Thinkific vs. LearnUpon: Which platform is right for you?

LearnUpon was built specifically for organizations that need an easy-to-use and easy-to-implement online education tool to reach their employees — but so was Thinkific. 

As an LMS solution used to centralize training management, LearnUpon gives you what you need to create courses for employees, partners, and customers. While it does offer a robust course creation platform, it’s a pricier solution and can take significant time to navigate and build your course. This makes it less approachable for entrepreneurs and creators who are just starting out. Additionally, LearnUpon’s communities (called “Forums”) don’t seamlessly integrate with courses, something that results in a disjointed and clunky experience for learners. 

Once you’ve created a learning path or course on LearnUpon, it can’t be changed or edited. Instead, you’d have to copy the course, put it into a draft, make changes, and then republish. For customers looking to get their content live and make iterations on it as they grow, Thinkific is the better option as it allows you to test and make changes to your course as you go. 

When it comes to course creation, Thinkific offers features and plans for creators at every level. For example, Thinkific includes tools that enhance the learning experience such as Live Lessons with Zoom, quizzes, and integrated communities that make it easy to take your course to the next level. You’re also able to tailor your course creation experience with add-on features like Branded Mobile that give you the functionality you need without paying for things you don't.

Preparing course (and other educational) materials is made even simpler with Thinkific’s advanced AI technology. For example, creators can build course outlines and quizzes in a few clicks. Thinkific’s AI Course Outline Generator instantly creates a detailed course outline tailored to your audience's needs and Thinkific's AI Quiz Generator creates quizzes that keep learners engaged, test comprehension, and identify knowledge gaps.

A positive learning experience can make or break your success. Thankfully, LearnUpon and Thinkific both provide tools that can contribute to a great learning experience for their target audiences. 

With LearnUpon you get a standard course experience, but not a ton of  features that take the learning experience to the next level. While they offer several different content types, they do not offer quizzes or integrated communities that will truly create an engaging online experience. However, they do have a feature-packed gamification platform with badges, points, rewards, and leaderboards that make the learning experience feel like a fun competition. 

In addition to its own gamification features available in-platform and through the Thinkific App Store, Thinkific offers a learning experience that goes beyond what most course platforms offer. Plus, with courses and communities available across all devices thanks to Thinkific Mobile and Branded Mobile, learners can engage with content in a way that’s most convenient for them — something that contributes to a better overall experience.

Thinkific also does more than just courses — they offer helpful digital learning experiences like Digital Downloads, Webinars, and 1-1 Coaching Sessions. With Digital Downloads, students can find value in quickly-downloadable guides, templates, exclusive resources, and more. With Coaching & Webinars, students can schedule coaching sessions and other forms of dedicated one-on-one time, attend workshops, and register for webinars.  

When it comes to selling online courses, LearnUpon and Thinkific differ slightly on the level of e-commerce capability. 

LearnUpon doesn’t currently offer an easy way for users to create a marketing and selling strategy for monetizing your courses. With limited customization of sales landing pages and templates, creators will need to put in extra, manual effort to effectively market and sell their courses and communities. 

Thinkific offers sales and marketing features that help any course creator promote and sell their course in a way that feels natural. For example, Thinkific Funnels lets you offer a portion of your course for free in order to generate leads, build trust and credibility, and increase sales. 

Thinkific’s sales and marketing stack is also powered by AI. You don’t have to worry about list-building or creating sophisticated email flows with Thinkific, as Thinkific also offers an AI-supported email marketing feature. Creators can grow and manage email lists, launch personalized campaigns and roll out automated sequences that support their sales and marketing strategy.

Thinkific offers other sales and marketing digital learning products like Digital Downloads, Webinars, and 1-1 Coaching Sessions. Digital Downloads make it easy to maximize your earning potential, engage new audiences, and deliver more content to your existing audience. By offering digital products like eBooks, guides, templates, and more, businesses can open up a new stream of revenue and increase leads. 

Likewise, Coaching & Webinars make it easy to build a meaningful connection with your audience, and find and attract new customers — while boosting revenue by adding a price tag to these events.

With 90+ integrations in the Thinkific App Store, you also get access to your choice of the best tools in the business for marketing and email automation, increasing sales, and enhancing the learning experience through gamification. These apps are created by developers for Thinkific and can be downloaded, installed, and implemented for all Thinkific users without any coding required.

Both LearnUpon and Thinkific highlight their focus on customer service as a means to success. 

As LearnUpon’s platform is more complex, every customer on every plan gets a dedicated customer success manager. They also offer 24/7 support and a resource centre with helpful articles and blog posts. Like Thinkific, LearnUpon offers more support as your business grows (reflected in the price of their plans). 

In addition to a resource centre, 24/7 chatbot support, live chat (Monday to Friday), and phone support, Thinkific also provides you with a network of experts and a community of peers where you can share ideas and get help from others who have successfully launched and grown their learning businesses.

While both Thinkific and LearnUpon offer mobile apps, their features and functionalities are notably different. 
The LearnUpon app is mainly focused on the student learning experience, and more or less brings its desktop experience onto mobile or tablet. Users can access training and complete coursework from anywhere with features like checking off required courses, exams, and assignments. The app also offers a progress bar, showing how far students have made it through their courses. Created for convenience, users can also send and receive course updates via in-app messaging, while also reviewing feedback on exams and assignments. For course materials like documents, audio, and video files, students can download files to access offline.     

In comparison, Thinkific focuses both on the course creator and the student learning experience, with two mobile app options for you to choose from: Branded Mobile and Thinkific Mobile. Branded Mobile ($199/month) is a white-labeled app that spotlights your brand with your own App Store listing and logo. With Branded Mobile, you get access to experts who will build, publish, and maintain your app so can focus on your business — all while your brand takes center stage. Thinkific Mobile (included with Start plans and above) is most comparable to the LearnUpon app, as it’s a mobile-optimized way for students to access courses or communities under a universal Thinkific branded app. Thinkific Mobile includes features like activity feeds and push notifications to keep students engaged.  

Pricing is where LearnUpon and Thinkific seem to have the biggest differences. 

From a pricing standpoint, LearnUpon is significantly more expensive than Thinkific across all pricing plans. While LearnUpon positions itself as affordable to mid-market customers, they are still priced significantly higher than Thinkific. They position the price per active student as a way to keep their costs down, but unfortunately this pricing model can be restrictive for many creators. 
In contrast, Thinkific pricing bands are flexible to meet customers where they are, particularly for customers looking to maintain access for many users who want to use their online courses as a resource. Thinkific remains an affordable choice for everyone from established businesses to those just getting started.