Thinkific Reviews

Pros

It is very easy to get up and running with Thinkific. The course templates are a breeze to edit; users can easily see how to add and edit content, and the presentation is slick and professional.

Cons

Thinkific does not have an integrated email marketing feature, but users can connect MailChimp, et al., with Zapier. The design templates look okay until the user starts to change fonts and adds more content, then they start to look like a Wordpress template. Not bad, but not slick.

Alternatives Considered

Teachable, Systeme.io and Kajabi

Reasons for Switching to Thinkific

Teachable takes too big a cut from sales, while Kajabi is very expensive.

Pros

This is an absolutely beautiful platform. Thinkific has been in the elearning industry for years and it shows - the portal is easy to navigate and set up courses. The tutorials section is robust and detailed, giving step-by-step information on how to set up various course features and troubleshoot any issues that may come up. There is the ability to issue certificates of completion, add an assignment section for students to upload their work, basic quiz functionality, drip-scheduling as well as compulsory lessons which need to be completed before the student can move on. The lessons can consist of videos, text, PDF's (which can be downloadable or not), or quizzes. You can embed videos and links from other sites too. The course analytics allow you to see how much of a course/lesson was completed before a student drops off, giving valuable insight which enables the course creator to edit and adapt the courses to make them more engaging for the students. There is also a 'community' feature which gives students the chance to chat and give/feedback away from an external site (like a Facebook group). Thinkific does not take any of the course fees and allows the course creator to keep 100% of the profits earned. There is also a free version which has a lot of features included.

Cons

The certificates are quite basic and it's necessary to be design-savvy and tech-savvy to create a certificate which would be accepted in the upload process. The quizzes are very basic and do not support time-limits, limited retries or anything more robust than true/false or multiple choice. Should you want to integrate with a more robust quiz software, their native integrative party is quite pricey! There is no built-in email functionality aside from the notifications that can be sent to existing students. As email is becoming more popular among other learning management systems this is quite a big negative point against them. The option to whitelabel the site completely is only available on the 'Growth' plan which over and above the 'Pro' plan which is already $99.

Alternatives Considered

Ruzuku, Podia, Kajabi and LearnWorlds

Reasons for Choosing Thinkific

Option to do upsells and order bumps with Thinkific. Option for assignment uploads for students. All-round more robust LMS.

Switched From

Teachable

Reasons for Switching to Thinkific

Value for money and number of features offered. It's an established product with years of market research and expertise.

Pros

I like that it is easy to use, it's easy to upload your course material and publish your course.

Cons

My main issues with thinkific include very slow page load speed (which kills SEO rankings), dysfunction in the assignment feature (specifically, when clicking "next page" on the assignments, it takes you back to page 1 and you have to start all over), inability to edit a course landing page (my course has been published for 4 years and the URL is out in google so I don't want to recreate and for some reason we can no longer edit the page at all), and problems with user experience (students not being able to load a page, etc)

Alternatives Considered

Teachable

Reasons for Switching to Thinkific

At the time, thinkific appeared to be a better solution

Pros

The intuitive nature of your interface is extremely helpful for both course designers and students. As a site and course administrator, I'm exceptionally impressed with the ease of use. Thank you for incorporating finance management functions. Sleek design, ease of use, great price point. Don't change the price, it's one of your best market differentiators. I switched to Thinkific for the Pro Growth plan which was the key difference for me from other providers like Matrix.

Cons

I really need to market courses via social media with the least number of accounts and steps. It would be awesome if you could integrate some social media marketing tools into the site rather than link accompanying providers. The more I can do WITHIN thinkific, the better. The same applies for business functions like website management, sales of non-course materials (e.g., printed books, e-books), and perhaps QuickBooks

Alternatives Considered

CYPHER Learning and Blackboard Learn

Reasons for Choosing Thinkific

Price and ability to scale my costs via the Pro Growth plan. I really liked the Matrix site itself but couldn't justify the price as soon as I saw the Thinkific plans and the product. Your site is excellent!

Switched From

CYPHER Learning

Reasons for Switching to Thinkific

Price and ability to scale my costs via the Pro Growth plan. I really liked the Matrix site itself but couldn't justify the price as soon as I saw the Thinkific plans and the product. Your site is excellent!

Pros

I liked that you could design the access portal, the courses, and the payment methods all in 1 interface without any needs for additional products. I particularly enjoy how easy it is to set the courses up if you have your curriculum designed.

Cons

I wish there was an option to be able to have access to all the course features without fees. We are a startup and just are not in a position to charge for courses yet, meaning this would be a huge investment for us that we are not willing to make. It would be great if you could get a 6month burn-in period to test and market before going live.

Alternatives Considered

Moodle, Blackboard Learn and BRIDGE

Reasons for Choosing Thinkific

Easier to configure and set up and did not require additional setup or management.

Switched From

Moodle

Reasons for Switching to Thinkific

Payment portal and customization features.

