Thinkific vs Teachable: A Detailed Comparison

(Updated April 2018)

There are tons of online course platforms available and taking an online course has never been easier – you can learn anywhere and at any time! How awesome is that? Small business owners, bloggers, digital marketers, educators and entrepreneurs alike are turning to online courses as a way to scale their business, increase revenue and help more customers. Whether you’re trying to find a way to grow your business or an easy way to train your team, online courses are the wave of the future that’s starting right now!

With the soaring popularity of online courses, it’s inevitable that a number of online course platforms will also crop up. Two key players in online education are Thinkific and Teachable. We understand that selecting a platform can be a difficult task to navigate on its own without considering direct comparisons, but there’s no hiding it – Thinkific is often compared to Teachable, and you would be wise to properly compare and contrast the two.

At first glance, it may seem like a straightforward comparison: Both platforms allow you to create, market, and sell courses online. They have great features and are user-friendly. But a closer look past the offered features reveals some key distinctions, so we’ve put together a detailed comparison guide to better highlight the differences between the two platforms.

Teachable

Teachable’s premise is “Everything is Teachable” meaning they make it easy for anyone to create an online course and sell it to students. This opens up the role of educator to anyone! However, their focus seems to be on making it easy for anyone to become a course creator and not necessarily the quality of the course content nor the student experience.

Thinkific

We strive to be the right solution for the professional course creator. Thinkific is a great choice for individual experts to entrepreneurs, right up to large companies. Our platform is trusted by thousands of course creators and various multinational entities like Hootsuite.

For us, the student experience is paramount, but how does this help you as a business? When students succeed, you succeed! You can shoot out a course on another platform and make a lot of money upon launch, but if the student experience is mediocre, they are less likely to recommend your courses, and you won’t have built a product to grow your business. We’re focused on your long-term success: One of our goals is to provide an excellent student experience so your clients are happy, which in turns sets your business up for success!

We want to give you as much control over your business as possible. We understand this is YOUR business, and you shouldn’t have to wait to see your success! Unlike Teachable who holds your money for 30 days or more, Thinkific is set up so you receive the funds for your courses directly – your money is always your money. We understand resources and costs can be a concern for entrepreneurs. When you get your money sooner, you have the freedom to focus on your courses, allocate resources as needed, and invest in building a better, more scalable business.

Thinkific is intuitive and easy to use, so you can get going on your online course creation and concentrate on your online business needs. Those who’ve switched over from Teachable have mentioned time and time again that Thinkific’s platform is simply easier to use.

We’re so committed to customer success. We say we’re in the business of creating an awesome LMS but we’re really in the business of setting up our customers for success! It’s also one of our brand promises: We are obsessed with supporting our customers. Someone is always available to take your call or email and respond with thoughtful, helpful guidance. Former Teachable customers regularly inform us of their frustration around broken API’s, technical malfunctions, and inadequate customer support. With Thinkific, you’ll have access to industry-leading support, and an entire team dedicated to helping you – seriously though! Everyone at Thinkific, from our CEO to our newest hire, commits several hours a week to answering support emails. We are fanatical about customer success and this is one core value we live by every day at Thinkific.

Thinkific strives to give you the best support and full control over your business, two compelling reasons why multitudes of customers have switched over to us. Not quite convinced yet? No problem! Check out our handy comparison table!

Thinkific vs. Teachable: Detailed Comparison

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

Phone support

Email support

STUDENTS EXPERIENCE

Send Personalized automated emails to your students

Student progress reporting

Quizzes lesson type

Surveys lesson type

Built in Student Discussion

Course reviews (social proof)

MARKETING & SALES

Free, Paid and Subscription

Enterprise plan available

Site Wide Coupons & Promotions

Upsells & Bundles

Groups
Bulk sell courses, manage students and track progress of the students in the group

Advanced Marketing Integrations (ie: Mixpanel, Zapier, Segment.io etc.)

Affiliate program

Sales Widget (sell off-platform)

0% Transaction Fee Option

Instant Payouts

FEATURES

Unlimited Courses, students & bandwidth

Create courses with multiple content types

Drip Content

Time-Limited Courses

Bulk import course content

Bulk Student Import / Enrollment

Site Builder - Build and customize your home and site pages

Easily add externally hosted content & apps

Full hosting of video & other files

Course attachments & downloads

Completion certificates (Issue Completion Certificates seamlessly)

Custom Domains

Private / hidden courses

Custom branding (colors, logo & site images)

Built-in blog

Drag and drop visual editor

Access to HTML/CSS with export/import capabilities

Fully managed customer signup / purchase / enrollment process

Order tracking, conversion, and retargeting pixel support

All paid plans

Only if you’re using Stripe or Paypal in Teachable even on their Pro / High Level volume level plans

High Volume plan only

Teachable has a weird hack for making courses private/ hidden

Thinkific vs Teachable // Compare Thinkific to Teachable // Features Comparison

Features and support are constantly changing! This analysis was accurate to the best of our knowledge as of April, 2018.