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When you’re trying to decide which online learning platform to use, you’ll probably get a lot of possibilities. It’s a standout because of its many helpful features.

There are many aspects to be aware of in an online course platform and Thinkific has them all. Keep reading the Thinkific reviews below to discover more details about its distinctive features and advantages.

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Overview of Thinkific Review Themes For Thinkific

Thinkific is among the more popular choices for creating and selling online courses. Apart from having an easy-to-use user interface, the platform also offers pre-designed templates you can use for building your personal website.

With just a few mouse clicks, you’ll get to make and sell online courses even without prior knowledge. Drag and drop functionality of the site makes it easy to get started.

Online course creators will be particularly interested in the advanced quiz features for every course you make. These can make your lessons more enticing to learn by the students.

It is an online builder of course s. lets you upload different types of files that can be used to build Your Thinkific course.

And like most online course platforms, Thinkific offers email marketing tools and third-party app integration. You can send out emails either via Thinkific itself or via outside apps like MailChimp, Zapier, etc.

Keep reading this Thinkific review to find out more about this online platform for learning.

Pros

  • Easy-to-use drag & drop editor
  • Efficient course site builder
  • Templates that are pre-made
  • Different payment options
  • Marketing and sales features
  • Options for managing students
  • Capacity for student feedback
  • Affordable customer support
  • Access to the plan for life. plan
  • There are no transaction fees or hidden charges

Cons

What is Thinkific?

Thinkific is a cloud-based online course platform. This means that everything you make on it is automatically saved online. It helps to make course creation more efficient and convenient.

Plus it functions as an Learning Management System (LMS) offers a variety of custom options for creators of courses. It is easy to create a course, and then upload other materials to supplement your lessons.

If you’re one of the people who would prefer to write your course offline prior to uploading it to the internet, Thinkific is the right choice for you. You can do just that and then upload your course online later on.

Thinkific is also the host for all the web pages that you create on it so can basically upload as much content as you’d like.

You can create an entirely new online course site with no design experience and. There’s no need to go through an excruciating learning curve when you use Thinkific it’s a fact.

There are many marketing and distribution options that will speed up the selling course’s selling Thinkific course. There’s an online marketplace where you can offer courses and communicate with other course creators.

Finally, Thinkific is also a good platform for those who already have their own websites but want to improve their marketing and gain more students. You can connect third-party sites to Thinkific for a greater reach audience.

The Benefits and Features of Thinkific

In this Thinkific review We break down the key features and benefits that make Thinkific stand out.

Drag and Drop Editor

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The way your courses appear on your website can greatly affect the conversion rate. This is the reason we love that Thinkific has an editor that you can drag and drop. It helps you organize your website and digital products.

You can arrange the classes and lessons however way you want. No need to be concerned with complicated codes or techniques. All you need to do is select the object you’re looking for and drag it over to the place you’d like it to be.

Almost all of the important elements needed to make your website appear more professional is covered by Thinkific’s editor. From the logos, color schemes, and even fonts. You’ll find everything you need to make your site look professional on this platform.

But if you do want to go that extra mile and personalize your website There’s still the option to input CSS and HTML code into Thinkific. It’s your choice to choose.

Additionally, you can utilize the drag and drop feature for uploading supplemental materials to your classes. The majority of types of media file can be uploaded with the uploader of your editor. You can upload audio files, quizzes, and PDFs to enrich your learning.

Even the quiz types that you create can easily be altered using the editor. Choose the assessment type you wish to use for your class and then drag it into the course. You can choose from types of surveys, type forms and multiple-choice forms among others.

Course Site Builder

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Thinkific offers more than the drag and drop editor. Its overall course site builder is effective for getting everything up and up and running.

As we mentioned earlier, Thinkific does its own web hosting. This means that you won’t need to worry about upload limitations. Your online storage capacity is unlimited with Thinkific.

If you’re considering subdomains Thinkific allows you to select a unique URL you can associate in conjunction with its subdomain. Your URL will look something like this: .thinkific.com

So, your website is more memorable and easy for students to remember.

If you’d like to avoid your Thinkific subdomain, you have the option of registering an individual domain to your website. It’s just a matter of paying slightly more to get it.

Templates Pre-Made

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In relation to the builder for course websites, Thinkific has a slew of pre-designed layout and course templates that you can use. This will save you from the need to create your own website totally from scratch.

