You’ve built your online course on Thinkific, or you’re thinking about launching it there.
The biggest advantage of using a hosted course platform like Thinkific is that you don’t need to worry about setting up and managing the technical infrastructure. The platform takes care of everything for you, but what if you want to brand it as your own?
You can achieve this by white-labeling the software. In this guide, we’ll discuss all of Thinkific’s white-label options, as well as which one is right for your business and how much it will cost.
Let’s get started.
Why White-Label Your Course Platform?
Thinkific is a top platform that provides the necessary technology and infrastructure for hosting and delivering your online courses, saving you time, money, and effort in building a course platform from scratch.
It’s smart to use Thinkific and white-label it instead of building a custom platform. But why?
Here are the primary benefits of white-labeling your course platform:
- Establishing a consistent brand identity: By incorporating your brand’s logo, colors, and visual elements, you create a consistent and cohesive brand experience that customers will recognize.
- Enhancing credibility and professionalism: A white-labeled course platform instills trust and confidence in your learners. Removing third-party branding and presenting your courses under your brand enhances your professional image.
- Improving the overall user experience: Thinkific’s branding also includes a link that can take students away from your course. By white-labeling it, you put all links under your control.
Now that we’ve discussed the whys of white-labeling, let’s talk about what white-label options are available in Thinkific and how you can use them.
Thinkific’s White-Label Options
As far as white-labeling options go, Thinkific is quite flexible, allowing you to create a fully branded experience for your students.
1. Use a Custom Domain for Your Website
When you create a course website on Thinkific, it will be on the platform’s subdomain. So, your site’s URL on Thinkific would look like this: sellcoursesonline.thinkific.com.
Not to worry, though. Thinkific allows you to change that URL and use a custom one instead. That way, your entire website will be on your own custom domain.
And if you’re wondering how you can benefit from a custom domain, here are a few ways:
- A custom domain looks polished and professional.
- Your students can immediately recognize your website.
- The experience will be consistent if you have other websites with the same domain.
- A custom domain is better for SEO for your Thinkific website in the long run.
- Moving your courses to another platform in the future is easier with a custom domain. Your URLs can remain the same, which is great for user experience and SEO.
We want to emphasize that a custom domain is the most important white-labeling option, and we recommend every serious course creator use it.
If you decide to use a custom domain on Thinkific, here’s how you can set it up.
From your account dashboard’s left-side menu, select Settings, and in the Site tab, click on Site URL.
Next, go to your domain provider’s website, and in the DNS section, add a new DNS record.
After completing this step, go back to your URL Settings in Thinkific, paste your domain into the New custom URL field, and tick off the Make Primary box. That’s it.
2. Remove Thinkific Branding
Before you decide to remove Thinkific’s branding, you should know where it’s shown by default. You’ll find the platform’s Teach Online With Thinkific and Powered By Thinkific tags in the following areas of your website:
- The course player: Bottom-left part of the player
- Community area: Right sidebar in Thinkific Communities
- The footer area: Bottom-right part of your website
- Email notifications: At the end of all emails sent to your students via Thinkific
Our advice is to remove the platform’s branding from all these places. That way, you won’t have two brand names on your site, which will ensure brand consistency and improve user experience.
However, it’s not always necessary to completely remove the branding. If this option falls outside your budget, don’t worry too much about it.
If you decide to remove the branding, you need to go to your account settings and select Remove Thinkific branding. Tick the Remove Thinkific branding box, and click Save.
3. Use Your Own Domain for Email Sending
All student email notifications are sent from a Thinkific subdomain by default. So, when your students receive your emails, they’ll see your website’s name in the sender field.
However, the email address that the emails came from will be Thinkific’s. The email prefix is “notifications” or “no reply,” and the part after the @ sign is “notify.thinkific.com.”
From a visual standpoint, Thinkific’s email address doesn’t affect user experience or your email reaching user inboxes.
Still, for large businesses that want to white-label the platform to the smallest details, sending emails from their servers is an option.
Email white-labeling is available on Thinkific’s higher-tier plans: Expand ($499/month) and Plus. If cost presents an issue, consider deactivating some of the notification emails in Thinkific. You can then set up an integration between Thinkific and your email provider, such as ConvertKit, to send them.
But apart from the cost, you’ll also need technical knowledge to set it up.
To get started, you should first contact the support team and let them know which email you want to use. And the part after @ will have to be a domain different from your site’s URL.
Once you do that, you’ll receive CNAME, TXT, and MX records from Thinkific, which you will need to add to your domain name provider.
You should then contact the support team again to check if you set up all the records correctly.
If everything works as it should, you just need to wait a few more days to let Thinkific make the final configurations before emails start going out from your domain.
4. Get White-Label Mobile Apps
Thinkific has a free mobile app, and it’s an excellent way to boost engagement by allowing your students to watch your courses on their mobile devices. However, the free app belongs to Thinkific, and its branding is visible in the app.
Meanwhile, Thinkific also has the option to get your own app with pretty much the same functionalities. The difference is that a white-label app is yours, and everything inside will align with your brand.
This option is ideal for established brands and creators who want to offer a unified brand experience to their students across different devices.
The process of getting branded apps is straightforward:
- The first step is to go to your account settings, and from the Mobile App tab, click Join Our Waitlist.
- After that, the team will schedule a meeting with you to discuss your requirements.
- Once they have all the information they need, they’ll start building your app.
- When the app is ready, they’ll submit it to the app stores.
Additionally, they’ll maintain your app and provide technical support if and when you need it.
Now, let’s move on to the pricing plan you’ll need to unlock white-labeling options.
Choosing the Right Plan to White-Label
Thinkific made different white-labeling options available on different plans.
- A custom domain is available on all paid plans. The entry-level paid plan costs $49/month and lets you use your domain instead of Thinkific’s.
- If you want to remove Thinkific branding, you’ll need a subscription for the Grow plan or above. The Grow plan costs $199/month.
- And if you want to enable email white-labeling, you’ll also need to be on the Expand plan, which costs $499/month.
| Free | Basic | Start | Grow | Expand | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Custom domain | ❌ | ✅︎ | ✅︎ | ✅︎ | ✅︎ |
| Website footer | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅︎ | ✅︎ |
| Course player | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅︎ | ✅︎ |
| Email footer | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅︎ | ✅︎ |
| Email white-labeling | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅︎ |
You’ll get most white-labeling options on the Grow plan. You’ll be able to use your own domain and remove the platform’s branding.
And if you want to create your own app, you can add it on top of the Grow plan. The cost of building a custom app with Thinkific isn’t publicly listed.
Conclusion
Thinkific’s white-label options allow you to remove the platform from the picture and make the platform look like it is yours. By putting it under your branding, you raise your brand awareness, add credibility to your business, and create a great user experience.
While we recommend all course creators use their own domain, removing Thinkific’s branding is necessary only if your budget supports it. The email white-labeling option is for established brands, and most creators who sell online courses don’t need it.
If you’d like to subscribe to Thinkific or upgrade your plan to take advantage of white labeling, you can get started by clicking the button below.
We hope you enjoyed reading this article, and as always, we’d love to hear your thoughts. What white-labeling option do you need most? Let us know in the comments below.
