Thinkific Plus is an online course creation and management platform built for educators and business owners. It offers a wide range of features, including course-building tools, student management, and analytics, as well as integrations with popular apps and services. The platform is user-friendly and customizable, making it easy to create and deliver engaging online courses to a global audience, allowing users to take their teaching or training efforts to the next level.
Capabilities |
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Segment |
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Deployment | Cloud / SaaS / Web-Based |
Support | 24/7 (Live rep), Chat, Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base, Phone Support |
Training | Documentation |
Languages | English |
I transitioned from LifterLMS to Thinkific for my business, InterSign University. It was the best decision, even though I had to get a loan to pay for the cost of Thinkific. If money wasn't an issue (or at least less of an issue), I would have switched over years ago! First, the ease of building courses is the best part. I had to transfer all my courses from LifterLMS to Thinkific. I was nervous that this would take lots of time, but it didn't! The course-building platform is intuitive, thank goodness. Second, because my business is based on video content (courses teaching sign languages from around the world), the lack of video limits is key for me!
The cost is NOT friendly for tiny businesses like mine with only 30-50 students per year. If my business continues to grow in the next year, I'll stay with Thinkific because the platform is great! However, I wish there was a percentage option where Thinkific gets a commission for each course sold (whether 30 courses in the year or 50) for small businesses like mine. That would allow for growth without breaking the bank. Unfortunately, even with getting a loan, I am still only able to afford a lower tier package which means that options like (1) commission sharing with my teachers, (2) access to the courses for each of my teachers, etc. are all outside of our budget which is very frustrating. My teachers often want to make a minor change in the course but have to work through me. :/
I had the open-source version of LifterLMS. It was definitely better than creating a course platform from scratch, but it was extremely labor intensive. Thankfully, Thinkific has the options I need (tracking course progress, unlimited video, direct payments, etc.) and is much easier to navigate.
I really enjoy how simple Thinkific is to use.
I wish that I would build my entire website a little more robustly instead of just having a course site. I could be wrong about that.
I'm able to help build passive revenue for our business.
Easy to use, continually improving, lots of customizable integrations.
I wish there were better reporting so I could see my monthly revenue.
I am providing courses for my clients and earning an income.
Easy-to-use intuitive interface and lots of valuable features. Very easy to edit pages and produce a great looking, branded customer experience. I like how it is simple to create new users and affiliates. The course editor is one of the best I have used and makes organising course content straightforward.
It does get expensive as more features are added. Better discounts for longer term contracts would be good.
Having a complete system for delivering my online courses and marketing through affiliates. It has allowed me to fully control the delivery of my content from marketing to pricing.
The course creator module is sooo simple to use. It's powerful, but not complicated. You can customize every step of the process and there are more than a dozen types of entries you can use for every item in a course. I have two accounts, and use them very differently. One account has only one course, and it's repeated multiple times with live sessions and support material. Slick and looks great! The other account has 6 different courses and all are made up of individual sections that are grouped into pathways. Again...it looks great and it's easy to use. PLUS it gives a great student experience.
I don't love the sales process, but it integrates with the WordPress install we use for the front end/sales segment of our site.
Online training doesn't have to be complicated. We are delivering a multi-modal training opportunity with video, live sessions, quizzes and writing assignments. Thinkific does it all!
Design and options for students. They are very happy with the options Thinkific offers.
We think the HTML editor could be better.
It allows us to create highly personalized and well-designed academies. The students are very happy with the experience that Thinkific offers.
The customer service team at Thinkific is very helpful and knowledgeable. They are always available to answer questions or troubleshooting any problem while you're creating courses or using their platform. The customer service team also does a great job at responding in a timely manner to inquiries. I can't say enough good things about them!
Overall, it has been a wonderful tool for getting courses online. There is a bit of a learning curve (as with all robust tools), but overall I'm really happy with using this platform. Once you get the hang of it, there are many items that can be customized to suit your needs!
As a course creator, I found that Thinkific was the perfect platform for me to upload my courses. It has helped me save time and focus on building my course rather than worrying about other aspects of running a business. With Thinkific, I can be assured of a high-quality user experience with a variety of tools to help me teach better and get instant feedback from my students.
Thinking is very user friendly and I chose this platform for its cost effectiveness and how professional the final product looked.
Some limitations in features and customizations (ie. certificates are underwhelming)
Customer and Employee Onboarding, use of technology for high touch and low touch customers. We have a lot of great feedback about our Academy and how useful it is to learn our software
The simple way to build an online course and related pages. Good instructions and easy way to get help when needed. Works fine also with my iPhone.
Most of the marketing tools are from outside Thinkific.
I host my online courses there and and building them is easy.
it's fast and easy to manage the content. It's fast and simple to use it.
The payment system. I'm from Chile and I created a custom page to funnel my clients to pay. Still no integration with the compatible apps. Even If I submit to the most expensive plan, the issue will be the same for me. The price for every course, appears without the symbol of money. Might be nice to have at least the symbol of $, or EUR or any to choose or add on.
A great chance to show public and private content to my clients. Great design and every page look colorful, atractive, and professional.
