Thinkific remains one of the most sought-after platforms among online course creators, even as new platforms continue to emerge.
One reason for its popularity is its affordable and flexible pricing. It provides multiple plans catering to creators at different stages of their course creation journey. However, the plans differ significantly in features and costs, making it difficult to pick the right plan.
So, we created this Thinkific pricing guide to help you make the best choice. We’ll break down each plan’s costs and what’s included, and we’ll also compare Thinkific’s pricing to its main competitors.
How Much Does Thinkific Cost?
Thinkific Plan | Monthly | Yearly |
---|---|---|
Free Plan | $0 | $0 |
Basic Plan | $49/month | $36/month |
Start Plan | $99/month | $74/month |
Grow Plan | $199/month | $149/month |
Expand Plan | $499/month | $374/month |
Thinkific offers four pricing plans with both monthly and yearly options available.
As you can see, you can save a significant amount of money by paying upfront for a year rather than month to month. However, we recommend starting with a monthly plan and switching to yearly payments once you settle down.
Moreover, Thinkific doesn’t add transaction fees beyond standard payment processing, making its pricing very competitive among top course creation platforms.
Now, let’s get into the details of each of the plans.
Thinkific Pricing Plan Selector
Answer these simple questions and immediately find the right Thinkific pricing plan for your business!
How Do the Thinkific Pricing Plans Compare?
Apart from the cost, Thinkific’s pricing plans differ in terms of the included features and the limits on courses, communities, and admin accounts.
In this section, we’ll break down the main differences between them and help you choose the right one for your business.
Free Plan
The Thinkific Free plan offers all the platform’s core features to create and sell an online course, including:
- Drag-and-drop course builder
- Multiple content types, including videos, quizzes, and surveys
- Thinkific Communities
- Content delivery through the native course player
- Website builder for your business
- Payments via Stripe and PayPal
- Limited email support
The best thing about the free plan is that you can enroll an unlimited number of students in your school. There’s no transaction fee, and you also get instant access to your funds, making Thinkific the best free online course builder.
However, the free plan has certain limitations you should be aware of:
- You can create only one course and one community.
- Your school will use a Thinkific subdomain rather than a custom domain.
- Important course creation tools like content drip and certificates aren’t available.
If you’re new to online courses and want to test the waters, the Free plan is a great starting point. It’s also great for testing the platform and building your course.
Basic Plan: $49/month
Thinkific’s Basic plan costs $49 per month and is the less expensive, entry-level plan.
Apart from everything available on the Free plan, you’ll get:
- An unlimited number of courses
- Drip content feature
- The ability to use your own domain (www.mycourses.com)
- Additional selling tools, including coupons and affiliate marketing
- Email and live chat support
The Basic plan offers all the essential features to start selling online courses, making it the best plan for beginners to start on the Thinkific platform.
Note on Payment Processing
Thinkific Payments, powered by Stripe, is the default payment gateway in the US, UK, Canada, EU, Singapore, etc., with no extra transaction fees. If you prefer using your own Stripe or PayPal, expect to pay an additional fee.
The fee is 5% on the Basic plan, 2% on the Start plan, and 1% on the Grow plan. The fee is waived if Thinkific Payments isn’t available in your location.
Start Plan: $99/month
Thinkific’s Start plan costs $99 per month and provides the best value for money.
Apart from everything available on the Basic plan, you’ll get:
- All the course creation tools—Thinkific certificates, assignments, live lessons, course compliance, etc.
- Free Thinkific mobile apps for your students
- Additional selling tools—bundles, payment plans, and upsells
- Subscription and membership features
- One site admin and two course admin accounts
The Start plan offers all the important features most people need, making it the most popular plan among online creators. Get a 30-day free trial of Thinkific Start.
Thinkific also offers a branded mobile app add-on on the Basic plan and above. It costs an extra $199/month and allows you to create your own custom-branded app for iOS and Android users to access your school.
Grow Plan: $199/month
Thinkific’s Grow plan costs $199/month and is targeted toward established creators and businesses.