The platform gives you templates that are based on the type of Thinkific course you’re making. If, for instance, you’re making an introduction course, you could choose the mini-course template. For the assessment and culmination for your course, you could choose a review-type template.

For template layouts and themes, there are also several to pick from. And once you’ve chosen something that is suitable for your needs, Thinkific offers settings to customize the colors, fonts, and design of the elements of the template.

Again, there is absolutely no need for you to input complicated code or words. Simply click on the content you wish to put on your website and drag it into the layout.

If you want to continue using HTML and CSS it’s still the option of doing so.

You may also change the layout and arrangement of your site at times. The different sections can be placed in order of priority so that students know which lesson to prioritize.

Payment Options

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In terms of payment options, Thinkific offers options to connect Stripe and PayPal on your website. With these third-party processors it is possible to get your earnings as quickly as 1 – 2 days.

This is a sharp contrast to other online course platforms with a payment schedule that is 30-day intervals. With Thinkific you can cash out more easily.

Payment-Options

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Students they have the option of choosing between a one-time payment scheme or an installment-based subscription plan. You can also offer discounts, bundles coupons, and bundles with the payment option they choose.

Take note that when you use the one-time payment option your customers will have to pay one-time transaction fees in addition. The same goes for the installment subscription plan, only that the transaction fees are split over the installment period.

Sales and Marketing Features

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In addition to being an online course creation tool, Thinkific is also effective in marketing online courses. Like we said, it has features that help you develop and sell courses in only a couple of clicks.

After you have published the course you are able to immediately place it for sale by using Market and Sell. Market and Sell feature on the dashboard.

You can alter your website’s design to improve the conversion rate of your clients. You can change the way that your checkout and sign-up pages appear to visitors. That way they’ll be more enticed to check out the online course.

You can also enhance how your courses are presented on your site. They can be more attractive by separating your courses into groups that the people can easily browse.

And as we discussed earlier You can also bundle your courses with discount coupons and freebies. This way, your students will be enticed to sign up more often to your course.

A sales widget can also be created through Thinkific. It’s basically a button that you can embed to other third-party sites that will direct users to your platform for courses. It is possible to personalize the buttons to use a particular color scheme and logo so that they are more in line with your brand and also look more professional.

Thinkific also allows you to manage an affiliate program that will allow you to reach more audiences. Through the website, you can create affiliate links that you’ll forward to your affiliate partners. These links will be used to direct their customers to your website and to enroll in a course.

And once the affiliate program is running, you can access its progress on the Thinkific website. You’ll be able to track the revenue, sales, and other commissions.

In the end, you have the option to add other programs to Thinkific. If you’re interested in email marketing campaigns, then Aweber is a good tool to sync with your account.

Student Management

Student-Management

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An LMS will not be efficient if it doesn’t cover all aspects of online education. This includes keeping an eye on student performance.

Thinkific has a convenient student management system for students. It lets you easily pull up the contact information of your students and other basic details.

You can also customize the sign-up form for your subscribers to ask for specific details. The template by Thinkific requires names, email addresses, along with contact number. If you’re seeking specific information, simply switch your settings to include a second field on the sign-up sheet.

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After you’ve got your subscribers pooled you can then categorize them according to the courses they signed up to. So, you can track them by course more easily.

With the Pro and Premier plans, you are able to look up a particular user by his/her enrollment date, subscribed courses, and job-type. There are even different categories you can choose from on the website.

Student Feedback

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Thinkific places a high value on not only the course creators, but also students. This is why feedback from students is encouraged whenever you’re taking an online course.

An open discussion between the students and instructors will greatly decrease the learning curve with the lessons.

There’s a discussion forum on Thinkific where students can ask questions about their online classes. From there, the instructors can reply and clarify with answers.

Students are also able to rate and review the courses they’ve attended. The rating will include the quality of the online instructor as well. So, instructors can demonstrate their authority through Thinkific.

The reviews will also help other students decide which course is suitable for them. It reduces the likelihood of a student dropping out during an entire class all of a abruptly.

If course creators are worried that the reviews could affect them negatively, they don’t have to. They’ll be the ones to decide if they want reviews published or not. Thinkific will not publish any reviews without permission.

A good method to keep students motivated is to provide them with regular updates. Thinkific lets course instructors send notifications via push to their students when they post new materials or lessons through the site.