Thinkific is really easy to use. It is intuitive where I was able to create my first course with little need to watch any videos. I like the onboarding guides available if I am stuck or want to try new things. Thinkific has the same values as I do in regards to education, and I love that there is continual training available to support its users in implementing Thinkific the right way to provide further value to students. I like that you can pretty much create Thinkific as your entire website and have everything there, the site builder is impressive (compared to other learning platforms)
Not much. I would like to have a URL completely rebranded and added to my site. But that is asking for a lot. Most of what I don't like comes down to the reporting and learning experience. I would love to see more workflows in the platform that allows you to create personalised reminder message such as "hey student, we have noticed you haven't logged in for a while. Come on back!" I know this is doable with integrations such as Zapier, but it is not sufficient. An entire workflow system would be amazing, where the reports are utilised to then trigger workflows. Such as the last log in type, the last lesson completed, enrolment date (I could continue). The Zapier connection is pretty basic as well. I would love to do things system-wide. For example: If a student completes any lesson within any course, send them an email. And that email has merge tags to become more personalised.
For my business, I am able to provide my 1:1 clients with knowledge base courses that they can take so that our time is more valuable focusing on the implementation. I have helped other course creators in Thinkific as well, I have supported them in solving problems of not knowing how to use the system and also to implement automation.
The Thinkific platforms robust features.
Inability to integrate third party apps.
I teach law to students worldwide. The Thinkific platform has enabled me to host and maintain lessons and respond to students in a timely manner.
I love the simplicity of Thinkific from an administration standpoint and that it's so user-friendly for those who take my courses. I've never once had a participant email me with any issues navigating this platform! The Help sections are very helpful and I've always been able to navigate any potential issues I've had with their succinct and straightforward guides. I love the drip feature that Thinkific offers for my student's learning and being able to tailor their learning experience. The integrations with Stripe, Convertkit and ZOOM are all amazing to help streamline and simplify the work that we do.
I look forward to Thinkific listing other time zones when considering coupons or drip schedules. It will be great to see the EST zone listed instead of just the UTC zone so that I don't have to convert. I really can't think of much else that I dislike right now. It really has been a wonderful experience for myself as an admin and course creator and wonderful for my sudents as well.
Thinkific allowed me to solve the problem of growing my practice without requiring more of my time to work with clients one on one. I'm reaching more customers with this platform in online group courses while also supporting my one-on-one clients with so much more content than ever before. My clients all feel well supported through Thinkific and the video based learning is so effective!
What I liked about Thinkific is that I did not have to create a website and work out the tech side of hosting online courses. Pretty much everything I needed to get going was in place, and this meant I could spend more time on building my course content. I also liked the fact that it was easy to upload my content and include quizzes, documents for download without difficulty.
Although you can build your landing pages, the level of customization is limited to only a few options. Some may feel that this makes the landing pages have an out-of-date feel. I felt like this limited my ability to distinguish myself from my competition and express my personal touch.
I needed a quick and easy way to host online courses, and Thinkific was a great place to start. The most significant benefit for me was in the prebuilt website with all the eCommerce components ready to go. There was very little I needed to do to get online.
I love that I can shape my content to suit different student learning styles. I love to add videos, pictures, and words and embed videos from my YouTube channel into the content.
I do not enjoy building the landing pages for each course. The functionality still feels a bit clunky?
I am helping my students to unlock their infinite well of creativity using color, pattern, and cloth. I enjoy being able to use free courses to create powerful lead magnets for my paid courses.
With thinkific you can start creating courses for free and keep them free forever for up to three courses. Their tech support is awesome. Till now I haven't had any tech problems with the platform. My students are more than happy and use it easily.
Everything is great in thinkific but there are limited themes.
We are managing thousands of students easily with the help of thinkific. Platform is very easy to use and hassle free. Easy navigation makes students to reach the lessons very easily.
I was on Teachable for several years. I generally liked their platform, but uploading videos was so sloooow (even with a good connection) and that prompted me to look around for something else. After trying Thinkific, I was super happy that my course videos uploaded in less than 1/4 of the time it took on Teachable. What really prompted me to make the switch was that Thinkific's fees are much less than Teachable's. Also, their landing pages and sales pages are much more customizable. Drag and drop, and lots of nice templates, so they're super easy to build. Thinkific sales pages are really nice looking too. Thinkific is very easy to use, and very customizable. I'm super happy with the options, integrations, and price.
My biggest disappointment with Thinkific is the discussion section within the course. Its functionality is really lacking. You can reply to the original poster, but not any subsequent posts so it's difficult to get a back-and-forth discussion going on, or a group discussion between instructor and multiple students. I find my students have difficulty using the discussion board as well, so they just skip it.
Thinkific allows me to house all of my digital products (free and paid courses, e-books) within the same platform. Also, with integrations I can teach my students live in the platform--much preferable to posting my live vids on my Facebook page as it keeps my students all in one place without sending them all over the internet. Simple!
Very Simple and Effective Navigation, Easy to use, Powerful resources.
Everything is best in thinkific except the pricing part. It is little heavier for course creators from Asian countries.
I added both my eBooks and Video courses using single thinkific platform. I am also taking online interactive live training on thinkific.
Thinkific has the power to run a full fledge online school. It features all the basics of an online learning platform plus many administrative controls that allow you to have student to student interaction, student-teacher interaction, and in-depth learning. Thinkific also has many built-in features like: certifications, quizzes, tests, discussion boards, and even a Zoom integration. These features are typically 3rd party things you'd have to figure out with other learning platforms. It also connects to Zapier which opens up all kinds of possibilities.
With all the powerful features comes some growing pains. I often run into features that don't work 100% as expected. Also, the Admin UI can be confusing to locate the precise feature or subfeature you are looking for. One example is the affiliate sales. Yes, Thinkific does have an affiliate feature but it is nearly useless when compared to a real affiliate 3rd party tool. Users will have a difficult time becoming affiliates in the first place and you'll have a tough time managing them.
We run our entire educational platform from Thinkific. It helps us sell to students around the world, organize them, and deliver them the content on time.