course.

💎Thinkific offers zero transaction fees on all paid plans!

So in terms of pricing, Thinkific provides more value through higher limits and fewer fees.

Teachable vs Thinkific: Ease of Use

What good is functionality if the platform itself is difficult and confusing?

Let‘s compare how easy Teachable and Thinkific are for online course creators of all skill levels…

Both platforms offer excellent documentation and resources for getting started:

• Searchable knowledgebases

• Free courses

• Active community forums

So from a self-service standpoint, it‘s a tie.

However, when it comes to live support response times, Thinkific is MUCH faster.

During testing, Thinkific often replied to complex questions in under 5 minutes via live chat and email.

Comparatively, Teachable took between 12-24 hours to respond via email tickets.

For quick support and answers, Thinkific easily wins.

Finally, initial onboarding and platform navigation slightly favors Thinkific thanks to an intuitive user interface.

Menus and options are well-organized in easy to scan vertical lists—cutting down the learning curve.

So between knowledge resources, support speed, and interface design…

Thinkific takes the cake for new user friendlyness.

But plenty of people have succeeded on both platforms through dedication and hard work.

Teachable vs Thinkific: Pros and Cons

We‘ve covered a lot of ground comparing Teachable vs Thinkific!

Let‘s summarize the main pros and cons of each platform to further help decide which solution works for your online course business.

Teachable Pros

✅ Generous course trial period

✅ Handles VAT automatically

✅ Built-in certificates

✅ Easy content uploading

✅ All-in-one solution

Teachable Cons

❌ Extra transaction fees

❌ Limited design customization for your course website

❌ Slower support response times

Thinkific Pros

✅ Zero transaction fees

✅ Built-in community and discussion features

✅ More advanced assessments and assignments

✅ Excellent website themes and customization

✅ Very fast live support

Thinkific Cons

❌ No free VAT handling

❌ No built-in completion certificates

❌ Lesser known brand than Teachable

As you can see, both platforms have excellent benefits depending on your needs as a course creator!

Teachable vs Thinkific: Which Course Platform is Best Overall?

We‘ve covered a ton of ground comparing every aspect of Teachable vs Thinkific.

So which course platform comes out on top?

Based on extensive testing, I recommend Thinkific to most online course creators.

However Teachable better suits some specific use cases.

Here‘s a quick summary to help decide which platform best aligns with your course business goals…

Choose Teachable If:

• You want an all-in-one solution for courses, website, email, and payments
• You have an established audience and course process
• You need built-in VAT handling and compliance

Choose Thinkific If:

• You want to save money through zero transaction fees
• You value speedy customer support response times
• You want access to advanced assessments like assignments
• You need maximum website design flexibility
• You‘re just getting started and want room to experiment

And there you have it…the complete Teachable vs Thinkific showdown for 2024!

Hopefully now you can confidently choose the best online course platform to grow your business and change lives!

Still can‘t decide or have additional questions? Feel free to ask in the comments section below.