Customer Support

Customer-Support

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In addition, as one would expect from learning management systems, Thinkific does quite a great job with its customer service.

Before you sign up before you sign up, you can read case studies and article guides on the official site. There are also easily accessible product demos and video tutorials that you can go through.

And once you’re already subscribed, you can access Thinkific’s Help Center. Thereare tools to help you get started on how to sell online courses.

Thinkific includes guides, articles and instructional videos that help you navigate the interface. Additionally, as I previously mentioned, there are forums for users to voice out your concerns. Other users and instructors are able to respond to help you out.

For more severe issues you may submit an online request for help from the service team. And if you’re subscribed to an Enterprise plan, or higher you get prioritised responses.

One catch is that Thinkific does not offer an option to chat live, however. You just have to wait long enough for a response from the company.

How Does Thinkific Works

As with any other platform review of course This Thinkific review will help you understand how to start using Thinkific. All you have to do is follow these six simple steps.

Step 1: Create an Account

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The first step is to sign up and then create your Thinkific account. You’ll automatically be enrolled in the free trial upon registration.

Step 2: Personalize Your Course Player

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Once you have a login and you have it, you can begin to customize your course player. You can use a specific color scheme so that it is in line with your logo and theme.

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Your course player is what your customers will utilize to access your course content. Audio files, videos, as well as quizzes will all be available through the course player.

Step 3: Design Your Course

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Next, you can create the online class. Utilizing the Course Builder program, you are able to create the course by adding lessons, modules and other documents to it.

Step-3-Build-your-course-2

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The content of the course can be divided into sections and categories. You can also give your online courses custom labels that help them be easier to find.

Step 4: Customize Your Website

Step-4-Customize

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After your content is ready, you can finish the design and layout of your site. With Thinkific You have the option of customizing each landing page for each course you offer.

The Thinkific Site Builder lets you set a color scheme and theme for our home page. This is where your courses will be put up. Students will be able to look through it and decide which one interests them from there.

You can also personalize the landing pages for each course. It’s best to choose the look of each course to make them easy to differentiate but still blend into the overall brand.

Step 5: Name Your Website

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What you have to do once the contents, the course player and customization are done is to decide on a name for your website. Make sure that your name is memorable, but still the right fit for your business.

Step 6: Publish Your Course

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When everything is set, you can publish the course. To publish, you simply need to decide on a price and provide specific payment information.

A course card must be designed. The course card will be what appears on your students’ dashboards. When they see it they’ll see quick details about your online course as well as the content.

A good course card will make a huge difference when selling courses on Thinkific.

What Needs Improvement on Thinkific

There’s a lot to like about Thinkific, it isn’t without shortcomings. This Thinkific review, we’ve listed below what we think can still be improved.

Limited Quizzing Features

While we think that Thinkific does a good job of creating courses and uploading content, we think that the quiz features can still be improved.

The assessment form on Thinkific is fairly basic. While it’s adequate to get an idea of what your students are aware of, it’s not enough to be able to answer more complicated questions.

But if you’re satisfied with the short, check-up-style quizzes at the end of each course, then that’s what Thinkific can provide you with. For questions that require longer and more specific results It’s a good idea to consider a different platform.

The absence of Email Marketing Tools

As mentioned, Thinkific can be integrated with third-party applications and these include tools for email marketing. But that’s only because it doesn’t come with email marketing tools of its own.

Although there are a lot of third-party software that is efficient but it would still be nice if Thinkific already had the software by itself. It would have speeded up the process.

No Live Chat Support

We’re sure that the response time to customer inquiries is fast, it isn’t enough to make up for absence of a live chat option.

Users with more urgent issues will not be able to have them resolved quickly. They’ll need to wait for the ticket response, especially if they aren’t signed up to paid plans.

Thinkific Pricing

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Thinkific has three paid plans you can sign up to. And upon signing to the plan, you’ll then have access to a free plan without any costs for transactions or hidden fees.

Thinkific Free

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The Thinkific free plan is distinctive because unlike that of competitors, it doesn’t expire. You can use the plan for all the time you’d like to continue using Thinkific. Themes For Thinkific

Apart from being free, it also doesn’t contain any hidden costs or transaction costs regardless of whether you sell courses. It’s perfect for course designers who want to cut down on expenses or for small-scale entrepreneurs just getting started.

