Thinkific vs. Mighty Networks: Which platform is right for you?

While Thinkific and Mighty Networks both offer easy-to-use course builders, a key difference is that Mighty Networks is a community-first platform.

Because of this, course creation is a secondary focus on the Mighty Networks platform. Instead, they primarily concentrate on the community membership experience.

While they offer the features necessary to build a standard course, creators looking for deeper learning features and a seamless course creation experience may find themselves limited with Mighty Networks — especially when it comes to creating a blended learning experience for your students. Mighty Networks' courses and communities are not connected from a student perspective.

With Thinkific’s all-in-one platform, it’s easy to link your course to your community (and vice versa), so your students can jump from one to the other — something that makes for a seamless, holistic learning experience. Additional tools to enhance the learning experience, such as Live Lessons with Zoom, assignments, and a built-in presentation creator, take your course to the next level.

Preparing course (and other educational) materials is made simple 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 great learning experience can make a huge difference when it comes to student engagement, course completion rates, and your own success.

Mighty Networks offers a community-first learning experience, with different learning features within their community platform. They also offer courses, but without robust engagement features that create a truly engaging online course experience. 

Thinkific offers an unmatched suite of functionality that extends beyond how the course looks and courses in general. There’s a wide variety of different content types (video, PDFs, quizzes, and more) that help keep your content interesting for your students.

Thinkific 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. 

Like Mighty Networks, Thinkific offers a mobile app so your students can learn on their own time, anytime. These features help make the learning experience more enjoyable for students — something that can grow your business in the long run.

After publishing your course, you need to get it in front of the right audience with Thinkific and Mighty Networks’ sales and marketing tools.

While you are able to create an online course on Mighty Networks, you won't be able to easily create a powerful marketing and selling strategy for monetizing your learning products. 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.v

Thinkific offers much more powerful sales and marketing features that enable any course creator to achieve their profit goals. Offered in over 39 languages and with a mobile app, Thinkific lets you reach your audience from anywhere. Plus, with more than 90 integrations in the Thinkific App Store, Thinkific provides access to the best tools in the business for marketing and email automation, increasing sales, and enhancing the learning experience through gamification.

For example, 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. 

You don’t have to worry about list-building or creating sophisticated email flows with Thinkific, as Thinkific also offers an AI-powered 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.

As you work to launch your course and grow your business, it’s important the course platform you choose offers the best support, security, and data protection. 

Support from Mighty Networks is not available 24/7, with support only available via asynchronous email. If you need help in the meantime, they do have a Resource Centre with articles and blog posts for additional information.

Whether you’re looking for a network of experts, a community of peers, or a responsive support team, Thinkific has you covered. In addition to a 24/7 chatbot, live chat (for those on a Basic plan or above), and phone support, Thinkific has a Help Center with articles and topics to answer your pressing questions, a Facebook Community where you can connect with experts and other creators, and online video tutorials to get you started. Plus, as your business grows and your learning platform becomes mission-critical, Thinkific offers additional security and support. 

While both Thinkific and Mighty Networks offer comprehensive mobile apps, there are some differences between the two platforms. 

Mighty Networks offers two app options: a course app that mirrors its desktop experience, and Mighty Pro, a completely branded and white-label app. The Mighty Pro app comes with a Mighty Pro plan and takes 3 to 4 weeks to implement. Mighty Pro’s app-building process includes kickoff and design, ongoing support and maintenance, product training, launch, and app submission. Mighty Pro is Mighty Networks’s enterprise solution, which is priced according to business size and needs. To give you an idea of what their enterprise solution app might cost, Mighty Networks plans start at $39/month for their Community plan, and $119/month for Business. You’ll have to contact Mighty Networks directly for Mighty Pro pricing.      

Similar to Mighty Networks, Thinkific also has two mobile app options for you to choose from: Branded Mobile and Thinkific Mobile. Thinkific’s Branded Mobile ($199/month) is comparable to the Mighty Pro app, though less expensive. Branded Mobile 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 you don’t have to. Just like Mighty Pro (but for less of a financial investment), the Thinkific team will help prepare your app store listings and tackle the submission and review process, saving you time to focus on your business. Thinkific’s other option is Thinkific Mobile (included with Start plans and above), where students can manage courses under a universal Thinkific branded app. 

Depending on what you’re looking for, both Thinkific and Mighty Networks offer pricing plans for creators at every stage. 

Mighty Networks offers three pricing plans starting at $33 per month that only include access to communities — not courses. In order to build a course on Mighty Networks, you have to sign up for their Business Plan at a minimum, which starts at $99/month.

Thinkific also offers tiers for early-stage businesses all the way to enterprise. With add-on features like a Branded Mobile app ($199/mo) and more, you’re able to build a flexible package that aligns with your business, no matter what stage your business is in.