Pros

Easy to set up. Seems reasonably priced

Cons

Only use if you never (and I mean never) want to close accountI have been trying to close our thinkific account for a year, it is impossible! It will let you downgrade to a free account but there you are stuck! You might think, that’s ok, they’re now charging you. Well, the problem is that every time you disable a course another one is reactivated. I have just had to refund a load of learners who have managed to sign up and pay for courses that we no longer run.. Not good for business!!!! There are other, better and more cost effective platforms out there.Impossible to speak to a person, Help pages are a joke

Pros

That it's really comprehensive, yet still has a free to low-cost entry-level option. It's easy to use and looks visually great too with its customisable interface options. Oh and I love that you can i-frame other websites and URL's into your courses (this is great for spreadsheets and websites) - it saves a lot of time and energy, and updating! Oh, and it has / had a low payment processing fee structure.

Cons

I haven't hit any issues with it yet so to date there's nothing I don't like about it.

Alternatives Considered

Teachable

Reasons for Switching to Thinkific

It's entry-level plans (including the free plan that was / is available at the time I joined) are fully featured. Certainly enough to get started and have to commit to a paid or more expensive plan. It looked great and also (at the time of joining and still I think) had a lower fee structure, etc.

Pros

I spent last year writing my first professional training course and was looking for a platform to use for the beta run. I wanted something that could handle the multi-media aspect of the delivery of my course, but that was also easy to set up for a non-techy beginner as I didn't have an assistant to set it up for me. Thinkific fit this need perfectly.

Cons

If anything the aesthetic of the platform could be a bit better (personal preference). While it is easy to follow it's just not as sleek as I'd like. And as a non-web-designer, I'd like to be able to customize the course landing pages to fit my brand with a bit more DIY ease.

Alternatives Considered

Teachable and Podia

Reasons for Switching to Thinkific

Drag and drop course set up was super easy and had all the features I needed in the basic option.

Pros

For me is it was the user friendly features of the program. I was able to train myself on the features in a few hours.

Cons

Our company has enjoyed using Thinkific and in comparison to to other programs we don't find any negative issued with Thinkific.

Alternatives Considered

Teachable, WebinarNinja and Kajabi

Reasons for Switching to Thinkific

Thinkific was the first program we tried and once we tested others we just never found another program that was better for our needs.

Pros

The way it structures lessons, with sublessons.

Cons

Fiddling to put video content in. Can be fiddly to restructure a course if adding a lesson.

Alternatives Considered

Groove

Reasons for Switching to Thinkific

Better more robust platform, though Groove has now taken over and I'm moving to them

Pros

Thinific customer support is great and I also liked the user platform. It's easy for user to navigate and looks professional. The user has a great experience from purchase to completion.

Cons

Thinkific is missing contact form and blog integration. This means you have to pay 3rd party apps about $70pcm extra! Also the basic plan is completely useless because you can't index to search engine or run successful PPC campaigns. For start ups like myself this is nightmare. So much better options out there offer better value for money.

Alternatives Considered

Teachable

Reasons for Switching to Thinkific

I thought Thinkfic's basic plan who be good enough to launch my business and I heard their website build was very good. Both these things are untrue.

Pros

Just as the title has mentioned, my company came towards this software because of a recommendation by our consultant. After much difficult times to look for a proper affiliate software, we decided to opt in for Thinkific as it doesn't just serve as an E-learning platform but also provides affiliation feature for enrolled students.

So far, it can create unique link for each student as a referral and we are able to set up commission percentage for them. It has cut off a lot of manual work which we were previously doing. Thus, subscribing to a Pro plan in spite of the price, it is well-worth to consider for anyone looking for affiliate feature which is this simple.

Cons

The themes available are quite limited, and I do wish Thinkific would provide more samples of website for us to refer to since not everyone is good at designing. I only manage to find a few on Google which helped a little.

Sizes of the images are only limited to JPG file which I didn't know why after a constant struggle of failures to upload a PNG image. Perhaps you could label JPG file instead of telling me the SIZE would be more helpful.

Since my webinar courses are in Chinese and English, I do hope you would allow more choices of fonts instead. Also, as most of our students are Chinese, it would be helpful if other buttons such as "sign up" , "register" , "free preview" would have an option of languages.

The Video file size is limited as well. It wasn't much of a bother as I know it is trying to promote shorter videos for better students' engagement. But the uploading can be quite slow and my speed is 160mbps. So, I doubt it's my problem??

Pros

I like that it is simple, that they are quite transparant about their pricing and have an extensive help center. The Facebook group is also great for support. Making online courses comes with a lot of questions.

Cons

Customization of the look & feel of online courses and landing pages is limited, as if payment options.
For EU customers who are not accustomed to credit card / Paypal you need to integrate Shopify.
This is possible, but connecting Shopify & Thinkific is not that great. Affiliate links don't work anymore and tracking sales becomes quite a bit harder.

Alternatives Considered

Teachable

Pros

I like Thinkific because it offers a simplified way to create, market, and sell online courses all in one platform. Thinkific have many content creation resources to design multimedia online courses or trainings. For example, there's an intuitive drag and drop feature that allows you to create classes, videos, and other digital tools for content with easy placement onto the platform. What makes this platform unique is the Thinkific Academy that is full of resources to walk you through creating, marketing, and selling your content, especially if you are new to this concept. What is great about Thinkific is the ability to customize and brand your online platform using low code development.