With the Thinkific Free plan you can create 3 courses and customize them with your own branding. It is possible to enhance your courses with quizzes and other resources as well.

You can enroll in a number of students, and automate their signup process, and follow their progress. Surveys can also be sent to them, so you can assess how they feel about the course they’re studying. Themes For Thinkific

Thinkific’s free plans also allow an administrator with authority to the site as well as multiple instructor profiles and access to all students’ data. You can also keep track of the click rate and conversion rates of your learners.

The free plan will also allow search engine optimization for your content. That way, your courses will be more easily discovered by customers. You can also embed websites and applications from third parties on your own site to enhance the user experience.

Thinkific Basic

basic-pricing

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Thinkific Basic costs $49 per month, but if you choose to pay annually, it’ll cost you $39 per month.

It comes with the same features the free plan provides, as well as added premium benefits. First, you are able to create unlimited courses. This way, selling your courses will be much easier. Themes For Thinkific

Another benefit you don’t get in the free plan is the option to distribute your contents, send coupons, or access analytics.

To break that down in two steps, firstly, drip content means to release information to your students at a set and gradual intervals. Second, you can send out coupons for discounts and other freebies for students who might need extra motivation to stay connected. And third, the analytics that you have access to are marketing conversion and affiliate reporting rates.

With this plan, you can easily connect third-party tools you’d like to use. This includes Zapier, Aweber, and MailChimp as well as others.

Additionally, you can create a custom domain for your website with the basic plan. No need to use the Thinkific domain to host your website’s URL any longer.

Thinkific Pro

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Thinkific Pro costs $99 per month, but if you are annual billing, it’s $79 each month.

This plan receive the same features as you would with the Free and Basic plans. The only distinction is that you have higher-end settings as well as advantages.

Thinkific’s Pro plan lets you have 2 site administrators and 5 course admin accounts. It will also include advanced pricing options for your courses as well as HTML/CSS code editing. Themes For Thinkific

You’ll be able to create private courses that only a limited number of users can access. In addition, you’ll be able to offer membership bundles and freebies to your users.

Course creators also have access to the more advanced assignments, quizzes and assessment tools.

Growth Package

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And with the Pro plan, there’s a feature called a Growth Package that you can avail of. The best part is that once you have more than 100 people subscribed to you, Thinkific will automatically charge an additional fee over the monthly fee of $99.

However, don’t worry because the price grants you access to additional functions. You can distribute bulk emails, integrate third-party software, and organize your users according to various requirements.

Thinkific Premier

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Thinkific Premier is the most expensive plan. It is priced at $499 per month but when it’s billed annually, it is $399 per month. Themes For Thinkific

If you’re a subscriber for this package, you’ll have access to all the same features as the Free, Basic, or Pro plans. What makes it stand out and the higher price is that it’s geared towards bigger companies with more members.

The Thinkific Premier plan lets you manage 5 sites and 50 courses admin accounts. You can also have something known as a Single Sign-On (SSO). This is useful when you have a large number of users who need to access the same page.

Additionally, this plan comes with an onboarding program that is an onboarding call lasting 30 minutes and an overview of the launch process and online training manual.

You’ll also have acces to our Growth package at a lesser cost. There’ll be a fixed fee that you will only need to pay.

Thinkific Reviews

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Users who have reviewed and used Thinkific particularly appreciate how economical it is. Even when using it on a free basis, you’ll have access to useful features. There aren’t any extra charges, so you will not spend more than you planned to.

Other users also adored the white-labeling function of Thinkific. It lets you enhance your own company’s branding, even if it’s just a small business.

In the end, educators are enthralled the use of Thinkific because it’s ideal for children. It’s easy to use and explore.

“I loved that there was the option to upload files within the discussion. It’s a good thing I picked this option because other sites take the % of income, and you have to wait longer to receive money. No transaction fees!” -Anonymous

“I loved the fact that you can design your access platform, courses as well as the payment methods all in 1 interface without having to purchase additional software. I really appreciate how simple it is to set the courses if you’ve had your curriculum designed and it has white-labeling.” – Anonymous

“Thinkific lets you begin producing courses for free and keep them free forever. It’s an excellent way to get started with course development without paying a penny.” -Anonymous

“Thinkific made it easy to develop and host our digital course for financial advisors. The Thinkific support team was quick to get back to us and helped us to understand the process. I also love the fact the possibility of white-labeling and use an individual domain.” – Anonymous

“Classes were fun as well as entertaining and easy especially for our more advanced learners. Teachers enjoyed using it to build their classes and share their content.” -Anonymous

Alternatives to Thinkific

If this Thinkific review still hasn’t convinced you of the capabilities of this platform as an online learning platform If you’re still not convinced, check out these two alternatives:

Kajabi

Kajabi is among the first online courses platforms that are likely to get your attention when you start asking around. It’s an all-in-one platform that lets you create and market your courses online. Thinkific is similar to Kajabi in this way.