Apart from everything available on the Start plan, you’ll also get:
- Share revenue with partners
- Advanced reporting tools
- Bulk student import
- Access to the Thinkific API
- Ability to remove the Thinkific branding
- Phone support
On top of the additional features, you’ll also get increased limits on these features:
START | GROW | |
---|---|---|
Communities | 1 | 3 |
Site Admins | 1 | 2 |
Course Admins | 2 | 5 |
Revenue Partners | 1 | 3 |
Group Analysts | 0 | 3 |
The Grow plan is suitable for creators and businesses who need better administration tools. Get a 30-day free trial of Thinkific Grow.
Expand Plan: $499/month
Thinkific’s topmost tier is the Expand plan, which costs $499/month. Regarding features, there’s not much difference between the Expand and Grow plans. The difference mostly lies in the limits on communities and admin accounts.
GROW | EXPAND | |
---|---|---|
Communities | 3 | 10 |
Site Admins | 2 | 5 |
Course Admins | 5 | 15 |
Revenue Partners | 3 | 10 |
Group Analysts | 3 | 15 |
So, the Expand plan is suitable for bigger businesses that reach a limit on any of the factors in the table above on the Grow plan.
If you want to see a side-by-side comparison of what’s included in each Thinkific plan, you should check out this comparison chart.
Thinkific Plus
Thinkific offers another plan, Thinkific Plus, which focuses on providing the infrastructure and tools to support enterprise clients.
For instance, Thinkific Plus gives you access to a white-label mobile app, an account manager, a 99.9% service level guarantee, a more scalable hosting infrastructure, and advanced customization and integration options. It also offers compliance documents and security features that become essential at scale.
The Plus plan pricing will depend on your specific requirements, and you’ll need to get in touch with Thinkific’s team to get a personalized quote.
Is Thinkific Expensive?
Thinkific offers great value for money. In a few cases, it’s more expensive than the popular Thinkific alternatives, but that’s because it offers a lot more power and features.
One of Thinkific’s main competitors is Kajabi. Its pricing starts from $149/month, while the best value-for-money plan costs $199/month. On the $149 plan, you can only have up to three courses and 1,000 active students.
While Thinkific is less expensive than Kajabi, it’s not a like-for-like comparison. In fact, Kajabi is an all-in-one platform, meaning that besides the course creation tools, it offers features for blogging, podcasts, funnel building, email marketing, and more.
Read our Thinkific vs Kajabi guide for a detailed comparison.
Thinkific’s other two major competitors—Teachable and Podia—are more comparable in terms of features and pricing.
Both platforms have a free plan, but they charge a transaction fee. Plus, Podia doesn’t even let you create published courses. When considering this, Thinkific’s Free plan is a clear winner.
THINKIFIC | TEACHABLE | PODIA |
---|---|---|
Free | $1+10% per transaction | 10% per transaction |
$49/month | $59/month + 5% fee | $39/month + 5% fee |
$99/month | $159/month | $89/month |
$499/month | $665/month | NA |
Thinkific vs Teachable | Thinkific vs Podia |
The best value-for-money plans in Teachable and Podia are the Pro ($159/month) and Shaker ($89/month) plans, respectively. They don’t charge any transaction fee and are comparable to Thinkific’s Start plan ($99/month).
In this case, Thinkific is slightly more expensive than Podia, but the price difference is easily balanced by the more powerful course creation and site-building tools you get.
Final Thoughts on Thinkific Pricing
We discussed in detail all the pricing plans and what’s included in each of them. Thinkific offers great value for money, but you’ll need to find the right plan.
If you’re starting an online course business but on a tight budget, you can start with the Basic plan.
For most creators, the Start plan is the best option as it supports an unlimited number of courses and also includes all of the important course creation and selling tools.
However, if you’re an established business, you may need some advanced features (e.g., API access) and more admin accounts. In this case, you should go for the Grow plan.
We hope that this guide will help you choose the right Thinkific pricing plan. If you have any questions or feedback, please let us know in the comments below.