Cons

Although the interface is simple with a basic look and the ability to use low code development to customize the layout, it does not offer flexibility in making changes to fit your brand. Also, if you are not skilled in frontend development the visual elements of the platform, you will have to pay for additional fees.

Alternatives Considered

SmarterU LMS and Wisetail LMS

Pros

It's mobile friendly for my students. It's a very simple to use a system which means even if you're, not super tech you can make it work.

I get awesome student feedback on how easy Thinkific is to use, especially on the go.

It's got great reporting and you get paid right away instead of having your money held up. Even on the free account which is awesome to better manage cash flow needs.

I also love that you can see how your students are progressing and where people might be getting stuck on your content.

Cons

Probably the only big negative for me is that is I want to include writing below my video training it doesn't show the student how long the video is or even that there's a video there at all.

So sometimes people have missed training parts because of the formatting of their system. Not the biggest deal, but I like to streamline my lesson by putting a small blurb under the video and the easiest way to do this means it doesn't show up as a video on the sidebar for the student.

Pros

I love using Thinkific and wish I'd found it sooner! If I have any questions, their customer service response is outstanding and they even follow up with an email covering the details discussed. The training videos and course guidelines are so helpful. It's so easy to make edits and update course content any time. Stripe is a good company that allows us to sell courses in many other countries, bonus! I'm not tech savy so this program fit like a glove. Thank you so much for your committment to helping others by creating an incredibly user friendly and highly functional program.

Cons

I would like to be able to add a course instructors signature to the certificates and better options in the certificate blocks.

Pros

It negates the need to spends thousands of dollars for a LMS website. You really don't need to be a software literate to build this and start using it on the go.

Cons

The users should be trained on how they can land their websites on Search Engines. Even a small fee will be justified, but training will help take this further. Also, more Payment Gateway options should be made available directly and not through Zapier.

Pros

I searched and searched for an affordable way to host my free Fearless Budgeting training program for compulsive spenders. I tried a couple of sites before launching, but they all had problems and were difficult to use.

When I found the free plan on Thinkific, I was blown away. It was so easy to set up and everything just flowed. I had one issue with the sort order of multiple download files. Customer service was great and helped me figure out how to sort them properly within a couple of hours.

It was incredibly easy to set up the two courses (total of 50 lessons) and two additional products. My products and courses look professional. Oh, and I love the student discussion forum, which I've used to let students know about an update to one of the courses and an upcoming Q&A call. Plus, I was able to easily integrate my mailing list into the program.

I couldn't be happier with the service and support. I heartily recommend Thinkific. For me, it blows away the competition!

Cons

Nothing. Not one thing. It's perfect for my needs.

The fact is, I'm amazed at all the features I get with the free option. It's working out great for me and my students.

Pros

What I liked most about Thinkific was that it was very easy to use and great training material and different price options according to your budget.

Cons

If we are being honest, so far I am very satisfied with this platform so I don't have any complaints.

Pros

I like that it has a lot of features, but the way the arranged them is not easy to use
The homepage is more customizable than other programs

Cons

I don't like Thinkific for some reason the design is not appealing to me what so ever...
I wish it was because some of my clients prefer this program over others.

Pros

Very easy to use and has excellent customer support

Cons

For the plan I am on it is a shame there certificate functionality is not available

Alternatives Considered

Teachable, Udutu Guru LMS, iSpring Suite and Litmos

Reasons for Switching to Thinkific

Price and functionality

Pros

There is a free function you can actually set up a whole program completely for free and they only charge a % of the sale. It’s perfect for start ups.

Cons

I found anything I don’t like so far. I am really happy with it.

Pros

I love the drag and drop options. The ease of use and bulk importers. I have such a great contact to my students and abundant options to get my teachings across. The editors are functional and best of all:

The designs are professional and looks like a Tesla ;)

I have room for up to 2gb videos! That is hosting and being serious to support online education. Did I mention it is Per Video!!

Cons

There is one thing I'd like to see different on Thinkific. My ability to have more sub-modules in each Chapter of my courses. That's it. Otherwise, I have nothing to say.

Pros

Thinkific is so easy to set-up and has a wealth of customisation options. I like being able to rely on the platform to provide a good experience for users, even at scale.

Cons

It is sometimes incompatible for users of older browsers.

Pros

If you're coming from WordPress ecosystem, you know the pain. Keep on adding plugins-after-plugins and keep paying for them yearly and keep maintaining them, patching security holes that pop up often. If then you get some time, then create content for your members.

With Thinkific, you need not worry about the umpteen admin issues of WordPress at all; just focus on content creation and leave the rest to the Thinkific platform. Hassle free piece of LMS.

Cons

- They may want to look into the pricing structure.
- For those educaters who can't accept Stripe for some reason, try to come up with a model whereby you accept payment on our behalf and then send our payments later on.