If you sign up to Kajabi the platform, you’ll be able to create your own course and then add content. It has templates built in and themes that you could modify your website from the get-go. The editor on your site allows you to add several sections and sales pages to your courses. Themes For Thinkific

As for quiz features It has an advantage against Thinkific because it has more advanced settings. You can make more personalized assessments and quizzes. Plus, you can conduct videos and webinars to provide better clarity in teaching.

Many educators particularly love the fact that they can award their pupils with certificates for every successful course. Additionally, they are able to send content out to their followers, just as Thinkific.

Another distinction that Kajabi has in comparison to Thinkific is that it comes with more effective marketing tools. Although Thinkific does let you easily market your online courses, it doesn’t let you make an online sales funnel that could make your process more efficient.

Kajabi also offers email marketing tools as well as automated email, in contrast to Thinkific. You don’t need to install with a third-party program to send email sequences and broadcasts to your clients.

Do note however that Kajabi is more expensive than Thinkific.

Check out the Kajabi review All-in-One Online Course Platform

Teachable

learning-platform

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Next to Kajabi, Teachable is Thinkific’s second closest competitor. It’s because they have plenty of similarities as online learning platforms.

Teachable’s interface is user-friendly and has helpful features to aid you in making your own content. There are pre-made theme templates which you can use to make your website look nice even without previous experience in web design.

Like Thinkific, instructors can choose to drip the content that they share to their subscribers.

But what is what sets Teachable apart from Thinkific is its quiz-taking options. Instead of using templates that are basic, Teachable lets you customize your assessments and quizzes.

And like Kajabi it is possible to host webinars and videos to encourage participation from your customers. You can also include a sales page to your online course for higher conversion rates.

Another thing we love about Teachable is that you can also offer your subscribers certificates for every course they finish. And , unlike Thinkific, Teachable has email marketing tools that you can use to send mass emails to your users.

Read: Teachable Review – Unlimited Course Creation Features

Please read: Kajabi vs. Teachable

Final Verdict on Thinkific Review

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Thinkific is a great product with a lot of strengths that justify a subscription. One of them is that it’s user-friendly. It’s possible to create an original online course, and then make money from it even if you’re a first-timer.

Additionally, it comes with pre-made templates and layouts to simplify setting up your website. You don’t need to input complex CSS or HTML-related codes in order to create a professional-looking site.

And if you opt for one of the plans that are paid, you’ll have access to the latest options that will improve your branding. You can forego your Thinkific subdomain and instead use Advanced users will set up their own domain name with hosting and develop the majority of the pages of their website using your own domain name.

You can also integrate third-party applications to Thinkific in particular since it doesn’t have its own email marketing tools.

Students can also interact with instructors through online discussions on Thinkific. They can ask for help with lessons and post queries on their modules. The teachers can assist the questions in person.

Customer service isn’t terrible either. It’s a priority for replies when you’re subscribed to other plans with a paid subscription. But just remember that this plan doesn’t have a live chat feature.

In the end, our conclusion for this Thinkific review is that it’s worth a test. Especially if you’re a novice course creator, Thinkific seems to be the ideal place to start creating courses.

The free plan also lasts for a lifetime, unlike other platforms. If you’re strapped for cash and want to save money, this is an excellent option since you’ll have access to great features at no cost at all.

We strongly recommend that you test Thinkific out.

If you liked this Thinkific reviews, you may also read our review on the Best Online Course Platforms available today . Click here.

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About the author

jack_morris

Jack has worked on the video production, audio mastery, and physical coursework for over one-hundred popular online courses to date. He’s here to share his experiences with you, as well as show you what tools are worth your time, how to spot those that aren’t worth a penny, and above all else, how to keep yourself informed about how to navigate online course creation efficiently and effectively.